Catholics are called to evangelize the cause of Christ. That means bringing others from sin to salvation through the grace of Christ. Evangelization is not political correctness. The bottom line is this, each one of us has a final destination, heaven or hell. Living a Sacramental life in the Church keeps us in a state of grace which will eventually get us to heaven.
“Dialogue” is not a solution to the problems of sin and salvation. That’s why Christ lived and died, established the Church on Peter, instituted the sacraments, and so on. This is understood intellectually by many Catholics involved in “dialogue,” but it is almost never realized in practice. The fact is, most “interreligious dialogue,” especially with Muslims, is a poor excuse for the inability or failure of those Catholics to evangelize. They choose to seek acknowledgement, approval, and even friendship from others instead of addressing the important issues of death, judgment, Hell, and Heaven with them.
Friday, April 24, 2015
Thursday, April 23, 2015
The First Christians
The first Christians can teach us a lot about suffering. Many embraced suffering as a call from God and gift of faith. In this sense, suffering can be put into proper perspective.
The Christian religion was proclaimed "strana et illicita - strange and unlawful" (Senatorial decree of the year 35); "exitialis - deadly"(Tacitus); "prava et immodica - wicked and unbridled" (Plinius); "nova et malefica - new and harmful" (Svetonius); "tenebrosa et lucifuga - mysterious and opposed to light" (from "Octavius" by Minucius); "detestabilis- hateful" (Tacitus); therefore it was outlawed and persecuted, because it was considered the most dangerous enemy of the power of Rome, which was based upon the ancient national religion and on the emperor's worship.
The first three centuries constitute the age of Martyrs, which ended in 313 with the edict of Milan, by which the emperors Constantine and Licinius gave freedom to the Church. The persecution was not always continuous and universal, nor equally cruel and bloody. Periods of persecution were followed by periods of relative peace.
Website
The Christian religion was proclaimed "strana et illicita - strange and unlawful" (Senatorial decree of the year 35); "exitialis - deadly"(Tacitus); "prava et immodica - wicked and unbridled" (Plinius); "nova et malefica - new and harmful" (Svetonius); "tenebrosa et lucifuga - mysterious and opposed to light" (from "Octavius" by Minucius); "detestabilis- hateful" (Tacitus); therefore it was outlawed and persecuted, because it was considered the most dangerous enemy of the power of Rome, which was based upon the ancient national religion and on the emperor's worship.
The first three centuries constitute the age of Martyrs, which ended in 313 with the edict of Milan, by which the emperors Constantine and Licinius gave freedom to the Church. The persecution was not always continuous and universal, nor equally cruel and bloody. Periods of persecution were followed by periods of relative peace.
Website
Friday, April 17, 2015
Fighting Demons
The mind is the "battlefield," taught Prince. So are emotions. It is in these areas that spirits cause everything from confusion, anxiety, and indecision to insanity and suicide. Just about all suicides he came across were demonically linked, he asserted. They aggravate, do demons. They humiliate. Torment.
They bind and enslave.
"If you can't resolve [something, such as a bad habit], you can be almost sure you're dealing with a demon," Prince asserted.
They entice.
Often, he said, this comes in verbal form. There is an inner voice that tells us something is okay when it is not. We justify what we really know, deeper down, is not right.
Demons implant lustful notions, lewd images; fantasy; or they tempt us with excess food and drink. The most famous enticement, of course, was in the Garden. How quickly enticement can turn into disaster!
They harass. Who hasn't experienced this? They instigate us to anger. "They study you," said the deliverance expert. "They follow your movements. They know your weak moments. They know your weak places. They know just how and when they can get in."
Demons cause restlessness.
A person completely at rest and at peace probably doesn't need deliverance.
They discourage. They disparage. They compel. Almost anything compulsive may be demonic (of course, it can also simply be from the flesh). Compulsive eating. Compulsive talking. They enslave: If you still have a nearly uncontrollable urge to commit a sin you have confessed in the past, a sin you hate, you may be inflamed by a spirit -- or so taught Prince. Returning time and again to a sin can be a sign of this -- a sign that darkness has to be cast out in the Name (and by the Blood) of Jesus.
