Saturday, March 25, 2006
DATING AND HIGH SCHOOL DANCES
NBC News offers a story about Villa Maria Academy, an all-female Catholic high school near Buffalo, where a female couple has been told they may not attend the school prom.
What do you immediately think in reading the story? Lesbian, right? With homosexuality in the news daily, we tend to think that any same-sex couple must be among them.
As I think back on my high school days in the 60s, I remember being shy of boys. I spent most of my time in the company of my girlfriends and my family. On Friday nights after the football game there was a school dance, and my girlfriends and I went to these dances together. We danced together. No, not the slow dances, but those non-touching dances that were popular back then, like the Twist and the Pony. What we were doing was rather like today's line dances where the pairing, if you want to call it that, was not sexual. We wanted to have a good time together, and in the company of our fellow students. It was also important to see what boys showed up, because we were interested in boys...mostly from a distance.
When it was time to pair up for the Prom, some of us were invited and some of us were not. Those of us who were not were profoundly embarrassed about it, as though we were somehow second-class females who were unworthy of the name. That embarrassment tends to cling to the memories of high school like an ink stain on a white tablecloth.
When my daughter reached high school age the school dances presented the same dilemma, but with an option I didn't have. Group dating, if you want to call it that. Several girls and several boys, not necessarily in even numbers, went to the dance together. They were not paired. They were merely friends having fun together. They went out for dinner together before the dance and hung around together during it. All of them had fun. I never asked, but it would not surprise me that some of the girls danced the fast dances together--possibly even in a group. I do know that the boys got together in the mosh pit while the girls stood around and watched the craziness.
Now comes this heavy emphasis on homosexuality, and two girls who want to go together to the high school prom are not allowed to do so. Once again there is no alternative to boy-girl pairing even if the students are not ready for that kind of intimacy. Somehow I don't see this as a particularly healthy development in our social climate.
Friday, March 24, 2006
CHANNELING THE SPIRITS
NEW YORK - Troubled spirits come to Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood once a week to seek solace and advice from a man who by day works as a Wall Street bond salesman.
Each Monday a group of about 16 members of the Spiritists Group of New York meet in a building normally used for dance and acting rehearsals to discuss personal problems and work on their spiritual energy. Then they talk with tormented spirits to help them, in what organizers call charity work.
Joao, a Brazilian who asked his last name not be used to keep his Wall Street work and personal life separate, is a counselor at the Spiritist group in Manhattan.
"We ask that the spiritual benefactors be with us," Joao says, invoking the spirits. Almost immediately a middle-aged Brazilian man talks in a voice the group believe is a human spirit speaking from the afterlife.
"Why do I find myself in this miserable situation? Where are the angels and the heavenly music?" he asks, agitated.
Joao tells him, "My friend, we are here and we will help you. Your suffering will end soon."
Sobbing, the man raises his voice: "Why do they call me horrible names? I never killed anybody and they call me killer! Where is God? Where is the light that was promised to me?"
The man is calmed by Joao, who tells him not be afraid. For the next hour, others speak in the voices of troubled spirits.
Others hold pens, their eyes closed, and write in the dark, channeling messages from wiser spirits. "Do not be afraid to give testimony to help others on their path to spirituality," a woman named Jussara reads from one such message.
Continue reading...
Blogger credit to New Oxford Review.
THE BLEEDING HOST ISN'T
DALLAS. A “host” kept in a jar of water for four weeks grew fungus and bacterial colonies in a natural process, a laboratory report concluded about an incident in a local parish church that created public speculation.
A March 23 letter from Dallas Bishop Charles Grahmann to the pastor of St. James Parish relayed that what some were calling a ‘miracle’ of a host “contains nothing of a supernatural nature.”
The letter to Msgr. Mario Magbanua states: “At my request the object you submitted to me, around which there was heightened publicity, was presented to Dr. Marcy Brown Marsden, chairman and associate professor of biology, University of Dallas, and Dr. Frank Doe of the same department, for tentative identification and characterization of the object.”
