|
Knock
Jul 13, 2008 8:33:11 GMT
Post by Noelfitz on Jul 13, 2008 8:33:11 GMT
Are Achill, Medjurje and Knock true?
I have just returned from Knock and, whether Our Lady appeared there or not, it is a very prayerful and holy place.
Similarly, perhaps, Achill and Medjugorje are prayerful places, where people get support and encouragemet in their faith, even though the motives of Christina Gallagher are questionable.
|
|
|
Knock
Jul 13, 2008 18:06:06 GMT
Post by Michael O'Donovan on Jul 13, 2008 18:06:06 GMT
Are Achill, Medjurje and Knock true? I have just returned from Knock and, whether Our Lady appeared there or not, it is a very prayerful and holy place. Similarly, perhaps, Achill and Medjugorje are prayerful places, where people get support and encouragemet in their faith, even though the motives of Christina Gallagher are questionable. Catholics are not required to accept the veracity of either Knock, Fatima or Lourdes, even though the Church authorities have endorsed all three. The only one I have been to is Knock, and though I'm not sure I believe that the apparition took place, I agree that it is a very prayerful place where many people have their spiritual lives strengtened and deepened every day: but I think that is principally because of the atmosphere of Knock and the effect of mutual encouragement, which facilitate the operation of Grace. I assume the same is true at Medjugorje and Achill, but Medjugorje sounds like a bad imitation of Fatima, and Achill is simply preposterous.
|
|
|
Knock
Jul 15, 2008 0:28:20 GMT
Post by monkeyman on Jul 15, 2008 0:28:20 GMT
Are Achill, Medjurje and Knock true? I have just returned from Knock and, whether Our Lady appeared there or not, it is a very prayerful and holy place. Similarly, perhaps, Achill and Medjugorje are prayerful places, where people get support and encouragemet in their faith, even though the motives of Christina Gallagher are questionable. Catholics are not required to accept the veracity of either Knock, Fatima or Lourdes, even though the Church authorities have endorsed all three. The only one I have been to is Knock, and though I'm not sure I believe that the apparition took place, I agree that it is a very prayerful place where many people have their spiritual lives strengtened and deepened every day: but I think that is principally because of the atmosphere of Knock and the effect of mutual encouragement, which facilitate the operation of Grace. I assume the same is true at Medjugorje and Achill, but Medjugorje sounds like a bad imitation of Fatima, and Achill is simply preposterous. No Michael both Medjugorje and Achill are preposterous-see the writings of the late Michael Davies a man I had the pleasure to know. Knock though unusual in detail received the famed "golden rose" from Pope John Paul II so we should accept it as true but not necessary for salvation or as an article of faith.
|
|
|
Knock
Aug 29, 2008 12:09:59 GMT
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 29, 2008 12:09:59 GMT
Archbishop McHale left the verdict on Knock open ended. But the nature of the vision, which was a visual detail was such that the visionaries could not have concocted. Some of it, resembling the vision of St John recorded in the Apocalypse (Revelations) would have actually meant more to a church-going Protestant than to a Catholic of the day. This makes the collective evidence of 15 or so witnesses more remarkable.
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 17, 2008 11:33:37 GMT
Post by redmond on Nov 17, 2008 11:33:37 GMT
This is the last remaining thread I am interested in contributing to. I would like to do so because of alaisdir6's post above me. What you said is pointing in the right direction but I note the thread came to a full stop here. My experience on this forum has been so negative I wonder if there is one or two who are genuinely interested in my research of Knock. To test the water I shall reproduce what I have written some years ago.
Knock and Associated Matters An allegorical interpretation
In 1879, on a miserable wet night, in a meadow field outside the gable-end of the church of St John the Baptist, there occurred an active but silent (i.e., the figures were speaking but could not be heard) apparition at Knock, a small town in Connaught in the west of Ireland. The apparition, which lit the immediate area with a brilliant light, included magnificent images of the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, St John the Evangelist, the Lamb on an altar, it of course representing Christ and the Sacrifice, and some angels in attendance. This vision, mounted on an invisible platform on top of the tall grass, showed the Blessed Virgin, with her hands held up looking and praying to heaven. It showed a vested St John, superimposed between Mary and the Lamb, holding a book (his book of Revelation (or perhaps a Roman missal) in one hand while gesturing in a preaching stance with the other. St Joseph, with his head bowed and glancing sideways, was isolated, separated by a mysterious black line, noticed only by a few of the selected observers and seldom mentioned in books on the apparition. ‘Though the Knock witnesses experienced various emotions – happiness, wonder, devotion, exaltation of spirit, one being moved to tears – not one of them was rapt in ecstasy. None of them heard a word; neither did they receive any interior message or sign. That the Mother of God, who bade Bernadette pray for sinners, who had pleaded for conversion of life at La Salette, for prayers and penance at Fatima, should have remained silent to her devoted Irish children was, and still is, a stumbling block to many. There was no message, they say, so the Apparition is devoid of meaning,’
Of course there was a message. Heaven does not indulge in meaningless pictures, but few, if any, could/can interpret it. The main reason for this is because Knock was not a ‘Marian’ message but a Johannine one, and, like his Apocalypse, has to be read in an allegorical sense. Thus a considerable amount of research on the place and its history is needed to begin to try to interpret the message or warning. So, we can ask: (1) Why Knock: (2) To whom was it addressed: (3) Why was it silent: (4) What was it trying to tell us?
