Saying grace?

[AveSantaMaria]

Interesting… but how does that harmonize with Genesis 3:22?

How I always understood it was that Adam condemned himself for trying to be like God; but Christ, through Adam’s sin, literally has given us the divine life as a Gift. As Athanasius said: *God became Man, that Man might become God. *

God knows that, however Adam uses his Free Will, good would be done. The evil of Original Sin is far outweighed by the good it makes possible for us in Redemption. That is why the Easter *Exultet *proclaims “O Happy Fault!”

You’re right. Yes, I would definitely agree that Man becomes God by reaching perfect union with Christ. Otherwise, how would saints work miracles?

Interesting, the commentary by the Carmelite priests is so thought-provoking and resolves issues. I will have to say that I do not know the answer to this question. Catholicism seems to be something such that - the more you study, the less you realize that you actually know, especially now that I am starting to look into the differences between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

Yet, despite Genesis 3:22, there might be some grain of truth in this though. God has no evil within God. Man has both good and evil within man. The word know has ambiguous meanings, so I can’t tell you what the Carmelite priest meant when he said know and if it is the same as it was in Genesis 3:22 when know is written there.

Thank you for pointing this out!

May the will of Christ, Mary, and Joseph be fulfilled in your life, our lives, now and always, at all times, in all places, in perfection, in all hearts!!

 

[LilyM]

When your boss gives you a paycheck you thank him, but if payday comes and there is no paycheck on your desk the same boss will get the blame. Why is it God gets all the thanks but skates by with none of the downside? Now some of you seem to indicate that even if there is no food it is simply God allowing evil. I have to wonder why it is that God allows his food provision to be so easily interrupted. One of you even thinks that active demons prowl the earth physically damaging crops, drying up water, etc.

It seems that God always gets the benefit of the doubt and it is always heads God wins tails humans loose. I guess there is simply nothing I can say to those who think that no matter what happens it is what God wants, and you are all fine with that. I will just reiterate that I think there would be a lot less thankful people around once you and your children’s belly started to growl and then move into starvation mode.

An employee has rights vis a vis the boss - such as the right to the paycheck. That’s because there are bilaterial negotiations about such things prior to the worker being hired, and ultimately because the boss NEEDS workers to do the tasks needed to keep his company running.

We are NOT employees vis a vis God. We don’t negotiate with Him for certain things or agree to exist only on certain terms. Our existence is His unilateral doing, and we’re not here because He needs anything of us in return for the many needs we have of Him.

So we don’t, as regards God, have any rights at all - not even right to exist. Tough but true. Moreover it in fact IS God’s world, not ours alone. And that being the case, He DOES always win.

Your attitude is a bit if you were a guest in someone else’s house - someone who didn’t have to invite you - and then you started complaining because they didn’t use YOUR favourite brand of soap, or didn’t decorate the room you stayed in according to YOUR preferred colour scheme or something.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

Since God is ** infinte ** and man is ** finite **, I suppose it will always be hard for us to understand the mind of God. Even in Heaven, will we be growing to a greater and more perfect understanding of God? I received that perhaps incorrect impression in St. Maria Faustina’s Diary Divine Mercy in My Soul saint-faustina.com/Diary/DMIMS1.shtml

 

[Kuzushi]

He is God, you are not. That is humility… but also simple basic logic. If God says something is – it is, even if to all appearances it is otherwise. That’s basic logic too.

There is nothing logical about anything I have seen you or others write here, but then you are all at a disadvantage in that it hinges on faith. I acknowledge your handicap. You are all willing to believe that God somehow provides food yet if you and your family were to starve that too would all be encompassed in God’s will. That is what I mean when I say God wins no matter what. I think it is man that has given God this no loose stature in that people have a needful hope that God exist, and that there is an afterlife. I am sure that I am not the first to point out this and other lapses in the logic of Christians. As time went by the church and others have filled in the gaps by ultimately retreating to the “well it is just God’s will” argument.

I have pointed out in another post that some of you have seen that if God really is involved in human affairs and he answers prayer then one would occasionally expect to see apparent miracles like severed limbs growing back or maybe even a person or two rising from death. Some have said that I am “demanding” God perform these miracles. No, I am merely pointing out that to God a miracle is a miracle and one would logically expect to sometimes see a removed arm, leg, eye, or even a finger miraculously grow back like magic. It has never happened and it never will.

 

[Shin]

You speak of lapses ‘in the logic of Christians’ but the one thing you point out has been shown logically to hold via deeper goods than the superficial ones you hold to – which you ignore.

