The Faith of Peter & Paul (aka Catholic Doctrine.) Test it for cracks.

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Definitions of God, Love, Faith, Prayer,
Evil, Sin, Innocence, Worship, Meekness, 
Mysticism, Beauty, Prayer, and Messiah
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The sources herein include Thomas Aquinas,
Francis de Sales,  Catherine of Siena,  Louis
of Montfort,  Pius XII,  &  St. Bonaventure.
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Those who appreciate beauty become the
beauty they appreciate.  In a similar fashion,
the mystery of love is that of transforming
into the object of your love.  This includes
transforming into evil, if this happens to be
the object of your love.

The Virgin Mary once appeared to Saint Dominic after he failed to convert the Albigensians, despite his athletic effort to do so.  She told him that he was trying to cultivate a harvest where no rain had fallen. She then told him that the Angelic Psalter (today's Rosary) was the way to convert souls.

The modus operandi of the Virgin Mary is to first send rain, in gentle drops.  Her next mode of action is dependent upon the way the people involved respond to her gentleness.  The following are elements of the Faith of Peter, written like a penny catechism.  

That's to say, they're rain drops of the Faith.  After all, kindness and truth are a package deal, as was first stated in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.  The Holy Spirit is Kindness in essence.  The Holy Spirit revealed truth.  He always proceeds in gentleness.  The Virgin Mary brings the gentleness.

One more point to make here:  Theology = Faith seeking reason, as to why a doctrine was declared as it was.

1. Mysticism.   To start, what is mysticism?   ANS:  Mysticism is contact with God.  This is an official church definition and not a personal opinion.  

My personal opinion is that mysticism is the act of delving into the infinite and supernatural, while simultaneously abandoning the finite and animalistic.  This comprises detaching oneself from utterly worthless vanities such as "self esteem."  

My alternate definition of mysticism is transformation.  Transformation was a theme of Saint Catherine of Siena, incidentally.  She's a doctor of the church.

2.  God.   How is God correctly defined, aside of  the only being in all of existence who never had a beginning?   

ANS:  In status, God is the Unmoved Mover and theC atalyst that never was catalyzed.  In essence, God is the infinite perfection of every virtue in existence simultaneously occurring in the same one being. 

2b.  It is not merely that God loves, communicates in truth, grants mercy, and stays faithful.   Rather, God is charity & mercy itself, as well as kindness & truth,  justice & peace,  fairness & generosity,  patience & temperance, fortitude & heroism, gratitude & fidelity, prudence & innocence, etc.

2b.  God being the Unmoved Mover means that existence is no chance occurrence.

You realize this when you follow the trail of cause and effect.   At the end of every

trail is the discovery that everything traces itself to an Unmoved Mover, as well as an Uncatalyzed Catalyst.   Either someone or a plurality of someone brought into existence all that came to be.

Even if you are an unwavering adherent to the Big Bang Theory, you have to admit that no one has ever been able to explain how the unfathomably dense initial atom, with its billions of galaxies locked inside of it, came into existence.

2c.  God is transcendent, being untouchable by all that is seen and unseen.  Yet, the same God is immanent, in being fully involved in all that is.  In fact, God is more real in any one of us than any one of us is real in ourselves.   God is so intimately involved in any one person that there's a recessed area in each human soul reserved solely for God.  Not even angels are capable of reaching it.

2d.   The spiritually fatal error in modern physicists' search for the God Genome or the God Particle, in order for it to officially recognize the existence of God, consists in the reality that God is Spirit and Truth.   Physicists are looking for an infinite spirit in the world of the finite physical.

3.   Humanity's Existence.   The aforementioned statements make one conclude that God is the executive producer of man's existence, no matter how the same one God arranged for that existence to come into being.   In light of this, what was God's ultimate goal in creating humanity?

ANS:  God created mankind, in order to honor the love between the Father and Son, as well as honoring the virtues within the Father and the Son.  The goal was to give three dimensional life to these virtues and ideals.

In addition, man was created, so that God unite with his creation, by becoming man.  His prior creation was already made.  It was called, Angel.  But, God is already like Angel, in being pure spirit and intellect.  So, something remotely different from God was made.

In sequence, God's purpose for sharing in man's humanity was so that man could share in God's divinity.  This is mentioned in one of the Liturgical prayers in the Canon of the Mass, concerning the consecration of the hosts.

3b.  This is where the mystery of love is activated.  Firstly, the Mystery of Love that of transforming into the object of your love.  In this mystery, God so loved mankind that God became man.   Love is transformational.

3c.  The phenomenon of God uniting with God's creation translates into the concept of Messiah.   Now, Messiah means Anointed One.  It is synonymous with the title, Christ.    The phenomenon of the Anointed One consists in humanity being anointed by the divinity of God in the same one person.   The Anointed One, therefore, has to be God or else the union of divinity and humanity can't occur.   This is where recognition of the existence of the Son of God comes to the fore.   The Son of God is the only one in existence who can become man and then activate the anointing of divinity upon humanity.   The union of the divine with the human is the Hypostatic Union.

3d.  Without the existence of the Son of God, the existence of an entire God is completely impossible.

Moreover, in order for God to exist as an eternal, all-powerful, and life-giving being, such a God can only exist as a Trinity.   This means that God is not a him or a her.   Rather, God is a "them" who is only properly described in the third person plural of "they" when describing the actions of God.

3e. God is a spiration from one infinite person that is requited by a second infinite person.  The spiration of all which is infinitely virtuous is the third infinite person.

