Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Saint Joseph the Worker and Communism




The feast of St. Joseph the Worker was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 in order to Christianize the concept of labor and give to all workmen a model and a protector. By the daily labor in his shop, offered to God with patience and joy, St. Joseph provided for the necessities of his holy spouse and of the Incarnate Son of God, and thus became an example to all laborers. "Workmen and all those laboring in conditions of poverty will have reasons to rejoice rather than grieve, since they have in common with the Holy Family daily preoccupations and cares"(Leo XIII).

St. Joseph the Worker

"May Day" has long been dedicated to labor and the working man. It falls on the first day of the month that is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Pius XII expressed the hope that this feast would accentuate the dignity of labor and would bring a spiritual dimension to labor unions. It is eminently fitting that St. Joseph, a working man who became the foster-father of Christ and patron of the universal Church, should be honored on this day.The texts of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours provide a catechetical synthesis of the significance of human labor seen in the light of faith. The Opening Prayer states that God, the creator and ruler of the universe, has called men and women in every age to develop and use their talents for the good of others. The Office of Readings, taken from the document of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the modern world, develops this idea. In every type of labor we are obeying the command of God given in Genesis 2:15 and repeated in the responsory for the Office of Readings. The responsory for the Canticle of Zechariah says that "St. Joseph faithfully practiced the carpenter's trade. He is a shining example for all workers." Then, in the second part of the Opening Prayer, we ask that we may do the work that God has asked of us and come to the rewards he has promised. In the Prayer after Communion we ask: "May our lives manifest your love; may we rejoice for ever in your peace."The liturgy for this feast vindicates the right to work, and this is a message that needs to be heard and heeded in our modern society. In many of the documents issued by Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II, reference is made to the Christian spirit that should permeate one's work, after the example of St. Joseph. In addition to this, there is a special dignity and value to the work done in caring for the family. The Office of Readings contains an excerpt from the Vatican II document on the modern world: "Where men and women, in the course of gaining a livelihood for themselves and their families, offer appropriate service to society, they can be confident that their personal efforts promote the work of the Creator, confer benefits on their fellowmen, and help to realize God's plan in history" (no. 34).
— Excerpted from Saints of the Roman Calendar by Enzo Lodi

Patron: Against doubt; against hesitation; Americas; Austria; diocese of Baton Rouge, California; Belgium; diocese of Biloxi, Mississippi; Bohemia; diocese of Buffalo, New York; bursars; cabinetmakers; Canada; Carinthia; carpenters; China; Church; confectioners; craftsmen; Croatian people (in 1687 by decree of the Croatian parliament) dying people; emigrants; engineers; expectant mothers; families; fathers; Florence, Italy; happy death; holy death; house hunters; immigrants; interior souls; Korea; laborers; diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin; archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky; diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire; married people; Mexico; diocese of Nashville, Tennessee; New France; New World; Oblates of Saint Joseph; people in doubt; people who fight Communism; Peru; pioneers; pregnant women; protection of the Church; diocese of San Jose, California; Sicily; diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; social justice; Styria, Austria; travellers; Turin, Italy; Tyrol, Austria; unborn children; Universal Church; Vatican II; Vietnam; diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; wheelwrights; workers; working people.

Symbols: Bible; branch; capenter's square; carpenter's tools; chalice; cross; hand tools; infant Jesus; ladder; lamb; lily; monstrance; old man holding a lily and a carpenter's tool such as a square; old man holding the infant Jesus; plane; rod.

Things to Do:
  • May 1 is celebrated in Communist countries as the Day of the International Solidarity of Workers. Today would be a good day to pray for athesistic Communism's influence to cease and a proper application of the principles explained by Leo XIII in Rerum novarum and John Paul II in Centesimus annus to be the guide used by nations.
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Taken from: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2013-05-01

"We can turn this world into a garden, or reduce it to a pile of rubble".


