Monday, July 9, 2012

We are not "gods"

I read a very interesting post today on Making All Things New and highly recommend it: God and god.

I've spoken of my experiences in bookstores where I will pick up a book and immediately hear, "Put that back!"  Often, I'll notice afterward that the book is listed under New Age and was accidentally placed in the Christianity section. Some of these books are obvious in their New Age teachings such as the book Fr. Joseph mentions in his article linked above while others are far more subtle and "claim" to be Christian when they are far from it. Some will even quote from the Bible which makes them all the more dangerous.

Christianity cannot be "mixed" with any other religion. God is God and we are not gods by any means.
It's not necessary to prove this - we are surrounded with this "proof" today. The rotten fruit of our apostasy from truth Himself is written all over the face of our country and world.

It's not safe to tamper with the spiritual realm. We call upon the Lord in this area at all times and are never to depend on self. When we go off on our own spiritually, as in the area of the New Age philosophy, we leave the safe haven of the Lord's "pasture" and wander off into enemy territory without
protection. We become as sheep surrounded by a pack of wolves.

It seems to me that those who are drawn into New Age teachings are desperately searching for personal  power in a world that overwhelms them. We don't need "personal" power, we need the power of Christ
in our lives. The disciples of Jesus were powerless until the Holy Spirit came upon them. The power they received was a gift from God, it did not come from themselves. They had no power without God.

And by the way, crystals are just "pretty" rocks.
                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Mass readings:


Reading 1 Hos 2:16, 17c-18, 21-22

Thus says the LORD:
I will allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.
She shall respond there as in the days of her youth,
when she came up from the land of Egypt.

On that day, says the LORD,
She shall call me "My husband,"
and never again "My baal."

I will espouse you to me forever:
I will espouse you in right and in justice,
in love and in mercy;
I will espouse you in fidelity,
and you shall know the LORD.

Responsorial Psalm Ps 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

R. (8a) The Lord is gracious and merciful.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
R. The Lord is gracious and merciful.
Generation after generation praises your works
and proclaims your might.
They speak of the splendor of your glorious majesty
and tell of your wondrous works.
R. The Lord is gracious and merciful.
They discourse of the power of your terrible deeds
and declare your greatness.
They publish the fame of your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your justice.
R. The Lord is gracious and merciful.
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
R. The Lord is gracious and merciful.

Gospel Mt 9:18-26

While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward,
knelt down before him, and said,
"My daughter has just died.
But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live."
Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples.
A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him
and touched the tassel on his cloak.
She said to herself, "If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured."
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said,
"Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you."
And from that hour the woman was cured.

When Jesus arrived at the official's house
and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion,
he said, "Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping."
And they ridiculed him.
When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose.
And news of this spread throughout all that land.


19 comments:

  1. Great post Mary.
    So true Christianity cannot be mixed with the Occult.
    I have two books by Father Gabriele Amorth: "An Exorcist Tells His Story" and "An Exorcist More Stories" which I highly recommend.
    He worked as an exorcist his whole life and anyone can learn from his experiences.
    May God continue to bless and keep you.

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  2. Mary,
    I read Fr. Joseph's post this morning as well. I was going to link to it too as I ,unfortunately have some personal experience in this area. (Will probably post when I get home tonight.)
    He hit the nail on the head when he spoke about how part of New Age's attractiveness is that it does not hold people accountable for their actions. That's exactly what drew me- it got me off the hook for everything (or so I believed). I read those book he mentioned-dangerous stuff!
    I am glad you posted the readings for today. When I heard them at Mass this morning, I realized that this is exactly what God did to and for me. By His grace I was allured to and by Him, and away from the false beliefs and prophets of New Age.

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  3. Me again. I think I just wrote my post in your comment box :)

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  4. Hi Madeleine,
    I read one of Fr. Amorth's books but not the other. The New Age religion and any form of occult practices is a strange mixture of truth and lies. They don't mix well and leave people confused as to where the true path is. In Fr. Joseph's post you can clearly see this mark of confusion in the quotes he put up. They bordered on nonsensical. There is no sense of order in New Age books and we know who the author of disorder is.
    God, on the other hand, is very orderly. He brings order out of chaos every day :)

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  5. Hi Karin,
    It was an excellent article - Fr. Joseph showed how off the mark these books are in every area.

    I know these books are very popular - thanks for writing your "post" in my comment box ;)

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  6. Great. Thank you for putting the Truth out there. I've actually been thinking of doing a post along the same lines.. don't know the timing of that yet. But again - I thank you.