At first I had thought you were an uncatechized person baptized Catholic, but your perspective towards God rather than being one of -trying to understand- is -antagonistic- in these speeches, and you refer to Christians as if you were not one of them despite your forum profile.

It seems to me you have a fundamental unwillingness to see things from deeper or different perspectives and your attachment to your own view which you insist is ‘logical’ without actually addressing the more logical points made directly or with evidence of having thought deeply about them makes me wonder if you have any motivation whatsoever beyond simple pressing your so tightly held belief.

Well? Are you going to show evidence of having thought deeply and charitably about what has been said here or are you just going to make statements?

It seems to me you’d accuse a doctor of being evil and slap him rather than thank him the minute he tried to pour iodine on a cut of yours or take you into surgery, and that the idea of ‘justice’ on a divine level is one you’re utterly unwilling to even consider.

 

[Kuzushi]

It seems to me you have a fundamental unwillingness to see things from deeper or different perspectives and your attachment to your own view which you insist is ‘logical’ without actually addressing the more logical points made directly or with evidence…. Well? Are you going to show evidence

Evidence? You have got to be kidding. I have consistently pointed out that you are illogically trying to have it both ways with God getting the credit for good things, but somehow the devil does all the bad stuff. That is all a little too convenient don’t you think?

What evidence do YOU offer that God has any current (name removed by moderator)ut into putting food on the table? I offer the evidence from the reality of how things really work. A seed is planted, it germinates, a farmer harvest the crop, the trucker delivers it to market, etc. You want “evidence”- there it is. As I have said, and you ignore, if ANY of the above human tasks do not occur we all starve and God just watches it happen.

 

[Kuzushi]

We are NOT employees vis a vis God.

Yes, I have to admit that you raise a good point in that our relationship with God is not the same as an employer/employee. However, this does not explain why he would get thanks for putting food on the table in the first place.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

No, I am merely pointing out that to God a miracle is a miracle and one would logically expect to sometimes see a removed arm, leg, eye, or even a finger miraculously grow back like magic. It has never happened and it never will.

**Missing eye grows back in 1949 due to the intercession of St. Padre Pio. Report says it is medically documented. Is it? Perhaps does anyone know a wise strategy for seeking verification of this information. **

We know only that he has been a fantastic intercessor – stories of his miracles, both during and subsequent to his death, are absolutely legion – and after his canonization, that intercession will grow. Of all Padre Pio’s healings, one of the most remarkable may have been a blind girl from the Palermo area named Gemma DiGiorgio. “I had no pupils in my eyes,” said Gemma in 1971, several years after Padre Pio’s death. “I had no sight at all. When I was three months old, my mother took me to a very famous eye doctor in Palermo. He told her that, without pupils, I would never be able to see.”

Some claimed that she may have had pupils, but that her birth defect was so severe they were not recognized as such. Whatever the case, in 1946, when the girl was seven, a nun took it upon herself to write Padre Pio on her behalf and received a note saying that the girl should be brought to Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotundo. That’s exactly what Gemma’s grandmother did: brought the girl to see the famous monk, who heard the child’s first Confession and gave her first Communion – then made the sign of the Cross on her eyes.

After the blessing, Gemma was able to see. It’s a fact that is beyond question, confirmed by amazed doctors. Did she really lack pupils? Or was her entire eye one large pupil (making it seem that way)? We know only that there was a severe defect and that although the physical defect remained unchanged, afterward Gemma was able to see normally.

More astounding still may be the thoroughly-documented cure of a construction worker named Giovanni Savino, who was severely injured on February 15, 1949, in a dynamie mishap. When Dr. Guglielmo Sanguinetti, a physician, and Padre Raffaele, another Capuchin, and Father Dominic Meyer rushed to the injured man’s side, "all three men noted that among Savino’s numerous injuries, his right eye was gone entirely. They agreed that “the socket was empty” reports biographer Bernard Ruffin in Padre Pio: The True Story.

Other doctors confirmed that they eye was completely annihilated and the other one badly damaged.

It looked like Savino was also going to be totally blind.

For three days the worker lay on a hospital bed with his head and face bandaged. When a surgeon entered the room three days later, Savino reported that Padre Pio had visited him – something Savino recognized because he had detected the beautiful aroma so often reported around the priest.

A week later, at about one a.m. on February 25, 1949, Savino feld a slap on the right side of his face – the side where the eye was completely gone.

