Is faith a choice?

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

I have read several websites say that there exists more information at the Eucharistic Miracle. I believe these reports say that this Eucharistic miracle attracted the attention of the World Health Organization, which commissioned a study in 1973 that was finished in 1976 and presented in December in Geneva and New York, that could find no scientific explanation for the findings. Yet, I do not know how to find this study. Perhaps we should email Linoli or call the WHO directly on the next working day, Monday.

More documentation on the Luciano miracle: negrisud.it/en/abruzzo/miracolo_eucaristico/tableofcontents.html

In 1531, a “Lady from Heaven” appeared to Juan Diego, a Native American, at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of Mexico City. She identified herself as the ever virgin Holy Mary, and requested a church be built on the site to Bishop Fray Juan de Zamarraga. The Bishop hesitated and requested a sign. The Immaculate Heart of Mary send Juan Diego to the top of the hill in mid-December to gather an assortment of roses for the Bishop. He found three Castilian roses, and the Virgin Maria rearranged them in his tilma. When Juan Diego, presented the roses to Zamarraga the image of the Virgin Maria miraculously appeared imprinted on the cloth of Diego’s tilma, a poor quality cactus-cloth that should have deteriorated in 20 years but shows no sign of decay 476 years later and defies all scientific explanations of its origin. (sancta.org/intro.html) Many cures, miracles, and interventions are attributed to Her. 18-20 million people travel to the Basilica yearly, making it Christianity’s most visited sanctuary. The Immaculate Heart of Mary talked to Diego in his language, Nahuatl. She called him “Juanito, Juan Dieguito”, “the most humble of my sons”, “my son the least”, “my little dear.” He deeply loved the Eucharist, and by special persmission of the Bishop he received Holy Communion three times a week, a highly unusual occurrence in those times. Pope John Paul II praised Juan Diego for his simple faith nourished by catechesis and pictured him (who said to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf,” as a model of humility for all of us.

God dearly loves humility. 1 Peter 3:5-7. "Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothese yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

**Excerpt from True Devotion to Mary, by St. Louis Mary de Montfort" **
**27. ** Since grace enhances our human nature and glory adds a still greater perfection grace, it is certain that our Lord remains in heaven just as much the Son of Mary as he was on earth. Consequently he has retained the submissiveness and obedience of the most perfect of all children towards the best of all mothers.

We must take care, however, not to consider this dependence as an abasement or imperfection in Jesus Christ. For Mary, infinitely inferior to her Son, who is God, does not command him in the same way as an earthly mother would command her child who is beneath her. Since she is completely transformed in God by that grace and glory which transforms all the sains in him, she does not ask or wish or do anything which is contrary to the eternal and changeless will of God. When therefore we read in the writings of Saint Bernard, Saint Bernardine, Saint Bonaventure, and others that all in heaven and on earth, even God himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean that the authority which God was pleased to give her is so great that she seems to have the same power as God. Her prayers and requests are so powerful with him that he accepts them as commands in the sense that he never resists his dear mother’s prayer because it is always humble and conformed to his will.

Moses by the power of his prayer curbed God’s anger against the Israelites so effectively that the infinitely great and merciful Lord was unable to withstand him and asked Moses to let him be angry and punish that rebellious people. How much greater, then, will be the prayer of the humble Virgin Mary, worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with the King of heaven than the prayers and intercession of all the angels and saints in heaven and on earth.

**28. ** Mary has authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven. As a reward for her great humility, God gave her the power and the mission of assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels who fell away through pride.

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Such is the will of almighty God who exalts the humble, that the powers of heaven, earth and hell, willingly or unwillingly, must obey the commands of the humble Virgin Mary. For God has made her queen of heaven and earth, leader of his armies, keeper of his treasures, dispenser of his graces, worker of his wonders, restorer of the human race, mediatrix on behalf of men, destroyer of his enemies, and faithful associate in his great works and triumps.

**52. ** God has established only one enmity - but it is an irreconcilable one - whih will last and even go on increasing to the end of time. That enmity is between Mary, his worthy Mother, and the devil, between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and followers of Lucifer.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpetn and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin’s, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpetn and such power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater than the Blessed Virgin’s, since her attributes are limited. It simply means that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all their other torments.

**53. **What Lucifer lost by pride Mary won by humility. What Eve ruined and lost by disobedience Mary saved by obedience. By obeying the serpent, Eve ruined her children as well as herself and delivered them up to him. Mary by her perfect fidelity to God saved her children with herself and consecrated them to his divine majesty.