Shall I go on?
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 19, 2008 20:24:14 GMT
Post by Michael O'Donovan on Nov 19, 2008 20:24:14 GMT
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 20, 2008 12:02:45 GMT
Post by redmond on Nov 20, 2008 12:02:45 GMT
Why Knock (From the Gaelic word Cnoc, a hill). It is a fact that the only place where the word allegory ( A form of exegesis thrown out by Martin Luther and one that is hardly ever found among modern Catholics) is mentioned in Scripture is in St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: ‘things are said by an allegory’ (Gal. 4:24). We also know that it was the Galatians who were advised that if an angel from heaven should preach a different gospel to that which they had been taught, to reject it (Gal 1:8). Scholars on the origin of European peoples tell us that a fair number of the old and true Galatians (Celts) had migrated to Ireland and settled here. Then along came Oliver Cromwell with his infamous reform in the sixteenth century, and ordered all Catholics of Ireland to decide their destiny: ‘To hell or to Connaught’. Choosing Connaught to hell, the Galatians Catholics moved into this desolate, infertile and barren west of Ireland where they continued to be persecuted in any event. It was their descendents that occupied Knock in 1879. These then were the same flock that St Paul had advised that ‘things are said by allegory’, a people worthy to convey to the world a message wrapped in allegory. A Pattern Cromwell, that documented Satanist who conquered in the name of God, was the first to deliberately usurp the divine right of kings by purging his own and replacing him with the beginnings of Talmudic (freemasonic) ‘democracy’, where men and not God would rule the world according to their own laws. Cromwell, who committed untold atrocities against the Catholic Irish, was a champion of what he called ‘religious liberty’, but this liberty did not include traditional Catholicism and certainly not the traditional Latin Mass which he hated, a policy identical with that pertaining within the Modernist Churchmen after Vatican II. The Parish Priest of Knock at the time was Archdeacon Cavanagh, a saintly man, full of devotion to Our Lady and her Immaculate Conception. Knock, a barren place, poor in earthly goods, but rich in grace and good works, was a fitting place for a message from heaven. In May of 1879, Fr Cavanagh began a novena of 100 Masses for the souls in Purgatory, the final Mass being said on the morning of the day that the vision appeared. Not know to too many and hardly ever broached is the fact that in Mayo at the time, freemasonry was active. It has been written that a group of Freemasons from Foxford had planned to ambush Fr Cavanagh and cut off his ears on the day he finished his century of Masses. Fascinating and wonderful as the actual events of the sighting were, space does not permit a complete account. We can say the sensational events of the day saved Fr Cavanagh's ears, but as divine Providence would have it this saintly priest was not to witness the vision. A reason for this could be to save the vision from accusations of being conjured up by a priest so pious and spiritual that the world may not have believed it. Instead it was to be witnessed by a group of people, the likes of which could be found anywhere. Such a group could not be said to have had illusions, nor could a motive for any conspiracy be levelled at them. Great miracles later gave final witness to its authenticity.
To whom was it Addressed?
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 20, 2008 12:14:26 GMT
Post by redmond on Nov 20, 2008 12:14:26 GMT
To whom was it Addressed? St John the Baptist Church had an inscription on the west wall that read: ‘My house shall be called the house of prayer to all nations. This is the gate of the Lord: the just shall enter into it.’ Knock then was a link ‘to all nations’. There was also something unique as regards those that witnessed it. Unlike the Marion apparitions of the times, messages confined to one, two or three persons, usually children (Lourdes-one: La Salette-two, and later Fatima-three), eighteen people were granted the sight at Knock, aged between six and seventy-five. Here is a second sign that the vision was meant for the special attention of all those that would heed it. Delving back into history we find that in response to Cromwell’s campaign to destroy the Christian Kingdom of Ireland, the Catholic Ecclesiastical Congregation of the Kingdom of Ireland met at Clonmacnoise on the 4th of December 1649, and issued a Motu Proprio, warning Catholics not to be deceived by those supposedly acting in the name of God (.See, for example, Tom Reilly, Cromwell, Brandon Books, Dublin, 1999, pp.292-3). Given the universal nature of a proprio motu, i.e., a message for ‘all nations’, we feel there is a continuity and connection between the three elements mentioned here.
