FlippyKing

FlippyKing · 2022-02-15T19:16:39+00:00

St Ephrem the Syrian has a lot of great writings. I don't have time right now to do a decent into to him. But he is worth plugging into a search engine and reading either up on him or into what he's left us.

This is a short prayer, and points to many Marian doctrines of the church as well as just being a great prayer to Our Lady. I do not know about the translation. For example, "maid", or maiden? "Wing", where we usually say Mantle? Also, the punctuation as I have found it is not as I would punctuate it (for better or worse).

"Majestic and Heavenly Maid, Lady, Queen, protect and keep me under your wing lest satan the sower of destruction glory over me, lest my wicked foe be victorious against me."

Saint Ephrem probably has nothing at all to do with what I'm typing below. But I want to put the above into a context that is currently being discussed by a number of different researchers.

It is important to be aware of the importance, and perhaps breadth, of Syriac Christianity, and the language (Syriac Aramaic) in the history of the church and on the way we understand faith and doctrine. Much of the earliest writings and traditions come from this language and this culture. The influence if this culture and this understanding of the religion was important from Syria all the way through Persia during the Sassanid Empire, in Petra, and among the Arab tribes who where all over the middle east.

These tribes were the mercenaries on both sides in the wars between the Sassanids and the Byzantines, and were what was left standing over the whole Sassanid Empire fell. It is from these tribes that the Arabic empire consolidated and where that history and subsequent myth making came.

The Koran appears to be a collection of writings that became the book of this new empire after it was in place. The source for this book seems to be undeniably lectionaries from Christian missionaries who were preaching to Arab tribes. These missionaries spoke Syriac Aramaic, which is very close to Arabic. They may have invented the written form of Arabic (Eastern churches have invented writing systems for the people they were working with, it is actually an amazing part of those church's histories). These missionaries were in competition with other Christian missionaries who were Trinitarian. The Koran may have started as a book of lectures and teachings from a senior missionary for his students who would then go on and preach to convert among these tribes. It may have been written in Iran, where specific Gnostic, Buddhist and Zoroastrian ideas had to be countered or incorporated. Such materials would be less likely found further west, but they are found in the Koran. That Syriac Aramaic and eventually written Arabic would be found so far east speaks to the importance these tribes played in the military of the empires. Eventually the differences between Arabic and Syriac Aramaic, and the length of time between these missionaries time to the early consolidations of an Arabic empire, and the needs of the rulers of this new empire, transformed the meaning of what was written and the inclusion of new writings into a book that we now call the Koran. The prophet, and hopefully his abused wives including a child, might all be fictions. The events of his life seem to be taken from around Petra, not the middle of the dessert to the south, and his crazy highly immoral stories and teachings that pertain to his life appear to be justifications for rulers of that new empire. This last part I am least confident in, but the idea that an anti-trinitarian church among Syriac speakers of Aramaic (of which that is one of I think 3 dialects) had missionaries that were taught how to do that job by someone higher up in that church who used a lectionary that formed the original source for the Koran is something I'm confident about. That Mary is so highly regarded in the book would be a mystery otherwise, but that is just one small byproduct of the research that leads people to see that book in this light.

FlippyKing · 2022-02-08T21:54:50+00:00

Saint Alphonsus di Liguori wrote a a lot about Our Lady. The Glories of Mary is either the name of his book on the Salve Regina, or the Hail Holy Queen prayer, or the name given to the collection of his writings on her. It can be found in book form or on line in a number of places. It is pretty extensive. Each chapter covers a topic (a line from the prayer, or a devotion, or some other aspect depending on what part of the book you're in), gives an example from real life, and then a long prayer.

https://americaneedsfatima.org/books/glories-of-mary

He was writing at the same time as Saint Louis de Monfort whose work was lost for a time. There are similarities in their works, but differences due to their writing styles. Liguori's writing is drier and more verbose. This could be the translation, or a mix.