**Fourth principle: It is more humble to have an intermediary with Christ **
**83. ** It is more perfect because it supposes greater humility to approach God through a mediator rather than directly by ourselves. Our human nature, as I have just shown, is so spoilt that if we rely on our work, effort and preparedness to reach God and please him, it is certain that our good works will be tained and carry little weight with him. They will not induce him to unite himself to us or answer our prayers. God had his reasons for giving us mediators with him. He saw our unworthiness and helplessness and had pity on us. To give us access to his mercies he provided us with powerful advocates, so that to neglect these mediators and to approach his infinite holiness directly and without help from any one of them, is to be lacking in humility and respect towards God who is so great and holy. It would mean that we have less esteem for the King of kings than for an earthly king or ruler, for we would not dare approach an earthly king without a friend to speak for us.

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

**143. ** Moreover, this devotion (True Devotion to Mary) is an expression of great humility, a virtue which God loves above all others. A person who exalts himself debases God, and a person who humbles himself exalts God. “God opposes the proud, but gives his graces to the humble.” If you humble yourself, convinced you are unworthy to appear before him, or even to approach him, he condescends to come down to you. He is pleased to be with you and exalts you in spite of yourself. But, on the other hand, if you venture to go towards God blindly without a mediator, he vanishes and is nowhere to be found. How dearly he loves the humble of heart! It is to such humility that this devotion leads us, for it teaches us never to go alone directly to our Lord, however gentle and merciful though he may be, but always to use Mary’s power of intercession, whether we want to enter his prsence, speak to him, be near him, offer him something, seek union with him or consecrate ourselves to him.

*(I have not searched on a site other than wikipedia yet, and will try to to do when I get back to verify what wikipedia has written on the miracles associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe.) * Some consider it miraculous that the tilma maintains its structural integrity after nearly 500 years, since replicas made with the same type of materials lasted only about 15 years before disintegerating. In addition to withstanding the elemtns, the tilma resisted a 1791 ammonia spill that made a considerable hole, which was reportedly repaired in two weeks with no external help. In 1921, an anarchist placed an offering of flowers next to the image. A bomb hidden within the flowers exploded and destroyed the shrine. However, the image suffered no damage.

Richard Kuhn, who received the 1938 Nobel Chemistry prize, is said to have analyzed a sample of the fabric in 1936 and said the tint on the fabric was not from a known mineral. In 1979, Philip Serna Callahan studied the incon with infrared light and stated that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle appeared to have been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no apparent brush strokes.

So do you believe that God is violating the very laws that he himself made, (sometimes in a very small way, sometimes in a significant way) in these instances where prayers, like the ones listed, are answered and for which God is given credit.

I will have to think about that and get back to you later. I am no expert so I will try to consult the Cathechism of the Catholic Church and the teachings of the saints and Popes and Bible and give you my best go, though I may be wrong.

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[pathfinder7]

Can we really control what we believe?

–Rico

i am not sure i understand the question.

But in a way, it is difficult to believe something other than what you have always believed. But that’s why we need the Church to teach us what God really thinks, what He says. We humans are so lost in sinfulness we don’t see things in an objective way, as God does. So he gave us his sacred Word and then He gave us His Word in the flesh, which is Jesus. If we could find truth on our own (holiness…) Jesus wouldn’t have had to come to Earth.

God judges people according to what they know about Him (Christ).
That may make some poeple cautious about learning more about Him (to whom more is given, more is required). But there is nothing greater than knowing God and being in his will… It is misery to be focused only on this world, with all its imperfections and conditional human “love” (

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Wow, this thread has definitely veered off its original course.

Since I do not yet know the answer to your other question, I am going to give you excerpts of the official Catholic Church’s definition on what faith is. From the 1994 Cathechism of the Catholic Church.

Part One: The Profession of Faith
Section One “I Believe” - "We Believe"
26. We begin our profession of faith by saying: “I believe” or “We believe.” Before expounding the Church’s faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy, and lived in observance of God’s commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what “to believe” means. Faith is man’s response to God who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life. Thus, we shall consider first that search (Chapter One), then the divine Revelation by which God comes to heet man (Chapter Two), and finally the response of faith (Chapter Three).