Why was it silent? In the plan of God for men, He set up many a hierarchy: one being a chain of communication between God, the Pope, a King, down to the peasants scattered throughout the kingdom. Such a link began when Constantine placed his kingdom into the society intended by Christ. Later the Pope would crown the King of the Franks with divine approval. The Pope would represent heaven, taking his authority from God Himself. The king would take his authority from the Pope and so on down to the common people. Rome in turn made provision for this hierarchy by providing a special place at Church Councils for those kings loyal to God, the Church, the Pope and his definitions, declarations and social instructions. Responding to heaven’s challenge to Satan’s dominion, in a master plan from hell, the earthly Illuminati would devote themselves to eliminating this worldwide Christian society. To sever this relationship all one had to do was remove the temporal kingship and whole nations could be lured into apostasy just as whole peoples were Christianised through king and country. Braking this crucial link between God and His people was the first step in Satan’s counter-offensive in the war of Genesis 3:15. If we skip over the history of this grand victory of Satan’s temporal army of Talmudic Freemasons and schemers, it is suffice to know that at Vatican 1 in 1870, only one kingdom; that of Portugal, sat in the royal box giving public witness to their remaining loyalty to God and Pope (Had Ireland had a King, he would have been there also).The symbolic end of God’s terrestrial Principalities occurred when the Pope had to surrender to the freemasonic forces laying siege to last of the Vatican states by raising the white flag of surrender in 1870, 40 years after Our Lady predicted the date in her message to St Catherine Laboure in 1830. The timing here was deliberate, for it interrupted the Council itself, preventing God knows how many definitions of faith that might have thwarted the freemasonic-led Modernists that emerged at the time. What is not commonly known is that the Freemasons claimed complete victory in their centuries old war when Guiseppi??? Garibaldi actually sat on the chair of Peter vacated by Pius 1X. We interpret the silence of the vision and the fact that it was elevated off the land, neither of the earth nor of heaven, to the fact that the traditional means of communication between God and His people, that is, through the hierarchy between God, Pope and king down to the common people, had by then been eliminated by Talmudic freemasonry. It is Interesting to note that the apparition of Our Lady of Hope at Pontmain, France, in the same year (1870) was also silent. In that case however, letters in the sand were provided by which the children spelled out the message. But there was no communication at all at Knock. This interpretation is not affected by the fact that in 1917 there was a ‘speaking’ intervention between heaven and a multitude on earth, for Fatima is in Portugal, the last remaining kingdom present at the council, the one land where such a public communication might take place. Now there may be some who would contend that the endless series of ‘Marian’ visions at Mudjugorje shows this assertion to be untrue. But Medjugorje of the ‘lying wonders’ is not Catholic and therefore is not from heaven but movies from hell. The ‘visions’ of Mudjugorje, if true, allegedly began on the masonic hour on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, the adopted patron of freemasonry with its passion for symbols and secret signs. Satan, we know, or should know, will do whatever it takes to spread relevant error. In this case he has attracted millions of Catholics (and many non-Catholics) to this place, gets them on their knees praying, confessing, fasting or whatever, and then delivers to them a large slice of false Talmudic democracy, ecumenism and error. Documented evidence, as well as personal conversation with some that regularly went there and who found this out for themselves, has convinced us that there is on offer here from ‘the Virgin’, the hoary old freemasonic idea that all religions must be moulded into one universal religion, the ‘all roads lead to heaven’ belief, for we all supposedly have the same God. In other words there is a rejection here of the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. This ideology of course flies in the face of Fatima where Our Lady called for prayers for the conversion of all sinners. With God there cannot be any contradictions, so faithful Catholics must reject all such contradictions. The popularity of this place, with its supposed daily contact to heaven and its seductive nature according to the new order of Vatican II, is however enough to convince most to turn a blind eye to its heretical promulgations and all that supposedly goes on there. Such is the art of satanic deceit. Allegory: The next step is to try to interpret the ‘message’
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 20, 2008 22:08:27 GMT
Post by Michael O'Donovan on Nov 20, 2008 22:08:27 GMT
Thanks Redmond, I look forward to reading more. I have always found the silence at Knock a bit puzzling and you are helping to elucidate it.
