Wrong religion vs. the right one

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cho_pilo

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Are the consequence infinite, irrepairable? Does one have to “get it right in this one lifetime or burn in hell forever”?
  • If these are the feared consequences, … 🤷
 
You mean the consequences for picking the “wrong religion”? Well…I don’t think anyone in this world can answer that, actually. It’s tricky, I’ve thought about it a bunch of times, and I still have no clue. I am beyond happy with my faith, but I also know there are countless beautiful souls that aren’t Catholic and who I can’t imagine ‘going to hell’ or anything of the sort just because of that.

I am a yoga instructor, so I am surrounded by people of all kinds of faiths: Krishnas, Buddhists, Hinduists, Jewish, Catholics, agnostics, atheists and the plain indifferent. Within all those groups I’ve come accross really special people, tolerant and wonderful, and who, from my point of view, live out Jesus’ teachings (without even realizing so) more than most Catholics I know (granted most of them are not practicing Catholics, but still).

I, myself, was an atheist for 7 years before becoming a practicing Catholic. Even throughout all those years, Jesus was whom I admired the most. I’ve always thought of Him as the perfect being of pure light, love and wisdom. He has always been an inspiration to me, and even more so now that I’ve chosen to become a true Warrior of Christ in every way I can.

So, I guess, from how I see it the question would be: are you striving to be like Him? And I mean in every single way…He didn’t judge, He didn’t insult, He had no hatred to give others. He used force when needed (eg. at the temple) and ONLY when needed, and He always made sure he lived His life in a way that he expressed God’s message. Like I said, I’ve seen some people who do JUST that without even knowing so. I think that, while in their hearts they allow themselves to FEEL God and LIVE a life of compassion and love, always respecting others, they are doing things “right”.

Like I said, there’s no way for us to know. All I can do is strive to live my life the best way I can, and to me in particular that means striving to be like Jesus Christ 🙂
 
we are only alloted one life(lifetime).its really not hard to get it right in this life.God always gives us time to serve Him.If one doesn’t actually become a baptized memeber of the Catholic Church there is such as baptizm of desire.Anyone of any christian denomination who is truelly doing God’s will,seeking to do the right thing according to his moral consceince(God puts enough grace in each human being to be able discern good from evil)is actually a member of the Catholic Church because all moral values stem from God’s Catholic Church.The CC reaches to the remotest corners of the earth through the influence of people touched in one way or another by the Church.Not everyone is called to be a member of the Church in worship and practice.However all people anywhere can be saved.
 
If God is revealing His truth to you I think it is important to follow it. Which is why we should pray for the truth 🙂 the truth is in His Church.

God bless
 
cho_pilo said:
Are the consequence infinite, irrepairable? Does one have to “get it right in this one lifetime or burn in hell forever”?
  • If these are the feared consequences, … 🤷
Click to expand...
Great yet complicated question. As you stated from the title, my question for you is ,’ Would you dare to join the wrong religion?

Based on the studies of anthropology, the level of intellectual is a measurement to see the truth and maturity of one’s religion. Correct me if I am wrong.

I may not able to give you answer here. But I believe your question and doubt is the stepping stone for you to desire the infinitely One. Keep on practising to look for TRUTH. 🙂
 
It would make me very sad to think that all non-Catholics would go to hell. I’m not sure that would happen. I don’t think there is anyway to know the fate of non-Catholics or even Catholics at all. We will all be judged and don’t know the outcome despite all of the good we’ve done and how Holy we may think we are.

However, I thnk we have a few points that makes me think God leans one way or the other on some people:

#1- You must believe that Jesus is the Christ. Of coruse, if you were never taught Christianity, this may not apply.

#2- You must repent of sins with complete sincerity and make a sincere attempt to not repeat it.

These are basics in Christianity.

I think the Catholic specific beliefs and practices are the way God wants us to worship and obey him but the punishment for not following all of the precepts is unclear. Though a good confession clears most problems for most people, I think.

This is far too complicated to do more than speculate on. I have no idea what will get me to heaven for sure and I highly doubt that only good Catholics would go to heaven.

I tend to think the atheists and the like might be in great danger though. 😦
 
cho_pilo said:
Are the consequence infinite, irrepairable? Does one have to “get it right in this one lifetime or burn in hell forever”?
  • If these are the feared consequences, … 🤷
Click to expand...
Here’s a better and more accurate way to think about it.

