- May 23, 2012
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- May 11, 2012
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95 years since apparitions of Fatima
Romereports.com
- May 23, 2011
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Does The Unforgivable Sin Remind You Of Anything?
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In Matthew 12:31-32, Jesus speaks of a sin against the Holy Spirit that will not be forgiven in this age or in the age to come. What could Jesus possibly be talking about here? Are not all sins forgivable?
Well, if you back up a few verses and start reading from Matthew 12:22, you will see that Jesus heals a blind and mute demoniac that was brought to him. And while the people were astounded, the Pharisees were still not convinced that Jesus was the son of God. They attribute his miracles to the power of Satan. Jesus then goes on to say in verse 28 that it is by the Spirit of God that he casts out demons. And then we get to verse 31 and 32 where Jesus says that blasphemy against the Spirit and speaking against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either is this age or the age to come. So he is saying that attributing the power of the Holy Spirit to the power of Satan cannot be forgiven.
So why would Jesus say something like this? Isn’t the mercy of God endless? Well, it has long been believed by the Catholic Church (CCC 1864) that Jesus is saying that the Pharisees, whose heart is so hardened that even witnessing a miracle from the Holy Spirit does not cause them to believe in Jesus, would never repent for their sins and seek the mercy of God. You see, it really is not sin that sends anyone to hell, but the failure to repent for your sins. Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that “The worse thing in the world is not sin, but the denial of sin by false conscience, for that attitude makes forgiveness impossible.” This is the only sin that God could never forgive you for. It is the sin of final impenitence, dying with an unwillingness to repent and be reconciled with God. If you have ever worried that you might have committed this sin, you can rest assured that as long as you are still alive, then you have time to repent and therefore could not be guilty of final impenitence.
The thing that this Bible passage (Matthew 12:22-32) really reminds me of is the people today who attribute the miracles of the Catholic Church to the devil. Their hearts are so hardened because they hate the Catholic Church so much, that even miracles from God do not get them to change their mind. God has continually revealed himself in his Catholic Church throughout history. For instance, the Catholic Church has a long history of Eucharistic miracles. One of many examples took place in the 8th century in Lanciano, Italy. A priest, who doubted that Jesus became fully present in the Eucharist, was saying mass one day. When he got to the words of consecration, the bread visibly turned into human flesh and the wine visibly turned into blood. In the 1970s, technology advanced enough to where scrupulous testing could be done on the substance to verify the miracle was authentic. They came to the conclusion that the flesh was striated myocardium, which is the heart wall tissue. The blood, which had hardened into five balls, was real human blood with the AB blood type. The fact that the blood maintained its properties for over a thousand years is a miracle in itself. This is just one of several documented Eucharistic miracles throughout history that have eluded scientific explanation.
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- May 12, 2011
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Did You Know? Fatima (Feast Day: May 13)
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.TANBooks.com/Fatima
Did You Know? Fatima (Feast Day: May 13)
The fourth episode in an ongoing series of brief videos filled with interesting details regarding the lives and miracles of well-known and lesser-known saints, and the devotions and traditions that have developed around them over time.
More “Did You Know?”:
– St. Joseph (Feast Day: March 19)
https://www.TANBooks.com/SaintJoseph
– St. Bernadette Soubirous (Feast Day: April 16)
https://www.TANBooks.com/StBernadette
TRANSCRIPT
Fátima
On May 13, 1917, the first of six apparitions occurred that changed the way we pray the rosary and played a key role in the downfall of Communism.
Ten-year-old Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto were tending sheep near their home village of Fátima, Portugal. Seven-year-old Jacinta was too young for the job by village standards, but she was so lonely without Lúcia nearby that her family gave her a few token sheep and sent her out to pasture, too. There, the children saw a beautiful woman that Lúcia described as “brighter than the sun” and when they asked her name, she called herself “Our Lady of the Rosary”.
Our Lady continued to appear to the children on the 13th day of each month until October 13th, 1917. During her July 17th visit she gave the children “Three Secrets”. The First Secret showed the children a terrifying vision of Hell. The Second predicted World War II, and asked for the Consecration of Russia, who would otherwise “spread her errors throughout the world.” The Third Secret, which remained unreleased until the year 2000, foretold the future persecution of the Church and an attack on the Pope.
Oddly, while all three children could see Our Lady’s revelations, only Lúcia and Jacinta could hear them. During this apparition Our Lady also gave the children what is known today as the Decade Prayer of Fátima, which is now prayed after every decade of the rosary.
During her final apparition on a rainy October 13, 1917, Our Lady provided the “Miracle of the Sun”. More than 70,000 people, including journalists and even atheists, witnessed the sun change colors, rotate like a wheel and dance towards the Earth, miraculously drying everything in sight within minutes.
As predicted by Our Lady, Francisco and Jacinta both died from the Spanish Flu by 1920, but Lúcia was blessed with a long life. She first joined the Sisters of St. Dorothy, and later entered the Carmelite order.
