oct 2020 faithposting

[prismaticbleed]

I'm grateful for where I'm at.

I'm excited for where I'm going.
God has preserved me in His grace and mercy thus far.
God will carry me onwards and upwards from here on out.

Thanks be to God for every moment of it all!
 

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I'm watching the Beatification Mass of Blessed Carlos Acutis, and telling my grandmother about his life, as she has never heard of him before. But she just stopped me and said "I just don't understand. How can he be a saint if he worked with computers?" I explained that God can use anything for His glory, even computers and the internet, through those who love Him. I showed her the Bible on my phone and explained that God can reach millions of people all over the world through technology that may not otherwise have access to His Word. But she is still shaking her head, saying she does not understand how God could be glorified through computers.

Do any fellow Catholics here have further advice on how I can help her with this struggle? In any case, do pray that her heart and mind (and mine) may be opened more to see the work of God in all things, and to participate wholeheartedly in that work. Thank you. 🙏❤

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All are sinners. But one can become the least of sinners by always seeing Christ in others. Humility is rooted in LOVE!!

Our sins make us unworthy of peace, but through Christ's forgiveness we get the grace of HIS PEACE!

FRACTIO PANIS.

Gosh I just love the faith SO MUCH ;___;

"This is my body, given up for you"-- WE SAY THIS BACK TO JESUS!!

"Thy Kingdom Come" = relevance of God to our daily life; slow transmutation of a stolen kingdom into HEAVEN through bringing CHRIST into it again THROUGH HIS CHURCH.


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God loves to teach the humble, those with open hearts to Him, who listen and look for Him always. It’s beautiful to realize how much more there IS to realize through Him– more than we can fathom! It’s a grand universe and it all belongs to Him, for He made it… and only He can teach us about it, about ourselves, and about Himself. But He does. And that’s such a blessed grace.

Let yourself fail, and try again.

Only the humble can enjoy the grace of failure. Only the humble can build castles from ashes. The proud would rather sit in a ruin, insisting everything is fine.
Let yourself fail. You’re not perfect and you never will be. That’s okay. Only God is perfect, and only God can be perfect. But if you acknowledge this, and confess your helplessness to Him, He will help you. He will perfectly use even your failures for His glory. And that is worth rejoicing over!

pixy-el-returnth: Yes, ever since I’ve been mentally praying, reading saints and biblical quotes and writings, my tarot readings recently are *unreal*. The gift of prophecy is a real thing.

I’d be concerned that this boost in the accuracy of your tarot readings is actually a devilish ploy to “validate” itself by claiming direct association with your spiritual progress. In truth, the devil sees your increase of prayer & religious devotion as a threat, and so he makes it look like that devotion is affecting the cards. It’s not. He’s stealing credit. He doesn’t want you to stop reading tarot so he presents it as “not really witchcraft” by convincing you, falsely, that its prophecies are from God. They’re not. You’re being duped. You’re still trying to take control of the future out of God’s hands. You’re letting the devil construct a narrative and you’re playing right into it. And as for “knowledge” readings, you think the devil can’t tell you your own thoughts? You think he can’t play you like a fiddle with all of this? It’s like a cellphone overhearing you talk about dinner, so it immediately begins advertising local restaurants to you. It’s not psychic. It’s just built by clever people who want your money and don’t care about your privacy. The devil wants your soul and he doesn’t care how many lies and schemes and games he has to invent to get it.
Yes, prophecy is a gift of the Holy Spirit. But it’s also a ‘gift’ of spirits. False prophets exist too, and they’re effectively broken clocks– right twice a day– who make sure people only see them “telling time” AT those times. Demons aren’t stupid. They used to be angels. They are FAR more intelligent than humans, with just as much power to pull it off. They may indeed look beautiful and act reliable and speak with authority and guidance, but deep down they are as burnt dark and frozen solid as hell both. They are liars and betrayers by nature and believe me you will not even suspect it until its too late. I know. I have been used, and I STILL get tricked. I used to do all that “witchy” stuff; I was convinced it was helping me grow in Christ– it sure seemed to be, even to those around me– but in actuality, it was sneakily drawing me further and further away… and when I finally realized it, I was almost too far gone to save. The “god” I had been pursuing was a false one and I hadn’t recognized the mask because I hadn’t known God’s real Face well enough to tell the difference.
Don’t give the devil any opportunity. If you let him have an inch he will steal a mile, and everything else that isn’t nailed down. Religion, and witchcraft, never happen in halves. There is no “dabbling.” It’s all or nothing, and we humans don’t make the rules. You can’t split loyalties. You cannot serve two masters. And you can never be too careful.