They addict. There are people even addicted to the smell of nail polish! (Upon deliverance, says Prince, the demon came out screaming). TV can be as much an addiction, he says, as alcohol.
They defile. They make you feel dirty and filthy. "You're just about to worship God and this dirty image is projected into your mind," he said. "Anything that rises up and opposes you as you are about to worship God or read the Bible is almost certainly demonic."
Spiritual forces from darkness will even cause drowsiness when someone is reading Scripture, he claimed; a "demon of tiredness." For your discernment.
They deceive.
And deception always comes in, said this learned man, through pride.
As we can see, we can all use deliverance from time to time, even often.
And so there is his outline of deliverance -- one of many long teachings Prince gave on the realm of the demonic, after traveling the world ministering and writing before dying in 2003 in Jerusalem.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Carry the Cross
But, about 8 years ago, I encountered the reality of child sex-slavery. I’m not only talking about Southeast Asia. I mean I discovered that there are 2,000,000 child sex slaves the world over, and 100,000 children are right here in the United States of America, raped up to 20,000 times before their 15th birthday. The FBI has rescued girls as young as 6 years old. There are more slaves now than during the trans-Atlantic slave trade (20-40 million including labor-slaves of all ages.) Even then, I never entered into doubt of the divinity of Christ…but my despondency reached such a low that I had believed that humanity had fully lost God’s favor. Not to sound blasphemous, but Jesus—haven’t these girls suffered more than you? If so, there is no hope. I really began to believe that. If God the Father was going to sit back and watch, I would go Boondocks Saints on these monsters who tortured 12 year olds in almost every American city.
Well, I never went Boondocks, even though I owned a gun. Eight years later, I found myself gun-less and on the board for Children of the Immaculate Heart, a Catholic home for teen survivors which should open late 2015. I recently went out to California for our fundraising event, and I met a chaplain who is working with these girls in juvenile hall. (Yes, though innocent, these precious children are kept in “juvy” until more homes are opened.) He shared this poem that came from a young girl who had been rescued from sexual slavery, here in America. This is just an excerpt:
But she didn’t. She believes in the Cross and the Resurrection and she keeps going in life. That was clearly not the poem of someone brainwashed into Christianity at a vulnerable point in her life. For me, it became living proof that only the Cross of Jesus Christ could bring hope and meaning to a girl who was raped probably thousands of times. She saw that God the Father had not abandoned Jesus; He had not abandoned her. They both suffered unjustly. She had not suffered more than Jesus, because Jesus had suffered every drop of it in her. She taught me, by her poem, what I had failed to see. It was I who was stupid, or at least blind in my faith, when compared with her.
So, why did God wait so long to vindicate His own Son on the Cross and even longer to rescue His daughter who wrote that poem? As the late, great Fr. Groeschel would say: “God’s not in the business of stopping evil, but He is in the business of turning evil into good.” I have to wonder: What would this “business of stopping evil” really look like from God’s point of view? I think He would have to incinerate our entire planet (at least as long as free-will continues.) But there’s another option. Jeff Bridges as The Giver explains why free-will-gone-awry is still worth the risk for human beings to live free: “If you could only see the possibility of love, of love…” he says, as the camera pans between a baptism and a dying man, a wedding and a war scene. In other words, man’s ability to choose war is a necessary prerequisite to be able to choose to dance at a wedding. Yes, for God too, apparently the love that is chosen by a few saints and poets is somehow worth enduring the evil perpetrated by the wicked. “If you could only see the possibility of love.”
Link
Well, I never went Boondocks, even though I owned a gun. Eight years later, I found myself gun-less and on the board for Children of the Immaculate Heart, a Catholic home for teen survivors which should open late 2015. I recently went out to California for our fundraising event, and I met a chaplain who is working with these girls in juvenile hall. (Yes, though innocent, these precious children are kept in “juvy” until more homes are opened.) He shared this poem that came from a young girl who had been rescued from sexual slavery, here in America. This is just an excerpt:
But I am a survivorDid you catch that part? I carried His cross, and He carried mine. She wrote that about when she was “just a kid,” as another line from her poem goes. If anyone would have a desire to say either God was not-good, or God was not-powerful, it’s her.