The bishop said that after analysis was done he was provided with their conclusion.
They told the bishop: “We conclude that the object is a combination of fungal mycelia and bacterial colonies that have been incubated within the aquatic environment of the glass during the four-week period in which it was stored in the open air.”
The bishop further wrote: ““From this conclusion the phenomenon was of the natural order and contains nothing of a supernatural nature. Thus, you need to remove yourself from any further activity surrounding this matter and its exaggerated claims.”
Continue reading...
Blogger credit to Spirit Daily.
WHO OWNES THE PARISH ?
The question comes up every time another huge settlement is handed down in the sexual abuse resolutions. Susan Hines-Brigger, Assistant Editor of St. Anthony Messenger unpacks the question at Catholic Online.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
BAHAIS
A reader wrote in to suggest that there is an occult component in Bahai's. I haven't researched them to any extent, but they do turn up on occult literature sometimes. Take a look at one of their websites and judge for yourself.
The Bahais support United Religions Initiative which makes them promoters of globalism.
THE ECUMENICAL WINTER
According to Pink News:
The Anglican church might be tearing itself to pieces trying to decide whether to consecrate gay bishops, but Pope Benedict certainly knows where he stands on the issue.
The American church’s decision to consecrate gay bishop Gene Robinson has set the Anglicans and Catholics further apart, and the blessing of same-sex unions in Canada's Anglican Church has added to the tension between the two largest branches of the Christian church. It’s a climate that former Archbishop John Carey has called “ecumenical winter”.
I think he has lobbed the ball back into B16's court. The next play should be interesting.
While I'm on the "pink" subject, a short entry in "The Catholic World" report, March 2006, states
The justice minister of the European Union, Franco Frattini, announced in January at the EU parliament in Strasburg that member states that do not eliminate all forms of discrimination against homosexuals, including the refusal to approve "marriage" and unions between same-sex couples, could be subject to sanctions and eventual expulsion from the EU. The commissioner's statements came as the governments of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland ruled against legalizing homosexual marriage.
"Homophobia is a violation of human rights and we are watching member states on this issue..."
Benedict vs. the European Union? Right now it looks to be shaping up that way. Will the EU take on the Roman Catholic Church? Vatican City, I believe, is a member of the EU, and Vatican City is not going to approve homosexual marriage any time soon. Will the EU oust the Vatican?
NOT CATHOLIC ENOUGH
according to the Sutton Guardian:
The parents of two Catholic boys have been left disillusioned after they were told their children have not shown enough strength of faith to gain a place at their first choice of secondary school.
Yup! I did a double-take too.
"MORE HERESY PRONOUNCEMENTS, PLEASE"
is the topic of Dom's editorial in the March 2006 "The Catholic World Report."
With the office of bishop comes not only great responsibility, but also great pomp and circumstance. Meetings with important people, fancy clothes, the adulation of crowds, hobnobbing with the rich and famous: all these things can lead to pride and arrogance.Christus Dominus, outlined a threefold office: to teach, to sanctify, and to govern the faithful under their care.
But fundraising and the minutiae of administration are not a bishiop's prime duty. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council, in their decree
He goes on to hold up Bishop Robert Vasa, of Baker, Oregon, as an example of a bishop who is carrying out his duties well. Bishop Vasa has recently written that "professing to be 'pro-choice' on abortion is heresy."
He closes the editorial with this opinion:
A desire to hear a bishop declare that something is heresy or heterodoxy is not a matter of wanting to see "some heretic" get his comeuppance. What most Catholics want is simply to hear their bishops defend the faith against error and to be reassured that they're not alone in proclaiming the truth of the Gospel.
To which I will happily add AMEN!
MID-EAST POLITICS
I do not understand politics.
I think it's because I'm too much of a black and white person who looks for a clear right and clear wrong on any issue. Politics is the realm of grayness.
