Friday, December 7, 2012

A Soldier Encounters an Angel! 8 December, 2012 Feast of The Immaculate Conception of Mary

A Soldier Encounters an Angel!

__________________________________________________

This is the story about a young Marine named Michael who wrote a letter home to his mother while he was in hospital after he had been wounded in Korea in 1950.   A Navy Chaplain, named Father Walter Muldy apparently was given the letter, checked the facts and concluded what was in the letter was true.  A year later he read the letter in public for the first time, to a gathering of some 5,000 Marines at the Naval Base in San Diego. 

Here is the Letter:

Dear Mom,

  I wouldn't dare write this letter to anyone but you, because no one else would believe it.   Maybe, even you will find it hard, but I gotta' tell somebody.

First off, I am in a hospital.  Now, don't you worry, ya hear me.  Don't worry, I was wounded, but I'm okay.  You understand.   Okay.   The doctors say I will be up and around in a month.   But, that's not what I want to tell you.

Remember, when I joined the Marines last year.  Remember, when I left, how you told me to say a prayer to St. Michael every day.   You really didn't have to tell me that.   Ever since I can remember you always told me to pray to St. Michael the Archangel.   You even named me after him.   Well, I always have.

When I got to Korea, I prayed even harder.  Remember the prayer you taught me?   "Michael, Michael of the morning, fresh chord of Heaven adorning..."  You know the rest of it.   Well, I said it everyday, sometimes when I was marching or sometimes resting, but always before I went to sleep.   I even got some of the other fellas to say it.

Well, one day I was with an advance detail, way up forward of the front lines.  We were scouting for Commies.  I was plodding along in the bitter cold.  My breath was like cigar smoke.

I thought I knew every guy in the patrol, when alongside of me comes another Marine I'd never met before.  He was bigger than any other Marine I'd ever seen.  He must have been 6' 4'' and built in proportion.   It gave me a feeling of security to have such a buddy near.

Anyway, there we were, trudging along, the rest of the patrol spread out.    Just to start a conversation, I said, "Cold, ain't it."   And then I laughed.  Here I was with a good chance of getting killed any minute, and I am talking about the weather.

My companion seemed to understand.   I heard him laugh softly.   I looked at him.  "I've never seen you before.  I thought I knew every man in the outfit."

"I just joined at the last minute," he replied. "The name is Michael."

"Is that so," I said surprised. "That's my name , too."

"I know," he said, and then went on, "Michael, Michael of the morning..."

I was too amazed to say anything for a minute.   How did he know my name and a prayer you had taught me?   Then I smiled to myself, every guy in the outfit knew about me.  Hadn't I taught the prayer to anyone who would listen.   Why, now and then, they even referred to me as St. Michael.

Neither of us spoke for a time, and then he broke the silence.

"We are going to have some trouble up ahead."

He must have been in fine physical shape for he was breathing so lightly, I couldn't see his breath.   Mine poured out in great clouds.  There was no smile on his face now.

Trouble ahead, I thought to myself.   Well, with the Commies all around us, that is no great revelation.

Snow began to fall in great thick globs.   In a brief moment, the whole countryside was blotted out, and I was marching in a white fog of wet sticky particles.   My companion disappeared.

"Michael," I shouted in sudden alarm.

I felt his hand on my arm, his voice was rich and strong.  "This will stop shortly."

His prophecy proved to be correct.   In a few minutes the snow stopped as abruptly as it had begun.  The sun was a hard shining disc.   I looked back for the rest of the patrol.   There was no one in sight.   We lost them in that heavy fall of snow.   I looked ahead as we came over a little rise.

Mom, my heart stopped!  There were seven of them.  Seven Commies in their padded pants and jackets and their funny hats.   Only, there wasn't anything funny about them now.

Seven rifles were aimed at us.

"Down, Michael!" I screamed and hit the frozen earth.

I heard those rifles fire almost as one.   I heard the bullets.   There was Michael, still standing.  

Mom, those guys couldn't have missed, not at that range.   I expected to see him literally blown to bits.    But, there he stood, making no effort to fire himself.   He was paralyzed with fear.   It happens sometimes, Mom, even to the bravest.  He was like a bird fascinated by a snake.   At least that was what I thought then.

