A rebuttal of answers
to criticisms of MEDJUGORJE
It is normal for
prudent people to be wary of false prophets....some believe that Mary is truly
appearing in Medjugorje and this is imprudent..since the Church and qualified
Bishops have studied the phenomenon and found that the supernaturality of the
alleged apparitions cannot be affirmed...to believe in variance to the mind of the Church is quite simply putting one’s
salvation in jeopardy by opening one’s intellect to the possibility of dodgy
doctrine...and so a little poison taints the whole supply since all truth which
comes from God is pure..so a small bit of leaven from the Pharisees will
destroy ones faith..as it says in scripture..
14
Now they had forgotten to bring bread; and they had only one loaf with them in
the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, "Take heed, beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." 16 And they discussed it
with one another, saying, "We have no bread." 17 And being aware of
it, Jesus said to them, "Why do you discuss the fact that you have no
bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?
-Mark 8:14-17
..what Jesus means is we should beware of
the faith of the Pharisees and of Herod who relied on their own counsel rather
than relying on the will of God…now the will of God resides in his Church and
in his magisterium who act through accepted Church teaching and who guide us
through directives that are not sinful or impossible to follow…so we see in
Medjugorje two Bishops as well as a Bishops conference have already said
nothing supernatural occurring regarding apparitions…this is not to say the
sacraments are bringing forth good fruit yet the deception is polluting the
faith of the converts since they believe the authority of the Bishops does not
come from God but is only arbitrary..rather like anyone’s personal opinion and
this is the poison of Medjugorje…latitudinarianism..which is a sort of
restricted indifferentism closely related to Protestantism..it is a material
heresy
..here are some accusations which this
article would like to buttress….
1.
Medjugorje is the work of the devil
...it is certainly possible for Satan to
deceive..so let us look if there are signs of deception...
-
Eucharist: This is the body of Christ ....why would the Devil ask us to receive
his enemy?....answer....to promote millions of sacrilegious communions which do
not promote unity within the Church and which are in open defiance of the good
Bishop’s supplications to cease from public veneration of the alleged
apparition...
[26]
For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew
the death of the Lord, until he come. [27]
Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or
drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. [28]
But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. [29]
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to
himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. [30]
Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep.
---1 Corinthians
11:26-30 Douay Rheims
..so one sees we
need examine ourselves thoroughly through a strict examination of conscience..always
with a view to unity of the Church through Charity…
Confession: ..this is a chance for us to undo the sins
that we were tempted into by Satan, why would Satan get us to undo his
work?...answer...Satan does not mind if we receive communion in a sacrilegious
manner and confession our sins while still defying the Church and promoting
Medjugorje as a place with supernatural visions..this is disobedient and a sin
against prudence..and so our trips to the sacraments are subverted by obexes
(obstacles) to grace..namely disrespect for the magisterium (sin against the 4th
commandment) honouring your father and mother spiritually as well as
temporally...and since the commandments are set up so that if we break one we
break all of them since they are all based in charity, faith and hope we
effectively subvert the Church when we break them and open ourselves up to
being set into a state of grave sin which we should avoid.....while if one does
this unknowingly then the guilt of complicity falls upon those who promote
medjugorje as a safe place to visit and claim the mother of God is appearing
here which is in opposition to the official Church .....
Reading the Bible: This is our guide for Christian living, it is
totally against Satan....answer...even the Devil can quote scripture and
pervert it to his own ends..as we see when the Devil tempts Jesus in Matthew
4..as well in Genesis 3 the Devil quotes scripture out of context as we see
many people doing who espouse Medjugorje...
Peace: since
when does the devil promote peace...answer..the devil does not promote peace at
MEDJUGORJE he promotes concord of wills diametrically opposed to the
magisterium of the Church...
….There can be concord in evil between wicked
men. But "there is no peace to the wicked" (Isaiah 48:22).
Therefore peace is not the same as concord….
