Iran War started. Pray for Peace. And for Victory.

That seems to be the way it is.

Iran has a very pro-life family policy. The late Ayatollah, a strong opponent of abortion, did give the go-ahead for the use of contraception shortly after he succeeded Khomeini, but he later expressed regret for this decision. Still, Iranian society is far more traditionally moral than that of the West. Yet, we have even Catholics justifying this war for the purpose of changing their women's dress-codes! We have forgotten that, before the twentieth century most women in the West dressed like that. What a confusion of priorities.

 

Catholicism seems to be attracting huge numbers of people who think seriously about religion. The indifferent 'lukewarm'), not so much. The way things are going in the world, indifference might be about to go on the decline.

 

This is online with the Vision of St John Bosco on the Two Pillars when he talks of a Fleet of Ships tying up with the Barque of Peter after a Great Spiritual War. This is actually happening before our very eyes.

https://perpetualeucharisticadorati...-bosco-two-pillars-of-the-eucharist-our-lady/

 

Great post. Our Lord's greater agony might have been in Gethsemane. Did He not sweat blood for all our sins? He would have done so for all sins, past, present and future, including mine. When He asked His Father if He could take this Cup away from Him, perhaps it is this ordeal He referred as much as the Crucifixion? And still we sin and still He suffers.

I still maintain there is a distinction between what is a very error-ridden religion and this terrible phenomenon of satanism. The former represents a flawed attempt to reach for the good, but with the error that it can be done by force; the latter is a conscious decision to throw in their lot with the being who fundamentally opposes and attempts to obstruct all that is good. The road to Hell might be paved with good intentions, but the foundations are definitely constructed with bad ones.

I have this notion lately about Babylon: the pharisees brought back what was the beginnings of the Talmud to Judea from Babylon, at the end of the Jews' exile there, about 500 BC. Given what that scripture has become, its origins must have been something very frightful, indeed. This prototypical Talmudism seems a partial explanation for the continuous confrontation between Christ and the Pharisees throughout the Gospels, much moreso than with the Sadducees, who seemed to have been practitioners of a more ancient and traditional Judaism.

 

We all did! And I know I still do at times in my thoughts, words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do. Lord, have mercy.

Thank you Anne for reminding us we are guilty. But Our Lord loves us so much he paid the debt I (we) owe. Peace.

 

I believe it is important to remember that some of the Pharisees who constantly tested Jesus, setting traps involving the Law of Moses, also preached morality. They even defended the public condemnation of the adulterous woman, although Our Lord disarmed them all by using the very Law of Moses.

The early Church still carried elements of ancient Judaism before the Council of Jerusalem and eventually found its focal point of unity in the Roman Empire, the center of power and moral decadence at the time. It was persecuted both by this anti-Christian empire and by the Jews, who relied on the Law of Moses, morality, and a supposed zeal for doctrine to combat heresies.

In more recent history, we had the tribunal of John Calvin in Geneva, where any deviation from doctrine and morality was severely punished. Michael Servetus was executed at Calvin’s command for denying the divinity of Christ; however, Catholics were also persecuted. A few years ago, I even saw a video of a Brazilian Protestant pastor saying that, at a certain time, no one in a particular city dared to give their newborn children the name of a saint. Ironically, this absurdity came from a former Catholic who bears the same name as the beloved disciple.

What I mean is that the same false dichotomy that existed in the time of Jesus, between Rome and the Jews, can also be applied to the present moment in the confrontation between the West and Islamic radicalism. In both cases, Our Lord promised a restoration for both branches in His own time, but only through divine intervention.

 

Yes miker. Truth! The mercy of Christ is our pearl of great price. The grace that draws us to Him the greatest gift of all. When I first reverted to the faith He told me very clearly " Your desire for Me is really My desire for you." How profound. Like the scripture--when we were still in sin He died for us.

 

Yes. And that is their never ending tragedy. V2 did away with praying for their conversion but I think we must begin again. With great fervor.

