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Post by Young Ireland on Mar 5, 2012 19:48:23 GMT
In this month's Alive!, Fr. Owen Gorman has an excellent article condeming the "Maria Divine Mercy" apparitions: www.alive.ie/fr-owen-gorman-column.htmlThe Warning Second Coming Many faithful Christians at present believe that the world has gotten so bad that God will intervene directly in human affairs to bring us to our senses. Something big will happen, they say, and soon! This view is central to a website, ‘the warning second coming’, that is popular with some Catholics. It is associated with an anonymous ‘European seer’ who goes by the name, ‘Maria Divine Mercy’. The website claims that since November 2010, ‘Maria’ has been receiving messages from God the Father, Jesus and Our Lady. They speak of a worldwide warning from God, the need for conversion and the Second Coming of Christ. In judging private revelations, the Church rightly proceeds with great caution. If any “revelation” contains a substantive doctrinal or moral error it can be dismissed as being ‘not of supernatural origin’. Applying this standard to ‘Maria Divine Mercy’, we find a number of doctrinal errors in her writings. Here are sample messages followed by responses based on Church teaching: (1) Message (20 May 2011): Many people believe that My Second Coming indicates that the end of the world has come. This is not the case, for instead, it will mean the End Times when Satan and his followers will be banished from earth for 1000 years. Response: This “message” contradicts Church teaching, where the Second Coming will indeed mean that the end of the world has come. Our Lord’s Second Coming will signal that the history of the world has run its course. The earth and the cosmos will be renewed and evil will no longer tarnish God’s creation. The ‘new heavens and the new earth’ and the renewed creation will be free from Satan’s power not for 1000 years, but forever. (2) Message (7May 2011): My Passion the Cross and the atrocities committed by man at My crucifixion have not been revealed to the world in the way they were meant to be. Response: The revelation of Jesus’ passion is found in the four Gospels, which are inspired by God. To claim that the events around Jesus’ crucifixion have not been revealed as they were meant to be belittles Biblical revelation. It implies that the Gospel accounts are defective. But this cannot be, for God Himself is the author of Scripture which manifests his mind and will. Maria Divine Mercy has not got this point right. Is anyone sniffing heresy? (3) Message (31 January 2012): I grant them [my disciples] plenary indulgence to enable them carry My torch of fire so that they can spread conversion. They must say this prayer for seven consecutive days and they will be given the gift of total absolution and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Response: Private revelations often contain promises of special rewards for faithful followers. But there are two big problems here.
(a) Jesus does not grant plenary indulgences. He has delegated the dispensing of indulgences to Church authorities. They decide what pious practices merit a plenary indulgence, and the conditions.
(b) total absolution of sins comes through the sacrament of penance, not from reciting a particular prayer over a 7-day period, however meritorious that prayer may be.
This small sampling of messages should make it clear that the views on the ‘warning’ website contain serious doctrinal errors and are not a reliable guide to the Catholic faith.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 7, 2012 21:32:39 GMT
Here are two fairly obvious blunders: The first falls under the category of hypocrisy. To submit private revelations to the Church authorities to test their orthodoxy implies acceptance that it is necessary that they should be approved BEFORE being circulated, and that the Church authorities may possibly rule against them and are entitled to do so. To announce that you have submitted the messages to the Church authorities for evaluation, and then release them anyway without waiting for the result, defeats the whole point of the exercise - unless there was never any intention of waiting for a verdict (or even, perhaps, to submit them in the first place) and the expression of willingness to submit is simply intended to feign submissiveness to legitimate Church authority in order to reassure people who might be suspicious of unapproved private revelations.
The second point is that the 31 January 2012 message in which Jesus grants followers of the alleged revelation a plenary indulgence and promises them total absolution if they say a certain prayer seven days running appears to incorporate the blunder, often made by people ignorant of Catholic doctrine, that absolution and a plenary indulgence are the same thing. They are not; absolution forgives sin and an indulgence forgives the penalty incurred by sin, which is still due after the sin itself is forgiven. (Let us take a familiar example. Father X may have sincerely repented for raping children and been forgiven his sin, but he is still justly liable to be punished for that sin by the legitimate authorities in this world as well as in the next.)
