He Is Like A Refiner's Fire

Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

But who will endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like the refiner's fire,

Do we really want this thing to happen? I mean Malachi tells us that the Lord is going to be like a refining fire.  You know, when you mine silver or gold a lot of things can contaminate the end product which makes it worth a lot less than it could be.  So the refiner builds a fire, not just any fire, but one that is so hot that it melts the gold or silver and burns away the imperfections in it. The end result is pure, uncontaminated, the best that it can be. 

I know that Protestants and even some Catholics do not believe that there is such a place as Purgatory. But this reading from Malachi, what else can it mean?  If we take the proposition that God is Holy and that nothing unclean or unholy can be around him, doesn't it make sense that He would put into place a way for the dross to be burned away so that his faithful child, one that died in His friendship, could prepare him or her self to be with Him in heaven?  But, did not the sacrificial death of Jesus redeem us fully and give us a ticket to enter the pearly gates?  Yes, Jesus died for our sins and they are all forgiven but what justice would there be, for example, if you were a thief and you stole and then you were "saved" and your sin was forgiven, the person you stole from would still be out the money unless you repaid him. 

Every sin we commit has two effects on our soul. In the case of a serious sin, also called mortal sin, it breaks the relationship between God and his child. In the case of a minor offense, called a venial sin, the relationship is not broken but there is an obstacle between Father and child.  The relationship is still there but there is, for lack of a better word, a bump that needs to be smoothed.  For us Catholics, we have the assurance that our sins are forgiven when we confess them and accept the mercy of God in the confessional.   The sin is forgiven for sure but the attachment to that sin, the temporal satisfaction required to remedy what we have done is still there.  We can satisfy this temporal satisfaction by prayer, fasting, giving alms while we live.  Now if we die and we have an unforgiven mortal sin on our soul, there is no hope for us, we will end up in hell with the devil.  If the mortal sin had been rectified in the sacrament of confession, but we never satisfied the temporal requirement to purge it from our soul, we will have to do so after death.  It is the same for venial sin.  The time for making up for temporal things is while we are on earth.  While we live we can sacrifice and do penance and satisfy the obligation.  Once we have died, we will need to go through the refiner's fire which we call Purgatory.   We ourselves will choose to go there for we will know that we are not ready for heaven.  Does this sound like a fairy tale?  Here is another example.  You and John were the best of friends, you went to school together and all through life you kept up your friendship.  One day you were called to John's bedside as he lay there dying.  He calls you close and confesses that in second grade he was the one that stole your pencil, the one with black lead on one side and red lead on the other.  He stole it because he wanted to annoy you. You cherished that pencil.  As he takes his last breath, you tell him how much you hate him for stealing that pencil.  Some years later, you die and you never gave up that hate for John for stealing your pencil.  John is now among the other saints in heaven in the presence of Almighty God.  If you were admitted to heaven with this hate on your soul, what would you do when you saw John for the first time in heaven.  Most likely you would at least have a bad thought or two about him and you would be causing hate to enter heaven and that is an impossibility.  What is God to do with you?  The sin is a minor matter and not worthy of hell, but He cannot admit you to heaven because you are attached to the sin and sin has no place in heaven.  God in His mercy allows you to choose to go to the refiner's fire, to have all of the dross burned out of your soul after which you will be allowed to enjoy heaven forever.   God is that merciful.   So, Purgatory is real because God's love for us and His desire for us to be with Him is real. 

Can you avoid Purgatory?  Sure you can and some of us do avoid Purgatory.  We can do this by living a worthy life, confessing our sins regularly and to do penance for them by sacrificing our time, talent, or treasure in doing some worthy cause.  You see, when you move out of yourself and see how others live, you can be more charitable and loving.  This will help you remove the residual stains on your soul.  God loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for your sins.  He opened the doors of heaven for us so we can live in peace and security with Him forever. 

Humility

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;             
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
for he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
and has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever."

Our wait for Christmas cheer to chase away the gloom of the long winter nights, cheerless cold and damp are coming to an end and the Church presents to us the words of the Virgin Mother of God.  In this prayer of Mary, we hear things that help us see how great she is and how humble she is.  She proclaims how great God is, she calls Him her savior.  How can God be the savior of Mary who was born without original sin?  Did she even need a savior?  The answer of course is, "Yes, Mary needed a savior."  I have addressed this in this blog before, but just to refresh our minds I will show how Mary could be both sinless and still require a savior.  

We must remember that God has always been and He will never have an end.  He is the one absolute in the universe He created from nothing simply by willing it.  He lives outside of the constraints of time and space and lives in the past, the present, and the future (as we see it) all at once.  The Mother of the Son being sent to Earth could have no taint of sin for in effect she would be carrying God inside of her for nine months, in effect, being a tabernacle or perhaps we could call her a human Holy of Holies as she was where God on earth was dwelling. No sin or evil can be in God's presence and that is why the Mother of God needed to be free of the taint of sin.  This was granted to her by God based on the merits of His Son dying on the cross for the sins of man.  God the Father could see this happening clearly and preserved Mary from sin.  Where we were drawn out of the pit of original sin, our bodies bruised by the fall, Mary, was carried over the pit and her soul received no injury from Adam's sin. 

Mary's life was both the same as any other young virgin in her neighborhood.  She would have been taught how to be a homemaker and would have been given the skills to turn a house into a home.  On the other hand, Mary would be quite different than her contemporaries.  From her conception, which came about in the normal way through the passion her mother and father had for each other, her soul would be pure white and this soul would take up residence in her and she would be turned towards God from the first day of her life to her last breath on earth.  She had in her the same free will that all of us were born with but she would be more inclined to say "Yes" to the things God asked her to do.  She could have refused the job of being the Mother of God but was not likely to. 

Well, this is all very well and good for Mary but what does it mean to ordinary people like you and me?  True, we were born under the shadow of original sin and we bear its mark in our soul to this day. This original sin of Adam, however, was removed by our baptism.  On the day of our baptism, we became sinless and we too could use our free will to live in the way God wanted us to live but all of us eventually had moments of weakness where we turned away from God.  This is the difference between us and Mary.  She was, from the day of her conception, able to use her free will to do the things that God asked of her without thinking of herself.  We on the other hand very often look to our own comfort and our own ambition because we exercise our free will to satisfy the "me" that resides inside of our soul.  Mary's first thoughts would be how to serve "thee." 

So in a matter of days, all of our planning for Christmas will bear the fruit of the effort we put into it. The real question will be, have we converted this holy day into a commercial feast or have he taken time to consider what Christmas really means?  