 

PRAYER OF ENTRUSTMENT TO THE VIRGIN MARY

Delivered by John Paul II in St. Peter's Square
 

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 8, 2000 (ZENIT.org) - Here is a translation of the prayer that Pope John Paul II used to entrust the world and the millennium to Mary.


1. "Woman, behold your Son!" (John 19:26). As we near the end of this Jubilee Year, when you, O Mother, have offered us Jesus anew, the blessed fruit of your womb most pure, the Word made flesh, the world's Redeemer, we hear more clearly the sweet echo of his words entrusting us to you, making you our Mother: "Woman, behold your Son!"
When he entrusted to you the Apostle John, and with him the children of the Church and all people, Christ did not diminish but affirmed anew the role which is his alone as the Savior of the world. You are the splendor which in no way dims the light of Christ, for you exist in him and through him.
Everything in you is fiat: you are the Immaculate One, through you there shines the fullness of grace. Here, then, are your children, gathered before you at the dawn of the new millennium.
The Church today, through the voice of the Successor of Peter, in union with so many Pastors assembled here from every corner of the world, seeks refuge in your motherly protection and trustingly begs your intercession as she faces the challenges which lie hidden in the future.
2. In this year of grace, countless people have known the overflowing joy of the mercy which the Father has given us in Christ. In the particular Churches throughout the world, and still more in this center of Christianity, the widest array of people have accepted this gift.
Here the enthusiasm of the young rang out, here the sick have lifted up their prayer.
Here have gathered priests and religious, artists and journalists, workers and people of learning, children and adults, and all have acknowledged in your beloved Son the Word of God made flesh in your womb.
O Mother, intercede for us, that the fruits of this Year will not be lost and that the seeds of grace will grow to the full measure of the holiness to which we are all called.
3. Today we wish to entrust to you the future that awaits us, and we ask you to be with us on our way.
We are the men and women of an extraordinary time, exhilarating yet full of contradictions.
Humanity now has instruments of unprecedented power: We can turn this world into a garden, or reduce it to a pile of rubble.
We have devised the astounding capacity to intervene in the very well-springs of life: Man can use this power for good, within the bounds of the moral law, or he can succumb to the shortsighted pride of a science which accepts no limits, but tramples on the respect due to every human being.
Today as never before in the past, humanity stands at a crossroads.
And once again, O Virgin Most Holy, salvation lies fully and uniquely in Jesus, your Son.
4. Therefore, O Mother, like the Apostle John, we wish to take you into our home (cf. John 19:27), that we may learn from you to become like your Son.
"Woman, behold your children!"
Here we stand before you to entrust to your maternal care ourselves, the Church, the entire world.
Plead for us with your beloved Son that he may give us in abundance the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth which is the fountain of life.
Receive the Spirit for us and with us, as happened in the first community gathered round you in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (cf. Acts 1:14).
May the Spirit open our hearts to justice and love, and guide people and nations to mutual understanding and a firm desire for peace.
We entrust to you all people, beginning with the weakest: the babies yet unborn, and those born into poverty and suffering, the young in search of meaning, the unemployed, and those suffering hunger and disease.
We entrust to you all troubled families, the elderly with no one to help them, and all who are alone and without hope.
5. O Mother, you know the sufferings and hopes of the Church and the world: Come to the aid of your children in the daily trials which life brings to each one, and grant that, thanks to the efforts of all, the darkness will not prevail over the light.
To you, Dawn of Salvation, we commit our journey through the new millennium, so that with you as guide all people may know Christ, the light of the world and its only Savior, who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
 
[Original text: Italian]

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Taken from: http://www.autentico.org/oa09485.php

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Left Dodging Any Confrontation With Islam