All goodness is in God. God is Love and all that is holy, valuable and true is of Him and leads to Him. Therefore, whenever people choose what is loving, good and pure in this life, they are choosing to do God’s will and are expressing reverence for Him. Whenever people choose what is unloving, though, they are choosing to live apart from God, for He is Love and rejecting the loving course is rejecting love, and so is also rejecting God, the source of all the good.

Truth is consistent and does not contradict itself. But people don’t always know what is true and good. When they make a mistake while honestly trying to find the truth, God will not judge them for that. But when people deliberately blind themselves to the truth, because they are attached to harmful lifestyles or worldly things, and prefer bad lifestyles and short-term pleasures to love, then these unloving preferences and choices hurt their souls (and other people) badly.

Our own negative choices hurt us badly, in our souls. Our unloving choices cause us to become less loving, more distant from Love, from God. If we prefer something in this life above love, and above what is true and good, then that thing separates us from love both in this life and the next. If we prefer something to God, then that thing becomes our god.

In this life, we experience the ability to change, for we are surrounded by time. We can change from one state of being to another. When we die, we enter eternity, though. Whatever we have made of ourselves in this life is what we then are, permanently. If we died while preferring something above God, then that thing separated us from Him in this life and continues to permanently. So yes, we damn ourselves to eternal separation from God. And because all love and goodness and happiness are found in God (not in worldly things, negative choices or selfishness), we are eternally miserable when we are separated from Him forever by whatever it is that we valued more highly than Him.

When we value something above God, Who is Love, then we value something in life above loving actions as well and above goodness and what is right. Therefore that thing becomes a major obstacle to love and to God. It becomes something like a boulder in the middle of a stream that blocks the water from flowing. It stops us from being united with God, for as long as we prefer something else above what is good, true, loving and valuable, we are destroying ourselves. We are preferring what is bad for us and choosing what is bad for us, destroying our own futures.

And because when we die, we enter eternity, the damage we do to our souls here in time can last for eternity if we don’t change things now.

It says in 1 Peter chapter 1 that Christ died to save us from our own “futile conduct.” He died to save us from giving ourselves to what is worthless and what is apart from Him, to save us from choosing Hell, and to help us to love Him most, instead. And when we love Him most, then we become united with Him . . . we act in more loving ways, increasingly, in life, and do more and more good.

God won’t judge you for making an honest mistake about what religion is true. If you prefer your current lifestyle above truth, though, and above what is right, and are unwilling to surrender what you have now and put Love before everything, then things are serious barriers between you and God. So pray that He will help you to clear those barriers out of your life. Trust Him with all yourself and be ready to change anything in your way of living that might be a barrier between yourself and Him, should you find out that it is not right.

Pray to know what is right and true. But don’t be afraid. If you seek Him with a sincere heart, and with willingness to change your life if you find Him, then you already have Him. For He said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” He also said that He is the end of the journey. When someone is baptized and enters the Catholic Church, in a sense, that is an end to a journey, though it is the beginning of another. Yet He is also the Way to the Catholic Church, in which the fullness of truth and goodness resides, so when you seek what is good and true, you are seeking the Catholic Church, you are seeking God, and you already are walking along “The Way.” For seeking Truth and valuing it most, while trying to discern it, shows a love for truth and for God. If you are seeking it, you are walking the Way. Those that aren’t seeking it, or who seek it while being unwilling to conform to it if it contradicts their current mindset, ideology or lifestyle, are not loving Truth most and they risk eternal destruction. But those who are seeking it or have found it and are living it, these are united with “The Way, the Truth and the Life,” and in Him they will find their safety.

