He is definitely confusing but I found that he does believe in the Immaculate Conception (but whether he wrote this is another question). During the Angelus on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, Pope Francis invites Christians to entrust themselves to Our Lady, reminding us that Mary, the only human creature without sin in history, is with us in the battle, and she is our sister and Mother. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/...ary-immaculate-conception-beauty-baptism.html
Blessed Mary of Agreda confirms this. The two sovereign princes, Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel, were the assistants of the Virgin on this occasion. They stood by at a proper distance in human corporal forms at the moment when the Incarnate Word, penetrating the virginal chamber by divine power, issued forth to the light, and they received Him in their hands with ineffable reverence. In the same manner as a priest exhibits the Sacred Host to the people for adoration, so these two celestial ministers presented to the Divine Mother Her glorious and refulgent Son. All this happened in a short space of time. In the same moment in which the holy angels thus presented the Divine Child to His Mother, both Son and Mother looked upon each other, and in this look, She wounded with love the sweet Infant and was, at the same time, exalted and transformed in Him. Here are excerpts from the Mystical City of God, translated from the original Spanish by Fr. George J. Blatter, published for the first time in 1912 with the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Fort Wayne, Most Reverend H.J. Alerding.
I think we are witnessing this prophecy unfold in real time. Prophetic Warnings from Fulton J Sheen Posted by kathleen “[Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church … It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.” We are living in the days of the Apocalypse, the last days of our era. The two great forces – the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of the anti-Christ – are beginning to draw battle lines for the catastrophic contest. The False prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit Church. Christ’s Church the Catholic Church will be one; and the false Prophet will create the other. The False Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association. A world parliament of Churches. It will be emptied of all Divine content, it will be the mystical body of the anti-christ. The Mystical Body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from our Bishops. The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as “I am Who am,” and the Devil as “I am who am not.”
One could argue that just as the New Adam was free from sin he exalted mankind through his crucifixtion thus raising the dignity of man higher than what it was before the fall, likewise the New Eve could have experienced labor pains thus in a chrostological sense exalting womanhood and birth but while remaining an intact Virgin.
You could. Personally I think the Modernist Heretics reject all that is Supernatural and Miraculous. They see Jesus as a Great Teacher and Rabbi. But just a good human being. As to his mother, well she was just his mother in fully human sense, a nice and good woman. The Holy Mass is merely a commemoration, the Eucharist, simply bread. Miracles don't happen, we only claim they do because we don't understand. God may be up there but He is God Deus Ex Machina, He is outside and doesn't interfere. It is all down to men. Prayer is an irrelevance, as is talk of Heaven and Hell. Talk of angels and devils, a fairy tale. All we have have is now, the material. What we can see, smell and touch. This is exactly what the Freemasons think. Jesus said we must read the Signs of the Time. When I see folks reject the miraculous in the birth of Jesus I smell Modernism. I may be wrong but I smell it...and am very,very, very suspicious. Is it any wonder with all that is going on? I trust the Vatican like I would trust a rattlesnake. This talk of Our Blessed Lady having labour pains totally goes against the Traditional Mind of the Church. It stinks to the High Heavens of Modernism and Clerical Freemasonary.. Pope St John Paul, Pope Pius x, Pope Benedict and other Popes would have thrown a fit if they knew someone was coming out with stuff like this.
Our Holy Father will say whatever it takes, whenever it takes it, to get by. He is a true Peronist. He will do say and pretend to be whatever will work. We describe this in Ireland as, 'Passing yourselfself off'. In England, 'Being all things to all men'. In the USA I think they say, 'Getting yourself by'.
Sheen was talking of a parallel church created through a synthesis of various religions and not Christ's body the Catholic Church -- It would be impossible for the Catholic Church to become the mystical body of the anti-Christ - As long as we can find a valid Mass in our local area that is said by a priest who is under the authoroty of the Bishop who is the governor of the diocese then there will be a visible Church to attend - the Bishop in union with the Pope - Catholicism is actually a very simple religion. It is God who ordained a hierarchical structure.
This raises the point that it could be argued that just as Christ's Divinity didn't save Him from pain, so Our Lady's Immaculate Conception didn't immunise her from it, either. However, God didn't intend Our Lady as a Sacrifice and the tradition has always maintained she didn't have such pains. As the Tradition probably represents, in this case, what Our Lady related to the Apostles, possibly St John, that'll do me. This, when one looks at it this way, mightn't represent the greatest of errors by Pope Francis, in this instance. Not that we don't have enough of genuine ones.
I don't worry too much about whether or not she had any pain. I figure I will be able to ask her one day when I go home!
If one knows that one is about to give birth to the Son of God, would that pain (if there was any) feel like pain at all?
Blessed A.C. Emmerick said something along those lines, that St. Joseph finding no room for them remembered a cave that shepherds used and took Mary there. As Mary was about to give birth she told Joseph to pray and he prostrated himself and prayed and suddenly the baby Jesus appeared before her, tiny and He seemed to grow.
I have never yet read a Mystic, Saint, Father of the Church or Pope speaking of Our Blessed Lady experiencing Labour Pains at the birth of Jesus. If I have I can't recall it. At least until Pope Francis has put forward the bizarre notion just recently. It seems to be a genuine, 'never before', in 2,000 years of Church history. An absolute first. Protestants would of course assume that this was so. That she of course would have had labour pains. But they are Protestants, not Catholics. But if anyone has read such a thing I would love to hear it. It might put my mind and heart at rest.
I have read that Church has always taught she gave birth miraculously without pain for Jesus. But on Calvary when she became our mother she suffered excruciating "labor" pains in union with her Son's passion.
in the vision of Apocalypse 12 the Woman who represents Our Lady and the Church is suffering the pains of childbirth (probable symbolism for the imminent return of Christ)
The "synthesis of various religions" can be seen in the Pachamama scandal and the Document on Human Fraternity. Also, in their related encyclicals Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti. The Anti-Church is a Counterfeit Roman Catholic Church. And for some people, just like counterfeit currency, it is hard to distinguish what is real and fake. This same confusing MIXTURE is described in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. The wheat and the tares are mixed up in the same field. The field is the Church. The Roman Catholic Church. That is what Sheen is describing. The head of the Antichurch is the Antichrist. If you go to vatican.va, you will see this man's picture. He's the bishop dressed in white.
You are correct. But the Antipope is the Antichrist. The canonical facts can be examined at https://www.antipope.com/
I guess I always figured that Mary experienced the birth of her Son occurred in one of two ways. 1) Mary became enraptured in meditation or contemplation of God that she became almost as light (maybe similar to the transfiguration?) as Jesus himself is God from God, Light from Light, so that the Holy Babe was able to pass through Mary without the normal elevated delivery pains that is normal with child birth. 2) that similar to what Mystics experience with crucifixion Mary became so transfixed with love for God that while normal birthing pains were experienced they were sweetly felt by her holy soul. But I sort of agree with what Ang said. I’m not going to worry about it and will probably learn more when I hear it directly from Mary.
