No smoke. No mirrors. Just a simple, totally “orthodox” explanation of key Old and New Testament Scriptures and the divine connections between the Bible, Jesus, Mary, the Evangelists, the Early Church Fathers, the constant teachings of the Catholic Church, and the authentic beliefs and practices of the Christian faithful.
Most people have probably never heard, read, or seen this information before – but it’s all true and it’s all right there in the Bible, for anyone to plainly see.
Can you tell your aspergillum from your alb? Your cassock from your chasuble? Take our quiz on all things Roman Catholic to test your knowledge of one of the world’s oldest, largest, and most powerful institutions.
Editor’s note: This quiz will probably pose a bit of a challenge, for most Catholics.
The use “MOTHER OF HARLOTS”, while it is commonly attributed to the Vatican’s Mariology as the worship of Ishtar, history records that the worship of Ishtar “Kilili,” or “Queen of Harlots,” originated from Arabia, not Rome [Patricia Turner and Charles Russell Coulter, Dictionary of Ancient Deities, page 242, Ishtar, Oxford University Press US, 2001].
In fact, when Muslims roam roundabout the black stone, it is a throwback to the worship of Ishtar whom they called Athtar and Allat.
When it comes to the Harlot woman, the Ka’ba is a perfect match; the black tarp is considered by Muslims a woman’s dress (kiswa), as Edward Gibbons elaborated: “The kiswa of the magnificent Ka’ba is what is used for clothing of a [virtuous] covering, on top of it, it is written, the Kaaba’s dressing, meaning ‘we have dressed her her dress.” [“The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, Volume 6, Chap. 1]
Everything that describes the harlot fits the Ka’ba: dress, pearls, jewels, gold, silver and even the blasphemies etched in silver threads with golden inlays across her attire. Just the doors of the Ka’ba alone has 280 kilograms of pure gold.
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
Among the patients admitted was a boy about nine years old. He had been sled-riding down hill, lost control of the sled and ran into a tree head-on. He fractured his skull and X-rays showed he had suffered severe brain damage.
When I finally got to visit his room at the hospital, he had been in a coma for ten days, no speech, no voluntary movements of the body. His condition was such that the only question was whether he would live. There was no question of recovering from what was diagnosed as permanent and inoperable brain damage.
After blessing the boy and consoling his parents, I was about to leave his hospital room. But then a thought came to me. “That Vincentian priest. He said, ‘The Miraculous Medal works.’ Now this will be a test of its alleged miraculous powers!”
I didn’t have a Miraculous Medal of my own. And everyone I asked at the hospital also did not have one. But I persisted, and finally one of the nursing sisters on night duty found a Miraculous Medal.
What I found out was that you don’t just bless the medal, you have to put it around a person’s neck on a chain or ribbon. So the sister-nurse found a blue ribbon for the medal, which made me feel silly. What was I doing with medals and blue ribbons.
However, I blessed the medal and had the father hold the leaflet for investing a person in the Confraternity of the Miraculous Medal.
I proceeded to recite the words of investiture. No sooner did I finish the prayer of enrolling the boy in the Confraternity than he opened his eyes for the first time in two weeks. He saw his mother and said, “Ma, I want some ice cream.” He had been given only intravenous feeding.
Then he proceeded to talk to his father and mother. After a few minutes of stunned silence, a doctor was called. The doctor examined the boy and told the parents they could give him something to eat.
The next day began a series of tests on the boy’s condition. X-rays showed the brain damage was gone.
Then still more tests. After three days, when all examinations showed there was complete restoration to health, the boy was released from the hospital.
This experience so changed my life that I have not been the same since. My faith in God, faith in His power to work miracles, was strengthened beyond description.
In Florida, a female student survived a rampage by notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, who murdered other girls in her sorority house but stopped in his tracks upon entering her room.
Later, Bundy said “a mysterious force” stopped him.
The student was praying the Rosary.
814 From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God’s gifts and the diversity of those who receive them. Within the unity of the People of God, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. Among the Church’s members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. “Holding a rightful place in the communion of the Church there are also particular Churches that retain their own traditions.” The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church’s unity. Yet sin and the burden of its consequences constantly threaten the gift of unity. And so the Apostle has to exhort Christians to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
815 What are these bonds of unity? Above all, charity “binds everything together in perfect harmony.” But the unity of the pilgrim Church is also assured by visible bonds of communion:
816 “The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. … This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.”
One of the battle-cries of the Protestant Reformation was “Faith Alone!” One key conviction that united the many disparate strands of the Reformation was that it is impossible to earn God’s favor by our good works . . . that we rather we receive his love as a pure gift, a grace, through faith.
