dsimo:
Josh
I’m glad to hear that PRIDE is not involved in the equation. I suggest you read some of Padre Pio’s RECORDED healings. You may have a different attitude toward healings. I believe in healings but only if they are from God’s GRACE. And our CATHOLIC faith teaches us that grace is obtained by going to CONFESSION ON A REGULAR BASIS. GRACE is also obtained by searching for God continously.
Dominick
Dominick:
God’s grace is always involved in healings, even those that occur in Protestant Churches or as a result of an Orthodox Jew placing a slip of paper in the Kotel in Jerusalem. It is all Grace - A gift of God freely given to us.
I think the word "Obtained’ is probably not a fortunate translation for something that God gives us freely simply because He loves us and we respond to that by putting ourselves into a position by going to Confession and by receiving Jesus in the Eucharist frequently,
The reason the Church used to have us receive the Sacrament of our Lord’s body and blood on our tongues while on our knees at an alter rail was to make sure that we understood that God was giving us His grace and that we were being fed our Lord’s body and blood, and that, aside from being in a position to receive the grace, we had very little to do with the actual transmission of the grace or of the benefit that we received.
Dominic, I think you kind of misrepresented what you wanted people to talk about. The way you phrased it, people thought you were asking about whether there were healings within the Charismatic Movement and what were the limits.
So that’s what we answered and provided caveats for.
If you had asked whether we thought that going to Confession was encouraged within the Charismatic Movement, I couldn’t have spoken to that. I have no knowledge. I do know one woman who hasn’t gone to Confession for at least 3 years who claims it’s not mentioned in her parish. This is the same one who claimed her parish hadn’t taught that Jesus had said that He was God.
I know that parish is now subject to frequent guest preachers and has been the subject of multiple complaints by various Traditionalist groups across the West. As a visitor, I was even forced to do a campaign to pressure the parish to include the Creed during the Sunday Liturgy.
And, Except for the guest preachers, I never heard significant parts of the faith or of the “Culture of Life” mentioned during the Homily or the Prayers of the People.
I have to conclude that some basic catechesis simply wasn’t happening there.
I think that’s worse than the bit you heard during the prayer meeting… What you heard during the meetingt can be corrected by going to the person’s pastor and by having the pastor talk to him to be sure that he actually is exercising the gift of healing.
The parish were protected by a Bishop who was afraid to confront them until the situation got out of hand.
In Christ, Michael
PS: I believe that you might be confusing the types of Grace or trying to limit God’s Grace to the Sacaments. God doesn’t. He just wants us to know where we can always “Obtain” the Grace we need to live our lives. I think that might sometimes be different from the Grace He applies to heal a broken bone or to bring a sinner home.
I’ve seen the grace applied to bring someone back from near death, and it was applied because an Orthodox Jew placed a slip of paper in the Kotel, and because God wanted to bring a very lost soul back home to our Lord.
God heals whom He will, and it’s best that we don’t question why, esp. if we see someone crawling on his knees to the foot of the cross.
I’ve posted what it took to bring me home. I’ll only say here that I witnessed the healing and that I was the lost soul our Lord did it for so he could come home.
I really do hope this ends the debate that never should have been.