I jumped up to pull him down, and that's when I got mine.   I felt a sudden flame in my chest.   I often wondered what it felt to be hit.   Now I know.

I remember feeling strong arms about me, arms that laid me ever so gently on a pillow of snow.   I opened my eyes for one last look. I was dying.   Maybe I was even dead.

I remember thinking, 'Well, this isn't so bad.'

Maybe I was looking into the sun.  Maybe I was in shock, but it seemed I saw Michael standing erect again, only this time his face was shining with a terrible splendour.

As I say, maybe it was the sun in my eyes, but he seemed to change as I watched him.   He grew bigger, his arms stretched out wide.   Maybe it was the snow falling again, but there was a brightness around him, like the wings of an angel.

In his hand was a sword.   A sword that flashed with a million lights.

Well, that's the last thing I remember until the rest of the fellas came up and found me.    I don't know how much time had passed.   Now and then, I had but a moments respite from the pain and fever.   I remember telling them of the enemy just ahead.

"Where's Michael?" I asked.

I saw them look at one another.   "Where's who?" asked one.

"Michael. Michael, that big Marine I was walking with just before the snow squall hit us."

"Kid," said the Sergeant, "You weren't walking with anyone.   I had my eyes on you the whole time.  You were getting too far out.  I was just going to call you in, when you disappeared in the snow."

He looked at me, curiously.   "How did you do it, Kid?"

"How'd I do what?" I asked half angry, despite my wound.   "This Marine, named Michael and I were just ..."

"Son," said the Sergeant kindly, "I picked this outfit myself, and there just ain't another Michael in it.   You are the only Mike in it."

He paused for a minute.   "Just how did you do it, kid?   We heard shots.  There hasn't been a shot fired from your rifle.  And there isn't a bit of lead in them seven bodies over the hill there."

I didn't say anything.  What could I say.  I could only look open-mouthed with amazement.

It was then the Sergeant spoke again.   "Kid," he said gently, "Every one of those seven Commies over the hill there, was killed by a sword stroke."

That is all I can tell you, Mom.   As I say, it may have been the sun in my eyes.   It may have been the cold or the pain.   But that is what happened.

Love Michael


The Prayer

Michael, Michael of the morning,
Fresh chord of Heaven adorning,
Keep me safe today,
And in time of temptation,
Drive the devil away.


________________

Watch the video here -

 A Soldier Encounters St. Michael - Catholic Church


Monday, December 3, 2012

Jews, The Bible and The Catholic Church. 4 December, 2012. Feast of St.Peter Chrysologus, BpCD, St. Barbara, VM

The Jews, The Bible and The Catholic Church

__________________________________
Pilate presenting Jesus

The Catholic Church teaches that with the coming of Jesus Christ, and the promulgation of the Gospel, the Old Covenant ( that is the agreement made between God and the Jews through the mediation of Moses) ceased, and was replaced with the New Covenant of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's true that some aspects of the Old Covenant are still valid because they are included in the New and Eternal Covenant of Jesus Christ, such as the Ten Commandments; but the Old Covenant itself, (the agreement between God and the Jewish people) ceased with the coming of the Messiah.

Therefore, to say that the Old Covenant is still valid, is to assert that Judaism is a true religion and that Jesus Christ is not really the Messiah.   It is also to deny defined Catholic dogma, such as the teaching of the Council of Florence, which defined ex cathedra, that the Old Law is now dead and those who attempt to practice it (namely, the Jews) cannot be saved.

    Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, 1441, ex cathedra:

    "The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments ... after Our Lord's coming ... ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began ... All, therefore, who after that time ( the promulgation of the Gospel) observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, the Holy Roman Church declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation. - From "The Truth about What Really Happened to the Catholic Church after Vatican II." - Bro. Michael & Bro. Peter Dimond MHFM (www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com)

*       *       *        *        *        *        *       *       *       *       *
The Jews, meanwhile, have traditionally seen Jesus Christ as one of a number of false messiahs who have appeared throughout history.  He is viewed by the false religion of Judaism as having been the most influential, and consequently the most damaging of all false messiahs.