As confusing as American politics can sometimes be, Mid-East politics is the whale to the American canary. Today's article at FrontPage Magazine is no exception.
The article concerns two university staffers, Political Science Professor John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, and Dean Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. They are writing on "the Israel lobby" about which they are not enthusiastic, claiming among other things that the Israel lobby was responsible for getting us involved in the Iraq war.
Author of the article Lowell Ponte claims they are essentially writing nonsense since their larger "working paper" on the topic is not peer reviewed nor published in a scholarly journal.
So what I'm wondering is whether the claims made in FrontPage that these scholars have a screw loose is a reflection of the bias of FrontPage itself, which Ponte claims in the article is a "reflexive Israel supporter", or whether any of the claims made by the two scholars can be taken to be accurate?
In any case, I thought this was interesting:
One of the crudest tactics in formal debate, as Speech 101 students are taught, is "poisoning the well." If the side opposing you has an expert, smear the expertad hominem. If this tactic succeeds, you can then duck having to respond to that expert's logic or evidence.
That particular passage of the article I understand very well!
Anyone care to wade in with an opinion about the rest of the article?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
THE TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT ASKS
Did you know that if you rearrange the letters in "indigo children" it spells "spoiled rotten"?(Yeah, I know, but it sounded amusing just the same.)
MODERN METAPHYSICS IN MEMPHIS
If it's spiritual freedom you're looking for (And what exactly is spiritual bondage, anyway...Christianity, I presume.), you can leave your cash at the Spiritual Freedom emporium where they stock everything from tarot cards to tantra to Native American music. They even have a Power Plate "which is used by many professional athletic organizations, including the Memphis Grizzlies" according to the article. The Power Plate "a round vibrating plate on which a person stands and performs various exercises. It's supposed to improve muscle strength, flexibility, range of motion, bone density and stimulate circulation.
So, do the Grizzlies get a lot of demonstrations of the Power Plate by the attractive owner, pictured? I'm wondering not only because they sell tantra stuff, but also because
Spiritual Freedom is a work in progress, with a large back room that eventually will round out the store as Sensual Awakenings. It will offer a massage and sensory deprivation chamber, allowing customers to cut themselves off from all outside stimuli.
Not long ago back rooms existed only in porn shops, but now it's supposed to be respectable, I guess. I mean, there's the owner of the place pictured in the article watering plants.
The last part of the article says a great deal about the spiritual health of Christianity, IMHO:
Piper said she feels the people of Memphis are ready for a change.
"If you look at commercials and billboards and things, you'll see that people are really starting to get into conscious living, from recycling to the environment to the foods that we're eating," she said. "Spiritual freedom is heart energy. It's about taking the ego aside and really opening the heart up to everything, and seeing everything the way it is, and really asking yourself, 'What is going on?' and changing yourself."
Customer Jennifer Browning notes Spiritual Freedom not only is for the ethereally inclined.
"It's important to remember that it's for all walks of life," said Browning. "I'm from a Southern Baptist background, and I don't think this place is evil or anything like that. You can find things here even if you're not into tarot cards or shamanism or kama sutra."
I don't suppose they sell any prayer books or holy cards in there, though. It's telling that a Southern Baptist would get out that word "evil" in her apology for the place. Sounds like a guilty conscience talking to me.
"RIGHT" AND "LEFT" IN GNOSTIC DOCTRINE
according to Life Coach Sharon Hooper:
There is a card in my Mary Magdalene card deck that refers to this topic about the people in our lives. “The Beloved Disciple” card illustrates Mary and John standing beside Jesus. In Gnostic Christianity, ‘right’ signified the psychic realm and ‘left’ referred to the realm of matter. In the picture, Jesus is telling Mary and John that because of their high state of consciousness, they have been chosen to stand at his ‘left’ and ‘right’.
Does this also apply to the so-called "right-hand path" and "left-hand path" in Wicca and magism? I don't know the answer.
WILL THE VATICAN DECODE ?
