It is going to be extremely difficult to change the culture when it has become one where drugs are replacing the vacuum left by unbelief. I don't think people can stand idly by in the face of such atrocities. Sometimes war does work. That is why it is accepted that there can be just wars. But it must be all-out war. No half-measures.
Oh, is that all?? This country isn't only a "drug taking" country.....it's big money drug pusher...or else.....country (as well as all the other types of big $$ trafficking enabled by the large population Dim controlled hell holes where illegal populations are encouraged to check out with drugs and free stuff to the point of living in their own feces and dirty needles). There have been gazillion programs for decades to "discourage" drug use. The "re-education" public school system has created generations of unskilled, weak constitution/mental/emotional "give me" stuff for nothing types who when confronted with any kind of pain that facing the real world causes them, they tend towards "medicating" their problems....or hiding! But then, maybe teddy bears WILL be the answer! There has been a long period of pain killers prescribed by medical resources which then hook the patient to continue to seek elsewhere for such relief when taken off these remedies that were meant only for a limited period. Mexico then has become a Narco nation now living off of this opioid addicted population....just their horrendous treatment of the innocents recently in the news....shows you are not working with amenable characters. They make sure through their mules within this country that no one gets out of the scene w/o punishment. Anyone who has had any experience with the hardened criminals the cops deal with each day....as well as social workers, those w/ the resources to help the victims....you'd realize the hold that Satan has through such defective humans and you'd understand that the powerful thugs who play on human weaknesses must be dealt with through the justice deserved. Mexico has shown recently they cannot do anything alone as the cartels literally rule. In case you haven't noticed.....everything Trump has done alone, through executive orders, since he gets no cooperation from those who legislate, like ending abortion, cracking down on opioid prescriptions and supply, esp. from China, is blocked. Hey, I mean, how did we get to this point w/ Mexico, after Nancy Reagan's program of "Just say no" really worked!!!
7-year-old whose mom tried to ‘transition’ him chooses to attend school as a boy | The Pulse | Lifesitenews
I’ll tell you how...we elected CIA drug runner George H.W. Bush, who ended Reagan’s program. The drug wars don’t work. Our own CIA is corrupt and works with the cartel. It’s a mess! I’m the first who wants this to end, my own son is a victim.
Thank you DeGaulle. My son is now at narcotics anonymous and working very hard to stay away from drugs. His sponsor has been a blessing. Educating the youth is where it’s at. Changing Hollywood’s immoral attitude is priority. Parents need help from the media. I believe the master’s of the universe figured out in the 50’s that selling drugs to the American market was more lucrative than selling oil. We’ve been set up. And our youth is paying harshly. We need to first secure our borders, clean out our agencies or abolish them. The corruption is all the way to the top. A war between Mexico and the U.S. will only distract us from the real culprits.
I have no "skin in the game" and must admit to being very dismayed/shocked by our ongoing opioid crisis. Frankly, I put a lot of blame on former TV evangelists like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, who turned the Gospel into grounds for ridicule and contempt. And all these "prosperity preachers." They will have a lot to answer for on Judgment Day, I believe, even if they've asked forgiveness while still alive. Prior to Bakker and Swaggart scandals especially, this country had (I thought) a solid grasp on the Gospel and Christ-like values. I do remember the fallout after, and this country quickly went downhill shortly after.
I put the blame, all on sin. We are all sinners, some worse than others, but all sin bring God's justice. I plead for God's mercy as much for myself as I do others. All have fallen short, but our merciful God has a plan and those who live through these times will have lived their purgatory on earth into His kingdom of the divine will that Jesus taught us to pray 2000 years ago in the Lord's Prayer. It's Coming!
And too many leftist/progressive "judges"(cowards/minions of Satan) in so many of the "expected" regions of this country freely ruling against the Constitution. The cheapening of human life in its most vulnerable beginning has spread to all stages of human life. The results have created cultures of suicide in one way or another. There is no "health care" for the millions targeted on purpose. Such "judges" don't realize that in such rulings they are ruling against their own human dignity as well. Federal judge strikes down rule allowing clinicians to object to abortions for moral or religious reasons A federal judge in New York on Wednesday struck down a new Trump administration rule that would have allowed health care clinicians to refuse to provide abortions for moral or religious reasons. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York rejected the federal rule after women's groups, health organizations and multiple states sued the Department of Health and Human Services, arguing the exemptions were unconstitutional. Engelmayer ruled that the so-called conscience rule was too coercive, allowing HHS to withhold billions in federal funding unless health care providers complied. "Wherever the outermost line where persuasion gives way to coercion lies, the threat to pull all HHS funding here crosses it," Engelmayer wrote in a 147-page decision, according to Reuters. He added that the rule was "arbitrary and capricious." The ruling came in three consolidated lawsuits, according to The Associated Press. One consisted of 19 states, the District of Columbia and three local governments. "The refusal of care rule was an unlawful attempt to allow health care providers to openly discriminate and refuse to provide necessary health care to patients based on providers’ ‘religious beliefs or moral objections,’" New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the lawsuit for the states, said. "We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to protect access to health care and protect the rights of all individuals.” The Trump administration rule, which would have taken effect Nov. 22, would have allowed providers and health care organizations to opt out of performing abortions and other services if the clinicians objected to them on moral or religious grounds. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ng-clinicians-object-abortions-moral-n1077476
These demons wish to force the guilt of murdering children upon everybody, because they know it's a damnable offence, they know they're damned and they can't bear the thought of anyone else not joining them.
It's not just "prosperity preachers". It's the entire Evangelical movement. I keep thinking about this. We, as Catholics, have a cultural "thing" that many people mock: "Offer it up to Jesus". What doesn't get talked about is that when you merge your suffering with the suffering of Jesus, you help not only yourself but countless others. We have Christ on the cross, so we know what suffering is. Here is a question I've asked both priests and ministers. Even the priests get the answer wrong initially, but then correct themselves, while that doesn't always happen with the Protestants. Ready? -- Who carried the Cross to Calvary? -- 99% of the respondents immediately say Jesus. The Catholics usually correct themselves, but I have to give the Protestants the answer: Simon of Cyrene. 3 out of 4 Gospels agree: Jesus was too week to carry the cross; the soldiers were afraid Jesus would die on the way to be executed, so they pulled some poor schmuck out of the crowd to actually carry the Cross for Jesus. We have this tradition of uniting our suffering, our sorrows, our pain to that of Jesus, helping him to carry that Cross because of the example of Simon. The Protestants emphasize the resurrection with the empty Cross, to the point where I've had people ask why we deny the resurrection! (Our crosses aren't empty, so we must not know that Jesus rose from the grave!) They don't seem to consider that before you get to the empty Cross and empty tomb, you need to go through the suffering of the Cross. For many Protestants, I see it as so bad that they tell their followers that suffering is evil. Pain is evil. God does not want us to suffer. This message is hammered home so strongly that Protestants don't even consider the possibility of not using painkillers, since Jesus doesn't want them to suffer. I hope I'm explaining myself well enough.
I have to disagree vehemently with your premise. The most comprehensive, exhaustive moment by moment passion from 5:00PM Holy Thursday evening in the upper room to to the 4:00 PM Good Friday burial of Jesus with his holy Mother Mary at his side, is all documented in an account mystically lived by Luisa Piccarreta. It is the most comprehensive account "lived" by Luisa and then written for our daily prayerful reflection is in her book titled The Hours of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I have missed only a few days of reading these hours since I acquired my book this past spring. So many promises by our Lord for those who will reflect on these messages daily. One of them being, the town who has a soul reading these messages daily will have its punishment diminished in that town during the purification. So many more other beautiful promises as well, but one thing is for sure, Jesus carried his cross and Simon was mentioned just breifly, during the 10:00 am hour, as follows: Simon "unwilling and grumbling" assisted our Lord. But anyone who reads this account will clearly see it was Jesus who carried the cross during this hour into his crucifixion.
Huh. Pagan idols in Rome. Who would think it? https://parcocolosseo.it/en/2019/08...xhibition-of-parco-archeologico-del-colosseo/ Carthago. The immortal myth. From 27 september the new large-scale exhibition of Parco archeologico del Colosseo News 9 August 2019 The history and culture of one of the most powerful and fascinating cities of the ancient Mediterranean is on display from 27 September to 29 March 2020 with the exhibition Carthago. Il mito immortale – “Carthago. The immortal myth”. The Colosseum, the Temple of Romulus and the Imperial Ramp at the Roman Forum will all host extraordinary materials, on loan from national archaeological museums in Italy and abroad, including the Carthage National Museum and the Bardo in Tunisia, and the national museums of Beirut in Lebanon, and Madrid and Cartagena in Spain. The large-scale exhibition is curated by Alfonsina Russo, director of the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, who is also in charge of its international coordination, together with Francesca Guarneri, Paolo Xella and José Ángel Zamora López, with Martina Almonte and Federica Rinaldi. The exhibition, promoted by the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, with the organization of Electa, features precious reconstructions and multimedia installations side-by-side with never before displayed artifacts, all the result of the research campaigns conducted by the Superintendency of the Sicilian Sea in the Aegadian Islands. Our goal is to help familiarize the public with the series of historical events that unite the two great powers of the ancient world, Carthage and Rome. Visitors will embark on a journey starting from the foundation of the Phoenician East to the refounding of the new Colonia Iulia Concordia Carthago, touching upon important events in the rise of Christianity, the new religion of which Carthage would become an important center of diffusion. The exhibition concludes with an epilogue on the ancient city’s rediscovery in the light of the modern and contemporary imagination. A reconstruction of the terrible deity Moloch, linked to Phoenician and Carthaginian religions and featured in the 1914 film Cabiria (directed by Giovanni Pastore and written by Gabriele D’Annunzio) will be stationed at the entrance to the Colosseum to welcome visitors to the exhibition. https://www.lifesitenews.com/mobile...before-amazon-synod?__twitter_impression=true Statue of ancient god of child sacrifice put on display in Rome The pagan god Moloch greets visitors to the Colosseum, Rome, as part of an exhibition that opened Sept. 27, 2019. sanmarinortv.sm / screen grab LifeSiteNews staff Wed Nov 6, 2019 - 12:18 pm EST ROME, November 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A reconstruction of a pagan idol who demanded child sacrifice was stationed at the entrance of Rome’s Colosseum as part of a secular historical exhibition. The presence of the idol raised particular concern among Catholics, as it was erected nine days before the Amazon Synod and the subsequent scandal over the veneration of the Pachamama idol at the Vatican. The statue of Moloch, worshipped by both the Canaanites and the Phoenicians, is part of an exhibit dedicated to Ancient Rome’s once-great rival, the city of Carthage. The large-scale exhibition, titled Carthago: The immortal myth, runs until March 29, 2020. "A reconstruction of the terrible deity Moloch, linked to Phoenician and Carthaginian religions and featured in the 1914 film Cabiria (directed by Giovanni Pastore and written by Gabriele D’Annunzio) will be stationed at the entrance to the Colosseum to welcome visitors to the exhibition," stated a press release about the exhibit. The statue of Moloch was erected nine days prior to the opening of the Amazon Synod, which was plagued with controversy from the beginning after a ceremony in the Vatican Gardens involving the pagan goddess “Pachamama” was held in the presence of Pope Francis and top-ranking prelates. In the ceremony, participants prostrated themselves before wooden statuettes of the fertility goddess indigenous to South America. The statuettes were kept as part of an exhibit in the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina until they were thrown into the Tiber by Austrian Catholic Alexander Tschugguel on Oct. 21. Afterward, one copy of the mass-produced figures was kept in the church. Some Catholics are distressed that the pagan god Moloch has been erected at the entrance to the Colosseum, which is one of many amphitheatres where Christians were tortured and executed for the entertainment of the pagan crowds. "We were so excited the day we decided to go to the Colosseum,” Alexandra Clark told LifeSiteNews via email. She and her sister Tiffany were looking forward to visiting the site of Christian martyrdom. “But the moment we got there the sight that greeted us was horrifying! Standing guard over the entrance was the colossal pagan statue of Moloch. It was placed in that prime spot so that everyone that entered into the Colosseum had to pass it,” she continued. “It was like they put Moloch there to mock the sacred place where the holy martyrs spilled their blood for the True Faith!” Clark saw a connection between the idol of Moloch and the Pachamama images that featured so prominently at the recently concluded Amazonian Synod. “Both of these evil pagan