In fact, the second infinite person is the Raison d'Etre of the first infinite person, and the spiration itself is the third infinite person of this united Divine Essence.

3f. A person who has no beginning sends forth a spiration that says,  "Let there be light."   

A second person who also has no beginning responds by stating, "So be it.   Let there be light."  A third person as infinite as the other two is the light itself.  This means that God is a:

1} spiration sending forth all that is virtue, 2} a requitement of that spiration in consenting to all that is virtue, 3} a living light that is the infinite virtue, itself.   God is a crossfire of love, with the third person being the fire which is being eternally exchanged between the first and second person of the endlessly united being.

3f.  Some people claim that there is no God, because there has never been any quantitative measurement of God found to exist.   The answer to this is that, if you could measure God, then it wouldn't be God whom you're measuring.   This is because the Eternal God is transcendent and incomparable.

Secondly, quantitative measurement denotes physical structure.   God doesn't have a molecular structure to put under an electron microscope.  God is in all things only in that God is involved in all things.  In essence, God is Spirit and Truth

4.  There is a difference between being blessed and being anointed.   In light of this, it is written, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God."  What does it mean to be poor?    ANS:  To be poor means to be constantly dependent upon God.

4b.  It is also written, "Blessed are the meek."    What does it mean to be meek? 

ANS:  To be meek means to be able to take a hit without hitting back.   Meekness is an element of temperance.

5. Beauty.    What is beauty?    ANS:  Beauty is Harmony & Proportion.  The source to this statement is Saint Francis de Sales.

In addition, beauty is not limited to the face, the physique, a sunset, or a starlit night.  That is to say, it's not limited to the physical world.

5b. For example, you can engage in beautiful speech, where the subject matter is in

harmonious context, with all subsets of the subject matter getting proportionate attention.   You can also have a beautiful relationship, consisting in harmony between each person involved, as well as proportionate interaction between the same.

In sequence, a beautiful relationship is one where the rapport between the people in the relationship is not lopsided.

5b1.  Beauty exists as a reality, and not as a matter of personal preference.  Now, what one person might find attractive is not always something beautiful.  There's a difference between attraction and beauty.   Being that God exists in proportionate harmony between three divine persons, God is Beauty itself. 

6.  Evil.   What is evil?  ANS:  Evil is the lack of a good which ought to be present but is absent.  Evil is deprivation.

6b. Can there be a God when so much evil has been allowed to perpetuate throughout the centuries?   

ANS:  The answer is Yes.  God did not will the evil to transpire.  The Divine Essence did not give permission for it to happen.  That's why there is something known as sin.  Plus, the existence of evil in the world cannot negate the existence of God.  In fact, there is evil done in the name of a God whose image was distorted by those doing the evil.

Evils on earth perpetuate, only because few people on earth seek to stop them from happening.  It is NOT God letting the evil happen.  It's mankind letting it happen.  The answer is that evil is prevailing throughout the earth because either you, in your cowardice, let it happen or others in their cowardice won't help you stop any evil you trying to stop.

In the alternate, those in power are so self-centered and inconsiderate that they let evil perpetuate.  Yet, the self-centered mind set is the mindset of a coward.  The gutless cowardice of men is what lets evil prevail on earth.  It's known as the sin of cooperation.

Sin is the act of spiritual suicide.   It's the act of turning away from God.  It consists in jumping off the bridge which is God.  More specifically, sin is the act of seeking to negate your existence, even though you were created to exist for ever.   

In fact, sin is the act of  becoming nothingness itself.  Whereas God is Love, a obstinate sinner in the state of mortal sin is Nothingness.  Mention of the nothingness of sin appears in the Dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena.  The text includes private revelations conveyed to Catherine.

6b. Why does God stand by, letting evil occur, instead of stopping it by supernatural intervention?  ANS:  It is allowed, in order to bring forth a greater state of good than that which would have existed if the evil in question never occurred.  God stands by, while evil completes its destruction, so that God can construct a greater good than was previously there.

6c.  It's also a matter of the pruning effect.   The pruning of tree branches results in the vibrant growth of the tree being pruned.   God allows evil, so that the pruning of the soul can occur.

6d.  This principle is illustrated in the discipline of weight lifting.   Lifting weights results in muscle actually being torn down.  A day of rest follows the workout, thereby enabling the body to rebuild.   Thus, the weight lifting routine in itself does not build the body, but rather the days of recuperation, after each workout, do.

In like fashion, evils in themselves don't benefit anyone.   Rather, its the rebuilding that occurs after the damage has been done which brings forth the greater state of good.

7.  Sinners.   What is a sinner?   ANS:  A sinner is a person who loves evil and then becomes in essence the evil loved.  

Evil, too, is part of the transformational mystery of love.   After all, there is such a thing as the Mystery of Evil.  It's some thing that has been ongoing throughout the history of mankind  ...

...  throughout the tragic history of mankind.  It was Saint Bernadette Soubirous said that a sinner is a person who loves evil.   She was the Lourdes apparition girl of 1858.  She is the patron saint of asthmatics.

8. Worship.   What actually is worship?   ANS:  Worship is the act of attributing the beginning and end of your existence to someone or something.

9.  Innocence.   Does Innocence mean naivety?   Does it denote docility?   Does it mean to be meek?   Does it mean to be uninvolved?   ANS:  The answer is no, in all four instances.   Innocence is freedom from sin  ...  freedom from spiritual death.

9b.  Spiritual death is the absence of the sanctifying grace which should be flowing through the soul of the person in mortal sin.