Skipping on to Chapter Three:
*Chapter Three: Man’s Response to God. *
**142. ** By his Revelation, “the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company.” (DV 2; cf Col 1:15, 1 Tim 1:17, Ex 33:11, Jn 15:14-15, Bar 3:38(Vulg)) **The adequate response to this invitation is faith." **

143. By faith, man completely submits his intellect and will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, “the obedience of faith.”

**Article 1: I BELIEVE **
**I. The OBEDIENCE OF FAITH **
144. To obey (from the Latin ob-audire, to “hear or listen to”) in faith is to submit freely to the word that has been heard, because its truth is guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself. Abraham is the model of such obedience offered us by Sacred Scripture. The Virgin Mary is its most perfect embodiment.

Abraham - "father of all who believe"
**145. ** The *Letter to the Hebrews *, in its great eulogy of the faith of Israel’s ancestorys, lays special emphasis on Abraham’s faith: “By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go.”(Heb 11:8, Gen 12:1-4) By faith, he lived as a stranger and pilgrim in the promised land. (Gen 23:4) By faith, Sarah was given to conceive the son of the promise. And by faith Abrham offered his only son in sacrifice. (Heb 11:17)

**146. ** Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”(Heb 11:1)Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Because he was “strong in his faith,” Abraham became the “father of all who believe.”

**147. ** The Old Testament is rich in witnesses to this faith. The Letter to the Hebrews proclaims its eulogy of the exemplary faith of the ancestors who “received divine approval.” Yet “God had forseen something better for us”: the grace of believing in his Son Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

Mary - "Blessed is she who believed"
148 The Virgin Mary most perfectly embodies the obedience of faith. By faith Mary welcomes the tidings and promise brought by the angel Gabriel, believing that “with God nothing will be impossible” and so giving her assent: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word.”(Lk 1-37:38; cf. Gen. 18:14) Elizabeth greeted her: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”(Lk 1:45) It is for this faith that all generations have called Mary blessed. (Lk 1:48)

**149 **Throughout her life and until her last ordeal (Lk 2:35) when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary’s faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfillment of God’s word. And so the Church venerates ***in Mary the purest realization of faith. ***

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

II. "I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED"
**To believe in God alone **
**150. **Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a *free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. * As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. * It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature. *

To believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God
**151. **For a Christian, believing in God cannot be separated from believing in the One he sent, his “beloved Son,” in whom the Father is “well pleased.”; God tells us to listen to him. (Mk 1:11, cf. 9:7) The Lord himself said to his disciples: “Believe in God, believe also in me.”(Jn 14:1) We can believe in Jesus Christ because he is himself God, the Word made flesh: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”(John 1:18) Because he “has seen the Father”, Jesus Christ is the only one who knows him and can reveal him.

To believe in the Holy Spirit
**152 **One cannot believe in Jesus Christ without sharing in his Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals to men who Jesus is. For “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit,”(1 Cor 12:3) who “searches everything, even the depths of God…No one comprehends the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God.” Only God knows God completely: we believe in the Holy Spirit because he is God.

*The Church never ceases to proclaim her faith in one only God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. *

(Excerpt from True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis Mary de Montfort)
**36. ****When the Holy Spirit, her spouse, finds Mary in a soul, he hastens there and enters fully into it. He gives himself generously to that soul according to the place it has given to his spouse. ** One of the main reasons why the Holy Spirit does not now work striking wonders in souls is that he fails to find in them a sufficiently close union with his faithful and inseperable spouse. I say “inseparable spouse,” for from the moment the substantial love of the Father and the Son expoused Mary to form Jesus, the head of the elect, and Jesus in the elect, he has never disowned her, for she has always been faithful and fruitful.

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

** III. The CHARACTERISTICS OF FAITH**
**Faith is a grace **
**153 ** When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come **“flesh and blood,” ** but from ** “my Father who is in heaven”(Mt 16:17; cf. Gal 1:15, Mt. 11:25)**Faith is a gift of God, a **supernatural **virtue infused by him.“Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.”

**Faith is a human act **
**154 ** Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed are contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions or trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to “yield by faith the full submission of…intellect and will to God who reveals,” and to share in an interior communion with him.

155 In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.”

**Faith and understanding **
**156 ** What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe “because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.” So “that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit." Thus the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability "are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all”; they are “motives of credibility” (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is ** “by no means a blind impulse of the mind.” **

**157 ** Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but “the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives.” “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”

**158 **“Faith seeks understanding”: it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens “the eyes of your hearts” to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God’s plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of revealed mystery. “The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood.” In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."