idols required child sacrifices and both of them came to Rome at about the same time [as] the Synod,” she said. The two sisters remained near the Moloch statue to gauge other reactions. Clark noted that a few others, including religious sisters, were clearly shocked by the giant figure. The image of Moloch is modeled on a representation of the child-devouring demon found in the 1914 Italian silent film Cabiria. In the film the idol of Moloch, set up in a Punic temple, has a giant bronze furnace in his chest, into which hundreds of children are thrown. Cabiria, the heroine of the film, is threatened with this fiery fate. The film’s depiction of the idol has a historical basis. Three ancient Greek historians all attest that it was customary in Carthage to burn children alive as offerings to the deity, whom they called Baal and Cronus or Saturn, the Roman god who, according to myth, ate his own children lest they supplant him. Moloch is also mentioned several times in the Book of Leviticus. Hebrew parents are forbidden to sacrifice their children to the god. Meanwhile, that Christians were killed in arenas like the Colosseum is indisputable. Before his martyrdom, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote a letter circa 110 AD describing his probable fate. “I write to the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless you hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.” According to historian Eusebius of Caesaria, St. Ignatius was indeed killed by wild animals in an arena in Rome. Carthage was destroyed by the Roman Republic in 146 BC during the Third Punic War after repeated demands from Cato the Censor to the Roman Senate. Cato is said to have ended all his speeches with the declaration that “Carthago delenda est,” that is, Carthage must be destroyed. However, Carthage was born again as a Roman colony, Roman Carthage, which became an important city in Roman Africa. St. Augustine of Hippo taught at a school of rhetoric there in the fourth century.
You did. Frankly, Simon of Crete is sometimes forgotten by me as well. Protestants whom I especially knew growing up (nearly everyone around me) disliked images of Jesus still on the Cross because (the sense which I got from them) it portrays Him as defeated. It never troubled me. Regarding suffering (with Jesus): The Protestant denoms that I grew up with/in did, at least until the mid-1980s, stress denial of self, taking up one's Cross and following Jesus, suffering (especially persecution) as part of the deal, reminders that Jesus warned His flock "to count the cost", etc. I personally saw, more than once, grown adults weeping over whether or not their hearts were right with God; if they'd failed in some way and needed a renewal of redemption. At some point (I don't know when exactly) "I don't want to suffer...we're not called to suffer (Jesus did the suffering for us)...we are King's Kids (entitlement)..." took over. I have relatives and in-laws with this weird sense of entitlement, i.e. they want (expect) Heaven on Earth AND in the next life.
The theology of suffering is all but gone in our church and in our world today. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, "When I walked by a hospital I said to myself, "such wasted pain", for he understood that in this place so very few understood the gift of suffering enough to unite it to Jesus' suffering. This is why our Mass must never be made into a 'meal' like the Protestants have done. It is a "true sacrifice" perpetuated in an unbloody manner, in every valid mass, until this earth is no more.
Out of fairness to my many Protestant relatives, in-laws, friends (my prior reply): I have to admit a "theology of suffering" - stated so bluntly - now (at this moment) has caught me off guard. Faced with the Archbishop's words and yours...I realize that I, too, have become soft. Reluctant to endure (especially physical) pain. This has set off a flurry of soul searching... Agreed.
A great place to start exploring the gift of suffering is St. Pope John Paul ll encyclical on, The Christian Meaning of Human Suffering.
Let me offer a proposal that I made over on Catholic Answers Forum as something to do for the Holy Souls. I'm a fan of the TRY channel on YouTube. It consists of young Irish actors, etc. trying things for the first time, such as American Halloween Candy, or Danish Snacks. Earlier this week, they posted the attached video. It's called "The One Chip Challenge". This company made corn chips that were coated in powdered Carolina Reaper peppers. The Reaper is officially the hottest food on earth, with over 1,500,000 Scoville Heat Units. The challenge is to video yourself eating just one chip (the box contained only one chip) and timing yourself to see how long it would be before you drank milk or ate ice cream to counter the heat: I made the suggestion over on CAF that we should take this challenge, praying the Rosary while doing so, enduring the suffering with the mental image that each bead we completed was another soul freed from purgatory. (Not true, I know, but a useful image to hold.) The idea sparked some mild interest, and in fact I'm going to ask my priest in confession what he thought of the idea. (Let's face it: hair shirts are out after Labor Day, and self-flagellation is SO last century. So we need to look for newer methods of self-mortification.)