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 8, 2012 18:53:33 GMT
The claim that the Second Coming will involve the temporary banishment of Satan while Jesus rules the earth for 1000 years rests on an interpretation of the Book of the Apocalypse called premillennialism, which is strongly associated with evangelical Protestantism and has actually been condemned by the Church. I suspect an influence from popular evangelical literature: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premillennialism
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2012 0:53:38 GMT
Hello YoungIreland,
I've never heard of this new lady. I think that between Knock, Lourdes and Fatima, the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Miraculous Medal we have enough to keep us going regards Our Lady and the end times. We can focus so much on that sort of message that we forget to do the mundane things that living in the present requires. Jesus lived a boring life for 33 years before He showed who He was.
Christianity although awe- inspiring can be nitty gritty boring too, when people like her focus so much on the end times they forget to engage in the world around them, along with its problems. The length of time is also a problem for me, does the Creator of the universe and the mother of God really have time to speak to this lady for 18 months? That always smells fishy to me.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 12, 2012 9:11:10 GMT
I'm sorry I didn't pay attention to this piece in the beginning. I don't know who is signed up to 'The Brandsma Review' on Facebook, but there is a conversation there on the MDM. Seems St Mary's Parish in Navan to have their Perpetual Adoration webcast 24/7, which was picked up by Maria Divine Mercy's German website diewarnung.de (sorry I don't have the correct reference, but you don't need a lot of German to see Die Warnung translates as The Warning) and duly linked - which is why people in Alpine Austria can see what's going on in Co Meath. The point is that it is questionable what good webcasting Perpetual Adoration is, but it is subject to all sort of potential abuses and the fact that is linked by Maria Divine Mercy's apocalypse watch crew is no good thing.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 12, 2012 22:09:03 GMT
What sort of abuses is it subject to? It seems like a reasonable enough idea for me, and helpful for people who may wish to participate in Perpetual Adoration but have difficulty in doing so. The fact that Maria Divine Mercy is exploiting it doesn't mean it is wrong in itself - I have come across feminist New Agers who try to reinterpret Lourdes to suit their own Goddess-worshipping agenda, but that doesn't mean we should shut down the shrine.
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lean
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Post by lean on Jun 7, 2012 0:11:58 GMT
It was through this website and even this thread that I first learnt about Maria Divine Mercy, and I absolutely love to see the now almost daily messages that she receives and publishes on the website. To be honest, there is nothing untoward about these messages, we are simply called upon to pray more and to say the Crusade prayers that God, Our Lady and Jesus have given to MDM. Whether you are a believer or not, you cannot deny the need for more prayer in this often cruel world and how much prayer can mitigate. MDM is only further reiterating the messages that came from Garbandal 50 years ago.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 7, 2012 15:41:24 GMT
There is nothing wrong with calling for prayer. What IS questionable is claiming that you are receiving direct messages from God and publicising them as such without due ecclesiastical scrutiny (the necessity for which Maria Divine Mercy herself admits, though she evades it). There is a long history of people who started out claiming harmless private revelations and then went severely off the rails for a variety of reasons, leading other people into trouble. (These people were not necessarily in bad faith; it is easy to confuse our own hopes and fears with what God wants.) This thread has featured both Fr Owen Gorman and myself pointing to statements in the Maria Divine Mercy messages which appear to involve doctrinal errors (for example, that the New Testament revelation is not complete or definitive). If MDM or her admirers can explain these statements in an orthodox sense, feel free to do so. I might add that Garabandal is not an approved apparition either, and nobody is obliged to believe in it.