However, everyone is being given actual graces, in order for that person to be able to do good and even be spared from evil consequences.   Actual graces are given, in order to enable the person to either return to the state of sanctifying grace or remain in that state.  The opposite of actual grace is temptation.

9c.  The Grace of God is the only thing which enables a person to do good.  In fact, prayer is an essential element in preventing the absence of needed graces.  In addition, the true Sister Lucia Martos of Fatima fame, stated that a person can learn more from prayer than through reading volumes of books, during her pre-1957 days.   

Saint Augustine stated that prayer rules God.  Thus, instead of going to fortune tellers, to see what your future holds, pray for your desired future to become a reality ...

... if what you desire isn't sinful.  Prayer is the opposite of Calvinism, Determinism, and even Fatalism.

Ukranian Rite Church: The same faith as Roman Catholicism.

10.  Prayer.   What is prayer?   ANS:  Prayer is the act of reaching out to God.  An attraction to the celestial world results in the instinct to pray.  When in doubt on how to pray, overlook your doubt and just start praying.  You'll catch on, as to the way prayer becomes effective.

11. Faith.   It is written that faith without good works is dead faith.   Quite frankly, faith without good works is a sick joke and the ultimate hypocrisy.   What is faith?

ANS:  Faith is the understanding of an infinite God that we, in our finite minds, can not understand in any other way.    Faith is spiritual radar.   Faith is the translation machine.   Faith is a supernatural gift that involves deeply recessed instinct.  It isn't a matter of prejudice or opinion.  It's a matter of identification.

12.  Doctrine.   Why is it a matter of life and death for you to adhere to the correct doctrine?    

ANS:  This is because a person only acts according to his beliefs.  If

you believe wrongly, then you will act wrongly.   The atrocities of Nazi Germany were entirely based on false beliefs.

If you don't get the doctrine right, your entire world will go wrong.   You will then become a destroying angel, and later on, you will go about, getting others to be accomplices to your living lies ...  should you adhere to the wrong doctrine.

Catholic Doctrines about the Virgin Mary & the Reason Why

The Gospel of St. John expressly reminds the reader that not everything is in the Bible.  After all, the Infinite God cannot be contained.  Yet, Protestantism ignored St. John.  That particular 16th Century religion bases itself on a very fatal and tunnel-visioned belief in Sola Scriptura.  In light of this, Protestants demand a Biblical reference that justifies Marian devotion.  

Actually, they asked this arrogantly, assuming that there is nowhere in the Bible justifying and/or ratifying Marian Devotion.  Well, Marian Devotion is most certainly in the Bible that the Protestants stole from the Roman Catholics.   The source is the Gospel of St.  Luke, where Mary said:

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my 

Savior, because he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness.  

Henceforth,  all generations shall call me blessed,  because 

he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is 

his name.

And of course,  And of course, when anyone recites the Rosary, that person repeatedly says, "BLESSED are you among women, and BLESSED is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.  In doing so, you are fulfilling the Biblical prophecy which stated that all subsequent generations of humanity will call Mary blessed.

Those who do not call her blessed are NOT Christians.  They are only pretenders lodged in heretical sects that rejected many precepts and doctrines which trace back to the original apostles and the miraculous St Paul of Tarsus.  Once again and in review Once, devotion to Mary consists in being part of All Succeeding Generations calling Mary blessed as was prophesied in the Bible.  It's that simple.  

Concerning simplicity, it is written,  "From  the mouths of babes come perfect praise."

Thus, a child praying the Rosary is fulfilling Sacred Scripture in sending forth perfect praise.  People who have trouble accepting this are spiritual gluttons never satisfied with anything but that which is vain and overbearingly gaudy.  The irony is that embracing a devotion as humble as the Rosary results in the devotee having lights and a colorfulness equal to a multi-faceted gem which is very clear, as opposed to muddy and muddled.

In addition, there is the account in the Gospel of John, where Christ, while dying on the Cross, said to John, "Behold.  Your mother."  Devotion to the woman given to mankind as its mother honors Christ in the pain and death he endured.  

Add to the Biblical sources the words of God the Father, spoken through the Archangel Gabriel:  "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.  Rejoice oh highly favored daughter."  Devotion to God's highly favored daughter honors the God who created her.  It also shows a common interest that you and God both hold.

There is also the matter of the Acts of the Apostles' account of the Pentecost.  Now, it was a product of St. Luke who was a student of Saint Paul.  Thus, St. Paul ... and Luke ... made sure that the reader would know that, at the beginning of the Church, when the Holy Spirit made his arrival, Mary the mother of Jesus was there, in the Cenacle.  Neither Luke nor Paul, nor John the Evangelist ignored Mary.

1]  What is the essence of Marian Devotion?

Response:  To start, Mary is NOT a brain dead road sign who merely says, "Do whatever he says."  Rather, she, unlike any creature of God, brings Jesus to you.  In as much, Marian Devotion consists in Mary taking Jesus and placing him in your arms.  Then, when you die, Mary takes you and places you in Jesus' arms.  It's that simple.  It is the essence of sacredness.  Only the arrogant are completely incomprehensive to this reality.

Painted by an Australian friend.

2a]  Isn't looking at a painting or statue of the Virgin Mary idolatry?

Response:  Do you have photos of your loved ones at home?   When you look at those photos, are you worshiping the people within the frames?   In fact, do you have photos of sports heroes, war heroes, peace heroes, singing stars, or movie stars?  Do you worship those people as if you actually believe that they created all that is seen and unseen?   Religious images are reminders.   They are study guides that help you recollect something pertinent about the event or person depicted in the image upon which you are meditating.