**159 ***Faith and science: *“Though faith is above reason, there **can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. ** Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.” Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conservor of all things, who made them what they are."

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blesed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

**The freedom of faith **
**160 ** To be human, "man’s response to God by faith must be free, and…therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will. The act of faith is of its very nature a free act." “God calls men to serve him in spirit and in truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience, but not coerced…This fact received its fullest manifestation in Christ Jesus.” Indeed, Christ invited people to faith and conversion, but never coerced them. “For he bore witness to the truth but refused to use force to impose it on those who spoke against it. His kingdom…grows by the love with which Christ, lifted up on the cross, draws men to himself.”

**The necessity of faith **
**161 ** Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. "Since ‘without faith it is impossible to please[God]’ and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘but he who endures to the end.’"

**Pereverance in faith **
**162 ** Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: “Wage the good warfare, holding fiath and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” To live, grow, and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be “working through charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.

**Faith - the beginning of eternal life **
**163 ** Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below. Then we shall see God **“face to face,” “as he is.” (1 Cor 13:12, 1 Jn 3:2)**So faith is already the beginning of eternal life:
When we contemplate the blessings of faith even now, as if gazing at a reflection in a mirror, it is as if we already possed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day enjoy.

164 Now, however, “we walk by faith, not by sight”; we perceive God as **“in a mirror, dimly”**and only “in part.”(1 Cor 13:12) Even though enlightened by him in whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can be put to the test. The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by faith. Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice, and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it.

165 It is then we must turn to the witnesses of faith: to Abraham, who “in hope…believed against hope”(Rom 4:18) to the Virgin Mary, who in “her pilgramage of faith,” walked into the “night of faith” in sharing the darkness of her son’s suffering and death; and to so many others: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that it set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”(Heb 12:1-2)

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Chapter 6 of St. Louis Mary de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary
**WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS DEVOTION

1. A Share in Mary’s Faith**

**214. **** Mary will share her faith with you. Her faith on earth was stronger than that of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and saints. Now that she is reigning in heaven she no longer has this faith, since she sees everything clearly in God by the light of glory. However, with the consent of Almighty God, she did not lose it when entering heaven. She has persevered it for her faithful servants ** in the Church Militant. Therefore, the more you gain the friendship of this noble Queen and Virgin, the more will you be inspired by faith in your daily life. It will cause you to depend less upon sensible and extraordinary feelings. For it is a lively faith animated by charity enabling you to do everything from no other motive than that of pure love. **(Rom 5:1-2; Heb. 11:33; Col 2:3, Luke 1:79; 1 Pet 5:8-9)*It is a * firm faith, unshakeable as a rock, prompting you to remain firm and steadfast in the midst of storms and tempests. It is an active and probing faith which like some mysterious pass-key admits you into the mysteries of Jesus Christ and of man’s final destiny and into the very heart of God himself. It is a *courageous faith which inspires you to undertake and carry out without hesitation great things for God and the salvation of souls. * Lastly, this faith will be your flaming torch, your very life with God, your secret fund of divine Wisdom, and an all-powerful weapon for you to enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. It inflames those who are lukewarm and need the gold of fervent love. It restores life to those who are dead through sin. It moves and transforms hearts of marble and cedars of Lebanon by gentle and convincing argument. Finally, this faith will strengthen you to resist the devil and the other enemies of salvation.

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Article 2: WE BELIEVE
**166 ** Faith is a personal act - the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself your faith as you have not given yourself life. The believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others. Our love for Jesus and for our neighbor impels us to speak to others about our faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of believers. I cannot believe without being carried by the faith of others and by my faith I help support others in the faith.

**167 ** “I believe” (Apostles’ Creed) is the faith of the Church professed personally by each believer, principally during Baptism. “We believe” (Niceno-Constaninopolitan Creed) is the faith of the Church confessed by the bishops assembled in council or more generally by the liturgical assembly of believers. “I believe” is also the Church, our mother, responding to God by faith as she teaches us to say both “I believe” and “We believe”

**I. “LORD, LOOK UPON THE FAITH OF YOUR CHURCH.” **
**168. ** It is the Church that believes first, and so bears, nourishes, and sustains my faith. Everywhere, it is the Church that first confesses the Lord: “Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you,” as we sing in the hymn, “Te Deum”; with her and in her, we are won over and brought to confess: “I believe,” “We believe.” It is through the Church that we receive faith and new life in Christ by Baptism. In the Rituale Romanum, the minister of Baptism asks the catechumen: “What do you ask of God’s Church?” And the answer is: “Faith.”“What does faith offer you?”“Eternal Life.”