-thomas Aquinas
..since many
people gather at this place in agreement of one cause albeit in defiance of the
one who sits as the arbitrator and so acts by the will of God we see this is
not peace but only the gathering of rebel wills…it is rebellion and this has as
its root pride which is the sin of satan…
Fasting:.
Fasting is a way of heightening our awareness. Take
the exact opposite, having eaten too much. Most of us have had that bloated
feeling at some time or another: and my, how it affects us! We feel dull,
lethargic, sluggish. Awareness can be dulled by many kinds of over-indulgence,
not only food, but also alcohol and even being slumped for too long in front of
the TV. Fasting is a way of restoring the balance. A little bit of self-denial
can open us up to God, by making us more aware, more alert, as we move through
life. Open, in fact, to our own depths, where God is often to be found, in the
silences and in the questioning that we usually keep away by another bar of
chocolate, another film or another beer. Fasting challenges us to find a
discipline again, in which these things are held in a more healthy balance. Why
would Satan want us to open ourselves up to God ?....answer.....fasting without obedience to God’s
will is like the leaven of the Pharisees it subverts the faith of God which we
have been given and this is what the devil loves...we never look to the Church
to guide us..we look to ourselves while we use the Church to make us look pious
in an outward way by attending the sacraments..while inwardly we are not
mortifying our will..and so this is the spirituality of the Pharisee....which
Jesus warns us to ignore...
2..Anyone can claim to see our
Lady, how can we prove these apparitions are really happening?
..answer...we can trust the Zadar commission and the judgement of two
local Ordinaries...it cannot be ascertained that anything supernatural is occurring....
as Jesus says a good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit...as Aquinas
tells us...
Article 1. Whether good can be the cause of evil?
Objection 1. It would seem that good cannot be the cause of evil. For it is said (Matthew 7:18): "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit."
Reply to
Objection 1. As Augustine says (Contra
Julian. i): "The Lord calls an evil will
the evil tree, and a good will
a good tree."
Now, a good will
does not produce a morally bad act,
since it is from the good
will itself that a moral
act is judged to
be good. Nevertheless
the movement itself of an evil
will is caused by the rational
creature, which is good;
and thus good is the cause of evil.
..now thousands
of pilgrims to medjugorje who make their pilgrimage a validation of the
supernaturality of the alleged appairitons at Medjugorje have a will inclined
to evil which is the bad tree Jesus was referring to..since all these pilgrims
choose either knowingly or unknowingly to go against the Churches decree of not
allowing private pilgrimages which attempt to validate these apparitions as
coming from the mother of God…according to a may 1998 letter written by
Cardinal Bertone to Bishop Aubry…
….” Finally, as regards pilgrimages to Medjugorje,
which are conducted privately, this Congregation points out that they are
permitted on condition that they are not regarded as an authentication of
events still taking place and which still call for an examination by the
Church. Letter to Bishop Aubrey”..
…which means we cannot
assume the virgin is appearing here and promote this publicly….which is also
the crux of the recent CDF letter to the USA Bishops…
….” It
follows, therefore, that clerics and the faithful are not permitted to
participate in meetings, conferences or public celebrations during which the
credibility of such "apparitions" would be taken for granted”..
.....which means we are not
allowed to promote these messages....publicly
3. Medjugorje has not been approved by the Church-I
should not be following it yet
...answer...yes
4. The visionaires priests and villagers only
wanted to bring people to Medjugorje to make money out of souvenirs and tourist
related ventures..
...answer....that is for God to judge the motivation of each person’s heart
5.Medjugorje
is a propaganda stunt...
..answer...one wonders what is
going through the minds of the seers..if they understand the importance of
submitting to the magisterium in order to make their claims more credible..if
this would have happened then peace would have ensued instead of all this
incessant quarrelling...
If
Medjugorje is fake why is Father Jozo still so dedicated to it despite the
torture and imprisonment he received from the communists?
..answer...he is rebelling
against the authority of the Bishop of Mostar & the Zadar Commission which
is the official judgement of the Church and so let anyone who has no cognitive
confirmation bias discern for themselves....
....amen