Such images are a view to a scene or a person.   They let you experience the person or the event to some degree.   When you view and make conscious note of an image of the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, or the Ascension, it places your considerations and realizations at the event represented.

Religious images have symbolism attached to them.  The symbolism for martyrs includes the article of execution used upon the martyr, as well as a palm branch to remind the viewer that the saint represented in the image was a martyr.   Thus, in images of Saint Jude, you will see clubs.  In images of Saint Andrew, you will see an X-shaped  cross.  In as much, images of the saints are blessed picture books.  The stained glass versions of such images helped the illiterate tremendously. 

3a]  Where in the Bible does it state that the

        Virgin Mary was conceived without sin?

Response:  It was mentioned at the Annunciation when the Archangel Gabriel said,  "Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with you."  Technically speaking, Gabriel said, "Rejoice, oh graced one."  And of course, such a title is a description of totality.

Now, to be full of one thing is to be free of its opposite.  Therefore, to be full of grace is to be free of sin.  Furthermore, to be full of grace is different than being filled with the Holy Spirit .  To be filled with the Holy Spirit still requires the person to receive stipends of grace, so that sin will not be out of control weeds in the soul.  To be full of grace is to be in a state where all sin is always crowded out.

The church came before the New Testament.  If it were not for the apostles and the faith of the early Christians, there would be no series of written texts called the New Testament.  Therefore, the Bible was made for man --- not man for the Bible.   The New Testament came forth from Tradition.  Tradition existed first.

The Bible has a limited number of pages, meaning that it's finite.  It was written in the service of the Infinite God.  Thus, not everything is in the Bible, being that finite pages cannot contain knowledge of the Infinite.  Therefore, it wasn't required for the Bible to state that the Virgin Mary was conceived in an immaculate state of soul.  In fact, John stated in his Gospel,  "There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if they were to be described individually,  I don't think that the entire world would be able to contain the books that would be written."  Therefore, a writer of the Bible stated that not everything is in the Bible.  Quite frankly, hardly anything is in the Bible.

The Bible is merely the Beginner's Book.   It's training wheels compared to what the angels know about the subject, as well as what you'll personally experience in your interaction with God, the angels, the saints, and even people in this life.   Your education will be the result of the Holy Spirit infusing knowledge into you and into the others who will share their knowledge with you.  This type of thing happens whether the person given the infused knowledge ever read the Bible or not.  Reading the Bible does not guarantee holiness.  Satan  knows the Bible far more than anyone of us.  Knowing it didn't make him a saint.

3b]  The Bible said that, "In Adam, all have sinned."  

        Isn't the Virgin Mary a member of this "all?"

Response:  Mary wasn't in Adam.  She was in the Holy Spirit.  This is why God the Father gave the impulse to the archangel Gabriel which resulted in him appearing to Mary and defining her as "Full of Grace"  ("Oh Graced One.")  Never before and never after did God the Father instruct any angel to appear to anyone on earth and recognize her as being  the graced one ... the one full of grace.

A handful of  people in scriptural passages were described as being full of the Holy Spirit, but this is different than being full of grace.   

To be full of grace is to possess all of the graces existing in the treasury of the Holy Spirit, to the point where you can wield them as if there were yours.  To be full of the Holy Spirit still places the person in need of the Holy Spirit conveying specific needed graces to him/her.   

To be full of the Holy Spirit is to be in possession of sanctifying grace.   To be full of grace is to be in possession of all actual internal graces without having in your soul a component that acts against those graces.  Any component within the soul that acts against grace is an element of original sin. 

3c]  But what empowered God to create Mary Immaculate?

Response:  The foreseen merits of Christ and Christ's rights as Savior of mankind did so.  Jesus is the perfect savior.  He has the right to save souls in every spectrum of life, from the beginning to the end of life.  He was empowered to save a person who jumped off a bridge, in giving that person the unfailing grace to make a perfect act of contrition or of love before that person hit the water.   He was empowered to save from their sins those on their death beds, moments away from eternity.  Thus, he had the right to save one person from even falling into sin, in the first place. 

What he did to Mary the first moment she was created was equivalent to catching someone before she falls into the mud.  The fact that he would one day perform the priestly sacrifice that only he could do was all that was needed to empower him to save Mary from falling into the state of original sin.  Christ is more dynamic than what he is presently made out to be.  He only looks like a buffoon when buffoons talk about him.  People equate him with the buffoons who talk about him on TV evangelist shows..

4]  The idea of Original Sin sounds too judgmental.  How could 

      a mere child who didn't do anything start out in original sin?

Response:  No child is guilty of committing the original sin, being that no child is the original Adam.  Rather, being conceived in the state of original sin consists in being conceived in the same state that Adam found himself, the moment after he committed the original sin.

This state of original sin brings with it obscured reason, as well as senses that can get out of control.  This is why we must apply ourselves to learning and why we also need to do some type of good in life, such as occasional fasting, abstention, works of mercy, prayer, and  those bodily workouts formerly known as mortifications.  After all, we are not born with infused knowledge and we no longer possess the endowment of integrity.   The first objective is to conquer your cravings.

The other effect of original sin that can lead to tragedy and abuse is interdependence.  Those who take advantage of the dependence of others rocket into Hell like lightning, if they die before converting.  Forcing women to partake in prostitution is a sin worse than the acts of prostitution themselves. 

5]  What gave Christ the power to assume 

      Mary into Heaven body and soul?