**169. ** Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: “We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation.” Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

**II. THE LANGUAGE OF FAITH **
** 170. ** We do not believe in formulas, but in those realities they express, which faith allows us to touch. “the believer’s act [of faith] does not terminate in the propositions, but in the realities [which they express].” All the same, we do approach these realities with the help of formulations of the faith which permit us to express the faith and to hand it on, to celebrate it in community, to assimilate and live on it more and more.

**171. ** The Church, “the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” faithfully guards “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” She guards the memory of Christ’s words; it is she who from generation to generation hands on the apostles’ confession of faith. As a mother who teaches her children to speak and so to understand and communicate, the Church our Mother teaches us the language of faith in order to introduce us to the understanding and the life of faith.

** ONLY ONE FAITH **
** 172 ** Though the centuries, in so many languages, cultures, peoples, and nations, the Church has constantly confessed this one faith, received from the one Lord, transmitted by one Baptism, and grounded in the conviction that all people have only one God and Father. St. Ireaneus of Lyons, a witness of this faith, declared:

**173 ** "Indeed, the Church, though scattered throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, having received the faith from the apostles and their disciples…guards [this preaching and faith] with care, as dwelling in but a single house, and similarly believes as if having but one soul and a single heart, and preaches, teaches and hands on this faith with a unanimous voice, as if possessing only one mouth.

**174 ** “For though languages differ throughout the world, the content of the Tradition is one and the same. The Churches established in Germany have no other faith or Tradition, nor do those of the Iberians, nor those of the Celts, nor those of the East, of Egypt, of Libya, nor those established at the center of the world…” The Church’s message “is true and solid, in which one and the same way of salvation appears throughout the whole world.”

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

**175 ** “We guard with care the faith that we have received from the Church, for without ceasing, under the action of God’s spirit, this deposit of great price, as if in an excellent vessel, is constantly being renewed and causes the very vessel that contains it to be renewed.”

Why doesn’t God heal amputees more frequently, both now and in the biblical ages?

Another example of God healing an amputee is St. Anthony of Padua. At Padua, a young man, Leonardo by name in a fit of anger kicked his own mother. Repentant, he confessed his fault to St. Anthony, who said to him: “The foot of him who kicks his mother deserves to be cut off.” Leonardo ran home and cut off his foot. Learning of this, St. Anthony took the amputated member of the unfortunate youth and miraculously rejoined it. newadvent.org/cathen/01556a.htm

But, here is another question: I still do not know why God does not more frequently heal amputees. Now, we can all accept that * God cares more about spiritual healings than physical healings. * Even in the bible, Jesus sometimes told people that their sins were forgiven them and only healed them later in order to prove that he had the power to forgive sins when people talked behind his back. The question is then: the Church is split and broken. The Catholic church has both the Roman rite and the Orthodox rite. The Protestants have founded tens of thousands of churches. The Muslims pass down a corrupted retelling of scripture. **Why doesn’t God put the Church, divided into two or more, back together? ** Maybe if we knew why he doesn’t heal the church that he founded, we will progress towards answering the question of why he doesn’t more frequently heal amputees.

Neither the Bible or the Church distinguishes among miracles. Any intervention by a supernatural power must, by definition, be a miracle. Therefore, healing a cancerous tumor, giving someone a job they never would have naturally held, or growing back a severed leg are all equal. Since the re-growth stuff does not happen one MUST conclude that other miracles, and answered prayer does not occur either.