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 21, 2008 8:35:06 GMT
Post by guillaume on Nov 21, 2008 8:35:06 GMT
Maybe I am a bit brainless. But I thought those explanations a bit complicated. Yes, the apparition - which occurred just once - was silent. But the difference with Fatima, Lourdes, Pontmain, La Salette and others, is that Our Lady was not alone. Saint Joseph, Saint John and Jesus Himself, in the form of the Lamb, were also present. Which is very unusual. Another difference, is that apparition appeared to several witnesses of different ages. While the others apparitions mentioned above, happened to young teens or children. Knock is a holy place. I feel in peace over there. Why the apparitions was silent, to be honest, I do not know. Maybe there were no need for a message, at that time. Maybe this apparition was only to comfort the faithful Irish people in their faith and console them in troubles times of persecutions. To encourage them to pray Mary, to have trust in Saint Joseph, to read and believe the Bible - especially Saint John's - in order to reach our unique goal which is the Lamb of God. Or maybe Mary couldn't speak Gaelic ? ;D - joking....
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 21, 2008 11:33:38 GMT
Post by eircomnet on Nov 21, 2008 11:33:38 GMT
It was reported that the local parish priest had just offered up 100 masses for the holy souls and some people hold that the apparition was a gift from Heaven in acknowledgement. There is a good booklet by a Father Hubert OFM Cap. on the subject. Also I do not think that the Irish at that time needed any warnings from heaven and they had just come through the sufferings of the famine period. Even though there was no formal message, the vision carried various reminder messages: the centrality of the Mass and the sacrificial lamb, the intercessory role of Our Lady, and St John the Evangelist possibly heralding the approach of the beginning of the End Times. Nor does it forget St. Joseph powerful in prayer.
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 24, 2008 15:07:49 GMT
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Nov 24, 2008 15:07:49 GMT
I am persuaded that you cannot separate any apparition from the time in which it is said to occur.
1879 was a dreadfully rainy year where it seemed the Famine would repeat itself and where the land war was escalating - the word boycott found itself into the English language in the same county as Knock in this same year. These are factors. And when the inquiry set up by Archbishop McHale took place, some of the visionaries were Irish-speaking monoglots, so Guillaume is touching something real.
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 25, 2008 17:20:44 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Nov 25, 2008 17:20:44 GMT
There are some very nasty overtones to Redmond's message. Much of his terminology seems to come straight from Fr. Denis Fahey. He refers to freemasonry as "Talmudic" (i.e. he is implying it is the product of a Jewish conspiracy.) He also states that democracy is "talmudic" and that a Catholic monarchy is the only legitimate form of government and indeed is the form of society which God intended. Perhaps he should consult the numerous nineteenth and twentieth-century Papal statements that Catholicism is compatible with different forms of government (including a republic) though since he believes the Popes have been in material heresy since they disagreed with his "infallible" views on Galileo in the eighteenth century it is not surprising that he should disregard these. The divine right of kings has historically been associated with the claim that the king or emperor as God's appointee should rule church as well as state within his domains. It is more characteristic of Orthodoxy, Gallicanism, Anglicanism, or Lutheranism than Catholicism. It is quite unfair to Cromwell to say that he was the first to challenge it - might I suggest Pope St. Gregory VII, or St. Athanasius when he refused to obey Constantine's Arian son and successor, who claimed Constantine's self-proclaimed status as thirteenth apostle entitled the emperor to act as arbiter in internal church matters. By the way, it is true that a secret society plotted to cut off Fr. Kavanagh's ears, but this was a local secret society of the type known as Ribbonmen or Whiteboys which disagreed with his political views (he criticised the Land League). So far as I am aware it was no more Masonic than, let us say, the Ancient Order of Hibernians. What evidence does he have for his claim? I have no particular opinion on Knock; I think of it as genuine but I do not have the same devotion to it that I have to Lourdes. I ask Redmond to clarify the apparently anti-semitic statements he has made. Rubbish about a World Jewish Conspiracy should not be tolerated in this forum.
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 26, 2008 10:33:23 GMT
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Nov 26, 2008 10:33:23 GMT
Rubbish about a World Jewish Conspiracy should not be tolerated in this forum. I quite agree. Perhaps the gloss on the attempt on Archdeacon Kavanagh's ears came from Mrs Manifold's account of Knock?
|
|
|
Knock
Nov 26, 2008 14:39:12 GMT
Post by hibernicus on Nov 26, 2008 14:39:12 GMT
The attempt on Archdeacon Kavanagh's ears comes from the 1950s biography of him by Judge Liam Coyne/Ua Cadhain, which simply says it was a local secret society. The source appears to be local oral tradition. Judge Coyne and his wife Judy (who only died a few years ago) were the major twentieth-century promoters of Knock Shrine; her memoir, PROVIDENCE MY GUIDE, was published posthumously and is an interesting read. Has Deirdre Manifold written about Knock? I know she is a longstanding devotee, but I thought she mainly wrote about Fatima. I feel sorry for her, she means well but she doesn't seem to know how to think.
|
|