The demons wanted to tempt a hermit and said to him, 'Would you like to see Christ?' The monk answered, 'A curse be upon you and him by whom you speak. I believe my Christ when he said, "If anyone says to you, 'Lo, here is Christ,' or 'Lo, there,' do not believe him". [Matt. 24:23] They vanished at the words.
Terry,
ReplyDeleteI read this article on Pope Benedict's devotion to Mary - it's from several years ago. In the section "The Simple Soul becomes the Seeing Soul," he has some comments about apparitions and such that remind me somewhat of the thrust your writing on them recently. If you're interested, here is the article:
http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/benedictmary.html
Thanks Patrick - I will check them out with interest. First I must remove what appears to be a foot of snow on my sidewalks and driveway.
ReplyDeleteI read it Patrick. Interesting. As Cardinal he said the older he gets the closer he gets to Our Lady and I think we've seen that in his many visits to marian shrines, his daily rosary, etc.. He is definitely a Marian pope, in my opinion, with solid German restraint and discretion.
ReplyDelete"While we too seek other signs, other wonders, we do not realize that He is the real sign, God made flesh; He is the greatest miracle of the universe: all the love of God hidden in a human heart, in a human face." ~BXVI
ReplyDeleteI thought that too about his public expressions of Marian devotion while Pope.
ReplyDeleteI was struck by this part of the article, in light of how we can get caught up in apparitions and lose sight of what they're truly for:
"Authentic apparitions have a very specific focus: they bring us back "to the simple and essential things, which we are so easily inclined to overlook" (Seewald, 311). And what are these essentials? They cannot be beside the Gospel. The Cardinal cites Lucia of Fatima: "It's all just a matter of faith, hope, and love." (Seewald, 310) That is what Mary wants us to be aware of, and in and through faith, hope and love brings us to conversion."
And I think that connection was again made here: "The Marian character of our being Christian is expressed in Luke's definition of true blessedness. Blessed are those who "hear the word of God and observe it." (Lk 11.28) Ratzinger sees in this Marian attitude a sure direction and trustworthy reference for all those pilgrims in route to eternity who have to brave confusion and contradictions, trial and hardship, anxiety and rejection."
(Frankly, for me at least, the irony is that sometimes, the "confusion" comes about from appartions and various other messages that are out there, and I wonder how to place them in the context of understanding and living the Gospel. Yet, the answer seems to be the Marian simplicity of listening to God and keeping His word is itself the way out of confusion.)
Also, the last section seemed to me to resemble his teachings on prayer during his Wednesday Audiences.
Finally,
Good points - After scrupulously doing the 5 first Saturdays over and over to make sure "I got it right" since there were different claims floating around on how to do it - I understood that the meditation on the mysteries part was in essence a meditation on the creed - in fact the original 15 mysteries of the rosary is the creed. Hence, as Lucia stated, "It's all just a matter of faith, hope, and love." As Sr. Lucia aged, her spirituality became much more simple, much like the Pope's.
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