To the best of my severely limited knowledge, the bible does distinguish between miracles. "A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit but they could not.”
“Oh unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you?How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
“If you can?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
“Immediately, the boy’s father exclaimed,”"I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!
When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. They boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn’t we drive it out? He replied, 'This kind can come out only by prayer. (In Matthew I believe it says: prayer AND fasting).(Mark: 9:17-29)

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Here is a wonderful story of a woman living today who has lost use of both her arms and legs and still believes that God loves her. She seems to be living the life of Job to me. So maybe, if she is a modern day Job, and Job pleaded to God for his healing and restoration, we can plead to God for her healing and restoration no matter what the situation seems to be. Maybe we can pray our Rosaries for her, and maybe healing might occur. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=281416

Here is more biblical evidence that faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. From the Cathechism of the Catholic Church,
1508 ** The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church.”(2 Cor 12:9, Col 1:24)The bible quote supporting this: "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. TO one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one just as he determines.(1 Cor: 7-11)**

One more thought. I am not sure that faith depends on how many miracles we see or how much evidence we have. I suspect that it is mostly a gift of the Holy Spirit. One can have great faith before any miracles happen (compare the responses of the Virgin Mary and Zechariah to the Angel Gabriel), one can lack faith even though living with the Son of God (see Judas Iscariot)

And here’s a guess at the question:

why doesn’t God heal amputees?

Sin is worse than sickness but it often has invisible effects to the human because it is spiritual (in spiritual warfare we often don’t see Angels, Demons, Mary, etc.) while we can often see illness. Illness exists in this world because sin exists in this world as a result of the fall. The physical human world resembles the spiritual human world. In the spiritual world, there are amputees that are not healed. Everything good is from God. The devil was once the most perfect angel, therefore God might have been in him. However, he fell by rejecting God. So God left him. The devil may be like God’s amputated right arm. Therefore, since God is an amputee himself, and sin is a spiritual amputation that cuts humans spiritually away from him, he allows humans to experience physical amputations so that the human world with amputations resembles the physical divorce from God. The human illness in this world reminds us that we don’t want to be here forever, we want to go to heaven where everything is perfect. Therefore, God often allows it, especially since he experiences it himself.

Some illnesses are more difficult to heal than others as the above quoted bible passage shows, so perhaps that is why Jesus only once healed an amputee, and only in the First Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden, after that, his next miracle was to forgive the good thief, and then his miracle was to resurrect himself. Who can ressurect himself but God? To resurrect someone else is one thing - but to resurrect one’s self? Could that possibly be a progression of difficulty in healings? amputation, then sin, then life from death?

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

**More on Suffering and the Cross (Kazuchi’s obstacle to faith) **
“When we know that the way of love - this exodus, this going out of oneself - is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others, becomes more human. Anyone who has consistently avoided suffering does not understand other people; he becomes hard and selfish. Love itself is a passion, something we endure. In love I experience first a happiness, a general feeling of happiness. Yet, on the other hand, I am taken out of my comfortable tranquility and have to let myself be reshaped. If we say that suffering is the inner side of love, we then also understand why it is so important to learn how to suffer - and why, conversely, the avoidance of suffering renders someone unfit to cope with life.” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in “God and the world”.

Catholicism does not actually teach that Suffering or the Cross is a bad thing. "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:10), “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25), "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. (John 15:18-21)

From True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by St. Louis Mary de Montfort,
**154. **I reply that it is quite true that the most faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin, being her greatest favourites, receive from her the best graces and favours from heaven, which are crosses. But I maintain too that these servants of Mary bear their crosses with greater ease and gain more merit and glory. What could check another’s progress a thousand times over, or possibly bring about his downfall, does not balk them at all, but even helps them on their way. For this good Mother, filled with the grace and unction of the Holy Spirit, dips all the crosses she prepares for them in the honey of her maternal sweetness and the unction of pure love. They then readily swallow them as they would sugared almonds, though the crosses may be very bitter. I believe that anyone who wishes to be devout and live piously in Jesus will suffer persecution and will have a daily cross to carry. But he will never manage to carry a heavy cross, or carry it joyfully and perseveringly, without a trusting devotion to our Lady, who is the very sweetness of the cross. It is obvious that a person could not keep on eating without great effort unripe fruit which has not been sweetened.

Why a cross? From **Secret of Mary ** by St. Louis Mary de Montfort
22. This does not mean that one who has discovered Mary through a genuine devotion is exempt from crosses and sufferings. Far from it! One is tried even more than others, because Mary, as Mother of the living, gives to all her children splinters of the tree of life, which is the Cross of Jesus. But while meting out crosses to them she gives the grace to bear them with patience, and even with joy. In this way, the crosses she sends to those who trust themselves to her are rather like sweetmeats, i.e. “sweetened” crosses rather than “bitter” ones. If from time to time they do taste the bitterness of the chalice from which we must drink to become proven friends of God, the consolation and joy which their Mother sends in the wake of their sorrows creates in them a strong desire to carry even heavier and still more bitter crosses.