“I asked, 'Who touched me?” testified Savino. “There was nobody. Again I smelled the aroma of Padre Pio. It was beautiful.”

When later the opthalmologist – an atheist – came to examine the remaining eye, there was shock. “To their amazement,” writes Ruffin, “the doctors found that his shattered face was fully healed and covered with new skin. Savino, however, was most delighted at the fact that he could see. ‘I can see you!’ he said excitedly to the eye specialist.”

As indeed, as is medically documented, the doctor saw to his ‘utter astonishment’ that Savino had his right eye back. Somehow the eye had materialized. (“Now I believe too,” exclaimed the doctor, “because of what my own hands have touched!”)

As Ruffin notes, it’s one thing when diseases disappear, this is exciting. It’s tremendous to hear of diabetes or arthritis or even cancer leaving a person. “For a missing part of the body to be restored; however, is another matter,” noted the expert biographer.

spiritdaily.net/AmazingPio_cures.htm

 

[Kuzushi]

**Missing eye grows back in 1949 due to the intercession of St. Padre Pio. Report says it is medically documented. Is it? Perhaps does anyone know a wise strategy for seeking verification of this information. **
spiritdaily.net/AmazingPio_cures.htm

Where do you find this stuff? I assure you that if an eye were to really regrow or a severed arm be restored all the news agencies and medical journals would cover it. Just because a web site or book says “Catholic” on it or is written by a priest does NOT mean it is authentic. .

 

[AveSantaMaria]

Where do you find this stuff? I assure you that if an eye were to really regrow or a severed arm be restored all the news agencies and medical journals would cover it. Just because a web site or book says “Catholic” on it or is written by a priest does NOT mean it is authentic. .

Here’s a Eucharistic miracle reported in a scientific journal. I am currently trying to get ahold of the doctor who conducted the research. I have communicated with him via his colleague via phone but things are hard since I do not speak or read Italian.

In A.D. 700 “at the monastery of St. Loginus in Lanciano, Italy, a priest from the Order of St. Basil was celebrating Mass. Having doubted the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the priest saw, during the consecration, the bread miraculously transfored into a circle of flesh and the wine appear as bright as fresh blood. Eventually, the liquefied blood turned into five pellets of various sizes and shapes. When the local archbishop later weighed the pellets, it was discovered that one nugget weighed the same as all five together, two as much as any three, and the smallest as much as the largest. In February of 1574, another test was done on the miraculous blood pellets. Again, any one of the pellets weighed along equaled the weight of all five pellets together. In 1970, further tests were made on the body and blood of Jesus. Analysis has proved that the bread and wine contain characteristics of real human flesh and blood. Both belonged to the same blood type, AB. Eventually the Franciscans rebuilt the church that houses the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano. It is now called the Church of St. Francis (Michael Freze, S.F.O. Voices, Visions, and Apparitions) (concernedcatholics.org - This website is for sale! - obedience chastity virginity confession Eucharist Holy Communion last rites sacrament marriage Jesus Resources and Information.)”

This miracle was first studied scientifically in 1970-1971 by Dr. Edoardo Linoli, professor of anatomy, pathological histology, chemistry and clinical microsocpy, and the former head of the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy at the Hospital of Arezzo, published in pub med: ** Quad Sclavo Digan. 1971. Sep; 7(3): 661-74. Histological, immunological and biochemiccal studies on the flesh and blood of the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano (8th century) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4950729?ordinalpos=28&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
(Pubmed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health that includes over 18 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources) **

Findings:
"* The Flesh is real Flesh. The Blood is real Blood.

• The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
• The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart.
• In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium.
• The Flesh is a “HEART” complete in its essential structure.
• The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB(Blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin)
• In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteric make-up of the fresh normal blood.
• In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
• The preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheri and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

If the results are archived in pubmed, a service of the the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, and they are they strike me as valid unless there is a significant reason to believe otherwise.

 

[Kuzushi]

Here’s a Eucharistic miracle reported in a scientific journal. I am currently trying to get ahold of the doctor who conducted the research. I have communicated with him via his colleague via phone but things are hard since I do not speak or read Italian.

I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into reading and searching for Catholic articles. First, just because you find some obscure fact, site, or book that is “Catholic” does not mean it is inherently right. Second the very fact that you have to search in these odd places that no one else goes proves my point. If miracles truly occur it should be very common to see severed limbs growing back and other apparent miracles. Face it, we simply do not live in a world where God is involved with us in a personal way. People who think we do are fooling themselves.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into reading and searching for Catholic articles. First, just because you find some obscure fact, site, or book that is “Catholic” does not mean it is inherently right. Second the very fact that you have to search in these odd places that no one else goes proves my point. If miracles truly occur it should be very common to see severed limbs growing back and other apparent miracles. Face it, we simply do not live in a world where God is involved with us in a personal way. People who think we do are fooling themselves.