FlippyKing · 2022-02-08T00:00:25+00:00

This nun has a great wealth of videos on her youtube channel about apparitions. She is starting a new religious order, which Our Lady directed to be created at a future time when she appeared at La Salette. But this is about Cuapa which happened in the 80s during the Sandinistas v Contras mess. The history of that, and the bad things about US foreign policy that was revealed is important.

Bernardo is a guy who saw her and she also came to him in dreams. She told him we need to make peace, and not to pray for it without making peace first. She told him we have to restore the temple and by that she meant our bodies or ourselves. I interpret that as saying to take our process of sanctification seriously. It's very much a "grow up" message. Suffering is unavoidable, don't pray for what you're not willing to work for. Take your religion and faith seriously. She did say to commit to the First Five Saturdays devotion (so DO IT!).

Another take on the "grow up" aspect I see in this apparitions message, is that She might not not see our problems the way we do. Catholicism has a lot of emphasis on "loving" poverty, to not be caught up in material things. But here I get a feeling, perhaps she just comes right out and says it and I'm forgetting the specifics she said, that the poltical problems and who's right and who's wrong is not what we should be thinking about. Forgive, make peace, take responsibility, meet obligations, harmony in family, drop the BS, live God-centered lives and treat yourself not as yours but as God's creation: that's what I get from this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtZ2ohMx0hQ

FlippyKing · 2022-02-07T23:24:50+00:00

I mentioned this in the post about prayers that have come to us by way of Mary's apparitions. It is a very important apparition. That she is wrongly called "our Lady of Good Success" is a problem because it obscures her message. The idea is that everything is so corrupt, the church has been so corrupted and infiltrated by a group she NAMED (in South America where the apparition happened back before the group appears to have even been founded in Europe (freemasons), and that it would happen in the 20th century), that a big purification has to happen. This word is tied to the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, her purification (ritual purification for women after giving birth. A common thing in olden times but something that doesn't seem to have an relevance anymore) and Jesus' presentation at the temple (circumcision). That they had to submit to these rituals is a one of the perhaps odd things about Catholic beliefs to modern people. They submitted to worldly demands, get ready to submit to theirs. The yearly feast of the purification just passed, Feb 2nd. It's also called Candlemass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm6DaK0PZLo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU02y0MXk88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCj6LB1EsQw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raLGQxNrWCc

FlippyKing · 2022-02-01T18:59:35+00:00

The link below is to a statement from about 6 months ago from the SSPX on "Moto Proprio". I find it very interesting, and I think the problems in the church were actually a goal of some of the architects of VII. I also think nothing in VII or the docs that followed called for the Priest to be facing the pews, except on the occasions where the priest is told to turn to face us in the pews. The idea that he must turn around to do this indicate he was facing ad orientem at each instance before he turns. That seems like a weird detail to pull out on this but I think, short of learning Latin WELL (not bad enough to be bamboozled into accepting any interpretation or translation of it, which in some videos of Father Hess he shows where they twist the Latin of older Papal documents to say things they do not say) to really understand it, there are simple ways to discern which side is right in the struggle over what mass the church should use.

Here is a long quote from the middle:

"On one side is the Mass of All Times. It is the standard of a Church that defies the world and is certain of victory, for its battle is nothing less that the continuation of the battle that Our Blessed Lord waged to destroy sin and to destroy the kingdom of Satan. It is by the Mass and through the Mass that Our Lord enlists Catholic souls into His ranks, by sharing with them both His Cross and His victory. From all this follows a fundamentally militant conception of Christian life that is characterised by two elements: a spirit of sacrifice and an unwavering supernatural hope."

"On the other side stands the Mass of Paul VI. It is an authentic expression of a Church that wants to live in harmony with the world and that lends an ear to the world’s demands. It represents a Church that, in the final analysis, no longer needs to fight against the world because it no longer has anything to reproach the world. Here is a Church that no longer has anything to teach the world because it listens to the powers of the world. It is a Church that no longer needs the Sacrifice of Our Blessed Lord because, having lost the notion of sin, it no longer has anything for which to atone. Here is a Church that no longer has the mission of restoring the universal kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because it wants to make its contribution to the creation on this earth of a better world that is freer, more egalitarian and more eco-responsible – and all this with purely human means. This humanist mission that the men of the Church have given themselves must necessarily be matched by a liturgy that is equally humanist and emptied of any notion of sacredness. "

"This battle that has been waged for the past fifty years, which has just seen a highly significant event on July 16th, is not a simple war between two rites: it is indeed a war between two different and opposing conceptions of the Catholic Church and of Christian life – conceptions that are absolutely irreducible and incompatible with each other. In paraphrasing Saint Augustin, one could say that the two Masses have built two cities: the Mass of All Times has built a Christian city; the New Mass seeks to build a humanist and secular city."