Finally, I realize I have posted a lot of messages. I apologize if it is too much. I think it is almost always better to have too much information and cover all the important things than to omit, but if you are offended, I will try to do better. Thank you, and please keep me in your prayers!

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post

You, my friend, are quite simply <word redacted so as not to draw the “human rights gestapo” down on my head>.

You may think what you like. How on earth do you consider that your profile’s “religious affiliation” is correctly filled out?

Hey, are you mocking me now?

Uh,… let me check ,…

…AH! No. No I’m not. I was “poo flinging”, as some notable animated-monkey-actor said recently, at you, which is not mocking but only “poo flinging”, which simply shows that I have some extra “poo” and isn’t much of a comment on you at all, really.

So, how on earth do you call yourself a Catholic?

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
• God is the one who decides when miracles happen.
• He has decided, for His reasons, that what you would “like to see” is not what you “do see”.
• God’s will wills out.
• Accept that God’s will is reality, or not. To not do so is to not be in communion with the Church.

God also gave you a brain. Follow the logic chain. God, the Bible, and the church claim that God does miracles. YOU are the one who has decided that God has consciously chosen not to do limb re-growth miracles. According to you and others on this forum miracles happen all the time……except apparent miracles like I am asking about. Does that make ANY sense to you?

It makes sense, to me, that you would demand that God do as you wish.

You want what you want when you want it. Most people are like that. You are, apparently, like most people, as most people are.

But Catholics are not supposed to be like most people. We have actual truth spelled out for us. We are told authoritatively that they are actual truths. To not agree with that authority (God) that those truths are truths is to not be a “close” member of the Catholic people.

God is not a thing proven. He is a thing accepted. You need proof. You need what God won’t give as you wish it given. Why do you need that?

That God would do as God would do which is what God has done is perfectly sensible.

That God would do as YOU would do if you were God is an interesting fiction but says nothing about God qua God and only about you “qua” you.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post

but then, your catechesis WAS what it was, wasn’t it?

You might want to look up the word “Catholic”

LOL…you can not defeat my logic so you want to attack my Catholic education.

I agree that I can’t defeat self-serving and self-referential incorrectly premised though perfectly logical logic. No one can.

Since you are more than capable of simply denying truths as truths, and can see self-contradictions as “affirmations”, that you are utterly impervious is not much of a surprise.

That is a little ironic don’t you think? I am sure Sr. Mary Veronica would take a dim view of you calling her Dominican credentials insufficient. Yes I know catholic means universal.

Firstly, catechesis IS in terrible shape in the Church.

Secondly, Sr. MV may have been quite good at what she did and simply had a very “thick” student to deal with.

Not that you’re think in any OTHER way, of course, but I’m quite allowed to see things as I see them, unless what I’m seeing does some violence to a truth as given us by the Church, of course, in which I need some adjustment.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs View Post
Don’t you realize that hades/sheol is not hell?
From Wikepedia:

The Latin word infernus or “infernum” (underworld) indicated the abode of the dead and so was used as the equivalent of the Greek word “ᾅδης” (hades). It appears in both the documents quoted above, and pointed more obviously than the Greek word to an existence beneath the earth. Later, the transliteration “hades” of the Greek word ceased to be used in Latin and “infernum” became the normal way of expressing the idea of Hades. Though “infernus” is usually translated into English as “hell”, it did not have the narrow sense that the English word has now acquired. It continued to have the generic meaning of “abode of the dead”. For the modern narrow sense the term “infernum damnatorum” (hell of the damned) was used, as in question 69, article 7 of the Supplement of the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which distinguishes five states or abodes of the dead: paradise, hell of the damned, limbo of children, purgatory, and limbo of the Fathers.]

I think 95% of Catholics you poll would say that Hades is hell.

Truth is not subject to “democratic vote”.

Before Christ opened heaven there was a “holding bin” for the dead. It was not necessarily a place of torment.

Hell is a place of nothing BUT torment. Therefore the “holding bin” (hades/sheol/etc) is not synonymous with hell.

When Christ opened heaven He either changed hades/sheol/etc INTO hell, or abolished it (whatever that means) and tossed the “damned” in hades into hell and tossed the “to be saved” in hades into purgatory/heaven.

Whether His “sorting procedure” used two bins or three bins is not that terribly important.