 

"Whoever like me has lost grace let him wrestle manfully with evil spirits. Know that you yourself are to blame: you fell into pride and vanity, and the Lord in His mercy is showing you what it means to be in the Holy Spirit and what it means to wage war against evil spirits. Thus the soul learns by experience the harm that comes of pride, and so shuns vainglory and the praises of man, and evil thoughts."
-St. Silouan the Athonite
 

God is never to blame! But He shows His Justice and Mercy both in letting us experience the consequences of our sin, for we learn its terror firsthand, so as to flee from it all the more readily in the future, by help of His grace, which He will return compassionately to those who humbly and contritely seek His Face after every battle.

Sin is our own fault. But the war against the devil continues nevertheless until death. Do not lose hope! Return to the Lord with all your heart! Christ is the ultimate victor. He will sustain your feeble soul to the end.

 

“Mankind must join a sort of resistance movement. What will become of our world if it does not look for intervals of silence? Interior rest and harmony can flow only from silence. Without it, life does not exist. The greatest mysteries of the world are born and unfold in silence. How does nature develop? In the greatest silence. A tree grows in silence, and springs of water flow at first in the silence of the ground. The sun that rises over the earth in its splendor and grandeur warms us in silence. What is extraordinary is always silent. In his mother’s womb, an infant grows in silence... God is silence, and this divine silence dwells within a human being. By living with the silent God, and in Him, we ourselves become silent. Nothing will more readily make us discover God than this silence inscribed at the heart of our being. I am not afraid to state that to be a child of God is to be a child of silence.”
~Cardinal Robert Sarah

 

Deep and simple truths, disastrously overlooked and forgotten. Silence is truly the “language of God.”
My priest told me this week: keep your tongue from all idle talk! Speak only to edify others, and let your silence bring both your own soul and the souls of others into intimate communion with God! The less we talk, the more we pray… the more we pray, the more we love Him… the more we love Him, the more our lives will conform to His Holy Will. So we truly become His Children.

 

"Acknowledge the graces you have received and those I have granted through you. But also thank me, in faith, for all your humiliations, limitations, and sufferings—physical and moral. You will not grasp the full meaning of them except in eternity, where your heart will beat with admiration for my gentle divine pedagogy. Thank me, too, for all those men and women—brothers and sisters known or unknown, remembered or not—whom I gave you as fellow travelers. By their prayers linked to mine, by their moral and spiritual assistance, they have helped you a great deal. I am the one who, at the right time, gave them to you."
- Jesus, to Gaston Courtois

Everything in our lives comes from God– there are no exceptions, for all is subject to His Omnipotence and His Omniscience. So give thanks in every circumstance. He is Sovereign over it all. Trust in this always.

We also forget: graces granted to others through us; the hidden sanctification in bearing our humiliations and limitations; our unknown fellow travelers in Christ who help us in anonymity. Reflect on all of this deeply, and be grateful, for the mysterious glory of God shines through every facet of it.

alexmonacella: Wake us to Your presence, Lord, that we might not waste our times of trial. What would you teach us today in our trials, Lord? Make us receptive! Help us see your victory and compassion rather than look for easy answers to our troubles. So make us expectant, Lord, and patient. Amen.

Every moment is a gift from God, meant to bring us closer to Him in love. Our trials, united to the Cross of Christ, are indeed great blessings that we must never waste. God, open our eyes and our hearts that we may never seek to escape our sufferings, but that we may instead embrace them through your Son, and so humbly and obediently learn to know and adore You all the more completely!