 

Immodesty has the West in a choke hold. Even going to Mass it is sometimes on display. Out of ignorance women and girls dress in such offensive ways. Our Lady of Good Success warned us of it.

 

Thank you for sharing this reflection. You raise an interesting point about how zeal for morality and doctrine can sometimes become harsh or self-righteous. Jesus definitely confronted that tendency in some of the Pharisees.

At the same time, Jesus didn’t reject the law or their authority outright. He said very clearly that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, and that not even the smallest letter would pass away. He even said the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so people should listen to what they teach — but not imitate their hypocrisy.

So the problem wasn’t really the law itself. The law was good. We still have the 10 Commandments. But Jesus applied these ... if you have hate in your heart or defame a brother, you already committed murder. The problem was when people followed law outwardly while their hearts were far from God. That’s why in the story of the adulterous woman Jesus doesn’t deny the law — He exposes the hypocrisy of those applying it without first examining themselves.

It’s also important to remember that Jesus Himself was a Jew, and many of the first Christians were Jews as well. The Last Supper — which becomes the first Eucharist and the foundation of our Mass — took place during a Passover meal, a Seder. In a sense, every Mass carries forward and fulfills what began in that Passover. Just as the Seder remembers God delivering His people from slavery in Egypt, the Mass makes present Christ’s sacrifice and our deliverance from sin.

In the original Passover a spotless lamb was sacrificed, its blood saved the people from death, and the lamb had to be eaten. As Catholics, we see this fulfilled in Christ. Jesus is the Lamb of God, whose blood saves us, and in the Eucharist we partake in that sacrifice. So the Eucharist doesn’t replace the Passover — it fulfills what the Passover was pointing toward all along.

From a Catholic perspective, the deeper lesson isn’t really about one side of history being entirely right and another entirely wrong. The Gospel works more mysteriously than that. Christ fulfilled what was given through Israel and eventually transformed the Roman world from within, even though both cultures had things that needed conversion.

History shows that every society — religious or secular — can fall into the temptation of defending truth without charity or morality without humility. Even Christians have sometimes fallen into that trap.

That’s why the warning Jesus gives about the Pharisees ultimately applies to all of us. Whenever we defend truth or morality, we also have to examine our own hearts first. In the end, the Gospel isn’t really about choosing sides in the struggles of civilizations — it’s about allowing Christ to transform the human heart, which every culture and every person needs.

 

Excellent post Mike. Thisis the bottom line. Jesus told the pharisees that he is without sin throw the first stone.

 

I don't believe even 1% about Iran killing its own citizens... most of them are ISIL and Al Qaeda cells and Mossad terrorists funded by the USA and Israel for 73 years.

So in 1953, the legally elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was overthrown in a coup carried out by the United States through Operation Ajax and the United Kingdom through Operation Boot, with Central Intelligence Agency and MI6 operatives on the ground. These are officially declassified documents that acknowledge it, and the reason was that Iran had nationalized the oil that the British had been taking, while Israel had also been created as a state around that time.

Mosaddegh had massive support among Iranians, and the decisions that followed even included an offer to the British. Mosaddegh’s plan, based on the 1948 compromise between the Venezuelan government of Rómulo Gallegos and Creole Petroleum, would divide oil profits 50/50 between Iran and Britain. Against the recommendation of the United States, Britain refused this proposal and began planning to undermine and overthrow the Iranian government.

In other words, Britain and the United States carried out aggression against Iran.

After that, Iranians restored their state through the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

During the Iran–Iraq War, the sponsor of Iraq and Saddam Hussein was the United States, while the main supplier of weapons to Iran — including advanced American-made weapons — was none other than Israel, through several secret operations known to the U.S. government and closely connected to the Israeli military leadership.

In the 1980s, the main sponsor of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of Osama bin Laden was again the United States in the war against the Soviet Union. You can even see in the movie Rambo: First Blood Part II how the Afghan fighters are portrayed as the good guys.