Anyone who dies a Hindu or a Buddhist or Muslim, who has put truth first and sought it to the best of their ability, and has not preferred anything above truth and love and good, will have eternal life. But anyone who does not put truth and good first will be separate from God forever when they enter eternity, for they have separated themselves from God in this life, and all truth and goodness are in Him, so they separate themselves from these also, and so also from happiness. They did this by choosing to live for what is not good and loving, and putting that above Love, they separated themselves from loving life and choices, and from all that makes life worthwhile and really valuable.
 
cho_pilo said:
Are the consequence infinite, irrepairable? Does one have to “get it right in this one lifetime or burn in hell forever”?
  • If these are the feared consequences, … 🤷
Click to expand...
As a Jew, I would say no, since Judaism teaches that all who seek G-d and lead a good life share in the afterlife. In other words, Jews do not discriminate! Atheists may have a tougher time; but even in this case, since “good works” are such an important feature of Judaism, they may also “qualify” for Heaven. Most of us though are probably bound for Purgatory (a Jewish concept prior to Catholicism) to atone for our sins first. In addition, in Judaism, Hell is not a “burning fire” but rather a separation from G-d. I believe Catholicism has a similar idea. Also, it is thought according to Judaism, that we pass judgment on ourselves, G-d sentences, but it is Satan who executes the sentence because G-d cannot bear to cast anyone into Hell. On a personal level, I would also say no, since I can’t imagine that a just and merciful G-d would separate His creation from Himself, especially for all eternity, except perhaps for the truly wicked who cannot be cleansed.
 
I think the thing to remember with this is that WE ARE NOT GOD. Our human mind wants a clear cut answer to “who is going to Heaven” or “who is going to Hell.” The thing is… we don’t know. We don’t know who is in hell right now. We don’t know who is in Heaven right now. We believe that saints, and the like are in Heaven looking at God. We believe that evil people (like Osama or Hitler) are in hell. But we don’t KNOW. I think that is up to God and God alone. In fact, people would ask Jesus these types of questions… and because I am just learning about my faith and the bible in and of itself, I can’t quote exact questions, but God did tell people that “his ways are above our ways…” To me, that means… some things we are NOT going to know in this life. Some things we are not going to understand now. That is fine.

Personally, I believe that being Catholic is great! I am a cradle Catholic and went through all my cradle Catholic phases (angry Catholic, I’m in college and don’t believe any of this stuff-Catholic, New age is awesome-Catholic, my friend’s are not Catholic so neither am I-Catholic, etc). And after that whole trip, I am back here because I truly believe that this is the TRUTH. But… it is up to God as to what happens to everybody at their judgement. Not me. Not you. Not anybody in these CAF. Nobody. God and God alone.

God WANTS us to know him. He wants us to seek him out. He wants us to look at him. I believe that to be true. And I think the best way to know, seek, and look at God is through Jesus Christ. But God gave everybody different eyes, different hearts, and different minds. Certain things are between a person and God.
 
Lief Erikson, good coherent post. Do you believe God is in one’s mind?
 
Well, this is how Jesus said we’ll be judged (Matthew, ch 25 31-46) and He doesn’t mention being a member of a specific religion as a guarantee for either salvation or damnation:

" 'When the Son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All nations will be assembled before him and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats.
He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.”

Then the upright will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you? When did we find you sick or in prison and go to see you?” And the King will answer, “In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.”

Then he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food, I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink, I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, lacking clothes and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.” Then it will be their turn to ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?” Then he will answer, “In truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.”

And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the upright to eternal life.’"

So, although the Catholic Church as the repository of truth is more likely to guide you towards salvation, it isn’t a guarantee. Note that Christ’s account is consistent with His teaching us to love one another, love even our enemies, and that we will keep His commandments if we love him. This passage focuses on damnation not as a consequence of doing evil, that is punishment for evil acts, but our lack of positive actions of love towards our fellow man. That is, our faith is a call to action, an active faith of doing Jesus’ work as opposed to a passive faith of simply acknowledging Christ as Savior.

Matthew, 7,
A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit.
Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire.
I repeat, you will be able to tell them by their fruits. 'It is not anyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. When the day comes many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, work many miracles in your name?” Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you; away from me, all evil doers!
 
cho_pilo said:
Lief Erikson, good coherent post. Do you believe God is in one’s mind?
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It depends what you mean by that. He is not just an idea, ideology or feeling. He is a Person. He can be known and chosen through the mind, though, and He can live in people’s souls. He is absolute and consistent, unlike moral relativism, in which there is massive moral and doctrinal inconsistency. He is unchanging, absolute, infinite and eternal Truth, Life and Love.