The whole letter is worth reading, and when coupled with so many Marian apparitions telling us in no uncertain terms that the church would lose the faith and mislead the faithful, I think the distinction is clear as to which is real and timeless and which is a forfeiture meant to lead us not to God but into error.

The error might look like an error of trying to solve worldly problems with worldly means, but that's the lie that will trap us. It is a snare of the devil. You do not solve problems on the problem's terms. You transcend the problem to overcome it, and then look back saying "what was I so caught up in?"

https://stas.org/en/news-events/news/letter-father-pagliarani-about-motu-proprio

FlippyKing · 2022-01-30T19:06:52+00:00

Saint Ildephonsus (~607 - ~670) was an Archbishop of Toledo he wrote a book called Crown of the Virgin. It is translated by Fr. Robert Nixon and published by Tan Books.

To me the book is somewhat similar in conception to the Harp of Glory which I posted previously about. The Harp of Glory is a long-form poem where each section starts with a successive letter of the Ethiopian alphabet, and is based on a Byzantine long-form poem to Our Lady (if I'm remembering the details correctly). Instead of creating a single long poem, Saint Ildephonsus, using words, creates a Crown and decorates it in 24 places with jewels and flowers and such.

It is not a poem, though it does contain verses. It is not a prayer, but does contain some original prayers that are beautiful. It is not a text on Marianology, but all these types of writings do serve in some ways as that. It is an offering from the Saint to the Blessed Mother of God that uses prose, that connects poems and prayers, to praise.

That he puts on this crown of words, gems of words and flowers of words, strikes me as very child-like, where a child might take every pretty or fanciful thing thing they see and drape it over themselves or a doll and show it all off as the most beautiful thing. Approaching the divine in a child-like manner is something many religions acknowledge as important, and Christianity is no exception (Christ also gives a stern warning against misleading (which has to include abusing or dissuading) children in their approach to God).

So, where a western sense of reason and order makes his work different than the Harp of Glory which is effervescent and overflowing with love for Our Lady, just because it is not written strictly as a poem, it gains subtly by the nature of the design and the spirit he brought to the writing, an undercurrent of child-like playfulness that I don't think should be forgotten when reading it.

It really is a lovingly created set of chapters that should enrich anyone who is interested in Mary. That he lived in the 600s is also another example of how far back Marian devotion goes, and it goes back much further than this.

"What ... am I ... able to add to such ineffable splendor, to such transcendent glory? But may my humble pen strive for this goal alone-- that it may contribute the merest drop, however small, to the limitless ocean of your immortal praise ... (these last ellipses are in the text, but I extend the ellipse further) The crown which I would fashion for you ... ought to be fashioned of purest gold."

The 24 places on the crown are decorated by 12 precious stones, interspersed by celestial bodies and flowers which between them total twelve, each getting a chapter. It is a shorter book than the Harp of Glory, but it goes from margin to margin in most places and it does not have the extensive footnotes the Harp has. For those who are like "wow, you Mary-fanatics go overboard", a look at the Harp (which is maybe the most over-the-top book of this kind that I know of) shows all the things that protestants might question are pulled from the Bible. The only question is if you accept biblical typology, the seeing of patterns and prefiguration in history and in the bible.

Similarly, veneration of Mary hinges more on what the Communion of Saints means and (to me anyway) what was meant by "this generation shall not pass before ..." I recently read how the dna (as tissue? I have to go back and read it) of a child is retained in the mother's body. If we accept that Jesus ascended into heaven, well part of Jesus remained with Mary, so why leave that part behind? That's my personal view on the Assumption of Mary.