I found myself in Jesus
I carried His cross, and He carried mine
I am a survivor
I was down, but not out
I fell but got up
They beat me but I didn’t quit
I am a survivor
I am a worshipper
I am strong
I am determined to reach the top
I am brave to go through all that
I am a survivor
But she didn’t. She believes in the Cross and the Resurrection and she keeps going in life. That was clearly not the poem of someone brainwashed into Christianity at a vulnerable point in her life. For me, it became living proof that only the Cross of Jesus Christ could bring hope and meaning to a girl who was raped probably thousands of times. She saw that God the Father had not abandoned Jesus; He had not abandoned her. They both suffered unjustly. She had not suffered more than Jesus, because Jesus had suffered every drop of it in her. She taught me, by her poem, what I had failed to see. It was I who was stupid, or at least blind in my faith, when compared with her.
So, why did God wait so long to vindicate His own Son on the Cross and even longer to rescue His daughter who wrote that poem? As the late, great Fr. Groeschel would say: “God’s not in the business of stopping evil, but He is in the business of turning evil into good.” I have to wonder: What would this “business of stopping evil” really look like from God’s point of view? I think He would have to incinerate our entire planet (at least as long as free-will continues.) But there’s another option. Jeff Bridges as The Giver explains why free-will-gone-awry is still worth the risk for human beings to live free: “If you could only see the possibility of love, of love…” he says, as the camera pans between a baptism and a dying man, a wedding and a war scene. In other words, man’s ability to choose war is a necessary prerequisite to be able to choose to dance at a wedding. Yes, for God too, apparently the love that is chosen by a few saints and poets is somehow worth enduring the evil perpetrated by the wicked. “If you could only see the possibility of love.”
Link
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Selfishness
Selfishness from a Christian perspective has its origin in the Fall and Original Sin. Parents do not have to teach toddlers to shout “Mine!” when an object they desire is held by someone else. It is only at three-and-a-half to four years of age, after much patient correction and good example by parents, that children are finally willing to take turns and share with others.
The significant dangers of self-love used to be communicated in our churches, families, and schools as an important aspect of personality development. We were taught that the dangers of self-love could even lead to hatred of God, as Saint Augustine warned. But decades of pop psychology promoting inflated self-esteem, indulgent parenting, and moral relativism have made “me first” normative.
Selfishness needs to be recognized as having a harmful effect upon all of us. Pope Benedict XVI compared its action to the effect of gravity: selfishness pulls all of us spiritually earthward, making it harder for us to break free and pursue a life of love and service to others, rather than being in the Pope’s words “a prisoner of the self.”
In this narcissistic culture it is a destroyer of marriages, family relationships, sexual morality, loving relationships in singles, friendships, the unborn, and faith.
The good news is that a daily commitment to grow in virtues, particularly generosity and self-denial, and in grace, can lead to a mastery over selfishness and anger and prevent the development of narcissism.
Link
The significant dangers of self-love used to be communicated in our churches, families, and schools as an important aspect of personality development. We were taught that the dangers of self-love could even lead to hatred of God, as Saint Augustine warned. But decades of pop psychology promoting inflated self-esteem, indulgent parenting, and moral relativism have made “me first” normative.
Selfishness needs to be recognized as having a harmful effect upon all of us. Pope Benedict XVI compared its action to the effect of gravity: selfishness pulls all of us spiritually earthward, making it harder for us to break free and pursue a life of love and service to others, rather than being in the Pope’s words “a prisoner of the self.”
In this narcissistic culture it is a destroyer of marriages, family relationships, sexual morality, loving relationships in singles, friendships, the unborn, and faith.
The good news is that a daily commitment to grow in virtues, particularly generosity and self-denial, and in grace, can lead to a mastery over selfishness and anger and prevent the development of narcissism.
Link
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)