The Church teaches that virtue is union with Him and sin is separation from Him. Sin is unloving conduct. Virtue is loving conduct. Therefore sin separates us from Love, while virtue unites us with Him. Living a life of virtue is like walking hand in hand with Love. But the Lord often asks more of us than we are willing to ask of ourselves, because we are so attached to material things and sin, and we are willing to excuse our imperfections and justify our bad habits and poor life choices. We even excuse big faults in our characters, rather than confronting them, and we are often completely oblivious to all the smaller faults in our characters (which are actually important and diminish our happiness and goodness, though we have trouble stomaching this).

The Lord asks much of us because He wants much for us. He allowed the animals to be satisfied with temporal things, but for us, He wants much more. He wants us to be completely satisfied and fulfilled in an everlasting relationship of love with God. He has designed us as humans to be completely satisfied only in Him, the source of all love and happiness, and to always have the desire for love, peace, happiness and acceptance in our hearts, because this is the desire for God and it inspires people to look for Him. He created us with more exalted desires than the animals have, and with a more magnificent end. He has designed us to find material things and human relationships insufficient to satisfy our hearts’ deepest longings, because He has created our hearts to rest in Him, Who is ultimate and perfect satisfaction and joy. He wants us to have everything good and worthwhile, and all that is good and worthwhile for us is found in Him.

God wants us to become perfect, completely detached from the worldly things that distract us from the longings He has placed in our hearts, and He wants to win us over completely from sin, to conquer us with all that can satisfy and delight us: Union with Himself.

Therefore He has given us the Eucharist, which is His fullness, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, so that we can give Him all of ourselves in It and receive all of Himself. He is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is Divine Love, the fullness and completeness of Jesus Christ.

Here is what St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about the Eucharist, on his way to martyrdom:

“I no longer take pleasure in perishable food or in the delights of this world. I want only God’s bread, which is the Flesh of Jesus Christ, formed of the seed of David, and for drink I crave His Blood which is love that cannot perish.”

On his way to martyrdom in the Colosseum, Ignatius wrote that all his desires were fulfilled in the Eucharist. He begged his Christian brothers not to petition his release, because he wanted to die and be fully one with his Eucharistic Love. The Eucharist was everything to him, so he surrendered his body to be mauled by lions and his spirit to be immolated of self-will and consumed with the fire of God, all for pure love of the Eucharist.

In the Divine Eucharist, there is power to transform us completely and unite us fully with Love, which is God.

The Eucharist is like sex between two married lovers. We “marry” God at the moment of Baptism (and non-Catholics are not allowed to partake of Him in the Eucharist) and in the Eucharist we become totally one with Him, in total self-giving and total receiving. Unmarried sexual partners only give themselves to one another in part, because there is the possibility that one might leave, and they do not have the totally self-giving covenantal union that exists in a marriage. Marriage’s permanence, the total self-giving of two people to one another for life, vowed, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, no matter what the circumstances or troubles, is a reflection of our total and permanent union with God, both in the Eucharist and throughout all our lives, no matter what forces or circumstances might try to break that everlasting union.

Partaking of the Eucharist is the mightiest mystical experience possible on this Earth. The more people give themselves to Him, over time, the more they receive His grace in that encounter. Then they are ever more transformed and made holy, one with God’s love. The Eucharist is the Power and Love of God. As you draw closer to Him in your spiritual life, you find that eating Him is not at all like eating ordinary bread. The experience is much more. And as one draws closer and closer to God, the encounter with Him in the Eucharist likewise deepens and unfolds into ever intensifying love and power.

St. Gemma Galgani could only stay in the Eucharist’s presence for about fifteen minutes at a time, because she felt such physical burning heat raging from it that the searing intensity forced her out of the room. Often, the Eucharist has sped from the priest’s hands through midair into the mouth of a saint, rushing to Its lover. Sometimes saints’ eyes have been opened and they have seen Jesus descend from Heaven into the priest’s hands, at the moment of consecration.

The Lord has also provided Eucharistic Miracles that all the world can see, and which even medical science can verify, to show us His Love (dozens are recorded in this document): therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/engl_mir.htm
 
cho_pilo said:
On the authority of what are you saying this?
How can I know I can trust you?
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I’ll tell you the source of anything in my writings that you have questions about. A lot of it comes from the Catechism, and a lot from the Bible. For instance, what I said about virtue and how that unites us with God comes from the Catechism. How sin is unloving conduct that separates us from God, Love, is from the Catechism and Scripture. Are there any particular parts of what I wrote that you have questions about?