Response:  The Ten Commandments did.  It is written, "Honor your mother and father."   If Jesus didn't take his own mom into Heaven body and soul, he would have sinned against his own commandment.  This was expressly mentioned in the Infallible Statement, titled, Munificentissimus Deus, published in 1950.

6]  The Bible states that there is but one Mediator between God 

      and Man.   That would exclude everyone else, including Mary.

Response:  No one devoted to Mary ever said that she was the savior of mankind.  This is where one needs to have a minimal understanding of Latin.  Co-redemptrix means, "With the Redeemer."  Mary called God her savior during the Visitation she made to her cousin Elizabeth.   That same biblical passage stated that all generations will call her blessed.   

People devoted to the Virgin Mary, by their devotion, call her blessed, thereby fulfilling the prophecy about her in the Bible.   If you do not call her blessed, then you are the one who is anti-Biblical.  After all, it is written, "All generations will call me blessed, because he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name."   "His name," incidentally, means "his person."

Christ is the Mediator for the forgiveness of sin.  Mary is the dispenser of graces, because of Jesus' priestly sacrifice.  Such a job resulted in her being called, Mary, the Mediatrix of All Graces.   There is a reason why Mary must be the Mediatrix of the graces which, incidentally, come from her spouse, the Holy Spirit.  It pertains to the the Last Supper.   

The Last Supper was the first Mass, where Jesus gave to mankind the last commandment that he will ever give.   This occurred when he said, "Love one another as I have loved you."  Mary is the master link in that chain of loving one another as Christ has loved us.   After all, she was personally in direct view of Divine Love longer than anyone in the history of mankind.   Therefore, she has more experience at interacting with it.

In the mystery of love, Mary transformed into the Holy Spirit.  I can assure you, even if you are the most Bible-reading person on earth, Mary knows mysteries that you do not.  So, why not go to the source of the mysteries that pertain to the salvation of mankind?  The Virgin Mary knows what it means to be saved more than anyone in existence.  More mercy was bestowed upon the Virgin Mary, in keeping her free from sin, than was bestowed upon every converted prostitute combined.

It's written, "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it entered the human heart as to what God has prepared for those who love him ..."  1 Cor., 2:9.  Also written is, "Beloved,  we are God's children now.  What we shall be has not yet been  revealed.   We do  know that, when it is revealed, we shall be like him, being that we shall see him as he is."  This means that the mysteries of God are far too deeply recessed and awe-striking for them to be reduced to the basal mentality of those too cowardly to aspire the to depths and heights where one expects to find the angels stationed.   The express route to the angels is the Rosary, of course.  The principle prayer of the Rosary are the words of God the Father spoken by Gabriel.  It is known as the Angelic Salutation ... the Hail Mary.

People who hate the Virgin Mary do so, because they think that they have an aversion to what they perceive to be gymnastics training and harsh disciplinary oppression.   Yet, those who have an affinity to her see her as a beautiful starlit night.  Her devotees become attracted to her beauty and inviting friendliness, if they don't do so, in the quest for solace in tragedy.  They are devoted to her because they want to be near her.   She then takes over and starts the trimming, pruning, and overhauling process.   After the chiseling, one ends up perceiving the Holy Spirit for what he actually is; Kindness itself.  Concerning Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, see:

         Reason for making reparation of the Immaculate Heart

In response to the claim that the Catholic Church hid the Bible from humanity and ignored its doctrines

A broken electrical line sends zero electricity to its needed destination.  A broken line that separates the people from the 2,000 year old line of apostolic succession is the same type of dead line.  In fact, it's arrogant to claim that God personally commissioned you to suddenly start your own church 2,000 years after the original apostles started Christianity.

To make such a claim is to claim yourself greater than all of the original apostles.  You're saying that the Church they started was worthless.  Without the apostolic succession that dates back to Day 1 of Christianity, namely Pentecost Sunday, there is neither truth nor sacramental grace nor any form of salvation.  There's only a lie that gets unfolded at death.

Life is simple.  Only impostors make it confusing.  Let us continue:

It's the same old American squeal coming from the nether regions of the human mind.  It's a squeal that the "Papist Church" was the great oppressor who hid the Bible from all humanity, never applying the Bible to Church doctrine.

Of course, this hysteria was most spoken in those venues known for chattel slavery, lynch mobs, white hooded cross burners, pellagra, moonshining, inbreeding, low wages, low S.A.T. scores, Jim Crowe, gerrymandering, murder of the Michigan Freedom Riders, and plotting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

To those people, Rome was seen as a hostile foreign entity.  That is to say,anti-Catholicism is largely anti-Italianism.

 

Now, concerning the claim that Catholics have nothing to do with the Bible, and that the Catholic Church oppressively hid the Bible from humanity, take note:

The Bible was and is recited daily and repeatedly throughout the Catholic Church, during:

1) the Mass, 2) the Liturgy of Hours.

This means that the Bible was and still is quoted at 1) Matins, 2)  Prime, 3) Terce, 4) None, 5) Vespers, 6) Compline . . . and even at the Midnight Office.  Usually, it's  between 3:40 am to 7:30 pm or so, when the Bible is read EVERYDAY ...

In addition, a Bible passage is also read two times at each weekday Mass and three times at each Sunday Mass.

News Flash:  The official prayer of the Roman Catholic (and not the papist) Church is the Office ... the Liturgy of Hours.