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lean
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Post by lean on Jul 21, 2012 1:15:36 GMT
Have you all not noticed that the messages are getting more and more urgent. Neither Garabandal or Medjudgorie are approved apparition sights. How long did it take for the message of Lourdes to be accepted and yet six million people a year visit Lourdes and the same could be said for Knock, many years passed before the apparition was accepted. Look at how many people accepted the messages from Christina Gallagher and the House of Prayer in Achill - some might even argue duped (myself included) considering what I saw on a TV3 documentary (albeit a repeat) recently. I visited the House of Prayer years ago and wanted to run out of the place, did NOT get a good vibe there, compared to the experience of love and peace and prayer in Lourdes where I have worked as a helper to the sick and on visits that I have done to Knock since I was a young child and Fatima and Medjugorgie. No one is obliged to believe anything - not even the Bible as there are a good few historical inaccuracies in that too but sure look we won't split hairs on that issue. The point is we need to be ready and that is by prayer, receiving the sacrements and regular attendance at Mass. MDM is a private citizen but through her website is publishing her almost daily messages. There is an interview that she did with an American radio station and if you google it you can here MDM speak in her own words. Believe if you want or don't believe. Jesus was not accepted in Israel when he lived and preached there. Look at how He suffered by his death on the cross for us. Ok we might question why but God has a unique way in how He picks people to be His messangers. Look at St Bernadette a simple shepardess, the children in both Medjudorge and Garabandal. Who are we to question God's ways? But we do. God loved us so much he gave us free will so we can believe MDM or not.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 22, 2012 21:34:36 GMT
Lourdes was approved within a very short space of time - there was a diocesan commission which sat shortly afterwards. Similarly, an archdiocesan commission approved the first apparition at Knock (there were later apparitions which were probably the result of auto-suggestion and have never been approved) although it fell into disrepute for a variety of extraneous reasons and only returned to favour after a second commission in the late 1930s. Neither Medjugorje nor Garabandal have received this sort of authorisation. I agree that the point about official authorisation can be overstated, especially since the persistence of popular devotion is one of the criteria used to determine whether an apparition is worthy of approval - but so is the question of whether the apparition contains definite doctrinal errors; and here we have a locutionist who at the same time acknowledges the need to receive authorisation and disregards it (because if she was obedient she would wait for approval and not publish it without it). We ARE obliged to believe Scripture with the Church as our guide - for it is easily misinterpreted. We are not obliged to believe private revelations even when given to great saints, since they are liable to err and misinterpret such things. (For example, St Catherine of Siena, who is certainly one of the greats, claimed to have received a private revelation that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not true; in hindsight it can be seen that this owed more to her Dominican theological formation than to the divine inspiration she certainly seems to have received on other occasions.) I think the applicable text is "watch carefully, for you know not the day nor the hour". The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins is applicable at all times, and whether the world ends tomorrow or lasts for a thousand years, we know that in the end the Bridegroom will come and we must be ready. What can be more urgent than that? - and we don't need private revelations to tell it to us.
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Post by kittyandjoe on Jul 23, 2012 15:05:51 GMT
Is this not "private revelation" I was shot-down on P/R, & what of "Gloria Polo" worth a google, my friend.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 23, 2012 20:23:45 GMT
Kittyandjoe; you were shot down for claiming that people were morally obliged to believe in a private revelation (the private revelation in question being as phony as a three-pound note) and for denouncing everyone who called the "private revelation" in question what it is. If you want to argue in a rational manner that Private Revelation X, Y or Z is for real you can do so so long as you don't claim that anyone else is obliged to believe it; if it has been condemned by the Church or is teaching heresy it will be called to your attention. I suggest you start your own thread on Gloria Polo, of whom I had never heard until last week, and argue it out with Youngireland.
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Post by kittyandjoe on Jul 24, 2012 16:18:38 GMT
I don't support people morally obliged to beleive in anything, we have free-choice, as in garabandal its not approved, (due to decissions of successive Bishops) nor has the Church condemmed garabandal, medjugorje or Cristina gallagher, (why doesn't the Church stop the flow of clergy pouring into med. every day) & look at Amsterdam & Ida Peerdeman where the Bishop forbade his flock by order, then when he was replaced, it go the greenlight, & look at Akita japan where the Bishop of the day, gave the thumbs up, & no questions asked.
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lean
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Post by lean on Sept 9, 2012 1:06:55 GMT
Maria Divine Mercy has a new book out - just wondering if anyone has read it or ordered it. I admit that I do want to read the messages that come from MDM and it is through MDM I have awakened my spiritual and prayerful life considering that a few months ago I was very much on the verge of leaving the Catholic Church.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2012 16:27:51 GMT
Why were you on the verge of leaving Lean and what was it in the seer's visions that convinced you to stay? You are welcome to PM me if it's too private to share online. I have a great love of St. Faustina as well as the Divine Mercy Chaplet myself, her friendship with Jesus made me see Him in a way I hadn't since I was a little brat. So I confess that any seer who scrounges the name of her urgent message is automatically in my bad books.
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