Left running in circles to avoid naming elephant in the room

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IT'S now 14 days since the Boston Marathon was bombed by Islamic extremists, 406 days since an Islamic extremist shot Jewish children in France, 1171 days since Islamic extremists bombed Pune in India, 1270 days since an Islamic extremist murdered 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, 1615 days since Islamic extremists launched an assault on Mumbai that killed 164 citizens, 2853 days since Islamic suicide bombers slaughtered 52 commuters in London, 3336 days since 191 were blown apart by Islamic extremists in Madrid, 3852 days since Islamic extremists killed 202 people including 88 Australians in Bali and 4248 days since nearly 3000 died in the Islamic extremist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In between times, it's also been 2131 days since failed attempts by Islamic extremists to bomb London and Glasgow, 1546 days since Islamic extremists were jailed in NSW and Victoria for planning to bomb the 2005 AFL grand final, 226 days since a young Islamic woman was photographed during Sydney riots taking a snap of her four-year-old child holding a sign reading "Behead all those who insult the prophet" and just four days since three Islamic extremists were sent to prison in the UK over terrorism conspiracies.
There may have been one or two other recent Islamic extremist incidents besides. It's difficult to keep count. In any case, a pattern seems to be emerging that involves extremists of a particular type.
It's obvious to all except our friends on the Left, who have developed three distinct coping mechanisms over the past decade or so in order to dodge any confrontation with Islam.
The first is outright evasion. Here, for example are the "bare facts" of the Boston attack, according to the ABC's Jonathan Green: "Two bombs exploded, 10 or so seconds apart, the first about 2.49pm, on Boylston St, Boston ... Three people were killed, while 264 others were injured. As a consequence one suspect was arrested, and another died in the course of a massive manhunt. The pair were Chechen brothers. The surviving suspect has been charged in a bedside hearing in hospital. His condition is now described as fair. That's about it so far."
Not quite. By the time of Green's faith-free outline, another fact was known. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "told federal agents he and his brother were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs", the New York Times reported.Another form of evasion: since 2001 the Left has become overwhelmingly concerned about what the weather may be like in a few hundred years. It's their way of seeming to be worried about important global issues while ignoring a global issue that is killing and tormenting people right now, every day.
The second coping device is the complexity disguise, whereby the simple realities of Islamic terrorism are submerged beneath tonnes of pointless, faux-sophisticated chatter. US academic John Cole steps up to the plate: "This sounds to me like a classic father-son struggle, and a tale of adolescent rebellion, in which radical Muslim vigilantism appears mainly as a tool for the young men to get back to their father, and perhaps to wipe off the shame they had begun feeling about the family having been on the wrong side of the Chechnya fundamentalist uprising. They were playing the nihilists Arkady and Bazarov in Turgenev's Fathers And Sons. The shame of the secular uncle may have been mirrored from the other side in the shame of the newly religious-nationalist adolescents."
I prefer Tamerlan Tsarnaev's more direct explanation, as related to the Chinese man whose car he and his brother hijacked during their bid to flee Boston. "I did that," said Tamerlan, referring to the marathon attack. "And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge. I'm a Muslim."
He'll never get academic tenure with that impressive verbal economy. There's also the problem of Tamerlan being dead, having been run over by his brother's stolen SUV, which is a plot development rarely seen in 19th century Russian drama.
A few on the Left reject this nonsense. Following the capture of the surviving Tsarnaev idiot, Brian Levin, the director of something called the Center for Study of Hate and Extremism, turned up on Bill Maher's US talk show. Now, Maher is usually as mushily Left as they come, but this night he nailed it. "There's only one faith that kills you, or wants to kill you, if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There's only one faith that kills you, or wants to kill you, if you renounce the faith," he told his guest, who'd tried to draw an equivalence between Islam and other faiths. When Levin continued, weakly claiming that an anti-Muslim musical could be presented on Broadway without subsequent deadly mayhem, in the manner of The Book of Mormon, Maher asked: "Tell me what colour the sky is in your world." Good question.
The third coping strategy is a simple blame-switch. On the Friday prior to the Tsarnaevs' showdown with police, Fairfax publications ran an illustration pointing an accusing finger at the presumed marathon killers. It depicted a teapot decorated with the stars and stripes, atop which a lit fuse sparkled.
Fairfax's best guess on the identity of the Boston bombers was the Tea Party, a mainstream political movement in the US primarily concerned with low taxation.
Islamic extremists pick out soft targets. In Boston, the murdered victims included an eight-year-old boy. The Left likes soft targets, too. No Tea Partier has bombed anybody. They're basically middle-class types who, if they ever do use pressure cookers, use them for cooking rather than killing.
The common element with all three Leftoid coping mechanisms is a gutless unwillingness to face reality. They're boldly standing up for cowardice, which is something of an accomplishment considering that the closest thing they have to a spine these days is the yellow streak running down their backs.
Meanwhile, the rest of us may consider again the list at the top of this column and marvel at the words of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's former brother-in-law, searching for a reason behind this month's latest Islamist outrage. "He was angry," said the bro-in-law, "that the world pictures Islam as a violent religion."
Well, he can't blame the Left. They'd never say such a terrible thing. They wouldn't dare.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

“Some Standing Here Will Not Taste Death Until…”



Taken from: http://beyondcreationscience.com/index.php?pr=Read_Chapter_1




Beyond Creation Science

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Chapter 1 – What Did Jesus Say?

“Some Standing Here Will Not Taste Death Until…” 

The problem is not in what the Bible teaches. The problem is the assumptions and expectations modern Christians bring to the Bible. Everyone has opinions about what biblical prophecy and biblical creation should be about, and those opinions have a lot to do with what Christians “see” in prophecy and creation.
   
 
We recognize the critical role these assumptions play in our understanding of various portions of the Bible. But prophecy, understood on its own terms, is often surprisingly direct and simple. Here is an example. Imagine yourself standing among the disciples nearly 2,000 years ago. Jesus said:
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Matt. 16:27-28 NIV)
If you were there, how would you have taken Jesus’ remarkable claim? You heard Jesus say that he would come in his kingdom with angels and rewards. When? Before everyone present at the time died? Isn’t that what Jesus said? Think of how exciting that would be! If you were one of those standing there, you would understand that perhaps 20, 30, 40, at most maybe 50 years would pass before the coming of the Son of Man; enough time would pass for some to die (since Jesus does not say all standing here shall not taste death till…), but not so much time that everyone present would die. That is the natural reading of the passage.

Peter Was Martyred, but John Lived On!

Do we have another example in the gospels where Jesus made a similar claim? The apostle John recorded a conversation between Jesus and Peter which took place after the resurrection. John’s account of this conversation contains both a prediction by Jesus and another statement about his coming. Jesus told Peter,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go." Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, "Follow Me!" Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, "Lord, who is the one who betrays You?" So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, "Lord, and what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!" (John 21:18-22 NASB)
Is this coming of Jesus the same coming of the “Son of Man” in Matthew 16:28? Again, Jesus said that someone present at that time would live until his coming! Notice Jesus predicted Peter’s death as a martyr. He also suggested that John (the disciple whom Jesus loved) would live to see the coming of Christ.
 
 
John’s account of Jesus’ prediction after the resurrection in John 21 agrees with Matthew’s account of what Jesus promised before the crucifixion in Matthew 16. Both Peter and John were present when Jesus said “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. 16:28 NKJV) Here in John 21 we find that Jesus said Peter would die as a result of persecution, but John would live until the coming of Christ. John would be one of those standing there who would not taste death before the coming of Christ!
 
 
Did Jesus’ prediction about Peter’s death come true? Yes, it did. Did John live longer than Peter as Jesus implied? Yes, he did. So where does that put the coming of Christ?
 
 
The Bible gives us a general idea on the timing of the coming of Christ. Not the exact day or the exact hour, but there is a window of time between the martyrdom of Peter and the death of John in which we should expect the coming of Christ to have taken place. Unless the apostle John is 2000 years old and still living somewhere, the Bible teaches the coming of Christ is in our past, not in our future.
 
 
That initial thought creates problems for modern debates over prophecy. Most prophetic views assume the Bible teaches the coming of Christ lies in our future. What if that expectation is false? Would not a mistake like that cause much of the confusion, irresolvable debates, and failed predictions we witness among Christians today? In light of the clear predictions Jesus made, we think it makes sense to cautiously investigate the notion that the coming of Christ has already occurred. After all, the prediction Jesus gave regarding Peter’s martyrdom and John’s long life came true exactly as he said. Could it be that his coming also took place exactly as he said – in the lifetime of some of those who listened to his teaching in person?

“This Generation Will Not Pass Away Until All …”

The coming of Christ has already happened? We realize this might strike you as an odd way to look at prophecy. Surely, there must be some mistake. Did Jesus really mean to say that his coming would take place in the lifetime of some of his disciples? If he did intend to mean that, then it should be clear in the Olivet Discourse, the main prophetic text in the gospels.
 
 
Before we look at Jesus’ sermon on the Mount of Olives, we need to establish the context. What we know as the Olivet Discourse is the last two-thirds of a long speech by Jesus. Jesus delivered the Olivet Discourse just two days before he went to his death on the cross. The first part of the speech began in Matthew 23 with Jesus teaching the crowds in the temple area
The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, “Rabbi, Rabbi.” But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Matt. 23:2-12 NKJV)
Jesus then cursed the leaders of Jerusalem with the seven woes:
But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men;… (v. 13)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses… (v. 14)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!…you make [your disciple] twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. (v. 15)
Woe to you, blind guides, who [swear falsely]. (v. 16)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you … have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith… (v. 23)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For… inside [you] are full of extortion and self-indulgence… (v. 25)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs… [Y]ou outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (vv. 27-28)
Jesus then “summed up” these woes and delivered a powerful warning:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. (vv. 29-36)
Notice that Jesus condemned specific sins of a specific group of religious leaders: the scribes and Pharisees of his day. He closed his admonition with a promise to send more prophets, wise men, and scribes, which they would scourge, persecute, kill, and crucify, just as their fathers had done. Jesus then promised to punish them, after which he lamented Jerusalem’s fate:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (vv. 37-39)
Remember, this speech took place two days before the crucifixion. No wonder the religious leaders were so intent on killing Jesus! This was too much for the religious leaders to allow. Matthew 26:1-5 tells us these religious leaders immediately started their plot to crucify him.
 
 
After pronouncing judgment on Jerusalem and its leaders, Jesus and his disciples left the temple courts to go sit in the shade of the nearby olive trees. On the way, Jesus’ disciples remarked about the beauty and magnificence of the temple and its courts. Jesus responded with these words,
Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (24:2)
When they were finally alone, the disciples approached Jesus and asked,
Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age? (v. 3)
Jesus answered them,
Take heed that no one deceives you. (v. 4)
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. (v. 9)
Therefore when you see the “abomination of desolation,” spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (v. 15-16)
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. (v. 21)
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call… (v. 30-31)
Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. (v. 34-35)
Notice the parenthetical comment in v. 15. When Matthew wrote this passage he understood that it was a warning to his readers. Notice also that Jesus (1) references the great tribulation in vv. 9 and 21, (2) references the Son of Man coming “on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” in v. 30, and (3) tells them when all these things would happen in v. 34: “This generation will by no means pass away until all these things take place.” That is, these things would all take place during the generation Jesus referenced in Matthew 23:36.
 
 
That must have sent the disciples reeling. Put yourselves in their sandals again. The temple was the pride of Israel . It was the place where sacrifices and all the regulations of the Mosaic code were carried out day after day. It was the place at the center of life for devout Jews, the sign of God’s presence rested in the Holy of Holies. Yet here was Jesus claiming that everything he had just predicted would take place before that generation passed away!
 
 
Jesus reiterated the timing of his coming as found in Matthew 16:28 in Matthew 24:34. “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” is essentially the same as “some of those standing here will not die before they see the Son of Man coming with his kingdom.” Both statements demand fulfillment a few decades into the future, but within a future limited to the lifetimes of those who heard Jesus speak.
 
 
Continuing the same speech, Jesus said,
But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. (vv. 37-39)
In Matthew 25, Jesus concluded the Olivet Discourse:
When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him… and He will separate them one from another…. And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:31-32, 46 NKJV)
Yet all of this echoed what was said just a few verses back
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven… and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (Matt. 24:30 NKJV)
Notice the similarity between Matthew 16:27, the passage we examined at the opening of this chapter, and Matthew 25:31-32, 46:
For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. (Matthew 16:27 NKJV)
This similarity gives strong contextual evidence that all of these texts speak to the same “coming of the Son of Man.” Author Gary DeMar emphasizes the resemblance and shows the problem with how many Christians read the Olivet Discourse today:
[T]here is little evidence that the “coming of the Son of Man” in Mathew 24:27, 30, 39, and 42 is different from the “coming of the Son of Man” in 25:31. Compare 25:31 with 16:27, a certain reference to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70… These verses are almost identical.1
To miss the identification of the time when an event is said to occur will mean that the discourse can be made to fit any generation. This, of course, would lead to tremendous confusion. There is no doubt that this error is the chief problem for those who maintain that the events of Matthew 24-25 and other prophetic passages are yet to be fulfilled, either in our generation or in some future generation.2
Jesus spoke of things related to the life and experience of the disciples throughout the entire Olivet Discourse.

The Great Tribulation has Already Happened

Our first claim is bold: We believe biblical prophecy can be understood by Christians. We don’t believe the Bible’s teachings on the matter are incomprehensible – that the details are so complex they are beyond the reach of Christians in our day.
 
 
The Olivet Discourse makes it absolutely clear that the coming of Christ is connected intimately to what happened to the city of Jerusalem and the temple. Not only does that mean the coming of Christ is related to 1st century events, it also means that what we now call “the great tribulation” took place in localized, historical events. Jesus mourned over Jerusalem , not the world. Jesus pronounced judgment on the leaders of Israel , not modern-day world leaders. Gary DeMar offers this explanation:
Keep in mind that the tribulation described by Jesus in Matthew 24 was local, confined to the land of Israel . The people were still living in houses with flat roofs (Matthew 24:17). The setting was agricultural (24:18). The Sabbath was still in force with its rigid travel restrictions (24:20)… The tribulation had reference to the Jews, the people of Judea (Matthew 24:16; Luke 21:20-24); it was not a worldwide tribulation.3
Here is where a proper understanding of the great tribulation holds implications for the Genesis debate. Jesus drew a comparison in the Olivet Discourse that few stop to consider. He compared Noah’s flood which “swept them all away” with the great tribulation and his coming. Consider the words of Jesus once again:
But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. (Matt. 24:37 NKJV)
Jesus explicitly compared his coming to the days of Noah. If the great tribulation happened in the local events of the first century, then how should we understand the historical events of Noah’s flood? Prophetic views have tremendous implications for the Genesis debate among Christians.

Two Debates in One Book

Few subjects in the Church today generate more controversy than end-times prophecy and Genesis creation. Any book that begins with a discussion of New Testament prophecy should be suspect. Even worse is a book that dives into the origins debate at the same time. This book combines these two explosive debates – on purpose.
 
 
It may seem ambitious to tackle both ends of the Bible at once. We think that is exactly what needs to be done. We want to investigate how these two enormous issues, Bible prophecy and Genesis creation, relate to one another across our Bible. We will begin with New Testament prophecy. Then we will show how differing views of prophecy naturally match a complementary understanding of Genesis creation.

X-millennialism vs. Pan-millennialism

Prophecy alone is a vast subject. There are so many different views that many Christians are confused by the topic. Eyes glaze over whenever someone starts sprinkling conversation with such big words as eschatology or premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism. It gets worse when we find out that each of these common views possess their own internal debates and nuances over which people make great fuss. Is there any hope at all that we can really understand the full picture of what the Bible teaches in prophecy?
 
 
Many have lost hope. The seeming futility of the whole exercise has given rise to a new view that seems appropriate, given the state of the debate. Many call it “pan-millennialism” – it all “pans” out in the end. In other words, don’t get caught up in the details, just focus on the victory at the end. We can all agree on the victory at the end, right?
 
 
That is good enough for some Christians. It is certainly the easiest view to understand. It may even be better than some of the other big-name views mentioned above. We sympathize with the pan-millennialist who, when in the presence of someone expounding upon the finer points of some x-millennialist view of prophecy, shrugs his shoulders and wonders if we will ever know in this life.
 
 
The problem with the pan-millennialist viewpoint is that much of the Bible, especially the New Testament, talks about prophecy in great detail. If you ignore what the New Testament says about prophecy, you are going to miss a lot of what Jesus said. Did Jesus think the details of his coming were unimportant to understand?
 
 
The only way to honor Jesus is to pay close attention to everything he taught. His disciples certainly did. After Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles had a lot to say about prophecy. They thought it was very important to get it right. Why was it so important for them to get it right and to teach others to get it right? What if their lives depended on it, literally?
 
 
There is no doubt that confusion about biblical prophecy reigns among Christians today. That does not mean our situation is hopeless; it may simply mean the study of God’s Word, like anything valuable in life, will take considerable work. Why would the Bible have so much prophecy in it if Christians were not meant to understand it?
 
 
Another problem with the pan-millennial approach is that our understanding of prophecy inevitably impacts what Christians believe about a great number of things in our world. Christians generally act in terms of their beliefs. Should Christians believe the latest prophecy book about a coming “rapture”? Should American Christians commit themselves to unquestioning political support for the nation of Israel? Should we plan for the distant future if the end of the world is so near? What goals should the Church make to impact modern culture for Christ? There is no possible neutrality about these questions. All of them relate one way or another to how Christians understand prophecy. Prophetic views drive Christian culture. That is precisely why they are so controversial.
 
 
As we have already hinted, New Testament prophecy relates to other things in the Bible as well. In the following pages, we will explore in depth the many biblical links between prophecy and Genesis creation. We will present a case that the Genesis debate among Christians has been and will continue to be impacted profoundly by prophetic views. What about creation and Noah’s flood? Is evolution compatible with the Bible? Is it biblically possible that our universe could be millions or even billions of years old? We’ll get to all that, but first we need to lay some more groundwork for a proper understanding of prophetic teaching in the Bible.
 
 
Is it worth considering the possibility that every detail Jesus gave within the Olivet Discourse was fulfilled in the 1st century events leading up to ad 70? In ad 30, Jesus promised that every stone of the temple would be thrown down before that generation passed away. It is a powerful vindication of his prophetic word that we know Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in ad 70, 40 years later. What Jesus said would happen in the lifetime of some of his disciples came to pass exactly as he predicted it would. The Olivet Discourse is fulfilled prophecy.




2 Ibid., p. 43.
3 Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church, 3rd ed, (Atlanta: American Vision, 1997), p. 117.
 

Monday, April 15, 2013

Pope Francis's Global Panel For Curial Reform



Pope Francis to revolutionise running of church with new advisory panel

 
Eight-strong group of cardinals from around the world will shake up central bureaucracy of Italian-dominated Curia
 
 
Pope Francis
 
Pope Francis's advisory panel represents the Catholic church's most important step in 10 centuries, said one historian. Photograph: Unimedia Images/Rex Features

Pope Francis presaged a revolution in the running of the Catholic church when, at the weekend, he announced the formation of an eight-strong panel of cardinals from all parts of the world who are to advise him on governance and the reform of the Vatican.
The Italian church historian Alberto Melloni, writing in the Corriere della Sera, called it the "most important step in the history of the church for the past 10 centuries". For the first time, a pope will be helped by a global panel of advisers who look certain to wrest power from the Roman Curia, the church's central bureaucracy.
Several of the group's members will come to the job with a record of vigorous reform and outspoken criticism of the status quo. None has ever served in the Italian-dominated Curia in Rome and only one is an Italian: Giuseppe Bertello, the governor of the Vatican City State.
The panel will be headed by one of the most dynamic figures in the Catholic leadership: Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa in Honduras and head of the global charity Caritas Internationalis. A polymath who plays the saxophone and piano, Maradiaga has trained as a pilot and speaks six languages. Like Pope Francis, he has long been a tenacious critic of economic inequality.
In an interview with the Italian television news service Tgcom24, Maradiaga said his group would "certainly" be tackling the ever-controversial Vatican bank.
The remaining members of the group were each chosen to represent one of the six continents. They include Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who imposed a "zero tolerance" policy on clerical sex abuse in his archdiocese of Boston, and George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, who gave an unusually forthright interview before the election of Francis in which he said the leaking of the former pope Benedict's correspondence last year had identified "substantial problems" that needed to be addressed "in a real way".
Another formidably savvy member of the panel will be Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the 1990s, he was handed the responsibility of overseeing his country's transition to democracy following the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.
A statement from the Vatican said the group would not be meeting until October. But it added that Francis was already talking to its members.
The statement said they had been entrusted with drawing up a scheme "for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus", which dates from 1988 and was drafted by Pope John Paul II. The last thoroughgoing shake-up of the Curia, however, was by Pope Paul VI more than 40 years ago.
Pope Francis appeared to be doing more than just initiating a much-needed bureaucratic reform. A global panel of mostly diocesan archbishops will give some real meaning to "collegiality": the idea that the church's pastoral leaders should have a role in its overall governance. Collegiality was enjoined by the Second Vatican Council which ended its work in 1965, but only very partially implemented under Paul and the charismatic, but autocratic, John Paul.
Maradiaga said: "Above all, we shall be giving first-hand information in contact with the bishoprics – perspectives other than those that get to the Holy See."

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Taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/14/pope-francis-church-advisory-panel

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Northern Cherokee Tribe claims to have escaped desert fortress at Masada!

 
 

(PRWEB) February 5, 2003
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Missouri Cherokee Tribes proclaim Jewish Heritage!
The Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory has recently shocked the world by claiming their ancient Oral legends tell of a Cherokee migration made to America from the area known as Masada.
This startling evidence is being offered to the public by Beverly Baker Northup whom is the spokesperson for their organization. The evidence offered in support of this connection to Cherokees escaping the mountain fortress of Masada is based in part of what Northup claims is stories passed down from elders and the similarity between ancient words.
Beverly Baker Northup believes there is a connection between these two peoples based on evidence of Jews of the region around Masada during Roman times wearing braided hair and the similarities that the spokesperson attributes to Hebrew language.
In explaining this connection Beverly Baker Northup is quoted as saying:
"The story has been kept alive among our Cherokee people that the Sicarii who escaped from Masada, are some of our ancestors who managed to cross the water to this land, and later became known as Cherokees. (Please note the phonetic resemblance of Si'cari'i and, Cherokee or Tsa'ra-gi'.)"
Northup claims that the famous scholar Josephus wrote that there were escapees from Masada in which the spokesperson for the Northern Cherokee states that this is evidence that gives credence to this connection between the Cherokee Indians and the Jews.
In addition to other startling claims, there is also the belief by the Northern Cherokee that a rock that was uncovered in Tennessee in 1889 that is named the Bat Creek Stone, proves a transatlantic connection to Jews. Northup believes that the scratched writings on the rock indicate that the stone is evidence of a first century Atlantic Crossing to America by these escaped Jews that later became known as the Northern Cherokee Indians.
The Northern Cherokee attempted to gain full legislative recognition in the State of Missouri in 1985 that was eventually vetoed by Governor John Ashcroft. Governor Ashcroft made the following statement concerning his decision to veto the recognition of the Northern Cherokee:
"The Federal Government has traditionally exercised authority with respect to Indian Affairs. I am not persuaded that the state has such a substantial interest in this area that it should become involved in the recognition of Indian tribes."
Sources among some federally recognized Indian Tribes have stated that Mr. Ashcroft's comments were 100% correct and should be referred to from time to time.
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