Monasteries have to pray it at least five times a day.  All priests are to pray the Office daily.  Thus, the 1 50Psalms, as well as the Book of Proverbs, etc., are the major source of prayer in the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church doesn't ignore the Bible, and it did NOT hide the Bible from the Europeans of the Middle Ages or Renaissance Era.  The Catholic Church is far more Biblical in its orientation than that of Anglo American Protestantism.

After all, Protestantism ignores the fact that Christ said that he who "puts away his wife and takes on another one commits adultery."  It also ignores, "Faith without good works is dead faith."  BOTH things

are graphically stated in the Bible.

The aforementioned is merely a brief example of how Protestantism has regularly ignored Biblical passages throughout the ages.

In addition, the Catholic Church heavily advocates meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary.  These are events in the life of Christ, his mother, and his church.

There are presently 20 mysteries of the Rosary.  Eighteen of these are expressly found in the Bible.  Thus, the Catholic Church advocates meditating on events conveyed in the Bible.

Incidentally, Protestant denominations of the darker regions of Anglo America call church railings something that they're not.  They call them altars.  What they call "an altar call" is merely a walk to a railing.  Altars are for offering sacrifices.  Protestantism has no such concept of offering sacrifices.

In Protestantism, no altars exist and no priesthood vestments exist, outside of the Anglican and Episcopalian denominations.  Only worldly business suits are worn by high income-bearing TV figures who dress like bankers.  They are part banker and part con artist, making up a religion that suits them ... pun intended.

The Sea of Galilee

Of course, some of the TV and radio preachers think that repulsively screaming out Bible passages in a teeth-gritted fashion reflects a God who is gentle enough to have created starlight, flowers, butterflies, humming birds, and streams.  

This means that when these types of TV and radio evangelists scream out their heresies with Bible in hand, they blaspheme God twice over, disfiguring the face of the God of Kindness.

Isaiah (or his disciples after his martyrdom) wrote that, when the Messiah comes "not a crushed reed will he break, nor a fading wick will he extinguish.  The Book of Isaiah illustrates the gentleness of God.

The more obnoxious versions of TV and radio evangelists present a false image of God.  They cause people to hold animosity toward what they falsely assume is Christianity.  Of course, Protestantism is a mockery of Christianity.

Q: What does Protestantism mean?   ANS:  It means to protest.

Q: Protest against what?  ANS:  To protest against a law of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1529.                                                            

Q: What is this Catholic Church which is despised?  How much older is it than Protestantism?  ANS:  The Catholic Church is the first Christianity, and it was first called the Catholic Church in the Year 100 CE (AD) by the martyr Ignatius of Antioch.  The Catholic Church is not a Medieval Invention.  It is 1,500 years older than Protestantism.

Q:  At the least, Protestantism protested against the Catholic Church of 1517.  Didn't the Catholic Church change a lot since the Ancient Roman days?

ANS:  No.  The Catholic doctrine of 1517 was the exact same in 60AD, when the Didache was the prevalent teaching.  The Didache was the original teaching of the original Apostles and Judas' replacement, Matthias.

Catholic doctrine was the same in 620 AD, 1020AD, and even 1420 AD.  To be Protestant is to object to 1,500 years of Catholicism; not the Catholicism of 1517.   

Being that Catholicism was the first Christianity, to protest against Catholicism is to protest against Christianity itself.  It's the act of creating a slanted version of Christianity, by using the Catholic Church's own property to condemn it.  That property is the New Testament.  The New Testament is the property of the Catholic Church.

If not for the Catholic Church of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Centuries,  there would be no New Testament.  Protestants use the property of the Catholic Church to condemn the Catholic Church, all the while denying it to be the property of the Catholic Church.  They then deny that the Catholic Church uses the New Testament.

As a review, the Bible is recited daily in Catholicism during Mass, Matins, Prime, Terce, None, Vespers, Compline,  and  during the Midnight Office, as well as during the occasionally used Office of the Dead ... and "Typica.".

In addition, monks throughout the ages made handwritten copies of the Bible.  Now, if the Catholic Church wanted to hide the Bible, it would have ordered monks to not make copies of it.

In fact, Pius XII granted a plenary indulgence at the Hour of Death to any person who spends 15 minutes a day reading the Bible.  Of course, that person needs to first get absolution, if a priest is available.

First came the church headed by Saint Peter.  At the Last Supper the Apostles became ordained priests.  Then came the baptizing of believers.  Then came the ordaining of deacons.  Only thereafter came the Gospels of Luke, Matthew, Mark and John, as well as the Epistles of Jude, Peter, James, John, and Paul.  Thus, the Sacraments supersede the Bible.  

Without the sacraments ... or at least the desire for the sacraments ... when sacraments aren't available ... there is no salvation.  Yet, without the Bible, one doesn't understand the sacraments.

Eventually came a council of bishops which stated which texts constituted the official Bible.  Thus, you first need a church to say what   the Bible, in the first place.  It's a sin of idolatry to claim that all revelation is limited to the Bible, and that Bible is the only thing needed for salvation.  Such a belief is the Worship of the Bible, instead of God.  

Well, absolution from sin and good works are needed for salvation; not screaming in public ever so obnoxiously, while holding a Bible in front of TV cameras.  Such a thing is the act of worshiping the Bible.

Q:  Okay then, what actually is the Bible?  ANS:  It's a collection of testimony from those who had salvific encounters with the Eternal God.

Q:  Okay.  Salvific comes from the word, Salvation.  What's Salvation?  ANS:   The salving ... the healing ... of the soul.  Salves heal wounds.

