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I wrote the following in an email reply to a friend on the subject...
"I know about Theosophy too - I dabbled in the occult before my conversion - that stuff sticks to you like pitch - while listening to the tape of Barbara Marx Hubbard I felt an interior rush - an artificial feeling of bliss - almost like the threshold of feeling high - hard to explain. A bad spirit, to be sure. Anyway - Hubbard is filling a spiritual void in these fallen angels/sisters of the LCWR."
Which is precisely why I do not find the gathering in St. Louis amusing.
Once, the author Michael O'Brien told me I should not have my astrological sign available in my profile - explaining how even that connection to the occult can be bad. I don't necessarily agree with that, however, if people think charms, images, and occult references are dangerous and open one to demonic influences, why on earth do they mockingly dismiss what the LCWR is doing by inviting actual occultists to address their conferences? Especially when these same women continue to influence the Church in the United States.
It is no laughing matter.
"if people think charms, images, and occult references are dangerous and open one to demonic influences, why on earth do they mockingly dismiss what the LCWR is doing by inviting actual occultists to address their conferences?"
ReplyDeleteThe material does influence the immaterial. Which is why we have sacraments, i.e. materials signs of the immaterial.
As to your question, what would you have them do instead?
What would I have who do? Instead of what? Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about?
ReplyDeleteHmm. I thought you were asking a rhetorical question because you thought they're mocking dismissive response was wrong.
ReplyDeleteSo now I'm wondering, what is your question?
Oh. Well it is wrong. What would I have them do? Not for me to say - I have no authority.
DeleteIf they are priests, perhaps fulfulling their duite of their state in life would be a good start - I know one who needs a job. If they are bishops, using their authority properly - which entails teaching and guiding souls. If they are lay people like me, then maybe examining ourselves a bit better may be called for.
I'm just commenting on matters as I see it - I don't pretend to be instructing anyone here.Just keeping a web log - an online journal.
I wonder how much influence these women really do have. Wouldn't most people see them for the silly old hippies they really are? Yes, the occult is very, very dangerous, but in this case perhaps the danger is only to themselves, not to any wider audience.
ReplyDeleteI would have no idea what to make of all this if that isn't the case; it's just too, too far out. Also, how are the bishops letting them get away with this in the first place?
I'm not sure about that - which is what I mean about simply making fun of them as aging hippies - many of them, or at least those remaining in their communities - continue to work - they work in chanceries, parishes - as religious ed or pastoral somethings or orther, some can even be chaplains in nursing homes, etc.. They are not simply a bunch of retirees. Nuns do not usually retire until they are about 90+.
DeleteWomen get away with as much as men allow them to - the bishops cut their leash during the civil rights era in the '60's.
Terry--I don't about anybody else, but I think joking is a way of coping with extreme distress. I am Irish. So, this is sort of what I do. But, I umderstand exactly what you are saying. What they are disseminating is truly from the enemy, and in that sense, it is indeed, no laughing matter. They are dangerous. For example, the Society supports them. Some people have coped with their nonesense for forty years. We have been waited to be led out of this wilderness, like the Israelites, for forty years. When no one listen, I suspect sarcasm, often being a reflection of real anger and impotent despair, seems the only repsonse. I completely get what you are saying.
ReplyDeleteYou know I was listening to EWTN radio the other day. Al Kresta was talking with a nun about this situation. She was talking about another organization of women religious/superiors that was formed precisely because of this sort of thing some years ago. I don't remember what it was called. However, she made a point that I hadn't thought about. She said there were a sizable number of sisters whose orders/superiors belong to to LCWR who DO NOT support what this organization supports. I was rather shocked because I could not imagine being in a religious community whose values and faith I did not share.
ReplyDeleteThat is indeed the case, Servus. I have heard Anne Carey talk about this. There is just so much that is almost impossible to understand...
ReplyDelete...I have a good friend, who is an RN, who took a course in Healing Touch: yes, it was Reiki (spelling ?), and it was taught in a convent north of Albany, by religious sisters: she of course thought it was OK since They taught it ! She actually got some kind of credit for it....I meet a lot of nurses who like the whole (very controlling idea) of their healing someone by their doing, thoughts, touch etc.
ReplyDeleteI get angry and upset by the hi-jacking of God in these doings.
MARIA : I graduated Kenwood, '71, you were '72 ? then we share a lot of very dear memories of people and a very special place...
Lou
It was sacred ground. I remember when I first met Mother Canty--do you remember her? I was furious w/ my father for making me go there. I told her,in my adolscent rebellion: "I simply cannot abide chapels". Now,I think, how tragic-- that beautiful chapel is gone. I read most of Anna Karenina in that chapel. I was sent there to boarding school b/c I was a little too much to handle at home ;) It is now probably a bunch of expensive condos...
ReplyDeleteTerry; Due to my air headedness this comment posted elsewhere, belongs here:
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Terry, look at the photo! You make it IMPOSSIBLE for us NOT to laugh!
Yes - I was there from '68 - '71, and got to go to Rome and other places with Sister Canty: but I was so obnoxious - they had a hard time with me, too. I think the estate is still for sale - ? but - what happens to the grave yard ? All the nuns and the girls from far away, buried there.
ReplyDeleteI remember going back in '72 to give an odd talk, at the sisters request, about some of the pit-falls of college: having dropped out after just one semester, from a heavy drug school, I think that was all I concentrated on: but then, transferring to the sister-college near Boston (it should remain nameless for what I say -) - there were More drugs there ! or at least - they found Me, of course...
sorry Terry, for digressing like this on your site ! I am So Old Now that this is what Happens, it just takes over !
Lou
It is an absolute sacrilege, Lou. Lou--E-mail Terry and give him your E-mail address. Terry has my E-mail. Perhaps he could E-me me w/ it. I would LOVE to talk w/ you. I went to a Sacred Heart College in Boston before dropping out ;) lol. Sorry, Terry. Its the noosphere. See, we are all just coming together, lol
ReplyDeleteYour good friend isnt' Hannah, is it?
ReplyDeleteNo, but I knew a Hannah Hanlon at Kenwood, a year after me. um...I think we dropped out of the same college...! I sent my e-mail address to Terry, and I am all atwitter to hear about Why You dropped out of there !
ReplyDeleteI went to....5 schools, in 4 states, over 9 years before I finally got it together to graduate from college. *sigh*. Lou