VATICAN CITY – Is "The Da Vinci Code" on the Vatican's radar? You wouldn't know it by public pronouncements. Vatican officials have said little or nothing about the book, which has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, or the upcoming movie, expected to open the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The dominant school of thought at the Vatican is that it is always best to ignore a book or film that presents the church unfairly.
"You're only feeding the publicity," said one Vatican official. "I don't think the Vatican will say much about this movie when it comes out -- if anything."
But not everyone feels that way, and there are signs that the Code phenomenon may be reaching the critical mass necessary to provoke something stronger from the Vatican.
Continue reading...
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
OPUS DEI PRELATE ACCEPTED SSJ PRIESTS
As pointed out by a commenter below...
According to a story in "The River Reporter" sent in by Dr. Bond:
A suppressed society of Roman Catholic priests has moved out of Shohola Township in the Diocese of Scranton to the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.
Wikipedia identifies the Bishop of Ciudad del Este as a bishop of Opus Dei:
Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, Bishop of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay
If you read Spanish, this website also confirms it.
I wonder if the bishop knows?
Thanks to Robert Duncan for tracking down the confirmation.
ASKED TO CONDEMN HIMSELF
San Francisco, Mar. 21 (CWNews.com) - The controversy over Catholic agencies' involvement in same-sex adoptions has taken a new turn, with a report that the chief administrative officer of Catholic Charities in the San Francisco archdiocese is an openly homosexual man with an adopted daughter.
Continue reading...
PEDOPHILE CLAN
Matt C. Abbott has obtained permission to reprint Paul Likoudis' article in "The Wanderer":
CORNWALL, Ont. - Fifteen years after allegations that a "pedophile clan" consisting of prominent local officials in government, the Church, police, child welfare and probation departments abused dozens of young boys in the St. Lawrence River community of Cornwall on the eastern edge of Ontario, an official public inquiry led by Justice Normand Gloade opened here last week under a national spotlight.
This public inquiry is not to "determine who did what to whom," in the words of Justice Gloade - though that may come out in the course of the ten-month inquiry (broadcast daily on the Internet at www.cornwallinquiry.ca), but to determine "how public institutions in Cornwall responded in the past to any allegations of sexual abuse that were brought to their attention - not just in the Church but in all institutions," and to help those individuals who were abused, and who may be abused in the future, to cope with their trauma.
Continue reading...
WILL THE VATICAN BE SUED ?
A federal appeals court in Jackson has tossed out one of the state of Mississippi's theories that the Vatican was connected to the fraud scheme of financier Martin Frankel.
State Insurance Commissioner George Dale sued the Vatican in 2003, claiming it was liable for the actions of Monsignor Emilio Colagiovanni.
Colagiovanni was given a suspended sentence and five years' probation on Mississippi charges related to his role in Frankel's theft of $200 million from insurance companies in five states. Colagiovanni pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy for attempting to deceive regulators about the source of the money Frankel used to buy one of those insurance companies.
Frankel bought insurance companies in Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, then stole their assets to finance a wealthy lifestyle that included a two-mansion compound in Greenwich, Conn. He was a fugitive for months after the scandal broke in 1999 before he was captured in Germany.
Frankel had formed a bogus Catholic charity, the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation, in 1998. To throw insurance regulators off his trail, Frankel sought to use the foundation to launder money through a legitimate Vatican charity headed by Colagiovanni.
Colagiovanni agreed to use Monitor Ecclesiasticus and its Vatican bank account to handle money from St. Francis and to vouch for Frankel's charity with regulators. In exchange, Colagiovanni was to get $5 million to use on charitable projects. The Vatican denied ever endorsing or cooperating with Frankel's scheme, according to court records.
Continue reading...
Is this the last word on the subject, or is there still an option for the Insurance Commissioner to pursue?