Now consider Mary. Did she crisscross the Mediterranean planting Churches like Paul? Did she give eloquent sermons like Stephen (Acts 7)? Did she govern the Church like Peter? No. Her claim to fame is that she simply said yes to God. She believed He could do as he said and would do as He said.
1st page: Doug “walks” you through:
step-by-step, bead-by-bead and prayer-by-prayer.
2nd page: Complete, traditional diagram:
includes all the prayers and mysteries,
as well as which days to pray them.
3rd page: How to pray a “Stripped Down, Emergency Rosary”
that almost anyone can do, in virtually any situation;
In case JESUS suddenly returns,
NUKES fly, the proverbial ASTEROID hits,
or … whatever!
The only time chastity and abstinence ever resulted in a birth
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Mary’s virginity
496 From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived “by the Holy Spirit without human seed”.146 The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says:
497 The Gospel accounts understand the virginal conception of Jesus as a divine work that surpasses all human understanding and possibility:148 “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit”, said the angel to Joseph about Mary his fiancee.149 The Church sees here the fulfillment of the divine promise given through the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.”150
498 People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St. Mark’s Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus’ virginal conception. Some might wonder if we were merely dealing with legends or theological constructs not claiming to be history. To this we must respond: Faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with the lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension of non-believers, Jews and pagans alike;151 so it could hardly have been motivated by pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age. The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which understands in it the “connection of these mysteries with one another”152 in the totality of Christ’s mysteries, from his Incarnation to his Passover. St. Ignatius of Antioch already bears witness to this connection: “Mary’s virginity and giving birth, and even the Lord’s death escaped the notice of the prince of this world: these three mysteries worthy of proclamation were accomplished in God’s silence.”153
Mary – “ever-virgin”
499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man.154 In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.”155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary asAeiparthenos, the “Ever-virgin”.156
500 Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus.157 The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, “brothers of Jesus”, are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary”.158 They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.159
501 Jesus is Mary’s only son, but her spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed he came to save: “The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, that is, the faithful in whose generation and formation she co-operates with a mother’s love.”160
Mary’s virginal motherhood in God’s plan
502 The eyes of faith can discover in the context of the whole of Revelation the mysterious reasons why God in his saving plan wanted his Son to be born of a virgin. These reasons touch both on the person of Christ and his redemptive mission, and on the welcome Mary gave that mission on behalf of all men.
503 Mary’s virginity manifests God’s absolute initiative in the Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father. “He was never estranged from the Father because of the human nature which he assumed. . . He is naturally Son of the Father as to his divinity and naturally son of his mother as to his humanity, but properly Son of the Father in both natures.”161
504 Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary’s womb because he is the New Adam, who inaugurates the new creation: “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.”162 From his conception, Christ’s humanity is filled with the Holy Spirit, for God “gives him the Spirit without measure.”163 From “his fullness” as the head of redeemed humanity “we have all received, grace upon grace.”164
505 By his virginal conception, Jesus, the New Adam, ushers in the new birth of children adopted in the Holy Spirit through faith. “How can this be?”165 Participation in the divine life arises “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God”.166 The acceptance of this life is virginal because it is entirely the Spirit’s gift to man. The spousal character of the human vocation in relation to God167 is fulfilled perfectly in Mary’s virginal motherhood.
506 Mary is a virgin because her virginity is the sign of her faith “unadulterated by any doubt”, and of her undivided gift of herself to God’s will.168 It is her faith that enables her to become the mother of the Savior: “Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ.”169
507 At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization of the Church: “the Church indeed. . . by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother. By preaching and Baptism she brings forth sons, who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God, to a new and immortal life. She herself is a virgin, who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse.”170
Those familiar with scripture will readily recall that the heart has a prominent place in both testaments.
In the Old Testament, God complains, through the prophets, about the superficial worship of the people, who offer material sacrifice, but their hearts are far from him. Proverbs speaks of wisdom entering one’s heart (Prov 2:10), the need to trust the Lord with all one’s heart (3.5), how a perverted heart devises evil (Prov 6.14), and that the Lord weighs the heart (Prov 21:2).
At the beginning of the New Testament, Mary is described as treasuring and pondering events in her heart. Then, there is that intense preacher in the desert, St. John the Baptist, who had people travel from all over the country into the desert to experience his ministry. What did his speech have that converted such difficult categories of people, like the greedy tax collectors, the tough military, and the professional prostitutes? Even the haughty King Herod listened to his prisoner’s words.
The key is found in his description as ardens et lucens, ardent and illuminating. He appealed to both the mind, and to the heart. Malachi foretold a prophet who would turn the hearts of fathers to the children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. This was mentioned by Gabriel to John’s father, Zachary, in the Temple.