However, since the mainstream Jewish belief that the Messiah has not yet come, and the Messianic Age is not yet present, the total rejection of Jesus as either Messiah or deity in Judaism has never been a central issue for Judaism.   Judaism has never accepted any of the claimed fulfillments of prophecy that Christianity attributes to Jesus.

Judaism also forbids the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, since the central belief of Judaism is the absolute unity and singularity of God.   In Judaism the idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical.  ( Wikipedia )

1 John 2:22 - "Who is a liar, but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ?  He is antichrist, who denieth the Father, and the Son."

"And He said to them [the Jews]: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.   Therefore, I said to you, that you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin." John 8:23-24.

*       *        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

The antipopes of the Vatican II church teach that the Old Covenant has never revoked, which is heresy, apostasy and antichrist, thereby proving that they are not true popes but antipopes.

Besides antipopes reigning from Rome due to uncanical elections, the Catholic Church teaches that if a pope were to become a heretic he would automatically lose his office and cease to be pope.

*      *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *


Antipope John Paul II arrives at Jewish Synogogue
On April 13, 1986, John Paul II travelled to the Jewish Synagogue in Rome, where he took part in Jewish worship service, committing a public act of apostasy, and showed himself again to be a manifest heretic and apostate.....during his stay at the synagogue, John Paul II bowed his head as the Jews prayed for the coming of their "Messiah."  

This incredible act of apostasy by John Paul II was directly connected to his heretical teaching that the Old Covenant is still in force.

In an address to Jews in Mainz, West Germany, Nov. 17, 1980, John Paul II spoke of , "the Old Covenant, never revoked by God..."
 
John Paul II, New Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 121:  ... "for the Old Covenant has never been revoked."

Benedict XVI teaches that Jesus doesn't have to be seen as the Messiah, that Jews can be saved, that the Old Covenant is valid.   He is a bold heretic against the Gospel and the Catholic Faith.

Benedict XVI, Zenit News story, Sept. 5, 2000. "We are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved..."   This is a total rejection of Catholic dogma.

Antipope Benedict XVI taking active part in Jewish worship service
On August 19, 2005 - a Friday at noon, the same day and hour Jesus was crucified - Benedict XVI arrived at the Jewish Synagogue in Cologne, Germany and took part in a Jewish worship service, which is a sin against the divine law and the First Commandment, as was always taught before Vatican II.   Benedict XVI committed a public act of apostasy.  - from " The Truth about What Really Happened to the Catholic Church after Vatican II."  - Bro. Michael & Bro. Peter Dimond MHFM(www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com)

*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

The Seed of Abraham


Realizing the power of the Bible, the Jews have consciously promoted the notion that they are the "people of the Book," the Scriptural "chosen people."   The truth, as the Bible plainly tells it, could not be more contrary.



Abraham
The Jews were the chosen people of God's revelational plan, but it is the central theme of the Bible to explain how ungrateful a people they proved to be in their privileged position; how contemptuous and murderous they were towards the prophets God sent them; how patient God was for centuries with them, until, finally, sending His Divine Son and seeing Him mocked, rejected and crucified by the Jews, God turned His blessing of the Jews to a curse.  The seventeen prophetic books of the Old Testament had repeatedly foretold that God would do this.  The entire New Testament confirms it as done.


The nature of this curse, as revealed by Our Lord's own words in the Gospel, is twofold: it cuts off the Jews from their previously holy tradition and it establishes them in a new and hateful status.  In chapter eight of Saint Matthew, Our Lord tells the Jews that all connection with the few faithful Jews of the Old Testament is now denied them.  "Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven: But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."




Jesus weeps over Jerusalem
In that exterior darkness, according to Our Lord's further words in Saint John, the ejected Jews are not to be left fatherless.  They, who were once the children of Abraham, now become the sons of the Prince of Darkness.  "If you be the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill me," says Jesus to the Jews. "You are of your father, the Devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth..."


The curse on the Jews brought about the corollary election of the Gentile nations.

