The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe contains countless miracles. The one that impresses me the most is the fact that for nearly 10 years, 4,000 people converted to Christianity PER DAY! Since Brazil has about 9,000 people, that means in two days, our town would be converted. That is truly miraculous!
Just as most of Mexico did not believe in Christ in Mexico at the time of Our Lady’s apparition, so to most in our country today do not believe in Christ nor do they believe in his Church.
Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to be an important intercessor for people both in Mexico and also in our own country. Her title is not the patroness of Mexico but the patroness of the Americas, and so we need her intercession north of the border as well.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is also the patroness of the pro-life movement, as she is the only apparition of our Lady where the Blessed Mother is pregnant in the apparition. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for our nation, that all those who do not know Christ may experience conversion, and that we may experience a miraculous growth in the respect for life
Nicely done, I think the Spanish Masses at Meinrad certainly help with pronunciation. I am preaching in Columbus for the fourth Sunday and will be preaching in Spanish for the first time then too.
ReplyDelete"Just as most of Mexico did not believe in Christ in Mexico at the time of Our Lady’s apparition, so to most in our country today do not believe in Christ nor do they believe in his Church."
ReplyDeleteI can tell you why that is. This is just my personal experience and opinion, just to let you know;
The Bible. I have actually found that there are some things in there that are just plain not true. For example, Genesis 6:3, which reads as follows:
“And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.”
-Yet The oldest person ever whose age was authenticated, according to Guinness, was a woman named Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived to 122 years and 164 days. She was born in France on Feb. 21, 1875, and died at a nursing home in Arles in southern France on Aug. 4, 1997. So obviously the Bible was wrong here.
Luke 21:32-34, Jesus tells his contemporaries that the things that will lead to the end of the world will happen in their life time. Yet none of it happened and to this day it still has not....and will not.
Matthew 18 & 21, Mark 11 & John 14 has Jesus quoted as promising to answer people's prayers doing what ever they ask for. The only requirement is that they have faith. Well, this is problematic because let's say for example, we all sit down and pray with faith and ask God to immediately bring eyesight eyesight of a blind man that's never seen before and to bring hearing to the man that's never heard before......what do you think the results of your prayers will be? You know and I know......................nothing will happen. Not at that moment, not tomorrow, not the next day, not the next week, month, year, century, etc.....I could go on with numerous examples of how prayer fails, but I will limit it this to just this.
Bottom line is that there are soooo many things that don't make sense in the Bible. Things that have proven to be false(as I described above). Things that appear as if they are quite scripted and make for a fancy story.
I suppose I could go on and on. But I'm not going to. I'd be open to the idea of going to church, if somebody could explain to me the biblical contradictions I mentioned, why they aren't a contradiction, and provide compelling evidence as to why they are not. And why does God always stay hidden and silent? Why is there no mention anywhere of what Heaven is supposed to be like? Why is it so much better than having everything you could ever dream of having on Earth? What's the criteria to get there? Why can't you check on your current "soul status"? Just too many unanswered questions that so far, nobody has been able to answer for me.
http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/bible.htm
DeleteAre there any pictures from the procession in Brazil?
ReplyDelete