Furthermore,  stained glass windows often depicted Biblical events.  This means that the Church was NOT hiding the Bible from the people.  It was doing the opposite.  Church art served the function of a school book for the illiterate.

If the Catholic Church hid the Bible from mankind, Protestants would never have had it handed to them by the followers of  Luther and Calvin.  Very simply, Protestants stole the New Testament from the Catholic Church, and as thieves always do, they deny that their stolen object belongs to the person from whom it was stolen.

Now, if  Protestants refuse to believe in "one holy Catholic and apostolic church," then they need to leave behind all that is Catholic.  This includes leaving behind the Bible.

The Bible was made for man; not man for the Bible.  Therefore, the Catholic Church doesn't take the Bible out of context and turn it into a god unto itself.

The church has been praying the Bible for centuries.  Therefore, the Catholic Church never hid it from the people.  The Catholic Church has been reading the Bible at every Mass for an equal amount of centuries.  The Bible is a Roman Catholic possession, as far as concerns the New Testament.   To state otherwise is to lie.  Case closed.

There is only one Jesus Christ.  Thus, there only exists one Church of

Jesus Christ, founded by the same Christ.  All other churches constitute either impostor churches or fractures within the only church founded by Christ.  This brings us to a question: 

Which would be the true Church of Jesus Christ?   ANS: The church that was here first, dating as far back as the days of Peter, Paul, and the Roman emperors who sent many a Christian to the Coliseums of Martyrdom.

___________________________________________________

Part 1: Archaeology says Mecca was no major mercantile center in 7th Century

The center of the Muslim religion is Mecca.  Mecca is also known as Makkah al-Mukarramah ... as well as Macoraba ... and even Bakkah.  

Mecca was said to have been a major trading center during the 6th and 7th Centuries, as well as in centuries prior to that.  This "Mecca trading center" narrative is a pivotal assertion for the Muslim religion.  This is because the Muslim religion professes that its founder predominately lived in Mecca, from 570 to 622 C.E.   

The Muslim religion furthermore professes that this man was a very rich merchant who married a very wealthy widow in 595 C.E., when he was only 25 or 26 years old.  

Then, when he reached the age of 40, according to the Muslim profession of belief, this same wealthy merchant started to have a long series of visions and locutions from the Archangel Gabriel.  

Moreover, the visions allegedly began by Gabriel telling this wealthy man to write-down that which the angel was about to say.  This was followed by the rich man allegedly saying that he couldn't read or write.  Yet, Gabriel was then said to insist that an illiterate man start writing.

The same opening account of the Muslim narrative including this rich merchant being physically squeezed by the Archangel Gabriel, while the angel was insisting that the rich illiterate man begin writing what he hears from the angel.  Well, in the history of officially sanctioned exorcisms, one sign of diabolical obsession & oppression ... as opposed to diabolical possession ... is the physical sensation of being squeezed. 

Now, any angel already knows who can read and who is illiterate.  Thus, an angel would not tell an illiterate man to do anything other than to first learn how to read and write.  Moreover, an angel would not be in denial, after an illiterate man says that he can't write, forcing such a man to write, by physically squeezing him.

The Major Trading Hubs of Civilization did NOT include Mecca

Now, as far as goes MAJOR trading hubs in the history of the Eastern Hemisphere, the Operative Phrase is =====>  THE SILK ROUTE ... The Silk Road ... and more specifically, the Maritime Silk Road.

Also in the equation were Red Sea Port Cities, a few of which were not officially regarded as existing along the Silk Route.  In as much, whatever be the 6th Century city in Eurasia & eastern Asia ... if it were not located along the Maritime Silk Road .. or if it were not along the Red Sea ... it was NOT a major trading hub.

It turns out that the Story of Mecca was just a story

Mecca was nowhere near the Silk Route which began in Xi'an China and which ended in Antakya, Türkiye, to the north ... and Aden in the southern coastline of the Arabian Peninsula.  In fact, Antakya is approximately 1,000 miles north of Mecca, while Aden is 689 straight-line miles from Mecca.  

Moreover, Alexandria Egypt was also a major trading hub along the Maritime Silk Road, and it's located 911 miles northwest of Mecca.

NOTE: The ABSENCE of EVIDENCE includes the names, 1} Makkah al-Mukarramah, 2} Macoraba,  and 3} Bakkah, as well as 4} Mecca.  No evidence of any kind exists under any of the four names for Mecca.  There was no major mercantile center there in the 5th, 6th, and 7th Centuries.  Period.

JEDDAH

For those unaware, 41 to 45 miles west of Mecca is a port town which bears the name "Grandmother" or "Ancestress," in Arabic.  This is because an Islamic writer of the early 10th Century claimed that Eve was buried there, in a tomb.  His name is/was Abū Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdānī, and there was some kind of a tomb there which was destroyed by the Saudi government, in 1928, under the claim that it incited idolatry.

None the less, after a wave of Muslim conquests ... in 647 C.E. ... Jeddah's name became "the City of Consulates," as in Balad al-Qanasil.  So, it was the city with two interchangeable names.

As far as goes Jeddah, in the 6th Century and until 647 C.E., it was only a FISHING PORT which provided no accommodations for merchant caravans.  This reinforces the findings that Mecca was not a major trading center in the 6th and 7th Centuries.

Until 647 C.E., the Port of Jeddah was Persona Non Grata.  It then became designated to be the port for those making pilgrimages to the Great Mosque of Mecca.  The Great Mosque of Mecca was known as Masjid al-Haram.  The person designating Jeddah as the pilgrim's port was Caliph Uthman ibn Affan.  

