The scientific documentation of miracles

[AveSantaMaria]

I am sorry Ave.
Please do not be offended.
I would very much like to learn from you.
But, as you think, we are on different waves.
Your posts are very learnt and probably very wise, but they tire me.
I give up.
Please excuse me.
You are a book-made man.
I am a man from the streets.
I am not interested in anything that is not useful to be applied to life as it is. Practical.
I find the Bible and the Catholic doctrine very practical. That’s why I believe.
Yes, others have said to me that I concentrate too much on the half-empty glass.
The problem is: I do not find that the glass is half empty and half fuòll.
I find there is only 2 % good and 88% bad. (as a figure of speach)
Sorry Ave, please, please please, forgive me :

I think you have a lot of stereotypes about me that are not true. Book learning and practicality are in no way incompatible. St. Maximilian Kolbe, who died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Germany to give up his life for a Jew, was founded on the book True Devotion to Mary by St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort. What does this book teach - prayer and sacrifice and true understanding of Christ and Mary, essential for remaining holy, self-sacrificial, and spreading a true version of the faith that remains. In Secret of the Rosary, St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort explains pretty clearly one major reason why some converted people remain holy while others fall into sin after sin after sin. Its the same message as many of the apparitions, repent, convert, pray.

St. Maximilian Kolbe also did missions in Japan. Some call him an anti-semitic for preaching that the Jews need to convert. On the Jewish Virtual Library website, they call him Righteous Among Nations for giving up his life for a man who survived the Holocaust while Kolbe died in his place through starvation, dehydration, and a shot of carbolic acid. In fact, book learning can immensely aid practicality by grounding one’s life in fact instead of feelings, thus when things get hard - one is more likely to stay because of the deep rooted nature of one’s belief.

Christ well answered every Sadducee and Pharisee that questioned him, impressing them all and silencing them all with his wisdom, knowledge of the law, etc. Did this make him a book-made man without any practicality?. ALL of God’s gifts need to be respected, including service and books.

I forgive you to the best of my ability for any frustration that I have, though the frustration may in fact be my repsonsiblity and not yours. When I was praying the Rosary today I came to think about this post and my strong belief that the idea that Catholicism is all bad is extremely dangerous for society.

In Zeitun, Egypt Mary said that sometimes the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The apparitions that are going on are not going on all over the world. They are happening in Europe, America, and Asia to best of my knowledge. These are the same countries that have embraced abortion (In Great Britain, half of the teens have abortion, Asia had a one-child policy), gay marriage, adultery, fornication, and economic exploitation as if there is nothing wrong with these activities.

Only one apparition has been recognized by the Church in Africa, the apparitions in Kibeho, Rwanda. They prophesied the Rwandan genocide for reasons of immorality, predominantly sexually with a “river of blood” if no action was taken. (Mary prophesied this to the Rwandan Catholics) Neither the seers nor the Rwandans listened. Rwanda had a genocide. Now, after the genocide, Rwanda has the greatest representation of women in Parliament in the world.

In Kibeho, Rwanda prior to the genocide, the Mother of the Word appeared. She said a “river of blood” would happen if people did not convert, repent,pray the Rosary, the Chaplet of Seven Sorrows, and stop committing various moral sins, such as the girls sleeping with certain men. Did a river of blood happen? This New York Times Article on the Rwandan genocide documents the apparitions of Mary prior to the genocide. query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E4D81738F93BA35757C0A96F958260

Christianity is growing rapidly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Latin America is almost universally Catholic and shows no signs of reverting back to paganism as far as I can tell in my imperfect knowledge and ignorance. Maybe just as Christians received the inheritance of Judaism while the Jews did not accept Christ, the developing countries of this world will accept the purest form of Catholicism when the first Christian do not accept it. The last shall be first and the first last. If people remember where they came from, the Hindu caste system, child sacrifice in Latin America that ended with the apparition of Mary at Guadalupe, it may be that the roots of Christianity may remain deeper in those societies at the end of days.

 

[LilyM]

That’s the problem with Vatican II- people assume that it TAUGHT anything, let alone a heresy like the one you first stated. Basically what you’re implying is that the Church teaches that Satanism, if properly practiced, leads to God. Oh my God, what has become of our Church!? That is not true now, never has been, certainly was never proclaimed true by a pope or the magisterium, neither at VII or at any other time.

I wouldn’t call Satanism a true ‘religion’ - as its exponents explain it, to most of them it is a philosophy rather than a religion where anyone/thing is deified or worshipped. Albeit one that is utterly incompatible with Christianity.

To the rest it is merely a mirror-image perversion and distortion of Christianity which really cannot be understood separately from the Christian context in reaction to which it was developed. A bit like a diseased tumour growing on a body isn’t a separate body in and of itself.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset.
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

I don’t agree with all of this article but I find it interesting that even an atheist seems the good work of Christianity in Africa.

As for me myself, having traveled to a few different places of the world and met people of many different cultures within America, the beautiful strength and loveliness and glory and gift and increased happiness of Christianity in the African, Latin American, and Asian cultures seems apparent to me. Perhaps I am wrong/biased/ignorant, but that is what I see.

And many of these people take great pride in their religion. It seems apparent in America at least that Christianity is fast becoming a religion most sincerely believed by those whose families are from developing countries. I am blessed by so many international preachers, and they renew my faith in Christianity at times, especially when they tell me about things such as their service to the poor women in Haiti who have so little food that they make mud pies for themselves and their babies and become infected with bacteria and raise money for those causes! It seems amazing to have witnessed a French priest who ministers in Haiti and an Indian priest who ministers in America.