So check out Saint Idlephonsus' Crown of the Virgin. It's nice.

https://tanbooks.com/products/books/the-virgin-mary/devotions/crown-of-the-virgin-an-ancient-meditation-on-marys-beauty-virtue-and-sanctity/

FlippyKing · 2022-01-27T18:22:24+00:00

Below is a link to a video made by Trent Horn, a Catholic apologist and debat-er if that's a word. I don't know that I love his content but I've not seen that much of it. As his focus is Catholicism I can imagine he is very few people here's cup of tea. But here he is talking about Matt Walsh's appearance on Dr. Phil's show with some trans activists, and he sticks to just talking about how to make good arguments and being prepared when you go into these situations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVSH3XFqsr0

The advantage of this approach is that it avoids the traps and pitfalls in all the various complications they bring up, and gets right down to a function a body is designed towards. Trent describes his definition as teleological. This is a very practical approach to us who only use our own bodies or interact with each other's bodies based on their designs and how well they match the purpose of the design.

Why did my team win a basketball game? Well, it started with the fact that my team had bodies who's design better served the purposes required by the game of basketball. Once we were together we could block shots, pass the ball into the paint and dunk. On "D", we slowed the game down and waited to block or rebound. All of this took advantage of our height advantage over the other team. Thank God it wasn't a limbo contest!

So, I don't want to post his definition because it is worth hearing the context of where Matt would have benefited from having this approach available to him, and also for seeing how he dealt with it. I see something of how he dealt with it in how I do, and while I don't think it is a weakness, it is about context.

I've taken the tact to define woman as adult human female and female as someone whose body is designed towards the reproductive capacity of birthing children. It sidesteps the "what about barren women" or other bad-faith counters from tras. But, I would like to think I stress that what we're dealing with are two competing theories about these terms, or two competing world views. We should go with the one that makes most sense of the world. We use Newton's ideas on gravity in every day things, and only use Einstein's ideas when the need arises which is not every day things for most people. If our definitions of man and woman work in most cases, but tras see flaws in our ideas, they should explain the flaws better. Explaining mundane things differently but not better does validate their ideas. Instead, if their theory should supersede reality then they should be able to say what infertile women are-- that they know we're talking about women is a clear give away that they are not prepared to really debate the matter seriously though. So, I have wanted tras to tell me how to classify the sex of people who have these various issues, but this teleological focus on the definition (which is similar to saying well I know what a car is even if I dont' know if it has a catalytic converter or carb, or if its positraction or any of the other details) relieves us of a lot of BS we don't really care about anyway.

(this is similar to the response to tras who talk about being unable to define what a woman is because not all "cis" women fall under the same definitions such that trans women can be excluded. While that reasoning is BS, the jujitsu counter or wrestling reversal would be to say "that, that right there. How ever you're defining "cis women" in this usage is probably what we mean by woman then.")

FlippyKing · 2022-01-16T18:39:34+00:00

I don't know if I posted about Medjgorje. I think it is a tough nut to crack. Also, I'm fairly certain it is supposed to be pronounced: Med-ju-gor-ji (or med-ju-gor-gee with the "soft" g in gee if you prefer gee to ji).

One thing that many Catholics point to as for a reason it is fake is that in response to a question about who is the most devote person there at the moment (a weird question to ask) the seer present (I don't know which one, and that's already a complicating factor in this set of apparitions) said Mary told her it was some woman who was praying in the crowd who was a Muslim. This bothers some people, but on the one hand it could be a statement about how less-devote everyone else was there, but it also calls into questions assumptions people had about that specific woman or about all Muslims. It's a can of worms not worth opening, imho.