WORLD YOUTH DAY
is big business:
THE Catholic Church's World Youth Day is celebrated every year on Palm Sunday, this year April 9. At a mass in St Peter's Square, Rome, presided over by Pope Benedict XVI, German youth will hand over the WYD cross to Australian youth. Cologne hosted the last week-long festival in 2005; it is coming to Sydney in 2008 when 250,000 visitors will inject about $110 million into the economy.
I wonder if Australia will manage to keep it holy or if this will be yet another spectacle of embarrassment?
Monday, March 20, 2006
PATRIARCH ALEXIS II ON HOMOSEXUALITY
In his letter to the Moscow Mayor, Alexis explained the position of the Orthodox Church saying, "the Church has invariably supported the institution of the family and condemns untraditional relations, seeing them as a vicious deviation from God-given human nature." He continued, "The Church treats people with such inclinations with pastoral responsibility urging them to reform and resolutely opposes any attempts to present this sinful tendency as a 'norm' and example to follow. The Church does not accept any propaganda for immorality."
Addressing the mayor, Alexis II said, "please accept our gratitude for your decision to protect Moscow and Muscovites against attempts to organize a public parade of propaganda for sin. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of our citizens are grateful to you and the Moscow government for your care for public morality."
Seems like atheistic Russia is more family friendly than the Christian U.S.
Blogger credit to New Oxford Review.
MICHAEL BROWN QUOTING FR. ROBERT GUSTE
a New Orleans priest, who speaks about chastisement. You have to read the whole thing, so I'm not going to quote any of it.
SEEKING COMMON GROUND IN THE SCHOOLS
which are becoming war zones over the issue of homosexuality is the subject of an opinion piece at USA Today.com
In reading through the article, it struck me that homosexuality has gained enough acceptance as a legitimate sexual expression to merit equal status with heterosexuality in this discussion of how to keep the schools from becoming a war zone.
One wonders if polygamy will also achieve such a level of acceptance when it's supporters agitate. Bestiality next? Swinging? S&M? Can the snuff film find a place at this neutral bargaining table given enough agitation on the part of its supporters? Could murder itself, minus the sexual qualifier, then come under this umbrella of approval? Before you dismiss this question as outrageous hyperbole, consider that sometimes students obtain legal abortions with the help of the school personnel and without the permission of their parents.
The schools have become a no-man's-land of amorality in the name of peace.
VACCINATE OR PROMOTE ABSTINENCE ?
An editorial in The Capital Times website written by Dave Zweifel accuses President Bush of promoting religious zealotry by in the Food and Drug Administration. He argues that a vaccine has been developed and tested, but has not been released by the FDA...a vaccinine that will prevent sexually transmitted cervical cancer. The vaccine must be administered to girls at the average age of 17, prior to their becoming sexually active. He writes:
Two of the country's bigger pharmaceutical companies Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have developed and proven the safety of a vaccine that prevents a common sexually transmitted disease called human papillomavirus (HPV). Strains of HPV are known to cause cervical cancer in early adulthood. The vaccine needs to be administered to girls before they become sexually active, which is an average age of 17.
And therein lies the rub for the religious base of the Republican Party that George Bush and company have installed in crucial posts in the health department. That base and George W. Bush himself steadfastly adheres to the proposition that kids need to practice abstinence. In their eyes, anything from promoting the use of condoms to giving young girls vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases only encourages promiscuity among young people.
The editorial closes with the question: "Can we really survive nearly three more years of this destruction?"
FROM POLAND A PRIEST ANSWERS A MOTHER'S QUESTION ABOUT SUICIDE
Can her son who committed suicide go to heaven? Can she pray that this might be possible?
The answer is not really an answer, but hopes to give the mother comfort by leaving the answer in God's hands.
AN ORTHODOX VIEW OF ST. PAT'S DAY CELEBRATIONS
is not exactly favorable. Specifically Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin indicates that for the Orthodox, "any entertainment, including a festive march, are completely out of place during Lent."