The "many" who in fulfillment of Our Lord's prophecy would come "from the east and the west" are the armies of responsive Gentiles who have heeded the message of the Apostles, believed that Jesus was the promised Christ, and so joined themselves to that holy tradition that God established with Abraham, two thousand years before the Incarnation.

The Christians faithful who fill and over-flow the places forfeited by the Jews, become now truly the rightful beneficiaries of the promise  made to Abraham.
It is in this profound sense that Pope Pius XI proposed his much-abused statement, "Spiritually, we are Semites."  The Holy Father had no intention of saying ( as the Judaeophiles would have it) that Catholics are one in spirit with present-day, Christ-despising Jews. Pope Pius XI was reiterating the Scriptural truth that, by spiritual means, through Faith and the incorporation of the Holy Eucharist, Catholics have supplanted the Jews as the "chosen people," and they now claim for their ancestry the great names of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

It is in this same spirit that Our Blessed Lady prayed in her New Testament canticle, the Magnificat, when she referred to all the faithful as "Abraham and his seed forever."





Synagogue Theology


Despite their flaunted contempt for the New Testament, the Jews have managed to sustain among the Christian majority the notion that somehow Jewish belief is still Biblical belief, that the Jews still have a Scriptural faith, and that for this reason we must respect the synagogue. "Don't Jews still believe in the Messias to come?" asks the credulous Christian.  "And don't they believe in the same Biblical Heaven and Hell that we do?"

The answer to both these questions is  - no.  And it is an emphatic "No!" as the subsequent Jewish testimony will verify.

Concerning the Messias:  The Jews of today reject the notion of a personal redeemer who will be born of them and lead them to the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies.  The Jews believe that the whole Jewish race is to be elevated to a position of prosperity and overlordship and that, when this happy day arrives ( the Messianic Age), they will have achieved all that is coming to them by way of savior and salvation.   In his recent book, The Messianic Idea in Israel, Jewish theologian Dr. Joseph Klausner explains: "Thus the whole people Israel in the form of the elect of the nations gradually became the Messiah of the world, the redeemer of mankind."

Concerning Heaven and Hell:  A succinct summary of Jewish teaching on "life after death" was given in the May, 1958 issue of B'nai B'rith's National Jewish Monthly.   Under the caption, "What can A Modern Jew believe?" there appeared: "Judaism insists that 'heaven' must be established on this earth.  The reward of the pious is life and happiness in this world, while the punishment of the wicked is misery on earth and premature death ... By hitching its star to the Messianic future on this earth, Israel became the eternal people."  the article goes on: "The best Jewish minds have always held that a physical hereafter is a detraction from mature belief."   And the conclusion:  "There is neither hell nor paradise, God merely sends out the sun in its full strength; the wicked are consumed by its heat, while the pious find delight and healing in its rays."

The Unholy Scripture



Pope Paul IV had copies of the Talmud burned
No one should conclude from the above paragraphs that the tenets of modern Judaism are to be found only in the occasional comments of rabbis or in chance reports of Jewish magazines.  When they rejected the doctrine of the Bible, the Jews took care not to leave themselves bookless.  They have enshrined their entire religious and moral code, in all its naked blasphemy and foulness, in the pages of that teeming, reeking document, the Talmud.

First published about 500 A.D., this supreme Jewish book consists of two main parts: the Mishna, or text, and the Gemara, or commentary.  And to indicate how intoxicatingly to their taste Talmudic teaching is, the Jews have fashioned a proverb:  "The Bible is like water, the Mishna like wine, the Gemara like aromatic liqueur."



From the Talmud
It is not necessary that a militant Catholic wade through the mud of the Talmud in order to be informed of its contents.  Popes of the past have published a number of condemnations which indicate the nature of the book and outline the general objections.  Further, there are detailed studies of the conflict between the Bible and the Talmud, done by Catholic scholars at the request of the Church, that give a complete picture of the Jews' unholy scripture.  One such book is L' Histoire et Les Histoires dans la Bible by the late Bishop Landrieux of Dijon, which was published at Paris in 1921.  Writing on the Talmud, Bishop Landrieux makes the following acute summary.