To continue on this tangent, it seems that the Koran started off in life as a set of lectionary notes in a specific dialect of Aramaic used by a Syriac priest who was of some eastern or oriental orthodox sect. There are many legitimate questions about the history of these texts used in Islam, and I do not pretend any expertise in it but I suspect a combination of rebranding of a religion, bad translations into Arabic, and the need to create a creation myth of a newly forming empire that was in conflict with the Jewish kingdoms in the area and the Byzantines all lead to what we see as the founding if Islam. That Petra is the original location of Mecca seems undeniable, and the change reflects a political shift and a military conflict. If Mohammad actual existed is questionable. One the one hand the very uncomplimentary things said about him in some of their texts (basically his clothing was so semen stained that Aisha had trouble cleaning them is not something you'd put into a foundational text of a religion) make me think something real was accounted. But the origin of the word Mohammad appears to come from an Aramaic word that means something like beautiful. It is all very interesting and complicated, but I do not see a single account of the history of it all that seems coherent to me yet.

Back to the matter at hand. One thing that troubles me about Medjugorje is that one of the seers was jarred out of the trance when jabbed with a pin or something like that. Her explaination was that it was not that the pin did it, but that Our Lady almost dropped the baby Jesus. Uhm, no. I don't know why anyone is sticking pins in seers or why people do any of the things they do to test them because it usually involves something painful (like matches or lighters) or some invasion of their personal space (like trying to lift the children at Garabandal when in trance and shining lights into their eyes). But they do these things to seers as a test, and as a rule they do not react to the outside stimuli. When one does, as one of the Medjugore seers apparently did, it is a red flag.

Another red flag is that Our Lady seems constantly at the seer's disposal, this was not true of Fatima, nor of any other generally accepted apparition. There are accepted and not very controversial apparitions where our Lady seems very frequently present to the seer, like Father Stephano Gobi.

The claims about Medjugorje being a cash cow for the people there seems not true, though there obviously had to be construction for the massive amounts of people coming to visit. Greed is often an accusation the world makes against things it does not like, but it is often projection. I do not think greed is behind Medjugorje in general, but I am suspicious of some seers.

Thing to remember is that seers are human. If Our Lady appears and then stops appearing to them, do they always do the right thing? How do they react when the world attacks them? Garabandal and Fatima show how badly the governing authorities react, the government in the case of Fatima, and the church in the case of Garabandal. Lucia, a seer of Fatima, was basically imprisoned and some think she died and was replaced by an impostor. Her story is tragic. The mayor imprisoned and terrorized the three kids to try to get them to recant. Conchita of Garabandal was subjected to long and cruel interrogations by the church officials.

I don't know what may or many not have happened to the seers at Medjugorje, but I do not think it was what happened to those of Fatima or Garabandal.

Their messages seem different, but I think they are not really that different or not irreconcilable anyway.

Anyway, here are two youtube videos of an important exorcist who has been looking at Medjugorje for a long time, from before he became an exorcist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkoOJ-7sqsU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITVf7Th08ew

The "music" and the computer-narration are not great. Maybe it's fitting.

The important thing in any of this, in our lives really, is to take the focus away from what we want both materially and like metaphysically (that is to say what we wish to be true or not true). The big thing, I think, is if we are putting God first-- how ever you define God (because ultimately God is tough for us to define. I think Aquinas works with the idea that God is the First Cause, the uncaused Cause, Creator). I think once we get our own petty desires out of the way, in spite of us having very real material needs in order to survive and to not suffer, what ever reasonable and not selfish way we try to define God will lead us to a more workable understanding of God that will lead us in the direction we must go.

Thus, when thinking about Medjugorje or any apparition or anything at all really, find the truth in it and discard what is not true, and ponder or hold in reserve that which is unclear-- and revisit these categorizations often to be certain when needed. This is why Catholic theologians are not afraid of Aristotle (Aquinas even quotes an Islamic theologian on occasion) because if what they are saying is right and well said, why not use it? It is the view of such theologians that God reveals Himself through nature and divine revelation like scripture, so the two can not be in contradiction of each other. Thus, the truth in this view must exist in theology and at the intersection of theology and philosphy, or science, as well as in those fields alone, and we should discard what is not true in any and all of them.

FlippyKing · 2021-12-24T01:34:24+00:00

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the next day is Christmas. Regardless of what the context clues from the bible might say about when or what time of year all this happened, it is celebrated NOW!! (or in a day or two, then The Feast of the Three Kings etc).