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  7. I knew a girl once.

    She was called Crystals.

    She was not pretty.

    And she did not rock either.

    I thought I'd mention her since you also did, Mary.

    Apart from that, this is yet another great post. Thought I'd mention it.

    God bless.

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  8. Hi Nancy,
    I'll look forward to reading it. So many people fall into this trap, either accidentally or on purpose and don't understand the dangers that come with it.

    I'm trying to find a conversion story I read online a while back in which a woman was deeply involved in the New Age arena and I thought her story was very good in explaining how people get caught up in this. I'll see if I can find it and post it.

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  9. Hi Victor,
    Ah, but you are talking about imaginary chrystals - you know, the kind that think they are but are really not because they can't be heard in a deep forest (or something like that). Right? Lol.

    Which reminds me of a humorous story I just might post...

    Thanks, Victor :)

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  10. Mary,

    This is why we have the teachings of the Church to protect us, isn't it? We don't all have your mystical gifts but we do all have the guidance of the Church to help keep us on the right track. This is in my thoughts, right now, that, when we tend towards disobedience, we open our souls up to the risk of attack through means such as New Age thinking. And it's not a question of faith - it's more an act of will to follow the truth, whether we like it or not, don't you think?

    I think I'm going off topic - I've done a lot of rambling, lately;-)

    Great post, again, my fiend!
    God bless:-)

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  11. New Age is Gnosticism. Jesus didn't keep any secrets from us as to how to get to heaven. "The Course in Miracles" is clearly dictated by an evil spirit to a willing dupe. When I read it I wondered why people couldn't be satisfied by the Bible which brings all sorts of peace and comfort. Isn't that what we're all looking for in this crazy world?

    New Age is basically a challenge to an individual's sanity, but there are huge amounts of money to be made by "channelers" and "shamans". In the end, it's all about having power over others when we should all be submitting to God.

    Thanks for this post and the link. We really do have to be vigilant over what we read and see.

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  12. Hi Vicky,
    Yes, that's why we have the teachings of the Church to protect us (my next post links to a Vatican Document on The New Age). The Lord's "pasture" that I refer to in this post is the Church.

    I don't have mystical gifts - they are gifts of the Holy Spirit and are not unusual, to my knowledge. They have nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. Yes, I had a conversion and a few experiences that might fall under the term "mystical" but these are the exception not the rule. I didn't do anything - they just happened for whatever God's reason, only He knows. I think of them as miracles and am very grateful for them. The healing I had was a gift from a gracious God who wanted to relieve my pain which was pretty severe and He lined it up because He knew I wouldn't go to the healing service unless He worked out all the details...lol. You can read about the experience of others and the Divine Mercy by Googling Divine Mercy Miracles - there have been so many that you can find them easily online. You can read about Fr. DiOrio, through whom Jesus healed me, on http://www.rdohealingministry.org/
    Coincidentally, his apostolate is called the Apostolate of Divine Mercy and Healing. Only... I'm not so sure this was a coincidence. (Thank you, St. Faustina!)

    God bless you too, Vickster :)

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  13. Hi Barb,
    Great comment - I don't know why people turn to books like these rather than the Bible. Anti- Christian sentiment in our secular society maybe?

    I think you hit the mark here - submission to God is the key. I guess submission doesn't exactly come easily to humans but it's definitely what God asks for.

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  14. Mary, when I mentioned in comments on a previous post about getting the medal of St. Benedict blessed by a Benedictine, I thought non-Benedictines couldn't put the full blessing on the medal. I was wrong. However, there is a specific blessing for the medal and I don't know if it's in the current book of blessings or not, so here's the site that tells you everything about the medal and gives the specific blessing that should be put on it: http://www.osb.org/gen/medal.html. I think I'll write a post about this - or several since there's so much info.

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  15. Hi Barb,
    Thank you so much for the information. That would be great if you could do a post on this. I wear the St. Benedict Cross and we also have the medal in our home. Both were blessed by priests - my Cross a few years ago and the medal when I picked it up. I turn to St Benedict a lot in the area of spiritual warfare (St. Pio) too so any other information you have would be very helpful - I know this is one of the areas you are knowledgeable about. Me...not so much, butt I am going to fix that :)

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  16. Thanks, Colleen :) I can't believe I put butt instead of but in the comment above yours - maybe it's time to knock off the fudge brownie delight...lol.

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  17. Thanks, Kam - may others heed these warnings.

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