:shamrock2:

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Any intervention by a supernatural power must, by definiton, be a miracle.

Therefore healing a cancerious tumor, giving somone a job they never would have naturaly held, or growing back a severed leg are all equal.

Since the re-growth stuff does not happen one MUST conclude that other miracles, and answered prayer does not occur either.

So, because bright yellow flashing ravens don’t occur, ravens don’t occur?

Your basic error is a false equation of things which are not equal.

I have news for you and anyone else reading this; you are on your own. My aunt was a devoted Catholic who went to weekly mass, prayed, tithed, and everything else. She came down with osteoporosis. She had to be put in a nursing home because her bones were as fragile as porcelain. She started out wealthy, but after all the bills we could only aford to put her in a medicare/medicade facility. Mentally she was fine, but she was surounded by phsyically and mentally ill seniors who were tied to wheel chairs with sheets while they screamed out all hours of the night and urinated and deficated in their clotheas. Her praying and tithing did not help her in any way. Widows might indeed.

I’m sorry for your suffering in seeing her suffer.

What did she think about her suffering? Did you ask her?

If you want to have a safe and half way decent life YOU must take steps to do what you must. God, your 401(k), your job, etc will not save you. Be smart and start your own business, make individual savy investments, get a reliable education, etc. Most of all DO NOT think by just praying and tithing you will just be all right. There are no miracles and no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It is all up to YOU.

Praying is not only what most people consider “praying”, but also “doing what is good as told us by God” in the world.

No (actual) Catholic thinks that praying is the only, or most effective, way of manipulating that which we are allowed to try to manipulate (the “mechanical universe”).

But we can make everything we do a prayer.

You might want to look into the subject of “suffering”.

Please see the “Errors” section of MIRACLES.

:shamrock2:

 

[Kuzushi]

So, how on earth do you call yourself a Catholic?

How on earth do you feel qualified to make a judgment insinuating that I am not a Catholic?

God is not a thing proven. He is a thing accepted. You need proof. You need what God won’t give as you wish it given. Why do you need that?

Throughout our conversation you have assumed that you know what atheist and I believe and even what we think. You even had some wacky ideas about atheist wanting some kind of robotic society. Again this is YOUR opinion of what others think. It is a bizarre and grossly inaccurate restatement of the position of others. You are basically the quintessential caricature of what people talk about when they refer to a “judgmental closed minded Christian.” You are actually doing your case more harm than good.

Since you are more than capable of simply denying truths as truths, and can see self-contradictions as “affirmations”, that you are utterly impervious is not much of a surprise.

The truth is supposed to set you free, but YOUR version of the truth has placed you in a serious state of denial.

Hell is a place of nothing BUT torment. Therefore the “holding bin” (hades/sheol/etc) is not synonymous with hell.

When Christ opened heaven He either changed hades/sheol/etc INTO hell, or abolished it (whatever that means) and tossed the “damned” in hades into hell and tossed the “to be saved” in hades into purgatory/heaven.

Wow…how old are you? Were you there? You sure know a lot for a mere human. You not only know what others are thinking, but now you know the mind and actions of God himself. That is amazing.

So, because bright yellow flashing ravens don’t occur, ravens don’t occur?

Your basic error is a false equation of things which are not equal.

The equation is not false at all. Did you really read what I said or did you assume that you know what I meant? You seem to continue to believe that I am demanding proof when that is quite beside my point. It is you who believes that something as extreme as miracles occur millions of times a day through answered prayer. I am merely pointing out that with all those miracles flying around where are the apparent ones like I have asked about. Instead of wondering the same thing you think it is all part of God’s plan. However, as I have pointed out, there is no basis for your belief in the Bible or the teachings of the church. Perhaps you need to start your own religion.

Firstly, catechesis IS in terrible shape in the Church.

Yeah those Dominicans and Jesuits don’t know anything. They need to do their graduate work with you.

AveSantaMaria:

I appreciate the work you did, but just copying excerpts from original sources and the old stories from long ago is not a good way to present your arguments. I would much rather hear what YOU have to say.

Cats & Dogs does that. He is wrong, but he does use original (but dubious) arguments.

 

[KingAlfred]

Can we really control what we believe?

–Rico

Definitely. It’s called ‘free will’. That’s the first and most important test from God. Will we embrace Him, and become disciples, or turn our backs, and become sinners? There is no greater question for us to answer.