Now, if your question is aimed at how we can know Catholicism (and all its answers) are true, that’s another matter entirely. What I said is sourced to various authoritative documents of the Catholic faith. The truth of the Catholic faith is my premise. How we know the Catholic faith itself is true is another matter, which depends on another set of evidence and reasoning. Is that your question? I would be glad to give you some thoughts on that matter too, if you like.
 
Lief_Erikson said:
I’ll tell you the source of anything in my writings that you have questions about. A lot of it comes from the Catechism, and a lot from the Bible. For instance, what I said about virtue and how that unites us with God comes from the Catechism. How sin is unloving conduct that separates us from God, Love, is from the Catechism and Scripture. Are there any particular parts of what I wrote that you have questions about?

Now, if your question is aimed at how we can know Catholicism (and all its answers) are true, that’s another matter entirely. What I said is sourced to various authoritative documents of the Catholic faith. The truth of the Catholic faith is my premise. How we know the Catholic faith itself is true is another matter, which depends on another set of evidence and reasoning. Is that your question? I would be glad to give you some thoughts on that matter too, if you like.
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Yes, please. Thank you.
 
cho_pilo said:
Yes, please. Thank you.
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It’s such a big topic, I’m having trouble deciding where to start! I’ve studied it pretty extensively, for years, you see. There are so many different signs and layers of evidence God has given that the Catholic faith is true.

I guess I’ll start with the Apostle Paul.

Paul is accepted as a very real figure of history by scholars. Most of his epistles in the Bible are generally accepted as authentic. 1 Corinthians, for example, is accepted as having Pauline authorship.

Here’s a comment Paul makes about the appearances of the Resurrected Lord in 1 Corinthians:

1 Corinthians
Chapter 15
1
1 2 Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
2
Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures;
4
that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures;
5
that** he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
6
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
7
After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8
Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me.
9
For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.**

Paul records that Jesus appeared to over five hundred Christians at once, most of whom were living witnesses at the time he wrote the epistle. His appearances and conversations with Paul and the apostles (and the apostles and other disciples said He also broke bread, ate food and drank in their presence, after the Resurrection) were so convincing that these men all proceeded to die for their certainty that He was indeed risen.

Paul says that he persecuted the Church but Christ appeared to him and he converted – an extremely dramatic conversion, considering he used to try to imprison and kill Christians. It took a huge experience to change him so radically.

Paul writes that many others, aside from him, also alive saw Christ alive after His Resurrection, and Paul goes on, later in the chapter, to describe the resurrected body as extremely glorious and majestic in appearance. He says that he, the apostles, and over five hundred others were witnesses of this.

We can be sure Paul was entirely sincere in his testimony, not lying or fudging the truth at all, because he endured many floggings for this faith, starvation, nakedness, and many other sufferings, and finally he was beheaded for his faith in the Resurrection of Christ, in the Colosseum of Rome. Paul was in a position to know for sure whether Christ was risen or not, for he claimed to have spoken with Him and seen Him after His Resurrection. Indeed, in the Book of Galatians, Paul says he received his entire gospel testimony straight from the Resurrected Lord. So Paul knew for sure whether he was lying or not. He could not have hallucinated all that (his companions saw a brilliant light and heard Jesus’ voice as well, according to Paul’s testimony in Acts 22:9). He could not have made a mistake on this critical point that changed Paul’s life radically and made a persecutor of Christianity into its foremost evangelist, willing to suffer greatly for his certainty that Christ was Risen.

People don’t die for what they know is a lie, but for what they are convinced is true. Paul suffered enormously for his faith in the Resurrection of Christ and was martyred for this certainty, so we have every reason to believe in the truth of his testimony. His testimony is proven not only by his miracles, which were numerous and convinced large numbers of people in his own time that he was telling the truth, but his blood also proves his words were sincere and therefore true (for he couldn’t plausibly have made a mistake or been only imagining it all).
 