One may say "I don't believe all this crazy stuff. It could not have happened." Christians say, it happened once. Once, God became flesh to show those lost in the world the way out, to show dying is not the end, fear is no excuse, and to give us a different perspective on our lives and our purpose.

We're asked to keep the commandments, to accept this sacrifice given to us for us, and to confess our sins when we fail to put God first. We're asked to do this so when we fail we can get back up again and do better. We're asked to be humble, to cultivate the virtues, and to avoid the vices. We're asked to understand and redirect the "passions" that come over us and not be lead around by them.

We're asked to essentially better ourselves, which is something we should want to do anyway. We're asked to strive for something better than the petty or selfish things we want. We're asked to love those around us. We're asked to remember that our enemy is not the person in front of us, but those who misled or lied to them and put us at odds with each other. We told our enemies are the power and principalities of the world that would keep us from being selfless and keep us afraid or keep us distracted by empty pleasures, who would feed us candy instead of nutritious food, who would ask us to trust them and not God, who would have us so afraid of any discomfort that we would endure any number of things in the vain hope of being safe.

And what would we get for it? Fear. Maybe a lot of shiny or stupid things. A lot of distractions to keep our minds off of what is wrong or what could be right. We get fake food in stead of real food. We get a fake immune system instead of our real, God-given, one. Get get lost in lust instead of even understanding love.

The beautiful thing, to me, about the Marian devotions in Catholicism is that it points to the most beautiful and inspiring parts of Christianity, and shows the worst parts of Catholicism to be distractions from the religion of Christ. Many bad popes, many bad clergy, will burn in hell along with many bad and lost and selfish people. Mary her self told us this many times. Do not worry about what will come of the truly evil. We've been promised that is not the way for us to go. May they learn the err of their ways and repent, as we hope to each time we go to confession, or each time we confess to God and try to start over again.

We were shown the way. By Jesus? Yes. But also by Mary. This is something I think we benefit from thinking about, and something I wish more Protestants could see as Catholics see it: the birth of the man who was God incarnated in the flesh, the Word of God, the Logos of God who lived as we live and died as we will and suffered and was humiliated as we rarely ever could be, was made possible because Mary said yes and declared herself to be the handmaid of the Lord. By humbling her self and giving her life over to be Jesus' mother, and serving Him and God, she will forever be called Blessed. To lead, one must serve: she started that.

Catholic tradition holds that she was preserved in a special way both to accomplish that task (Immaculate Conception) and it holds that she was assumed up into heaven. A mother carries around in her tissue of the children she has. Mary had tissue from Jesus in her after he was born, and even after he died. Does the assumption of Mary into heaven seem more justified knowing that a part of him physically would still be here after the ascension? To me, it does.

Please pray the Rosary, mediate on the mysteries, the mysteries around the birth (the Joyful Mysteries), and around the ministry of Jesus (the Luminous Mysteries), and around the passion and death (the Sorrowful Mysteries), and around he mysteries of the resurrection (the Glorious Mysteries). Read up on some of the amazing apparitions and miracles associated with Our Lady.

Jesus came in mercy as a friend. When he returns it will in glory as a judge. That last part sounds harsh but many think it will be a choice we make ourselves. The idea is that in so choosing to be lost in the distractions of the world, in chasing their own passions and libido and greed, in running from and bowing down to those who are obviously lying all the time and always getting people to do little evils and little indifferences, and little chips away at their souls, that such people will choose an eternity of misery every single time over and over. They don't worship God because they worship the world or worship themselves. Some might think they worship God but still want such worldly things that they might actually want God to worship them. They might never see it that way, but the actions and the desires might be no different. Don't. Merry Christmas! Take a moment to thank Blessed Mary and Jesus, and mediate on what it's really all about.