Pubmed is not a Catholic site by any stretch of imagination. Pubmed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

 

[Kuzushi]

Pubmed is not a Catholic site by any stretch of imagination. Pubmed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

Okay, fine but my overall point remains that if God really did half the things people give him credit for we should all be deluged with miracles.

 

[wjp984]

So what do you suggest we be thankful for?

 

[Neithan]

Okay, fine but my overall point remains that if God really did half the things people give him credit for we should all be deluged with miracles.

You’re just making assertions. And your ‘logic’ is juvenile at best. Miracles are exceptional wonders. If we are “deluged” with them, then they aren’t miracles, from the definition of the term.

I suggest reading a book on the subject. C.S. Lewis wrote a good one.

 

[Kuzushi]

Miracles are exceptional wonders. If we are “deluged” with them, then they aren’t miracles, from the definition of the term.

No, I disagree with your definition. A “miracle” is certainly any intervention on behalf of mortal man by a supernatural being, i.e. God. The frequency or lack there of, of miracles has NOTHING to do with being a miracle. Why do you think frequency is relevant? It is the supernatural ACT that matters. The act could be curing cancer or finding lost keys. If God intervenes in the lives of mankind it is, by definition, a miracle. The term “small miracle” is contradictory.

You’re just making assertions.

Please give an example of where I have not given good reason for what I am purporting. In the end all of religion is really only theory. It is not like we are having a discussion of a hard science here.

 

[Kuzushi]

So what do you suggest we be thankful for?

I have already said we should be thankful to all who participate in our capitalist system that make the VERY complicated process of putting food on our table possible. We should also be thankful to all the soldiers who participate in the keeping us and our system safe from foreign invaders who would take away our way of life. We should thank ourselves for participating in the economy where goods and services are readily available.

As I said earlier, if it were not for all the above mentioned people God would simply stand by and watch us all starve. It has happened before, so don’t try to deny it.

 

[Shin]

A miracle is not ‘any intervention on behalf of mortal man by a supernatural being’ because God intervenes in every aspect of our lives every day, hour, and minute.

He intervenes by natural, preternatural, supernatural – every method. His Providence is pervasive and all encompassing.

Miracles are more common than worldly people think because it is through faith that miracles are granted – God refuses to perform miracles for those with little faith.

Your very thoughts are influenced every day by the spiritual, your emotions are guided by temptation or angelic suggestion to virtue – but you choose, whether you know these influences exists or not, which one you obey.

Which is why worldly people are slaves and their pretensions pride – it is lack of virtue and humility that enslaves them to their own delusions, and so ‘the fool in his heart says there is no God.’ For there God is, in man’s heart prompting him to charity.

 

[Clay_McAleer]

Many interesting points raised as part of this discussion.

If one holds anything man-made (money, logic, science,etc) above or more important than God then one is making a grave error. Man has not been given the intelligence to understand God. I think there might even be a commandment about this issue (you know, Thou shalt not have any god’s before Me - ha, ha).

The constant referral to the use of logic to prove one’s point seems to indicate that some would like God to conform to a set of expectations established by one of us humans. There’s logic for you. God should act and react in a way His creations believe He should. Who are we to give God rules of conduct to live by ?

P.S. If you are looking for God working in our lives, just look at the number of people who have shown great restraint and patience in responding to what might be considered a very inapporpriate attitude that seems determined not to acknowledge the supremacy of God.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

It is not like we are having a discussion of a hard science here.

We are having a discussion about hard science. Dr. Edoardo Linoli was (to the best of my internet research and imperfect understanding) professor of anatomy, pathological histology, chemistry and clinical microsocpy, and the former head of the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy at the Hospital of Arezzo.

His article was called: ** Histological, immunological and biochemiccal studies on the flesh and blood of the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano (8th century).**

It is referenced in: Pubmed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health that includes over 18 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resource.

According to this site:
therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

He included scientific pictures of his work.
Fig. 1 - Eosine x 200. Overall histological aspect of a Flesh sample with fibers collected in bundles with longitudinal orientation as it occurs in the outer surface layers of the heart.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

He analyzed composition of the blood: “In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.”

He analyzed blood types: “The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB(Blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin)”