The same proof of the Resurrection of Christ also holds true for the other apostles. They claimed that they saw Christ alive after His Resurrection, that they saw Him eat food in their presence (no possibility of imagining that), that they all saw Him together (not just one witness but many), and they talked with Him in repeated conversations over a period of 40 days, until He rose into Heaven. They could not have been mistaken about His having prepared a fire in John 21 and cooked fish over it for them, and then eaten with them, after which He had a theological conversation with them. So them make a mistake and simply imagining all this evidence that Christ was Risen is impossible. Because a mistake is impossible, they had to have been deliberately lying when they testified that He was Risen, or they had to have been telling the truth.

We know they weren’t deliberately lying because they all endured brutal floggings, ostracism, imprisonment, torture (some were flayed, others shattered on the wheel, etc.), and finally martyrdom for their testimony that Christ was Risen. People don’t go through all that for a story that they know is a lie. At least one of them would have changed his story! Surely all of them would have changed their story if they knew it was not true (and they couldn’t have been mistaken, given all this firsthand eyewitness evidence and physical proofs they testified to). Even if people are telling the truth, usually they will start telling lies when threatened with torture, in the hope of getting off. But the apostles all stayed faithful to their testimony and died for it. People don’t do that when they know their testimony is a lie. The apostles knew whether they were telling the truth or not – they could not have been making a mistake, given the evidence they experienced firsthand – so we can be sure they were telling the truth. Therefore we can be sure that Christ is Risen.

Thus the blood of the apostles is a powerful evidence that Christ is Risen. Now, if Christ rose from the dead, physically, as the apostles said, and appointed the apostles to be His messengers to the world while present in His glorified body (Matt. 28:19), then we would do well to believe the apostles’ teachings. And the apostles passed on to the world the Catholic faith.

I’ll get into more evidence in my next post.
 
I recommend browsing through these Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah, which were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ, when you find the time:

cynet.com/jesus/prophecy/ntquoted.htm

There are many more Old Testament prophecies He fulfilled as well, in addition to these. I have a book of them on my religion shelf.

You know, when Christ appeared to five hundred Christians, after His Resurrection, He wasn’t the only one from Heaven to appear to so many people at once. His Mother was also assumed into Heaven in the body, according to Catholic Tradition, and she has appeared to many more people since.

In a series of 20th century apparitions in Betania, for instance, Mary appeared visibly to many people at a shrine. The local Archbishop, who investigated the phenomenon carefully, has calculated that between five hundred and a thousand people have seen Mary at this location. Here is his report:

ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/BET_PIO.HTM

An even more dramatic apparition of Mary occurred in Cairo, in the 1960’s, at a church called Zeitoun. For at least a year, she appeared almost daily to a rapidly growing crowd. In the end, about a million people had seen her, and the international media had photographed her repeatedly, and President Nasser of Egypt also came and saw her. You can read about this event on this link, and see a few of the photos:

zeitun-eg.org/zeitoun1.ht

A million people cannot have all been hysterical or hallucinating. Mary definitely, verifiably has come to Earth from Heaven repeatedly in human history, to instruct us and help us to follow the teachings of her Son. Sometimes she appears to hundreds of people, in one case to a million, but usually to small groups or individuals. Apparitions of Jesus, Mary and other saints are very common in the lives of the canonized Catholic saints.

Another very important apparition of Mary in the 20th century is Our Lady of Fatima. She appeared repeatedly to three very young children, all of whom suffered enormously for their conviction that she truly was appearing to them (they suffered for their testimony through very painful penances they practiced of their own accord, and through persecution by local villagers and public officials, and even persecution by some clergy). Mary also made several prophecies in the presence of the children, about the future, foretelling many events, such as the coming of World War 2, the rise of Communist Russia, the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, and several other important events of the 20th century. She finally proved she was appearing to the children and that her words were true by performing a dramatic miracle in front of 70,000 people, who observed it and were astonished and terrified at the sight. You can read about the events at Fatima through the following link:

marypages.com/fatimaEng1.htm

You can read about many more Marian apparitions on the following website, if you remain interested in reading more, after having read the above accounts: marypages.com/

These repeated heavenly apparitions and the miracles that have surrounded them are another powerful sign of the truth of the Catholic faith. Mary confirms the Catholic faith through her messages and encourages the Catholics to persevere, grow in righteousness and turn away from sin.

I’ll continue this in another post, a bit later.
 
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