"It is a systematic deformation of the Bible ... The pride of race with the idea of universal domination is therein exalted to the heights of folly ... For the Talmudist, the Jewish race alone constitutes humanity, the non-Jews are not human beings.  They are of a purely animal nature.  They have no rights. The moral laws which regulate the mutual relations of men, the Ten Commandments, are not of obligation in their regard.  They oblige exclusively among Jews.  With regard to the Goyim (non-Jews) everything is allowed: robbery, fraud, perjury, murder.  When the Talmud became known, especially in the sixteenth century, thanks to the invention of printing, such indignation was aroused throughout the Catholic world that a General Jewish Assembly in 1631 gave orders that the most obnoxious passages should not be printed, but added that, 'a little circle, O, should be put in place of the suppressed passages.  This will warn the rabbis and the school teachers that they are to teach these passages orally so that the learned among the Nazarenes ( Christians) may no longer have any pretext for attacking us in this regard.'  In our day, the Talmud does not provoke either astonishment or anger among Catholics, because it is no longer known."

The Abyss



The Crucifixion
Caught in the blazing light of Holy Scripture, the Jews thus disclose their true colors.  They are, in our day, as remote in faith and tradition from believing Jews of the Old Testament as they are from believing Catholics.  A gaping abyss divides them from Abraham and Moses, as surely as from St. Augustine and St. Francis Xavier.  That abyss is the unrepented rejection and crucifixion of the Messias.   As Saint John Chrysostom says in one of his Sermons Against the Jews, "It is not insignificant controversies that separate us, but the death of Christ."

And because we are separated by this shattering event, we are totally separated.  The Jews are strangers not only to our beliefs, but to our whole way of life.  The fiction that our culture is a "Judaeo-Christian" one, and that the Jews are anxious to preserve it, has lured us to the verge of cultural collapse.

The standards of justice, order and morality that have made our civilization are rooted in Christian teaching; the Jews neither share those standards nor befriend them.  "Is Western Civilization ... worth saving?" asked Rabbi Stephen Wise, in the New York Times of December 7, 1930.  "Or is it not the function of the Jew to bring about the supercession of that decrepit, degenerate, and inevitably perishing civilization, so-called?"

A stern realization of this Jewish hostility to Christendom has been the main motive behind the "anti-Jewish policies" of the Catholic Church.  Since the Jews are so hopelessly estranged from the ways and purposes of Christian society, the Church has advocated complete segregation of the Jews from that society.   Thus, in Catholic times, Jews were isolated in ghettos and relieved of all obligations of citizenship.   They were forbidden to vote, to hold public office, to serve in the army; they could not teach in the universities, nor publish their Talmud, nor otherwise disseminate their infidel ideas.   And when they went outside their ghettos, they were required to wear some distinctive badge, that Christians might know of their presence, and so be on guard.

The Protestant Revolt in the sixteenth century, and the consequent rise of Freemasonry, meant an end to these Catholic practices.  For the Church ceased to be the mother and counselor of the men who were making the public policy of western nations.   And, as the Church's influence has declined (and in inverse proportion as its influence has declined), there has arisen the power, open and asserted, of the Jews.

Against this rising Jewish tide, the Church can offer her children no surer refuge than the high, solid ground of Holy Scripture.

Commentary

St. Bernard

Scriptural teaching on the Jews has been grasped by no one so well as by those most attentive of all Scripture-readers, the Church's canonized saints.  Here is Saint Bernard, Doctor of the Universal Church, commenting on a text from the prophet Isaias:






"O intelligence coarse, dense and, as it were, bovine, which did not recognize God, even in His own works!  Perhaps the Jew will complain, as of a deep injury, that I call his intelligence bovine.  But let him read what is said by the prophet Isaias, and he will find that he is even less than bovine.  For he says,  'The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but  Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.' (Isais 1:3)   You see, O Jew, I am milder than your own prophet.  I have compared you to the brute beasts; but he sets you even below these." 

The ox knoweth his owner

-  (From Point Magazine, edited under Fr. Leonard Feeney, October, 1958)