A REVIEW OF THE SPIN ON THE DOCUMENT ON HOMOSEXUALITY IN THE SEMINARY
at Catholic World News contains this analysis which sounds about right:
For American bishops, seminary rectors, and religious superiors, such public statements served a dual purpose. First, they offered justification for the policies that clearly have been followed throughout the American Church for years; seminaries have admitted men who are identifiably homosexual, and bishops have ordained them to the priesthood. Second, the statements implicitly reassured jittery liberal Catholics that no matter what policy the Vatican adopted, most American Church leaders would continue to follow the same policies. If the Vatican banned gay seminarians, American Church leaders would interpret that directive as a ban on active homosexuals only. If the document went further, and closed the doors to those with homosexual impulses, the bishops and seminarian officials would protest that they had no way to identify homosexuals, and refuse to conduct a "witch hunt."
WELL GOSH, MAYBE THEY COULD SUE THE COMPUTER
Amazon.com last week modified its search engine after an abortion rights organization complained that search results appeared skewed toward anti-abortion books.
Until a few days ago, a search of Amazon's catalog of books using the word "abortion" turned up pages with the question, "Did you mean adoption?" at the top, followed by a list of books related to abortion.
Amazon removed that question from the search results page after it received a complaint from a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a national organization based in Washington.
"I thought it was offensive," said the Rev. James Lewis, a retired Episcopalian minister in Charleston, W.Va. "It represented an editorial position on their part."
Patty Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman, said there was no intent by the company to offer biased search results. She said the question "Did you mean adoption?" was an automated response based on past customer behavior combined with the site's spelling correction technology.
Continue reading...
"No intent to offer biased results"?? Obviously what this whole technique is about is offering biased results--"biased" to the interest of the person doing the search. It's just that THESE PARTICULAR BIASED RESULTS have become an embarrassment. Normally the biased results are welcomed.
I thought it was noteworthy that the Unitarian Universalist Church turned up near the end of the article on the side of abortion rights. Gotta try to keep track of who is on which side in these political confrontations. UUAs apparently don't like babies. At least not the unborn kind.
Diogenes wades in on the matter:
You can't say that the computer "chose" to ask about adoption, because computers don't really make choices. The "adoption" suggestion was the end result of an algorithm. The Amazon search engine had made a complicated series of dry, mathematical calculations, reflecting the choices made by thousands of users-- many of whom were, no doubt, women facing unexpected pregnancies.
Yeah, and now one wonders what about their rights. Or is it that they don't have any since they might just make the politically incorrect decision to let their baby live?
Under pressure from the abortion lobby, Amazon has altered the terms of the search, and the "adoption" suggestion no longer pops up in response to an "abortion" query. This is another victory for the people who describe themselves as "pro-choice," while doing their best to restrict the "choices" of which women-- and, now, even computers-- are aware.
The Grim Reaper strikes again.
Since Amazon has demonstrated they are willing to bend to pressure, maybe a little Christian pressure on the side of the rights of unborn babies would persuade them to come back to the original arrangement?
Sunday, March 19, 2006
FROM THE EMAILBOX - MULTIPLICATION OF LOAVES AND FISHES
My Catholic brothers and sisters
Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ, beaten and bloodied,
stood before Pontius Pilate who asked Him: "...what is truth?" (Jn.18:38) Only
moments before, Jesus had given him its most eloquent definition:"...Everyone
who is of the truth hears My voice." (Jn.18:37) Sadly, Pilate didn't. Sadder, today,
some priests, religious and laypeople hear not His but rather their own voices as
they distort or deny Biblical events and Church teachings.
As an example, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God
for committing various sins of immorality (cf.Gen.,Ch.18 & 19), a fact attested to
by St.Peter: "And He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruct-
ion, reducing them to ashes, thus making them an example to those who in the
future should live impiously." (2 Pet.2:6); by St.Jude:"Just as Sodom and Go-
morrah, and the neighboring cities which like them committed sins of immorality
and practiced unnatural vice, have been made an example, undergoing the punish-
ment of eternal fire." (Jude:1:7); and by our Catholic teachings. Some, however,
ignoring this, preach that the destruction was simply a natural disaster, rather than Divine punishment. They ignore the Angel's words to Lot: "For we will destroy
this place, because their cry is grown loud before The Lord who has sent us to
destroy them." (Gen.19:13) and their warning him to leave :"...lest thou also perish
in the wickedness of the city." (Gen.19:15) A natural disaster....no, a Super-
natural one.