The Letters of St. Paul frequently speak in reference to the heart, such as when he asks Philemon to “refresh [his] heart in Christ” (Phlm1:20). Christ always pleads with others in the hope their exchange enlarges his hearers’ hearts towards him.
Just when it looked as if the early church would be snuffed out by the heavy hand of the Roman Emperor, the 4th century Emperor Constantine miraculously converted to Christianity and became one of the greatest benefactors of the church.
Just when it looked as if the entirety of western civilization might be wiped out, in the 5th century fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church miraculously stepped up, preserved all that was good, and successfully rebuilt all the rest in the image of Heaven, complete with a Millennium of relative peace and prosperity.
Just when it looked as if the Protestant Reformation would fatally splinter the church into thousands of virtually unrecognizable fragments, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in the Americas, and caused millions of pagan souls to enter the church … more than enough to offset all that was lost, back in Europe.
In more recent times, just as the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union and its ignominious “Iron Curtain” was expected to become a permanent feature of the modern world, a Polish Pope emerged, who somehow managed to cause that wall to come down and the entire godless empire to spontaneously collapse, freeing millions of souls to worship God, in spirit and in truth.
Today, the Russians are arguably more fervent in their Christian faith than either the Americans or the Europeans.
The Catholic faith on the African Continent is also growing by supernatural leaps and bounds!
Who knows what God has in store for us?
But, based on all that has come before, we must continue to have faith in Divine Providence, while striving to live according to his just precepts.
And in this messed up modern world, that will be not be an easy thing to do!
Every photo ever taken of the beautiful Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
Submitted by Nancy W.
The following catechesis was prepared in 2000 under the direction of the North American prior provincials of the Carmelite Order and the Order of Discalced Carmelites as the Carmelite Family prepared to celebrate the 750 anniversary of the Brown Scapular.
The One selected to become the Mother of God was given a unique kind of preservative so that She would not be in any way contaminated and thus unfit for Her divine maternity. This intervention of God, this reaching out into history to interrupt the normal flow of the ‘bug’ of original sin is given its precise theological name in the prayer that I will say after the Offertory; the name for it “prevenient grace.”
I dare say that the word ‘grace’ alone is a word that, while common enough in our language, is little understood by the majority of Catholic people. When one adds to that the rare word ‘prevenient’ many will not have a clue to the meaning. And while this usage of some uncommon terminology was one of the major criticisms of the new English text (it is supposed to be too lofty for the comprehension of the lay people), one cannot on that account omit or dismiss the realities such theological words signify.
‘Prevenient grace’ is a gift that God gives ‘before’ or ‘in anticipation of’ some benefit. In this case, God gave to Mary beforehand the gift of sanctifying grace which was not yet given to the rest of humanity until Christ’s redeeming death on the cross.
… let us continue to do all that is necessary for our own salvation and for those entrusted to our care. We need to be soldiers of Christ and for Christ. Cradle Catholics like me know the holy drill well enough, at least in part, but it nevertheless bears repeating.
Following the four divisions of the doctrines of salvation found in The Catechism of the Council of Trent: the Apostles Creed (what we are to believe); the Sacraments (the instruments of grace); the Ten Commandments (what we must do); and the Lord’s Prayer (whatever can be the object of the Christian’s desires, or hopes, or prayers), let us strive to:
Free Download – The Catechism of the Council of Trent (PDF)
Modern “sophisticated scholars” cast doubt on this tradition as pious legend.
However, by the 400s it was universally believed that Mary lived at the Temple from the age of 3 till 14.**
Moreover, the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church confirm that the Blessed Virgin was in fact consecrated at the Temple to serve therein.
What was Mary’s life like before the angel Gabriel appeared to her?
Mary’s early years are shrouded in mystery. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about her existence before the Annunciation. However, the few details that the Gospel of Luke provides allow us at least, to catch a glimpse of Mary’s life before the fateful day when she would become the mother of the Messiah.
The True Story of Our Salvation In Jesus Christ
Perfect for Lent.
The “Hows” and “Whys” are explored and illuminated
according to the official rubrics of The Sacred Deposit of the Faith,
suitably enhanced by authentic, insightful excerpts
from the writings and reflections of some of the greatest
theologians, saints and scholars, of all time.
One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
The masterful expressions and subtle nuances
of the classic illustrations greatly enhance the overall experience.
PART ONE:
The primeval events
that resulted in the Fall of Man (PDF)
PART TWO:
The totally gratuitous
saving works of God (PDF)
PART THREE:
Why we venerate
the Blessed Virgin Mary (PDF)
PART FOUR:
The mystery
of our redemption
revealed (PDF)
PART FIVE:
The spiritually vital mission
of the Holy Church (PDF)
PART SIX:
Our personal identity
in Jesus Christ (PDF)
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