Have you lost someone you love to death recently?  A mother, father, sister or brother?  Perhaps a grandparent has passed away or maybe a close friend?   It is possible that they went right to heaven but maybe not.  We cannot judge the soul of another person, only God can. Purgatory is a place of preparation where the vast majority of us will begin our eternity as we purge those things that are incompatible with the Glory of God.  I am not saying this to be mean, just reminding you of what might be.  I would urge you to pray for the poor souls in purgatory, by name if you think someone you love is there. Your prayers will not be wasted because if the soul you are praying for is not there, the prayers will be applied to another.  Please, in these closing days of Advent, wrap a beautiful present for someone in Purgatory and pray for them.  They will be your forever friend if you do so.   Remember where they are today you someday also you may be. 

All Souls Day - A Final Pilgrimage

For Christ, while we were still helpless,

died at the appointed time for the ungodly.

Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,

though perhaps for a good pperson one

might even find courage to die.

But God proves his love for us

in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

The day will come when each of us will take our last breath and say goodbye to everything that is familiar to us. All of the things that we considered important, all of the property we owned, all of the money we had in the bank will remain behind and only the things that we can carry in our heart will follow us.  This is the truth for all men, not just Christians, or Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists, or even atheists.   Our lot as human beings is the same.  Death pares down the differences between us and makes us all the same. 

But, death does not mean an end, it means only a change. We change mortality for immortality.  We acquire a new dwelling place where we will live forever.  The choices are three, and we ourselves will sentence our souls to what we will know in that awful moment our fate should be.  Heaven for those who are completely turned to God.  Purgatory for those of us who need to release attachments to sin and to purify in us what needs to be purified.  Sadly, for some, hell will be their place of eternal sojourn, forever blaming ourselves for hating God and turning fully away from Him. 

Has someone you've known and loved passed away during this past year?  This holy day was instituted for them.  Take a moment before you retire for the evening and pray for the souls of the dear departed.  Pray especially for the souls that died recently and suddenly who have found themselves unprepared for eternity.  Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory.  They will remember those who prayed for them, even once, and will be forever grateful. 

May the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.   Amen.   

Easter - We Are Risen !

When I was in High School, I was fortunate to have as my public speaking teacher a man by the name of Mr. Cassidy. He was the designer of the Ho-Hum Outline.  It was a guaranteed method of creating a speech that would keep your audience's attention.  One of the steps is Ho Hum, thus the clever name!  This step is to engage your listeners so as to get them to buy into the fact that you are worth listening to.  I mention him because I know if you've been to church either for the Easter Vigil last night or at one of the masses today you probably have heard the words, "Easter People." You probably heard how we are the Easter People and how Jesus rose from the dead.  But did you really consider what this means for you, personally? 

We all will die someday.  The thought of death is one we push out of our mind.  As a matter of fact, death is something that happens to someone else, not to me.  We go to a funeral and in America most often we gaze at the body of the guest of honor, we offer our condolences to the bereaved family.  Our next task is, if possible, to get the heck out of there as soon as possible. The body in the casket hits too close to home, we know that someday that we will be the one that is getting a grand send off.  That day is coming all too soon and we do not want to be reminded of it.  Personally, what I do not like about this death thing is the fact that when I am busy taking my last breaths, the world will be continuing without a thought about what is happening to me.  It is this continuance of routine that really offends me.  I can accept the fact that all of my "stuff" will pass either to another person or end up in a landfill somewhere, I have no problem with that.  I just think that while I am dying, should there be a family celebrating a birthday? Should another family be leaving on a Disney Cruise?  Should my neighbor treat the day as just another work day?  I know that this sounds very silly and self-centered, but hey, that is what is inside of me. 

The messy death of Jesus would have meant very little if that is where the story of Jesus ended. We know not only did it not end there but that His story is never ending. He took upon Himself all of our sins.  He turned our disobedience into obedience. He then did something that no other man had done.  He rose from the dead in a body that people could recognize.  The one who was dead was now alive.  Now, while Jesus was on the cross, the temple crew that was standing nearby mocked Him by saying, "He helped others, He cannot help Himself!"  On the third day, He proved them wrong by rising from the dead.  He stayed on earth another forty days.  He ate with the apostles.  He walked to Emmaus.  He forgave Peter.  He removed the doubt from doubting Thomas. Then he physically rose up to heaven and lives there at the right hand of God. 

What He did, we also will do.  On that Easter morning when the angel rolled away the stone he defeated the final enemy of the human race, death.  When we die, we will immediately be judged. We will choose our destiny, heaven, purgatory, or hell depending on how we lived our life here on earth.  Heaven will be a place of complete joy and happiness.  There will be no sorrow, not a bit of discord or hate.  We will recognize our family and our friends.  We will know people we did not know on earth.  We will be with the saints we prayed to and we will know t the complete love of God.  If we juge ourselves to be not ready we will choose to go to purgatory to prepare ourselves to be received by God. There will be intense joy and intense suffering in purgatory.  The suffering in purgatory will be the fact we are separated from God.  The intense joy will be the knowledge that we will soon be joining Him in heaven.  If we choose hell, I am afraid that there would be no turning back.  The fires of hell are forever and there is no hope of seeing God.  But then again, those that go there made their choice here in life when they turned their backs on God and lived according to their own desires.  The pains of hell are enhanced by the knowledge that the darkness of the loss of God is for eternity. 

The Rising of Jesus from the dead means that we too will rise from the grave.  We too will have a glorified body that will be assumed into heaven. On the last day, that which was subject to corruption will be restored.  The sea will give up her dead, graves will open and all of us will be finally judged and in our new, perfected, glorified bodies will be taken to heaven. 

This is what being an Easter People means.  Death, while still inevitable, looses its power over us and together we will join the angels and saints in heaven. Being an Easter People, we no longer fear death as for us, life is not ended, it is just changed.  Now, does that mean we should do everything possible to hasten our death? No of course not.  Each of us, man, woman, boy, or girl, have a mission on earth, a job that no one else in the universe can do and we have to do it.  Our life is a precious gift that was given to us by a loving and caring God.  All God asks of us is that we try, we may not always succeed.  I am in a choir at my church.  I have the devil of a time reading music, but our leader just asks that we try.  Over the years I have gotten better.  God asks us to try, to work to improving.  We will never be perfect and God knows this.  This is why He has provided us with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Not so that we can sin with impunity but we can reflect and repent and come back into fellowship with Him when we see the error of our ways and He for His part will always welcome us back.  

Death, oh death, where is thy sting?  

Things Protestants Don't Understand About the Church - Praying to Statues and Praying For the Dead

Today, we have a two for one sale.  We will discuss both "praying to statues" and praying for the dead. 

My mother, her name was Violet, passed away many years ago.  I still carry her memory in my heart and I carry a picture of her when she was in the full bloom of her youth in my wallet.  I sometimes will look at that picture and think of all the times she showed her love to me.  I remember her feeding me ice chips when I had my tonsils out at age seven.  I remember how when I was having a problem in school and felt downtrodden and the least of the least, she told me to hold my head up high and be proud of who I am.  I remember during her last sickness, I sat beside her as she lay in the hospital bed, just holding her hand, not saying a word.  The warmth of our hands together sharing the love of a mother to a son and a son to a mother.  All of these memories come flooding back to me because of a little scrap of paper with an image of a person on it.  It is almost a miracle. I bet you thought this paragraph was going to address praying for the dead, but no, this paragraph deals directly with the use of statues in the Catholic Church.  A statue is no more or less than that picture of my mother.  As a Catholic, when I look at a statue, I know I am looking at a piece of carved wood, or molded plaster, or maybe even a plastic Jesus on the dashboard of my car. (You remember the old song, "I don't care if it rains or freezes, as long as I got my plastic Jesus, Sitting on the dashboard of my car.)  As a Catholic Christian, I know that the image has no power to save me because as the Psalms tell us; "They have ears but do not hear. They have mouths but do not talk." (Psalm 115)  
I look at the statue and it brings to mind the story of the saint that is represented.  (See my previous post regarding the communion of saints.) I then pray to the saint asking him or her to pray to Jesus for me just as I might ask you or my pastor or another friend to pray for me. Are there Catholics that actually pray TO statues? I would imagine that there are but these unfortunates are not stable and may be feeble minded. In their case, I am sure God takes that into consideration. A Catholic grounded in his or her faith does not pray to a statue but addresses all prayers to God, sometimes asking the help of a person already enjoying the Beatific Vision. 

It is a fact of life that someday we will inhale our last breath and when we exhale we will next breath the air of eternity.  Of course, I mean this figuratively because a soul does not need to breathe.  So when we die we Catholics believe that we will enter one of three places.  First, we may enter heaven, or purgatory or we may choose hell.  If after death we enter heaven or if we choose hell there is no need for prayer for us.  Heaven, of course, is our ultimate goal, the place that was created for us where we can continue our friendship with God in His august presence.  Hell, is the place we will go to if we have rejected the love of God, preferring our own way to His way and declaring us to be His enemy.  Enter the gates of hell and you are outside the presence of God for all eternity just as you wanted.  No amount of prayer will do you any good because you do not want it, you hate God, and as bad as the suffering is you prefer to be without God.  

The second place is where many of us will choose to go, that is to Purgatory.  Is purgatory in the Bible?  Not by name but it is there all the same. It is for these Poor Souls that we on earth pray for.  We pray for them because they are unable to help themselves.  They need the prayers of the faithful on earth to help them get out of Purgatory.  In 2 Maccabees we find that certain dead soldiers were found to be wearing an idol under their tunics.  The living among them turned to prayer to God and beseeched Him to forgive the sins of those who died.  

But where do we find any teaching about purgatory in the New Testament? As I said the word "Purgatory" is not found in scripture but the principle behind it is clearly mentioned by Paul.  But is a purgatory really necessary or is it an invention to make the Catholic clergy rich?  

You have a friend, his name is Mark.  You and Mark spent your whole life being friends until one day you found out that Mark had stolen your pencil in second grade.  It was a wonderful pencil with red lead on one side and blue on the other.  You loved that pencil.  Sixty years after the event you confront Mark about the pencil.  He confesses to you that he indeed did take the pencil from you when you were not looking.  He asks for your forgiveness and you tell him that you will never forgive him and you walk away.  A few years later Mark dies. You do not go to his funeral, you do not comfort his widow, as a matter of fact, you are happy that the sneak thief is out of your life forever.  Mark for his part, confessed his sinfulness and spent the rest of his life working for the Kingdom of God and following the counsels of Jesus in that he fed the hungry, visited the sick and imprisoned, clothed the naked, and he prayed for you every day.  When he died he was turned completely to God and was welcomed into heaven by the angels and saints and was ushered into the very presence of Jesus.  

You too lived a worthy life, you did all that Jesus commanded just as your friend Mark did but on the day you died, you carried the resentment of the stolen pencil to the grave with you. You began to approach heaven and as you got closer you realized that you were not ready to enter heaven.  What would happen if you met Mark in heaven while you were carrying the resentment about the pencil with you?  You could not greet him as a fellow saint because you had this burden on your soul.  As you got closer and closer to God in heaven, the pain became too great and you knew that the sin on your soul would have to be removed before you could get close to God.  You turned yourself around and chose to enter Purgatory.  There you would remain until the imperfection was cleared away. 

The above is a nice story but isn't that all that it is, a story?   To be honest with you, it is not a story, it is a parable based on Biblical truth.  First of all, in Revelation we read that we must be perfectly holy to enter heaven because; "Nothing unclean shall enter it."  That is found in Revelations Chapter 21 Verse 27.  Saint Paul, himself, tells us in 1st Corinthians that "Each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.  If any man's work is burned up he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only through fire."

So, now for the reason we Catholics pray for the dead.  Those in Purgatory cannot help themselves.  The time to repent and to make up for the evil we do is while we are on earth.  Once we die, our fate is set in stone.  Those in purgatory depend on our prayers and sacrifices for them so that they can be raised from their state to the state of sainthood in heaven. 

But then, what is the difference between Purgatory and hell if they are both places of suffering?  The difference is huge.  Those in purgatory, although suffering, are happier than anyone on earth can imagine because they know that they will see God.  The pain of purgatory is the pain of the soul longing for God and not being able to see Him.  The pain is temporary and the Poor Souls know this.   The souls in hell, on the other hand, suffer torments that are unimaginable and their separation from God is permanent and they are without any hope.

This subject is a complicated one and I would direct anyone who has questions to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is available online for free and the specific cure for ignorance about the Catholic Church.  It is well written and Biblically based. 

When is Home Not A Home?

The vast majority of us are going to end up in a room that is eighty four inches long, twenty eight inches wide and twenty three inches high. These are the dimensions of a standard casket. It will be the home for our bodily remains. When you think of it, that is not much space. The grave we will be placed into will be about six feet deep and three feet across, that is a total of eighteen square feet of mother earth. Inside of the casket we will return to the basic elements that made up our body and eventually they will leach back into the ground. That is a sad ending for us if that was all there was to it. But as we know, there is more, much, much, more.

Nothing that we have here on earth can come with us to heaven. All of the things we worked so hard for here will be taken by someone else. Our land, our home, our books and other possessions will belong to another. 

This world with all of its beauty, with all of its wonder is not the place we are meant to be. The place we are meant for is a place that even if we let our imaginations run wild we cannot really see what the reality of it is. That place of course is heaven, the place where the Lord God dwells along with the angels and saints. 

Our hearts know this. Even people who worship pagan deities know this. Siddhartha begins life experiencing all good things and soon the sweetness turns to bitterness and he looks for fulfillment elsewhere. Famous saints learn this, some the hard way too. St. Francis of Assisi spent his youth enjoying wine women and song. He tries to become a soldier and realizes that this is not as satisfying as he thought it was going to be. Eventually he embraces poverty and he does so as a man embraces a wife and he was faithful to her his whole life. He found satisfaction in serving God and relying on God for all things. 

Surely we must use the things of this earth. We need the basics, food, drink, shelter, companionship for example. Beyond these basic needs do we have to strive for ever more luxuries land and gadgets?  I am not saying that they are evil in themselves, but they can never be ours permanently because one day we will die and we cannot carry the things of this world with us.  

Maybe we should concentrate more on our relationship with God and His kingdom first and then on relationships with our family and friends. These things will come with us. When we get to heaven our relationships will be restored, we will recognize our mother, father, sister, brother, uncles, aunts, grandparents, everyone we ever knew and they will recognize us. I cannot describe what heaven will be like. The only thing I know about it is that no matter how great I think it will be, it will be infinitely better. Is anything on earth worth loosing heaven for? 

  

On Death and Dying and The Christian Person

           

Courtesy/consciouslifenews.com/

                                                                During this season of Lent, one of the things we Christians are asked to reflect on is the state of our life and to think carefully about what our destiny is. The fact is that no one will leave this world alive. From the fall of Adam and Eve to the present day, the destiny of the human body is to return to the dust it was made of. If you are human, you will die. No one has escaped that fate, not even Jesus. Jesus did not go into some state of suspended animation. Jesus went through the pain of death that all of us will feel. On that most Holy Cross the body of Jesus went through the process of death. His organs began shutting down to keep the vital processes, heart and brain, going as long as possible. When it could take no more, Jesus knew it was time. To show that He was going to conquer death he cried out in a loud voice according to the Bible, which is a most difficult thing to do while nailed to a cross and He surrendered His soul to the Father. At the moment of death, the soul of Jesus left the body and there was no force to keep the flesh animated any longer. Physically, at that moment, decay began. Blood, without a heart to propel it began to sink into the lower extremities. A soldier who thought that the man from Galilee was faking thrust a spear through His heart and piercing the Pericardium, the sack that surrounds the heart there came forth blood and water. The body was removed and Mary His mother held the cooling, brutalized Body in her arms. Her tears were copious and she did not want to let Him go. But the disciples and friends that were on hand gently pried the lifeless corpse from her arms and laid Him atop a shroud. They wound Him up in it and without too much fanfare on that Sabbath eve, laid him in a borrowed tomb, even in death Jesus had no place of His own to lay His head. 

The picture at the top is allegedly a picture of the soul leaving a man at the time of death. The article states that the blue color is the "life force" and you can see in picture on the left there is a lot of blue, and on the right, you can see just a bit of blue at head level, about to depart. I do not believe that they have captured the soul leaving the body. I just thought that the picture would provide an interesting focal point for this post. 

Like it or not one day, maybe today, maybe in an hour, maybe in the next minute we will die. We will experience in some form what Jesus did, that is our bodies ultimate fate. 

For some of us, the lucky ones among us, the process of dying will begin with a doctor telling us that we have a terminal disease and you have X amount of time to live. I say that you are lucky because you will have time to do what needs to be done. You will have been given a grace, a time to make repairs to relationships and in general take your leave of this world in a more or less peaceful and dignified manner.  But before this all of us will go through several phases including denial of death, bargaining with God, until we arrive at acceptance.  

At the time appointed by God, you will enter into the final stages of this life. You will say good bye in various ways and at the pre-ordained moment you will take your last breath and leave the garden God gave to us to tend and you will return home to our Father. 

For a Christian, death should not leave us quaking in fear. We know that death has been conquered and we will rise on the last day. 

I think that in our world today, especially in the United States and Canada, we deny death until the last spadeful of dirt covers our loved ones remains. We spend thousands of dollars to pickle them so they do not degrade so fast. We purchase elaborate boxes to put them in and we seal those to keep the elements out and we place these ornate boxes inside of a sealed concrete box to await the return of Christ. The death merchants sell us all manner of goods, charging five or six times the wholesale price for a casket. They charge hundreds of dollars for thirty dollars of chemicals and cosmetics and some even consider themselves quasi preachers, providing mushy "funeral committal services" at will for those not affiliated with a church.  So, what does all of this expense buy for us? The undertakers will tell you that it will give the family  closure. Well, maybe it does, but if the death was expected the act of taking the last breath may be all the closure a family wants. The morticians say that what they do will give the family a beautiful a memory picture of their loved one that have had all of the roughness and blemishes of death sanded away using the tools of the dismal trade and they say that will give them peace. Maybe it will, but what the undertaker is hoping for, besides a good profit on the deal, is looking towards the next case. He or she wants people to see how good he is at his work and he hopes and prays that the next one to go dies after saying "Let Snodgrass embalm me, put makeup in me, suture my mouth closed, put eye caps on so my eyes don't fly open and please put me in a very expensive box like X was in. Yes, the funeral directors next bit of business may very well come because of the way your mother or father, or friend looked under the theatrical lights on the day of the wake. Look at what an expensive casket (to be honest this casket was probably on the lower end of the price list, but still six times in what Snodgrass paid for it) looks like after twenty years in the ground: 

Courtest: http://www.documentingreality.com/

 Would you care to open the lid and take a peek inside to see how the occupant fared during this twenty year period?  No, me either. An embalmed corpse locked up in an airless sealed up casket and sealed vault soon putrefies and after even a week or two in the ground becomes a lot less that a beautiful memory picture as the anaerobic bacteria changes the body into a blob of goo. So much for the value the dismal trade give you for your hard earned dollar.  

The fact is that once a Christian dies, his or her body SHOULD be treated with respect, for it was a temple of the Holy Spirit. This does not mean we have to spend thousands of dollars in a vain attempt to keep the body from corrupting. "Remember thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return." An inexpensive casket, I am opting for one of those purple cloth covered ones, and burial in consecrated ground is enough.  Overspending on the funeral only benefits the undertaker. 

I watched a very interesting movie on You Tube the other day entitled "A Certain Kind of Death."  (Click Here to View)  This movie follows the processing of two men through the system in the Los Angeles coroners department. What I took away from this movie was how simply stupid we mortals can be. We work our whole lives, we build up a store of goods and yet one day, all of it will belong to someone else as we are buried six feet under the ground.  The movie is kind of graphic, but not in a morbid way. The coroners office buries the ashes of indigents and unclaimed bodies once a year in a potters field. The scene of the workers emptying the cremated remains of sixteen hundred people into a mass grave still is haunting me today. Each of the small aluminum boxes that contained what was left of a person that lived, had dreams and aspirations, had at one time a family that loved them, had jobs, bills, vacations and perhaps hunger, poverty, disease, and finally death came to an end at that moment. Sixteen hundred people were buried that day in the ground, their only marked a bronze square with the date "1997" on it's face. 

So, let's wrap this up.  What does death and dying mean for a Christian? For us it means that we are going home to God to face final judgement for our lives.  So I think that for a Christian living life is much more important that memorializing it after death. I have to confess, while I won't actually be at my own funeral, for my soul will be elsewhere, I would like to think that there would be some who would attend my funeral and some that would mourn my passing. My family consists of two younger sisters and one younger brother, my parents, uncles and aunts have gone to their rest. My siblings have nothing to do with me, I have no idea why and I intend to make certain that all of my final arrangements are made in advance of my departure so they do not have to be bothered.  I don't want them even to be notified. Let them to continue to treat me in death how they treated me in life.  But be that as it may, I intend to be a morticians nightmare. I believe that my body will rise again as did Jesus when he defeated death. I believe that there is no reason to preserve that which is destined to decay. I will request immediate burial or cremation (I have not decided yet) and any funeral goods that I will need to purchase will be of the cheapest, most utilitarian, minimalist type. My estate, if there is anything left and my wife has died before me, I will will to my Church. 

So for a Christian, I believe we must make an effort to do the things a Christian should do NOW and not wait until the doctors give us a terminal sentence. Love, Laugh, Pray, and be Merciful. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, visit the sick and yes, bury the dead. 

Te Purple Coffin I want to be used at my funeral

What Will Become Of Us ?

Your Room Is Ready...

There is no doubt that none of us will be leaving this world alive, in the classical sense of the word.  Our bodies will tire and wear out and eventually we will begin the dying process.  From the reading I have done, the process is about the same for all people.  As the time approaches we will reach out and try to mend fences, finish things that need to be finished, and eventually start to take leave of the things we can see relate to using our five senses.  Trudy Harris a registered nurse who has worked many years in hospice has seen the drama played out time and time again.  One thing that seems to permeate the process is that God spends some time preparing you.

He does not leave you to face it alone. Some who have been to the brink and have returned report different things.  They may find loved one who had died before waiting to escort them, some speak of a light at the end of a tunnel, some say Jesus or an angel is there. But in the end, life as we know it ends and the true life we are meant for begins. 

God is all good, all powerful, and especially all loving.  He has endowed his beloved humans with free will to love Him back or to reject him.  While we are on earth, the way we live our life will lead us to choose what path to take once we die.  I believe that God leaves it up to us. When presented with the ultimate love of God for us the sins we have committed, those things where during our life we turned away from him will cause us great pain because we will finally understand how very much God has loved us. For some of us we will have spent our lives very much apart from God, giving Him no thought or care.  Our lives would have been spent indulging ourselves to the maximum.  We would not have cared about those around us.  We may have preyed on the weak and vulnerable making their lives miserable.  We might have taken a life or lives.  For those who rejected God, living their life without Him, they will feel the pain of their failure and will choose to turn away from God.  God is a loving God and He will allow them their desires and these souls will choose Hell and be there forever. 

Some of us will have invested their lives in helping others, being absolutely selfless and doing the work of God not in the hope of any reward but because we have turned our whole soul and being towards the Father and His Son and followed the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  When people who have loved God their whole life and have done His will selflessly using their lives to better others, when their moment of decision comes, they will choose to go to God and the bliss of heaven.

This leaves us with the rest of us.  We are neither deserving of hell nor are we ready for heaven.  We have lived good lives, but our wills sometimes were turned away from God and we committed sins. But unlike those who threw their lives away we loved God and tried to do the things that Jesus asked us to do.  But we missed the mark.  We may have attachments to things of this earth or we may have unresolved conflicts with others where we have held onto jealousy, or bitterness, or perhaps we need to forgive the unforgivable wrong that was done to us.  Heaven is a place of bliss.  It is a place where love and only love is permitted.  There is no discord or disharmony among the souls there so for many of us who do not deserve hell there is a place, or process or whatever you want to call it called purgatory.  It is there that we will choose to go if we have any of the imperfections mentioned above.  You can liken it to cleaning yourself up before meeting a great personage.  You would not meet royalty here on earth wearing clothes that are tattered, a face that is smudged with dirt, or needing a shower would you?  Then how much more would you want to make sure you are presentable to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?  

Some say that purgatory does not exist, that it is a Catholic invention.  But there is Scripture that shows that God in His mercy has prepared a place or process for his children.  In later posts I will go over these passages.  You may want to review them yourself so I will list them here: 

• Matthew 12:32
• 1 Cor 3:15
• Rev 21:27
• Rom 6 : 3-5
• Heb 12:11

When I was a boy I was playing baseball one day and I hit a ball and it crashed through a neighbors window.  My friends vanished quickly as I stood there with my bat. I wish some of them ran as fast during our ballgames!  The resident of the house came out and to make a long story short he forgave me for breaking the window.  So he did not harbor a grudge for the accident but he still had to deal with the broken window.  I was forgiven but I had to repair the damage I did.  I went home which was right across the street from the field we were playing and my father gave me money to give to the neighbor who went to the hardware store, bought glass and made the repair.   So it is with sin.  Jesus by dying on the cross was able to secure forgiveness for the action but every sin, even those committed in secret, leave damage that needs to be repaired.  These repairs can be made in life by doing penance to repair the damage that was done.  If we do not make things right here, we will want to do so after death and we will choose Purgatory.  

Please watch this blog for more about purgatory.  I think at the end you will join me in thanking our most loving Father for it. Remember, I will answer any question about the Catholic Faith, Catholic Church or Christianity in general.  Hate mail will go unanswered.  God Bless you and yours and may Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God light your way today.  Amen. 

 

 

  

The Saints and the Mary

We are Brothers, Sisters and we have a Mother in Faith.

Today I am going to discuss Mary and the Saints. To understand Mary and our view of her place in salvation history, you need to first have a handle on the saints, what a saint is, who is a saint and how many of them there are.  You need to have to understand a little bit of how we see ourselves as a Church family.   So the title of this session really should be The Saints and Mary. 

There is no such thing as a former Catholic only Catholics that have run away from home.  Once you are a Catholic you are one forever.  The Church sees herself and the Bible shows her as a continuing family of believers consisting of the Church on earth, the Church militant, the Church in heaven, the Church Triumphant and the Church in Purgatory, the Church Penitent.  So your membership in the Church does not end when your earthly life ends, it continues afterwards.  This is completely consistent with the church’s view of eternity which we can see in 1^st Corinthians Chapter 15 verses 51-55

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. 54*  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." 55* “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"

 So for Christians, the grave is not an end, it is but a portal, a door into the state of being that God has intended for his friends from the beginning.  We leave one existence and immediately take up another. If we leave this existence in God’s friendship, if our heart is totally turned to Him and He is our sole desire, we will immediately enter heaven to be with Him forever.  If we left earth without turning our hearts completely to God and we have minor sins on our conscience we will choose to go to Purgatory, a place where we can resolve these issues and turn our soul and heart over to God.  I believe that we ourselves  will make this choice because our soul, our real true selves, know the absolute goodness of God and knows that it could not bear to be in His presence before it is ready.  Finally, at the last moment, if we hated God, did not repent, did not use the graces He sent us and continued to sin, He will grant our request to be outside of his presence forever and we will choose to go to the place we call hell, a Catholic in hell has to be the saddest thing in the universe because of all the advantages he or she threw away.   Of the last group, we have to say that there is no hope.  Every person in hell has committed only one sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, and a complete rejection of God and there is no hope for these souls.  The souls in purgatory are suffering, and this too is consistent with the Bible in 1st Corinthians 3: 12-15.

12 If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire (itself) will test the quality of each one's work. 14 If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage.15 but if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved,  but only as through fire. 

The souls in Purgatory, therefore, are absolutely assured of their place in Heaven. So, we now see the three distinct families if you will of the Church.  The Church consists of those of us on earth, those in purgatory and those in heaven.  Our membership in the Catholic Church stretches through time and our membership lasts forever.  The Church therefore consists of a large family of members from the beginning of time of those who are already in heaven and those who on earth and those in purgatory that will sometime in the future will be in heaven.  It is this extended family that we call the Communion of Saints and you as a Catholic Christian are part of that family.  One of the things we do routinely here on earth almost without grasping the significance of it is to pray for one another. For example, Dave asks Gertrude to pray that the medical tests come back negative. Janice asks Father John to pray for her for a private reason, Jack asks Arden to pray for him for such and such.  These are normal things and we do them without thinking anything about them.  Our Protestant brothers and sisters do the same. They pray for one another and this is considered a good thing, and it is because the Bible tells us to pray for one another.  In 1^st Thessalonians Chapter 5 verse 25 Paul asks his readers to pray for him, and there are a lot of other examples where we are told to pray for one another. But is it possible to ask someone who has died to pray for us?  Because the church is a family not ultimately bound by time or space and our family members are in heaven, we can ask them to pray for us.  But doesn’t the Bible say that there is one mediator between God and man and that is Jesus?  Yes it does say that there is one mediator between God and Man. 1^st Timothy Chapter 2: 5-6 is used to put Catholics in their place.

 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time.

 Who can disagree with this Biblical principle? I certainly cannot disagree with it.  

Christ IS our mediator and that is a fact.  

If we take the first Timothy verse as written then we create a grave issue that extends not only in the Catholic Church but in the denominations as well.  When Dave asked Gertrude to pray for him, he was asking Gertrude to mediate between him and God.  When we ask for someone to pray for us or we pray for another is the role we are taking on the role of Jesus?   Do our prayers constitute a sinful act? To pray for another is not a sinful act of course.  Our praying for them is not in any way sinful even though we are acting as a mediator.  Our prayers for them are directed to God.  We are actually praying to God for them, because remember Jesus is God and God is Jesus and the love of God the Father for God the Son is God the Holy Spirit so no matter which person of the Trinity we direct our prayer to, it is heard by all three in their unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Is the principle of the Trinity hard to understand?  The concept of the Trinity can never be fully explained or understood, at least here on earthly level.  Will we fully understand the Trinity in heaven? I seriously doubt it but who knows, maybe that is part of the marvel of heaven, the special gift of understanding the ultimate goodness and unity of God in the Trinity.  The point here is that when we pray for another it is not a sin.  When we direct our prayer to a saint in heaven, it is the same as asking someone on earth to pray for us, there is no sin, and it does not diminish the role of Christ as the one mediator in the slightest. Our family, the Communion of Saints, reaches through time and space. The problem as I see it with Protestant understanding of prayer to the saints is that they do not understand the concept of our Church family. They limit themselves to what they can see, hear, taste and touch.  This becomes evident when a Protestant asks with a smug smile on their face asks how a popular saint, let’s say for example Saint Anthony, is deluged with prayers in a never ending stream from thousands or even millions of believers in a hundred or two hundred different tongues all at the same time, how could he pay attention and take care of all of these requests?  Wow, good question indeed, quite well framed and certainly deserving of an answer.  The answer is that the saints in heaven have received gifts well beyond our understanding in the glory of heaven that they enjoy.  They, like God in whose presence they dwell, are not limited by the constraints of time or space and while we can hardly take care of one thing at a time here on earth, they have the abilities of a glorified soul, which we cannot really understand now, but we will when we too claim our reward.  How many saints are in heaven and is there a complete list available?  The answer is yes, kind of and no.  There are many books that offer lists of saints.  One of the most exhaustive is “Butler’s Lives of the Saints” which in its last edition published in 1956 listed 2,565 named saints. Another edition is being prepared and I am sure that the number of names will exceed three thousand. But this number is absolutely meaningless.  Everyone in heaven is a saint. You, yourself are a saint, if a provisional one, because you believe and are a member of the Church. In your present condition you still can cast off the title by rejecting God, but you are in fact a saint right here and right now even if you are a work in progress. So in heaven, there are thousands of millions of saints, your brothers and sisters in the Household of God, the vast majority of them unknown and uncelebrated but just as happy in the presence of God as those officially recognized in the Canon of the Church.  I am not going to touch on how a saint is canonized, I will be passing out a handout after the talk that will give you all of the technical details of how the Church decides who to elevate to sainthood.  But remember, for every saint in the canon of the Church, there are thousands upon thousands of ordinary people who also practiced extraordinary virtue on earth that we don’t know.  For the majority of the members of the Household of God, our Feast day is November 1, the Feast of All Saints.   With a basic understanding of what and who a saint is, let us now speak to about one of the greatest stumbling blocks our Protestant brothers and sisters have with the Catholic Church and that is how we honor the Mother of All Saints, the Mother of God, Mary Most Holy.

Mary, the Mother of God, the New Eve

Mary was the first Christian and is certainly the greatest Saint.

What do we know about Mary? What makes her so special to the Christian Community? What is the Immaculate Conception? Is Mary worthy of and do Catholics worship Mary? What is the Assumption of Mary?  Did Mary really appear in Guadalupe, Fatima, in Lourdes – do we have to believe in these appearances?  Can we pray to Mary?

All of these questions are worthy of attention and in the time we have left  we will take each one in turn and hopefully by the time we are done, Mary will be more of a friend and less of a mystery to you.  I can only scratch the surface on these subjects and would urge you to take advantage of the written and online resources are available to the searcher of truth.

What Makes Mary So Special To the Christian Community?

 Mary is the Mother of God.  That title does not make sense at all does it?  How can Mary, a creature, be the mother of the God who made her?  Actually if we add the word earthly into the mix, it becomes a bit less confusing.  The point is Mary is the mother of Jesus, who is God.  In Genesis we are promised a redeemer to come from not Adam the man but Eve the woman as we see in Genesis 3:15.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head,   while you strike at his heel."

So when the time was right, Mary becomes the new Eve, chosen by God to be the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God.

The Immaculate Conception

The Origin of Mary

Mary was born in the furnace of human passion in the normal way. Her mother was Anne and her father was Joachim. It is said by some scholars that Mary was conceived while her parents were older, “late in life.”  Joachim was of the royal family of David and it is thought that Anne was of the priestly family of Aaron. So Mary comes from both a priestly and a royal family. Her offspring would share this and therefore Jesus sprang from both a royal and priestly family.  Mary lived her life in Nazareth and as was the custom of the time, her eventual marriage was arranged by her family to a man named Joseph.

Betrothal in this time conveyed all the rights of marriage on the couple.  Betrothal generally lasted about a year and during that time the husband would prepare a home for the bride.  Even though the couple had rights, the custom of the time was not to use them but to wait for marriage.  Mary one day was visited by the Angel Gabriel who brought her word from God. She was to be the mother of the messiah, the one the Jewish world had been waiting so long for. She said yes to the angel, “Let it be done unto me according to thy word.”  Thus she became pregnant and right after this she went to visit Elizabeth and stayed with her for three months. When she returned home she was three months pregnant. This was a bit of a problem for her because she did not have relations with Joseph; she went away for three months and came back three months pregnant. Joseph could have denounced her to the authorities and then the only recourse for the authorities would be a quick trial and a sentence of death to the adulterer by stoning.  Joseph had decided to “put her away quietly.”  He would have paid to send her somewhere to have her child and he would be done with her.  But, Joseph heard from God in a dream what had happened. He heard and he believed and he took her into his house. Some time passed and the emperor decided his treasure was looking a bit thin, so he ordered a census of all the people, to check the tax rolls and to make sure every penny in taxes would make it to his treasury.  So since Joseph was an ancestor of David, they traveled to Bethlehem, a name which means House of Bread to register. Mary had her child there and they eventually returned to Nazareth.  King Herod a thoroughly evil man decided that he did not want the competition and dispatched murderers to the region to kill the babies. Joseph was warned in a dream and he immediately fled with the Jesus and Mary into Egypt.  Once Herod died, they came back and Jesus grew to manhood and Joseph died. The rest of the story is in the Bible and I suggest you take time to read it.  I want to go back in time now to the birth of Mary, the Mother of God. Mary’s birth brings us to the first bone of contention that Protestants have with Catholics and our reverence for her.  Mary was born without the taint of original sin. This was done by God as a favor to her at the moment of her natural conception in anticipation of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus.  Remember, God does not live in, nor is he limited by the dimensions of time and space. God is All in All.   Scriptural evidence can be found in the angel’s greeting to Mary when she was asked to be the Mother of God: “Hail Mary, Full of Grace…” was the greeting the angel used.    How could she be full of grace, as Christ had not yet suffered, died and rose?  Again, nothing in Scripture is there without purpose. The angel called her full of grace simply because she was full of grace. He was not delivering the grace to her. She had within her God’s sanctifying grace from the very start of her existence when her father’s sperm met her mother’s egg and she began life.  (What a testimony as to when life begins, God would not have bestowed this favor on a non living soul.) This favor of God is called the Immaculate Conception.  The angel was not delivering the gift of grace to Mary because she had had the gift since her conception in the womb. 

But what about Romans 3:23

“…all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God… “

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says (emphasis added):

Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

The "splendor of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son". The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love".  The soul of Mary from the very instant of her creation was preserved from original sin. She therefore was in a state of grace and although she had free will, her will was turned toward God at all times.  Her “yes” to the angel could just as easily been a “no.”  Mary occupies a most special place in the history of salvation.  She was the one who said “yes” to nullify the “no” of Adam and Eve.  She was preserved from original sin and the effects of it. 

So, what Protestant thought about Mary is that she was a sinner. Their thought processes places limits on what God can and cannot do. The Catholic position makes so much more sense and follows the Biblical pattern precisely.   The early reformers did not have a problem with the Immaculate Conception; Luther himself believed in it and had a reverence for Mary himself.  But Catholics are accused of worshiping Mary. Catholics do NOT worship Mary. We simply have the reverence for the Mother of Christ.   But is this reverence for Mary a recent invention?  Actually the first person known to have reverence for Mary was a man named Jesus who in accordance with the Commandments of God honored his Mother and Father.  Catholics therefore are simply continuing the tradition begun by Christ.  We honor Mary as our spiritual mother and the mother of the Church.  That Christ loved his mother can be seen in scripture. At the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus was not quite ready to begin His public ministry. Yet he started it at her request by changing water into the finest wine.  Mary ALWAYS points to Jesus and never to herself. In the Cana example she says some of the wisest words ever recorded in Scripture (John 2:5)

His mother said to the servers, "Do whatever he tells you."

The Virgin Birth is another feature of Mary. The Holy Spirit overshadowed her and the child she bore was very special indeed. Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus as she was before. Mary had no relations with Joseph or any other man.  In the scriptures where the “brothers of Jesus” are mentioned these people are not brothers in the sense that they were sons of Mary and Joseph.  The word brother in Aramaic could mean blood brother but it was also used for cousins and other male relatives.  We can look to Scripture for other examples:

In Genesis 14:13 Lot is called Abrahams brother even though he was the son of Haran, Abraham’s brother. He would actually be Abraham’s nephew.  Jacob was called the brother of Laban in Genesis 29:15.  The reason for this is that there is no real word in Aramaic for the word cousin except for a very clumsy word which translated would read “son of my uncle.”  So the word brother would be substituted.

But besides these word games there is strong New Testament Scriptural evidence available to us as well that Mary had no children other then Jesus. Remember that in the time of Christ there were no social service programs or social security.  A woman alone and on her own with no family was in desperate straits indeed.  When the end was near Jesus made provision for his mother from the Cross.