Then in the 1990s, Saddam became the bad guy once he was no longer useful to the United States and after he invaded Kuwait. Because of economic sanctions and boycotts imposed by the U.S., a massive famine occurred in which over 500,000 children died.

Then there were the false claims that Iraq had nuclear weapons, massive protests across the Western world against the war, tens of thousands killed, several million Iraqis displaced, and a country destabilized for two decades, which was at times partially taken over by Islamic State and other extremist groups.

Then there was the War on Terror in Afghanistan against the Taliban that the United States had previously supported. In 2021, after four presidents and about two trillion dollars, they were replaced by none other than the Taliban themselves.

Of course, the opium that was smuggled into the United States from Afghanistan is no longer needed, because now there is a far more powerful drug trade — Fentanyl.

The war in Syria, as well as the entire Arab Spring, consisted of coup-style revolutions supported from abroad in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.

Syria and Libya went from being some of the most prosperous countries to nations engulfed in long wars. Opposition groups connected to Al-Qaeda were funded in order to remove leaders such as Bashar al‑Assad and Muammar Gaddafi.

In Syria, after several million people were killed or displaced, Ahmed al‑Sharaa (known as Jolani), a figure associated with Al-Qaeda — the same organization responsible for the September 11 attacks — rose to power. He was welcomed at the White House by Donald Trump.

After the fall of Libya, a corridor of mass migration toward Europe opened, as also happened from Syria.

Not only were there no mass killings in Iran, but Iran was attacked twice within ten months by the United States and Israel. Tens of thousands of civilians and children were killed, and hospitals, water reservoirs, and schools were bombed. There was also an attempted coup in Iran involving foreign agents and mercenaries who had been active even during the first aggression the previous year, when hundreds of innocent Iranians were killed.

Should I also add that, besides acts of piracy by the United States — attacking oil tankers and seizing oil — there was also aggression in Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped and replaced by a member of his own cabinet? The government remained the same, but an agreement was signed with the United States stating that oil profits, as well as gold shipments delivered yesterday, would go to the United States and Israel.

And finally, to conclude with Gaza Strip — a city roughly the size of Dublin, with five times the population, more than 70% under the age of 20, and where more bombs have reportedly been dropped than during the entire World War II, in which 20 million people died.

I don’t know if anyone still believes that the United States can be seen as the “good guy” in any context. Aggression, killing, theft, lies, manipulation, seizure, blackmail, and threats are taking place — and the worst part is that ordinary American people gain nothing from it except paying the price of war through the lives of their citizens and the costs of wars that mainly benefit the wealthiest.

 

I also think it’s important to remember that the Jewish people are deeply connected to our faith. They are, as St. John Paul II once said, our elder brothers in the faith. God’s covenant with Israel was real, and Scripture says that “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” (And this does not mean "Israel" as the modern state it is today )

At the same time, I sometimes think Christians should not be afraid to pray for the conversion of hearts, including among the Jewish people — not out of hostility or blame, but out of charity. I don’t blame the Jewish people for the crucifixion. We know we all bear that responsibility.

But like St. Paul, my heart aches a little that many did not recognize Him as the Messiah. Paul himself wrote that he had great sorrow and unceasing anguish for his own people. His desire for them to know Christ came from love, not condemnation.

In the end, the Gospel isn’t really about one side of history being completely right and another completely wrong. Every culture and every people — including Christians — stand in need of conversion. The deeper message of the Gospel is that Christ came to transform the human heart. I know that every single day, I need to convert.

But perhaps the greatest hope in all of this is that God remains faithful even when we are not. The story of Israel itself shows that God does not abandon His promises. That’s a hopeful sign not just for the Jewish people, but for all of us.

 

The Old Covenant was fulfilled and transformed in Christ. The promises remain in force, but no longer in the old way; rather, they are renewed and transformed in Christ. The descendants of Abraham and the followers of Christ are not defined by blood and flesh, but by the Spirit.

