Get a lot of attention, don't they.
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No, that wasn't a question - just a reaction to yesterday's post. Viewing some Bayside videos on YouTube last night - yes, I was going to post one just to be funny - I decided this type of spiritual junk food is not comedic at all - sadly, it is very serious, and even poisonous. Oddly enough, if you watch and read these things, they kind of begin to make sense after awhile... pinch me now! What I noticed however, is how these things incorporate all the old 'prophecies' and conspiracy theories and present them in a novel way. For instance, I had no idea that Bayside started lining itself up with Garabandal in Spain. In fact in one video, the narrator was saying the same stuff a certain local hospital chaplain used to tell his hearers in a Twin Cities parish. Obviously these things infect spiritual groups like a virus.
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Corruption threatens to permeates just about everything in the Church - which is why we have a Magisterium and a Pope - to ensure that Catholic Doctrine remains untainted. It takes time, but in the end the truth comes out. Not just regarding spurious apparitions, but as regards religious groups and foundations, theological movements, proposed social innovations, and so on.
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If not for the teaching authority in the Catholic Church, we Catholics would splinter into factions and cults just like the Protestants do - nearly every day. Ted Haggard founding a church in his garage isn't so much different than a group of dissenters leaving a local parish and forming their own Catholic church in a community center. The big difference is that faithful Catholics
know these people 'left THE Church.
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When it comes to foolish debates over unapproved private revelations such as Medjugorje, Vassula Ryden, Mirjana whatever her name is, or the
Get Us Out of Here mystic, even though local ordinaries, along with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warn and condemn such novelties, human nature still wants to break away, separate, and form some sort of exclusive and/or remnant cult.
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Have nothing to do with them. I say this because I've seen a lot foolishness over the years... a lot!
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Strangely enough I got an email from a stranger, suggesting he would like to see me paint something our Lord told the disciples, "I saw Satan fall like lightening from the sky." I thought about what that means. Not every fall is that spectacular. Not everyone gets national attention like Anne Rice. She's a celebrity, and as the psalmist says, human nature 'prizes the worthless'. Satan's fall was spectacular obviously - something I wouldn't want to document beyond what our Lord taught.
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We've all seen big falls - the example of Fr. Francis Mary Stone (Dave) and Fr. Cutie leaving the priesthood to get married, immediately comes to mind - and these two were among the 'good' guys. Then there were the bad guys - bishops and priests falling from grace due to whatever part they played in the sex scandal - around the world no less.
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I've seen monks and nuns leave their respective monasteries - in some cases because they just weren't happy there, in other instance to reform the order,
because God told them to - only to come to nothing. Others left losing their faith and morals in the process. I've had other friends leave the Church for another sect all together, renouncing the Catholic faith. I've seen people chase after apparitions and the newest locutionist yet never progressing in authentic faith, much less develop a spiritual life. Just because one is spiritual or religious does not mean one has faith.
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Anyway - this is why I tend to be so critical and hesitant to jump on board with all the novelties which come along, or believing every locutionist - especially when they promote themselves as this or that. Same with the authorities on new theologies and curriculums... many of whom claim to be on the inside track, and love to name drop for their approval ratings to skyrocket. Religious people can also make a lot of money speaking tours and conferences - but even the best and brightest have to be scrutinized these days. I'm reminded of what St. John said regarding another vice:
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"... Who fails to drink little or much from the golden chalice of the Babylonian woman of the Apocalypse? [Rev. 17:4] By the fact she is seated on that large beast with the seven heads and seven crowns, it is signified that there is hardly anyone of high rank or low, saint or sinner, who does not drink of her wine, subjecting his heart somewhat. For as is pointed out there, all the kings of the earth were inebriated with the wine of her prostitution. [Rev. 17:2] She reaches out to all states, even to the supreme and illustrious state of the sanctuary and divine priesthood, by setting her abominable cup in the holy place, as Daniel asserts [Dn. 9:27], and she hardly leaves a strong man who has not drunk a small or large quantity of wine from her chalice... As a result it is said that all the kings of the earth were inebriated by this wine, since so few will be found, no matter how holy, who have not been somewhat ravished and perplexed by this drink..." - St. John of the Cross, Ascent, Bk. III, Ch. 22:4
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I may be wrong to appropriate this excerpt from St. John, but somehow it seems to fit with what I'm trying to say.