Those who trivialize the sins of those cities as simply acts of "in-hospitality" should read how God "rewarded" the "inhospitality": "And The Lord
rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from The Lord out of
Heaven. And He destroyed these cities, and all things that spring from the earth."
(Gen.19:24-25) Why, then, are God's words ignored....because those ignoring them strive to have certain mortal sins re-defined as "acts of virtue", implying that
the Church has been canonizing the wrong people for 2,000 years. How tragic!
"...they are blind guides of blind men. But if a blind man guide a blind man, both
fall into a pit." (Mt.15:14)
Another example, which I wish to elaborate on, consisted of two occasions when Jesus miraculously multiplied a few loaves and fishes into food
for thousands. Again, some deny these miracles, calling His efforts "gestures"
meant to induce those with food (customarily carried in knapsacks) to share with
those less fortunate. Is this conclusion Scriptural....or has the wish become father
to the thought? Let us journey back in time to those events, searching for confir-
mation of the "knapsack solution."
The first multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes
The disciples came to Jesus, saying:"...This is a desert place and the hour is already late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food. But Jesus said to them:'they do not need to go away; you yourselves give them some food.' They answered Him: ' We have here only five loaves and two fishes."' (Mt.14:16-17) Of knapsacks....no mention. He then told them to bring this food to Him. The Miraculous Multiplication was about to take place. After Jesus blessed the loaves & fishes His disciples gave them to the
crowds :"And all ate and were satisfied..." (cf.Mt.14:19-21) Incidentally, St.Mark
(6:41-42), St.Luke (9:16) and St.John (6:11) all confirm that the crowd consumed
the "blessed" loaves and fishes....and not one mentioned "knapsacks". Five
loaves fed thousands and filled 12 baskets with fragments. Miraculous! As at Cana,
Nature bowed to the will of its Creator. If only Man would learn to do the same.
The second multiplication of the loaves and fishes
The events of the second miraculous multiplication, this time for 4,000 men and their families, mirror those of the first. Hear Our Lord:"I have compassion on the crowd, for they have now been with Me three days, and have nothing to eat; and I am unwilling to send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way."(Mt.15:32). Now, hear the clear words of Jesus,spoken later :"When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments
did you take up? They said to Him, 'twelve'. And when I broke the seven loaves
among four thousand, how many large baskets of fragments did you take up?
They said,'seven'"...(Mark 8:19). Imagine...twelve loaves feeding 9,000 men as
well as the women and children! Miracles....not "gestures", for the food shared
at these two events came not from "knapsacks" but from the Hands of God;
truly a pre-figuration of The Eucharist: "Do not labor for the food that perishes,
but for that which endures unto life everlasting, which the Son of Man will give
you..." (John 6:27)
Conclusion
In our quest for freedom, to subvert God's Truth only tightens
the chains which bind us, making freedom even more elusive. Let us return to the
words of Jesus, quoted earlier ("...Everyone who is of the truth, hears My voice.")
and ask ourselves: are we listening....and, if not, why not?
"For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adult-
erous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also
be ashamed when He comes with the holy angels in the
glory of His Father." (Mk.8:38)
Humbly, yours in Christ,
Robert Quinn
This letter may be freely reproduced by any recipient
-------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure who Robert Quinn is, but the message in this email is orthodox and timeless. - ct
EMAIL FROM DR. BOND
Dear Friends,
Here is another article on the suppressed Society of Saint John's move to South America:
http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/06-03-09/head2-priests.html
Pax vobiscum,
Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond
