Drawing Near to Jesus

 

I want to say a heartfelt thanks to all my readers and viewers for your patience (as always) at this time of year when the farm is busy and I also try to sneak in some rest and vacation with my family. Thank you also to those who have offered your prayers and donations for this ministry. I will never have the time to thank everyone personally, but know that I pray for all of you. 

 

WHAT is the purpose of all my writings, webcasts, podcasts, book, albums, etc.? What is my goal in writing about the “signs of the times” and the “end times”? Certainly, it has been to prepare readers for the days which are now at hand. But at the very heart of all this, the goal is ultimately to draw you nearer to Jesus.Continue reading

Personal Relationship With Jesus

PersonalRelationship
Photographer Unknown

 

 

First published October 5th, 2006. 

 

WITH my writings of late on the Pope, the Catholic Church, the Blessed Mother, and the understanding of how divine truth flows, not through personal interpretation, but through the teaching authority of Jesus, I received the expected emails and criticisms from non-Catholics (or rather, ex-Catholics). They have interpreted my defence of the hierarchy, established by Christ Himself, to mean that I do not have a personal relationship with Jesus; that somehow I believe I am saved, not by Jesus, but by the Pope or a bishop; that I am not filled with the Spirit, but an institutional “spirit” that has left me blind and bereft of salvation.

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Call No One Father

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for March 18th, 2014
Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Liturgical texts here

 

 

“SO why do you Catholics call priests “Fr.” when Jesus expressly forbids it?” That’s the question I am frequently asked when discussing Catholic beliefs with evangelical Christians.

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Calling His Name

THE NOW WORD ON MASS READINGS
for November 30th, 2013
Feast of St. Andrew

Liturgical texts here


Crucifixion of St. Andrew (1607), Caravaggio

 
 

GROWING up at a time when Pentecostalism was strong in Christian communities and on television, it was common to hear evangelical Christians quote from today’s first reading from Romans:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10:9)

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The Fundamental Problem

St. Peter who was given “the keys of the kingdom “
 

 

I HAVE received a number of emails, some from Catholics who aren’t sure how to answer their “evangelical” family members, and others from fundamentalists who are certain the Catholic Church is neither biblical nor Christian. Several letters contained long explanations why they feel this Scripture means this and why they think this quote means that. After reading these letters, and considering the hours it would take to respond to them, I thought I would address instead the fundamental problem: just who exactly has the authority to interpret Scripture?

 

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The Coming Revelation of the Father

 

ONE of the great graces of the Illumination is going to be the revelation of the Father’s love. For the great crisis of our time—the destruction of the family unit—is the loss of our identity as sons and daughters of God:

The crisis of fatherhood we are living today is an element, perhaps the most important, threatening man in his humanity. The dissolution of fatherhood and motherhood is linked to the dissolution of our being sons and daughters.  —POPE BENEDICT XVI (Cardinal Ratzinger), Palermo, March 15th, 2000 

At Paray-le-Monial, France, during the Sacred Heart Congress, I sensed the Lord saying that this moment of the prodigal son, the moment of the Father of Mercies is coming. Even though mystics speak of the Illumination as a moment of seeing the crucified Lamb or an illuminated cross, [1]cf. Revelation Illumination Jesus will reveal to us the Father’s love:

He who sees me sees the Father. (John 14:9)

It is “God, who is rich in mercy” whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us as Father: it is His very Son who, in Himself, has manifested Him and made Him known to us… It is especially for[sinners] that the Messiah becomes a particularly clear sign of God who is love, a sign of the Father. In this visible sign the people of our own time, just like the people then, can see the Father. —BLESSED JOHN PAUL II, Dives in misercordia, n. 1

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Footnotes