Israel as a land, and the rebuilding of the Third Temple, are paganism—or something even worse—from Christ’s perspective. Jews as a people are on the same level as everyone else. No one prevents them from converting and accepting Christ, but there is no return to the old way. As Saint Paul said, there is no longer Jew or Greek… we are all one. God’s plan was always the salvation of all people. Even if the root began in the Israel of that time, it does not mean that God’s plan was not a great tree whose branches embrace all humanity. God is a spiritual being, while the Old Covenant was based on bodily and imperfect material things.

What is worse is that it cannot even be said that they truly know the Old Covenant, because if they accepted the Old Covenant as Christ said, they would know the Father—and whoever knows the Father also accepts the Son. In my opinion, Christian Zionism and such an interpretation of Christianity is the greatest heresy since Protestantism, because evil is done in the name of God. Christ is replaced, and His sacrifice on the cross is devalued by the idea of establishing some new animal sacrifice that is supposed to be greater, all while doing it in Christ’s name.

This is such a perversion, heresy, and sacrilege that it is difficult to describe. Evil has been turned into good. The entire teaching of Jesus about love, justice, mercy, truth, and honesty disappears in arguments and manipulative interpretations where killing, theft, hatred, and lying become “God’s plan.” And yet they are not ashamed. It is known who the father of lies is.

 

Christianity arose from the Jewish faith. Most modern Jews, however, follow the Talmud rather than the Torah (Old Testament). The Talmud, and many that follow it, is virulently anti-Christian and features a morality that has greatly subverted and even inverted the Law of Moses-the typical destiny of puritan interpretation, as exemplified by the pharisees and their rabbinical successors. An example of this mindset would be someone like the Jewish 'comedienne', Sarah Silverman, who, in reference o the Crucifixion, said that 'she would do it again'. That is why The Church has always held to Supercessionism. The Jewish Covenant was upgraded to the New Covenant under Christ, on account of which the principle identity of what it is to be a Jew is to reject Christ and, in the process, the Covenant.

We certainly need to pray for them.

 

What has eaten into the Jewish mindset is a perversion and gross exaggeration of their sense of being a Chosen People. They were chosen as the tribe who would bring forth the Saviour, but many misunderstood this, in spite of the clear views of the Prophets, that this Messiah would be an earthly one, making the Jews the rulers of the world. This attitude is evident among the Apostles at one point in the Gospels when some of them debated about what kind of positions of power they were going to receive. Christ had different plans!

Unfortunately, most, or at least many, Jews of Our Lord's time would not accept that His Kingdom was not of this world and they rejected His claims of Divinity and Crucified Him. Soon after, their Zealous hopes of worldly domination were dealt a fatal blow and this has continued throughout the centuries. Yet, the more their hopes became futile, despite all their intrigue and violence, the more grew their pride. Now their opinion of themselves as 'Chosen' has brought many of them to a level of complete contempt for humanity. Everyone else is 'Amalek' to them, if they happen to get in their way.

 

The Old Covenant was fully fulfilled in Christ, who used the disobedience of the Jews to establish a covenant with the Gentile peoples, represented in its fullness in the Roman Church. However, in the End Times, God will use the apostasy of the nations to judge the world and graft the Jews back into the Kingdom, which will be a direct and simultaneous sign of the glorious return of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are in the interregnum, marked by the apostasy of both Jews and Gentiles. Nevertheless, this does not, at any moment, nullify the promises that Our Lord made to both branches.

 

The immodesty had its source in Hollywood, a novel, universal, cheap source of entertainment in the early 20th century. The US Catholics succeeded in moderating it with the Hays Code, leading to the greatest era of cinema, whereby the story became free to be the main purpose of a film. As we all know, that Code bit the dust in the mid-sixties and the genre has degenerated into sex, violence and wokism.

 

Holywood & Disney are also infested by the occult and the demonic.

 

Who owns p-hub and o-fans the biggest pornography providers in the world?

https://time.com/7017403/solomon-friedman-pornhub-ethical-interview/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Radvinsky

We need to believe what St Paul and the New Testament teaches about these people!

They are anti-Logos.