FlippyKing · 2021-12-19T01:27:59+00:00

Our Lady of Pontmain is an apparition of Mary in France during the Franco-Prussian war. This video presents the event really well, and it also gives a great example prefiguring or "typology". The youtube channel has a lot of this typology, so if you are interested in this (and, it is very interesting as it fundamental how stories are told and how cliches about history, like not learning the lessons from history and how history many not always repeat but it rhymes, all converge.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiJzkNsr65c

FlippyKing · 2021-12-12T21:44:06+00:00

Today is Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day. I should post more about her. Her apparition is one of the most amazing ones in the whole history of Marian apparitions. But I'll start with a chaplet.

A chaplet is a set of prayers, similar to the Rosary, to pray along with some meditations or things to ponder upon while praying.

The Rosary, the Seven Sorrows of Mary, the Seven Joys of Saint Joseph are examples of prayers that ask us to mediate on specific occurances in their lives with Jesus. The latter two are chaplets.

This chaplet below is specific to her appearance as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her impact on the "new world" and on the indigenous people is staggering. The questions that remain unsolved with regard to the image she left us is a set of miracles stand right along the Shroud of Turin in their ability to inspire awe and appreciations for the mysteries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mMcf0ab6pE

FlippyKing · 2021-12-02T20:32:13+00:00

Great video about the nature of devotion to Mary in the middle ages, the role of the printing press in this, and how The Little Office is the book many people gained literacy from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s37tmn99w5k

I am struck by how Harp of Glory, and other works including those that inspired it, also see Mary every where in the bible. She could be said to be well hidden yet everywhere one can look.

This ties into the places in the Gospels where Jesus points out how the difficult to understand things He says are meant to be hidden to those who will not understand it.

FlippyKing · 2021-11-24T17:56:41+00:00

We all have seen this sketch, and the joke has been called prophetic, but it is more prophetic than it seems at first glance. The awkward silence is broken when Judith tries to find a compromise between Stan/Loretta's position and John Cleese's position. So, the bit predicts not just Stan/Loretta but the first ally. It's almost like this is where a young child found her dream to one day be called Doctor of Philosophy Judith Bulter.

https://youtu.be/4b6-oE55vdM

So, next "trans rememberance day" (month?) or what ever the hell they call it, remember all the Judiths of both sexes, all sexes really, all two of them, who helped make it happen.

FlippyKing · 2021-11-23T23:46:31+00:00

One of the most interesting rabbit holes you can go down in the world of Catholicism, and apparently Orthodoxy, is the accounts from exorcists. They have a perspective on things that is surprising, enlightening, and surprisingly clear. One thing that comes up in the accounts from exorcists is how much demons hate and fear Mary.

This video is of a Bishop from the church of Cyprus, Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou. I'll assume Morphou is a city in Cyprus. I do not know if he is or was an exorcist or if this is an account related to him, but how important and how special Mary in terms of God's plan is clear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zNhaO51PM

FlippyKing · 2021-11-04T18:15:35+00:00

In the article linked below there is an image of Mary nursing the infant Jesus, with another figure next to them. It is earliest know depiction of Our Lady and I'm guessing perhaps the earliest depiction of Jesus as an infant.

The depictions of Jesus as a child and as an infant are significant both to Marian devotion and to Christian, including specifically Catholic, doctrines and devotions. These include the Infant of Prague, the Divine Child of the Cross of Pichincha, the idea that we must approach our faith with the innocence of a child, or the notion that part of the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament includes comforting and making reparations to Jesus as child frightened by our sins (including the insults, sacrileges, and indifferences) or perhaps frightened by the same fate He prayed over in the mystery of the agony in the garden (first sorrowful mystery in the Rosary).

https://aleteia.org/2018/12/10/romes-catacombs-witness-to-the-catholic-faith-of-the-early-church/

FlippyKing · 2021-10-26T22:12:42+00:00

I know I saw something like that a while ago, but I'm confused about a few things and want to read up. I've been poking around for a couple of days and haven't re-found it.

FlippyKing · 2021-10-25T20:04:10+00:00

https://hozana.org/en/prayer/hail-mary

Scroll down a bit and you'll see a reworded version of the first part of the Hail Mary, or a reworded version of the original version which was just a salutation. This is how it goes if you do not want to click on the link:

Mother of God and Virgin, rejoice, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou hast given birth to the Savior of our souls.