All things are temporary, even the biggest crisis! God alone is eternal. He is in charge even now, and when this time is complete, He will still be in charge, wisely and justly and mercifully ordaining what comes next. I, too, am full of hope and faithful expectation when I remember this. Whatever happens next, it’s God’s will, and that is all we need to rejoice in it. ❤

alexmonacella: Lord, if we are to be afraid of anything, let it be the fear of not committing ourselves fully to you. Let us fear that the day will pass without our having lightened the load of another. Let us fear that someone will come looking for you and find only us. Amen.

This hits hard.

Truly, this is the essence of holy fear– it is ultimately the fear of not loving God enough. Let us strive, then, to love and serve Him always, denying our selves, so that all who meet us will meet Christ as we let Him work through us!

“If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”

— - Mother Teresa

Our faith– our religion– requires daily devoted effort. It can be arduous work, but God will give us all the oil of grace we need, if only we ask for it, and put it to proper use. Pray, and persevere!

“Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.”

— Bl. John Cardinal Henry Newman

Death is before us all daily. Has your life yet sincerely began? Have you died to sin; do you live in Christ? Ask yourself this every moment– you are not guaranteed tomorrow!

“You can’t go to heaven hating somebody. Forgive now. Be compassionate now. Be patient now. Be grateful now. Love Jesus and Mary now. Accept God’s will now.”

— Mother Angelica

A true Catholic lives in the “now”– for we know we are never guaranteed a tomorrow. We must love and serve God right now, not only because our time is short, but also because postponing our acts of love is honestly unthinkable! Why would you ever wait to praise and obey and adore your beloved God? Why would you ever wait to feed the hungry, care for the sick, comfort the afflicted, and forgive the injurious?

Heaven is always just a heartbeat away… but so is hell. Don’t waste the time God gave you. Use every breath for good. Live for God now!

cassianus: “Why are vigil lamps lit before icons? One reason is that in order to teach us that just as the vigil lamp cannot be lit without our hand, so too, our heart, our inward vigil lamp, cannot be lit without the holy fire of God’s grace, even if it were to be filled with all the virtues. All these virtues of ours are, after all, like combustible material, but the fire which ignites them proceeds from God.”

This is a beautifully simple and powerful illustration of the fact that “without God we can do nothing,” and that only cooperative humility gains and utilizes grace. The proud, who try to light their own fire, and resist all submission, will fail, for God is the only Light and we must be meekly open to His Will, to the work of His Hand illuminating our hearts, in order to shine at all… and yet, it is still our responsibility to furnish our hearts with virtue, to fill our lamps with good fuel, so that when God’s fire comes to us, we will be able to hold it within us, and let it burn all the more ardently!

 

thelefthandbonch-deactivated202: If we don’t teach the concept of Hell, there is no point to ever sharing Jesus. We teach Jesus saves but if we aren’t saying what Jesus is saving us from, we create a pointless Gospel... There is a consequence to not repenting of our sins, accepting Christ as savior, and loving God. That consequence is repeated by Jesus again and again in the Gospels. It is a key part of the Gospels.

catholicismandpharmacy: this is what i was getting at when i was explaining why balthasar’s theory is so toxic; it is not possible to separate the love for God and the fear of His wrath while still maintaining true Christianity

 

The entire point of Jesus's Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection was to reconcile us to God by making an infinitely sufficient atonement for our sins-- by which we are damned to die by the very nature of sin-- so we can, through faith in His Life and Death and the purposes of such, also die to sin and therefore live in Him unto eternal life, which we can ONLY access through His atoning sacrifice on our behalf.

The wages of sin is death. The rejection of Christ is self-annihilatory. Hell exists, and it's where all those who deny God and His Son must inevitably go BECAUSE they have spurned the ONLY Way into Heaven.

God loves us enough to die for us, but that truth is united with the fact that He only HAD to die for us because if He didn't, we would be dead in our sins and doomed to eternal damnation-- doomed to hell. God hates sin so much, that His love for us prompted His Self-sacrifice on our behalf. Again, His Wrath is just as divine as His Love, and in this vital respect the two are inseparably connected.

 

 

writhe: me, every second of my life: but is it meaningful? but is it meaningful? but is it meaningful?

 

Do everything for the love and glory of God, and even your most seemingly insignificant actions will become infused with heavenly merit and purpose. Charity gives life an eternal meaning that no earthly thing can ever diminish.