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. 26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son." 27 Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

If Mary had any children to take care of her after he was gone, Jesus would not have made the effort to place her in the care of the Apostle John. There would have been no point to it. It required supreme effort to speak from the cross and Jesus was near the end of his all too human energy.  So he took the time to place his mother into the care of his trusted friend. But what Jesus is saying from the Cross is much more than just a request for John to take care of His mother.  Jesus was also giving His mother to us as well. Remember that we are the adopted children of God, members of His household.  This makes Mary our mother too.  She is the Queen of All Saints and premier member or the Communion of Saints so it is proper and just that we ask her to pray to Jesus for us.  Her intersession takes nothing away from the role of Christ as mediator.

 What Christ did from the Cross was to continue to honor His mother by making sure that she was going to be taken care of.  We are called to follow Christ and so we are called to continue what he started, we are to honor His mother for again in a very real way she is our mother too.  

Mary was declared the Immaculate Conception in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. This leads some Protestants to believe that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was of recent origin.  However, it was the belief of the early church from the most ancient of times that Mary was conceived without original sin.  The Council only formalized what was already believed by the Church and her faithful sons and daughters.

The Assumption of Mary into heaven

The assumption of Mary is a promise of things to come.

As a result of her Immaculate Conception, Mary received another benefit that all of the faithful will eventually receive.  After her earthly life was over she was assumed body and soul into heaven.  It is important to remember that unlike Christ, she did not rise into heaven, but rather was brought to heaven through the power of God.  This mystery is not found in the Bible. But there is very strong circumstantial evidence for it nonetheless. 

In the early Church much reverence was given to the deceased among the faithful.  Churches revered the bones of martyrs for example and preserved them as relics for the benefit of the faithful. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was said in the catacombs where the martyrs were buried. You might argue mass was held there as a matter of self preservation as the Roman soldiers were not allowed to molest people visiting the underground burial sites. This rule applied not only to the Christians, but to other citizens of Rome as well. For example the followers of Bacchus, a religion dedicated to debauchery met in the underground caves. But even in times where Christians were left alone Mass was celebrated in the presence of the bones of the martyrs.    If the body of an “ordinary martyr” was honored by the Church, how much more would have the body of Mary been honored?  The fact no one ever claimed that they had the body of Mary or her tomb is quite telling.  As the mother of Jesus, her tomb would have been a place that would have been preserved forever for the faithful because of her position in salvation history.  The place where her bones would be interred does not exist because she was assumed into heaven.   This is only fitting and right because since she was conceived without original sin she would not suffer corruption of the body which is a consequence of sin. Do you find this an odd belief?  Well, you have to understand that Mary has received what we will receive. Her assumption into heaven anticipates what will happen to us.  At the end of time we will rise from the dead and be assumed body and soul into heaven.  It only makes sense that the first believer in Christ, the first tabernacle that held the precious body, blood soul and divinity of Christ would receive this honor as all of us will someday. 

Appearances of Mary

Has Mary appeared in various places at various times?

It is said that Mary has appeared on earth at various times and at various places. Why would she do that? Did she actually appear? What should I believe?  These are valid questions and worthy of a thoughtful response.  The Church through the local bishop investigates so called appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Far more appearances are not approved then are approved.  There are some very famous, approved appearances.

1830- Guadalupe Mexico, Mary appeared to Juan Diego – she appeared four times to him and her image was placed into his mantle. Scientists were given an opportunity to look at the mantle and microscopic examination of the eyes of the virgin reveal an image of Juan Diego in them.

1858-Lourdes France, Mary appeared to young Bernadette Soubirous under the title of the Immaculate Conception. She called for prayer and the conversion of sinners.

1917- Fatima, Portugal, Mary appeared to three children telling them that we should pray the rosary for the conversion of sinners and that Russia should be dedicated to her immaculate heart.

There are a lot more that have been approved.  Of late, starting 1981 Mary is said to be appearing at a small town in Yugoslavia called Medjugorje, where it is said she gives a message on the 25^th of every month.  She says that this will be the last time she appears on Earth and that she brings important messages. This appearance has not been approved by the Church yet, but the messages she brings do ring true, and point to Jesus, for example the message for September 25, 2009;

 “Dear children, with joy, persistently work on your conversion. Offer all your joys and sorrows to my Immaculate Heart that I may lead you all to my most beloved Son, so that you may find joy in His Heart. I am with you to instruct you and to lead you towards eternity. Thank you for having responded to my call."

I believe that Mary appears to her children on earth. I believe that she comes at times where she sees we need help to find our way to Jesus. That being said, the appearances of Mary, both approved by the church and not approved, fall under the category of private revelation. The approved appearances do not have a place in the depository of faith, so you are free to believe or disbelieve even the approved appearances. They are not matters of faith, they are private revelations. 

We have to be very careful that we are not led away from the truth of the Church. A true appearance of Mary will not point to herself, but rather to her Son, Jesus.  When dealing with Mary you will have no problem keeping your eyes on Jesus. If the image of Jesus begins to fade, then you are dealing with an aberration and you should backtrack and see where you went wrong. If this happens you should seek the guidance of a priest or deacon, trained professionals who will be able to help you see where you went wrong and get you back on to the right path. It is a case of trusting the Church and humbling yourself.

Do Catholics Worship Mary

Mary is our mother and Jesus is our Brother.

Catholics do not worship Mary. As the Mother of Jesus she occupies a very special place in every Catholic’s heart.  As the Mother of Jesus, she has a special place in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We ask her to intercede for us with Jesus her Son.  But Catholics do not worship Mary. Catholics realize that she is but a created creature just like us.  She was redeemed in a special way; she was spared the stain of original sin by anticipation of the sacrificial death of Jesus her Son on the Cross.  She was there at the foot of the Cross and watched her only Son die for the sins of all. She is worthy of our deepest love, our deepest respect but never our worship. We can pray to her as we can pray to any saint.  Does she have more “power” if we can use this word?  Her Son was moved to action at Cana when many scholars say that he wasn’t really ready to begin his public ministry.  I think that says it all.  If you let Mary take you by the hand, she will inevitably place your hand into the hand of Jesus.  She, like a good mother, wants what is best for you.  She does not want worship from you.

The Catholic Church honors Mary because Christ does. We pray for her intersession because she is the First among the Saints in heaven. She was the first Christian and was during the nine months she carried Jesus a living tabernacle, a living Arc of the New Covenant.  She is worthy of honor as the Mother of God.  Praying to her (or any of the saints) in no way lessens the glory of God or Christ’s status as mediator between God and man for we ask for their help and they direct their prayers and ours to Jesus.  Those of us still on our pilgrimage on earth can call on Mary and the saints and be sure that our prayers are heard:

3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne.  (Rev 8:3)