On May 13, 1981, exactly 64 years to the hour after the first apparition of Fátima, Blessed Pope John Paul II was shot by a would-be assassin in St. Peter’s Square. As the gunman pulled the trigger, the Pope saw a young girl with a picture of Our Lady of Fátima. He bent down to bless her and missed two bullets aimed for his head by inches. A third bullet struck. But according to doctors, it followed an inexplicable zig-zag path through his body, barely missing the most vital organs.
The Pope attributed his survival to the miraculous aid of Our Lady. He later placed the bullet in the crown of her statue at Fátima, where it resides today, and invited all the bishops of the world to join him in consecrating the world — and Russia — to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart.
The consecration was made on March 25, 1984 and within five years the Communist Soviet Union had already begun to crumble.
The children’s visions were officially declared “worthy of belief” after canonical enquiry in October 1930. On May 13th, 2000, the 83rd anniversary of the first apparition, Jacinta and Francisco were beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II with Lúcia in attendance. Lúcia passed away due to old age in nearby Coimbra, Portugal on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97 and the town of Fátima now hosts nearly one million pilgrims every May 13th alone.
And that’s how a small Portuguese village became the pilgrimage site we know today.
- May 12, 2011
- View Comments
- Videos
Did You Know? Fatima (Feast Day: May 13)
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.TANBooks.com/Fatima
Did You Know? Fatima (Feast Day: May 13)
The fourth episode in an ongoing series of brief videos filled with interesting details regarding the lives and miracles of well-known and lesser-known saints, and the devotions and traditions that have developed around them over time.
More “Did You Know?”:
– St. Joseph (Feast Day: March 19)
https://www.TANBooks.com/SaintJoseph
– St. Bernadette Soubirous (Feast Day: April 16)
https://www.TANBooks.com/StBernadette
TRANSCRIPT
Fátima
On May 13, 1917, the first of six apparitions occurred that changed the way we pray the rosary and played a key role in the downfall of Communism.
Ten-year-old Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto were tending sheep near their home village of Fátima, Portugal. Seven-year-old Jacinta was too young for the job by village standards, but she was so lonely without Lúcia nearby that her family gave her a few token sheep and sent her out to pasture, too. There, the children saw a beautiful woman that Lúcia described as “brighter than the sun” and when they asked her name, she called herself “Our Lady of the Rosary”.
Our Lady continued to appear to the children on the 13th day of each month until October 13th, 1917. During her July 17th visit she gave the children “Three Secrets”. The First Secret showed the children a terrifying vision of Hell. The Second predicted World War II, and asked for the Consecration of Russia, who would otherwise “spread her errors throughout the world.” The Third Secret, which remained unreleased until the year 2000, foretold the future persecution of the Church and an attack on the Pope.
Oddly, while all three children could see Our Lady’s revelations, only Lúcia and Jacinta could hear them. During this apparition Our Lady also gave the children what is known today as the Decade Prayer of Fátima, which is now prayed after every decade of the rosary.
During her final apparition on a rainy October 13, 1917, Our Lady provided the “Miracle of the Sun”. More than 70,000 people, including journalists and even atheists, witnessed the sun change colors, rotate like a wheel and dance towards the Earth, miraculously drying everything in sight within minutes.
As predicted by Our Lady, Francisco and Jacinta both died from the Spanish Flu by 1920, but Lúcia was blessed with a long life. She first joined the Sisters of St. Dorothy, and later entered the Carmelite order.
On May 13, 1981, exactly 64 years to the hour after the first apparition of Fátima, Blessed Pope John Paul II was shot by a would-be assassin in St. Peter’s Square. As the gunman pulled the trigger, the Pope saw a young girl with a picture of Our Lady of Fátima. He bent down to bless her and missed two bullets aimed for his head by inches. A third bullet struck. But according to doctors, it followed an inexplicable zig-zag path through his body, barely missing the most vital organs.
The Pope attributed his survival to the miraculous aid of Our Lady. He later placed the bullet in the crown of her statue at Fátima, where it resides today, and invited all the bishops of the world to join him in consecrating the world — and Russia — to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart.
The consecration was made on March 25, 1984 and within five years the Communist Soviet Union had already begun to crumble.
The children’s visions were officially declared “worthy of belief” after canonical enquiry in October 1930. On May 13th, 2000, the 83rd anniversary of the first apparition, Jacinta and Francisco were beatified by Blessed Pope John Paul II with Lúcia in attendance. Lúcia passed away due to old age in nearby Coimbra, Portugal on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97 and the town of Fátima now hosts nearly one million pilgrims every May 13th alone.
And that’s how a small Portuguese village became the pilgrimage site we know today.
- February 9, 2011
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Apparitions of 1859
EWTN Global Catholic Television Network: Apparitions of 1859