In as much, the Arabian word, Masjid, means place to prostrate oneself, as in prostrating oneself before God's presence.  Something similar to that.  

The bottom line here is that neither Mecca nor Jeddah were major merchant centers in the 6th & 7th Centuries.  Being that neither Mecca nor Jeddah were major trading centers at the time, the story of the rich 7th Century Mecca merchant suddenly receiving visions & revelations from the same one archangel completely falls apart.  

There was also historic Baghdad.  One of its suburbs ... located 21 miles away ... was the major 7th Century trading hub located along the Maritime Silk Road.  It's located 850 to 900 miles north of Mecca.  None the less, during the 8th Century, Baghdad was the major trading center of the region.  Baghdad is 869 miles away from Mecca.

In addition, Hormuz Island and the city of Hormuz itself is situated 1,200 miles northeast of Mecca.  Hormuz, too, was one of the major trading hubs of the Maritime Silk Road.  Meanwhile, Mecca was not.

In addition, Mecca is about 41 to 45 miles east of the Red Sea.  HOWEVER, the main 7th Century Red Sea port was Berenice Troglodytica. Today, it's known as Berenike, and it was a Greco-Roman port on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea ... and NOT on the Arabian side.  And, as the name suggests, Troglodytica means "cave dwellers," as opposed to desert nomads and/or Bedouins.

Now, keep in mind that even BUDDHIST ARTIFACTS were found in Berenike, and they date as far back as the 2nd Century, CE.  Archaeological pieces with Sanskrit inscriptions on them were also found in Berenike.  No such thing was found in Mecca, proving that Mecca didn't come close to being a major trading hub in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th Centuries, as well as the first half of 7th Century.

In the Muslim religion, the important year 632 CE.  This is the year when a very rich man supposedly receiving numerous vision from Gabriel the Archangel allegedly died.  Equally important was the Year 622 CE.  This was the year when the allegedly rich merchant moved to Medina.  Well, up to the Year 622, Medina was an unknown town.  Even up to 632 CE, Mecca was NOT  a significant trading hub in anyway or in anyhow.

And then there was Aden, 689 miles away from Mecca.  It was the south tip of the historic Maritime Silk Road.  Thus, it was a thriving port city, for those traveling between India and Egypt.

Very simply, travel south on the Red Sea, and at the end of it, you turn left toward India.  You will pass Aden, an accommodating port city, even in the 6th & 7th Centuries.  The bottom line is that the major trading hubs of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Centuries were far far away from Mecca.  Period.

There was also Muza, Yemen.  It was a thriving trading hub, mentioned in ancient texts, while Mecca was not.  Muza is/was 648 miles from Mecca.  

Below:  As far as goes the history of Alexandria Egypt, it was the major Middle Eastern & Mediterranean trading hub of the 6th Century.  Well, Muslim tradition states that a man named Mohammad started his rise to wealth at the end of the 6th Century, due to Mecca Commerce.  He would then become fully wealthy at the start of the 7th Century ... due to Mecca commerce when the reality is that Alexandria was the place to get rich.

Alexandria remained a major trading hub into the first four decades of the 7th Century.  Then, in 641 C.E., nineteen years after the man named Muhammad was said to have died, Alexandria was conquered by Arabian forces.  It's economic dominance in the region was no more.  However, throughout the alleged lifetime of the man named Muhammad,  Alexandria was a major trading hub.  This meant that Mecca was not.

Concerning the claim that Mecca was the ultimate trading hub of the 6th and/or 7th Century, the logistics do NOT work, and the evidence is just NOT there ... or anywhere else.  Even Baghdad, the major Silk Route hub nearest to Mecca, is 869 miles north north north of Mecca.  And of course, Baghdad is a legend of a city.

And then there was the big lie promoting by propagandists

It was asserted with assured certainty that, in the 6th and 7th century, piracy was so rampant on the high seas that almost every trader traveled via land, with caravans of camels.  It is the ultimate insult to human intelligence.  Observe:

The 6th & 7th Century port cities of the Middle East & the Mediterranean which were thriving during the 5th, 6th, and 7th Century ... minus the years of the atmospheric disaster that began in 536 CE ... in the non-warm-weather regions of Planet Earth ... & the Justinian Plague which began in 541 CE.  The thriving sea port cities, per se, included Hormuz, Alexandria, Berenike, Muza, and Aden.

Let's get this well understood and review it

1]  Wealthy Eastern Hemispheric merchants of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th Centuries operated in either Hormuz or Alexandria or Baghdad or Antakya or Calicut India or Berenike or Muza or Aden or a few other places, all of which were either on the Maritime Silk Road or were port towns.  Of course, subtract the years surrounding the 536 CE environmental disaster and the 541 Justinian Plague. 

2] The wealthy merchants did NOT operate in Mecca during the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Centuries, be it under the name of Mecca or under the name of Bakkah ... or under the name of Makkah al-Kamarramah ... or under the name Macoraba.  Plus, Jeddah was not a major trading port, either.  It was a modest fisherman's port.

3]  Therefore, all four names for Mecca were absent from the records and the chronicles of the time.  So too were they absent from archeological inscriptions of any kind, for centuries.  Meanwhile, in the years before the Muslim conquest of the Arabian & Persian regions, Jeddah was part of the Kingdom of Hejaz, ruled by the Hashemite Dynasty, serving the function of a humble, yet essential, fisherman's port.

 

Part 2 can be found through the link below:

 

https://www.theheartofmary.com/2026/03/2-not-a-major-mercantile-center.html

 

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