Listen to one key thing towards the beginning about Satan's tactics to confuse faithful Catholics. There will be lots of Catholic surroundings to them, surroundings that are of themselves good. But Satan is sly - he'll slip that one teensy little poison pill in there and spiritual confusion will result.
The problem with this thinking is the 70,000 people who saw the miracle of the sun at Fatima would have never been there if they waited for the Church to approve it. In every work of God in this life the wheat and the tares grow together at times and hard to distinguish, sometime its obvious sometimes not. But over 30 million people have been to Medjugore plus the many prayer groups around the world and enormous fruit. That can hardly been said for any of the other 'visitations' Voris mentioned. Plus because of the state of the world and the Church only drastsic measures will turn things around which is why I believe in it. Prayer, Fasting, Repentance greatly needed to save this world now. People think it is hard to believe because she has been appearing for so long. Well, Jesus is Present in every tabernacle in every Catholic Church in the world 24x7 plus He walked this Earth for 33 years. I don't find the longevity of the apparitions a problem when you consider this and the drastic state of this world. But those others he mentinoned are obviously dubious just looking at the fruit and the 'messages'.
ReplyDeleteAt Fatima the Church had pronounced no opinion at the time of the miracle. Moreover, there were only 6 - 10 apparitions altogether. Both bishops of Mostar ruled that nothing supermatural is occurring at Medjugorge. I too believed that apparition until I actually read books about it, books that were favorable to the apparition. One was Rene Laurentin's. The heresy of indifferentism was peppered throughout. I agree that there's prayer, fasting, etc. That's part of the Catholic cloaking of the little grain of poison that Satan interjects. It's the prayer and fasting, etc that produces the fruit, not the apparition itself.
DeleteI don't have a strong opinion on this subject, but why would Satan encourage people to pray and fast if it produces good fruit? If that's what's continuing to happen after all these years, wouldn't he change his MO?
DeleteI more or less answered that in the second sentence of the post. Satan, possessing angelic intelligence, is sly. He'll let good things happen if he thinks that will further his ultimate objective for an occurrence. If he can induce a hankering for more "mystical" experience or slip something like indifferentism into the mix, I can see him letting some "good fruit" happen. It's much like a chess game; sometimes one has to sacrifice a piece to obtain the check-mate.
DeleteIf the Devil is afraid for one thing it is the Blessed Virgin and the rosary.
DeleteSo why would he so enormously endorse the praying of the rosary and the devotion to Mary?
That is totally unlogic .
Maybe he provokes a disobedience, but nót disobedience to faith or morals .
What are we talking about anyhow?
Here in the Netherlands 175.000 out of 4 million catholics attend mass weekly. Of those 175.000 only a small percentage ± 10% is not opposed to the teaching on things like contraception , gay marriage , divorce , etc.
If the people who go the Medjugorje are on the wrong path - despite praying the rosary , attending mass , monthly confession , etc - how much are a huge percentage of catholics on the wrong path in practically totally abandoning the faith ?
It simply can not be the case that the Devil is saying: pray the whole rosary every day, go to mass every day if possible, go to confession every month , fast .
I'm quite surprised at Michael Voris's negativity on Medjugorje. To my knowledge he has never been there and is entertaining an established sceptic like E Michael Jones. Me and my wife spent 2 weeks in Medjugorje in 2012 and found it a wonderful spiritual experience. We observed the outer ring of the setting sun spinning anticlockwise one evening as did others (not with us) at the same time. To see hundreds queueing for confession is a testimony to the title given to Medjugorje as the "Confessional of the world". So many repenting souls would hardly be what Satan would desire.
ReplyDeleteYou imply that those hundreds were not confessing before their pilgrimage, and if that is the case, they were ripe for deception.
DeleteFirt; the magisterium has not yet pronounced definitely on Medjugorje. The Magisterium has not yet said that the apparitions are false.
DeleteThe Bishop of medjugorje / Mostar has indeed said so, that it is false but the case of Medjugorje has been taken out of the hand of the local bishop, and placed in the hands of the bishops conference of former yugoslavia in 1991 .
The didnt pronounce a constat de non ( it is false) , the pronounced a non constat, which means that it can not be established that the apparition are supernatural - but also not that they are false.
Now the Vatican has started and concluded their own investigation.
This being said, the approval or disapproval of an apparition is not a matter of faith and morals!
Even if the church approves an apparition you dont have to believe it!
You are not bound by the Magisterium to believe it , contrary to matters of faith and morals .
An approval or disapproval of an apparition is not an infallible pronouncement . This does not main that one can discard an pronouncement on an apparition .
But for example in the case of Sr. Faustina and the devotion of the mercy chaplet, this was for a long time forbidden by the local bishop and by the CDF . Till JP II did approve it.
All the controversy surrounding Medjugorje should be seen for what it is, Satan attempting to create confusion where ever Our Lord and His Blessed Mother are Truly appearing. It happened nearly 2000 years ago with Christ Himself, and it has been happening for nearly 2000 years regarding the Catholic Church. Satan never causes controversy over his Lutheran inspired church or any of the countless other churches inspired by him. If Medjugorje were Truly of the Devil there would be no controversy because Satan does not fight against himself, but only against God. The greatest problem facing our world today is the fact there is very little faith which is why men like Michael Voris cannot and thus do not believe in Our Lady of Medjugorje.
ReplyDeleteThe apparitions have, at best, not been approved by the local bishops so we cannot say with certitude that the apparitions are those of Our Lady. As I said above Satan is sly and he could very well put on an appearance of fighting demons so as to deceive people; why put that past him? Yes, there is little faith in the world, but to extrapolate that as a reason why Voris doesn't believe Medjugorje is quite a distortion of logic.
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