🦔 “When we take family life seriously, when we really want to love those around us, very often we are obliged to ask for this grace from God. We say, “Lord, you see my limits, my hardness of heart, and only you can help me. Only you can heal me and give me the love I need to love others, the love I need to love my wife or my children.” Your heart is limited, but thankfully God’s is overabundant. He is rich in mercy, and if we ask for this grace, he will help us little by little to truly love”. By Fr. Jacques Philippe
🌕 “Do not receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament to use Him as you judge best, but give yourself to Him and let Him receive you in this Sacrament, so that He Himself, God your Savior, may do to you and through you whatever He wills.”‘ By St. Cajetan
What an impact occurred when it was used in my prayer time. It involved a regular scripture reading that happened to be from the book of John, the first chapter. As stated previously, the daily MO is to read one chapter from the Old Testament, one chapter from the New Testament, and to open up the Bible at random and read from that chapter. This continues on from year to year as a non stop rotation through all of the Bible books. It’s a routine in place for decades now.
Have a new goal, but this brings to mind that an old goal still have not been reached. A goal was inspired by my deceased mom. One year she decided to read the whole book of John everyday for one month. Think one of the Protestant ministers on TV talked about that and inspired her to do that. She said it was extremely, extremely, extremely, difficult to read all 21 books every day, and that it almost killed her but she accomplished the feat. For sure she knew very well many of the passages from that book. A good tribute to her was to also do that, but it seems not possible with my schedule. Maybe help above from her, along with all the angels and saints, maybe one Sunday might take a test drive and see how long it takes to read 21 Chapters of John and do it just for one day.
The new goal was inspired by Fr. Denzel and is likely to be more attainable. He told me last week that he has read five different versions of the Bible from cover to cover. That means four more to go for me, reading from cover to cover. While talking to Fr. Denzel, God really kicked things up a notch. It was my first time hearing about the Knox Bible. The name Fr. Ronald Knox was a familiar one, because it was his book: “The Mass in Slow Motion” that was downloaded a few years ago. It is in queue for our Holy Liturgy studies, two of us are now studying the works of the great Servant of God, Fr. Romano Guardini, what masterpieces they are, and truly transforming. Our first book to study was by Pope Emeritus BDXVI entitled: “Spirit of the Liturgy “, written when he was Cardinal Ratzinger. This exposed him as a theologian par excellence, and my respect for him soared. Never before paid much attention to his works, St. JPII totally captured my interest.
To kill two birds with one stone, it’s so possible with the recent findings aided by Holy Spirit. A link to a side by side Vulgate/Douay/Knox version was discovered, what an exciting blessing. So easy was it to create a faux app by selecting “add to home screen” when downloading. Seeing is believing, here is the link for anyone interested:
📗Link to side by side Vulgate/Douay/Knox Bible
http://catholicbible.online/side_by_side/NT/Eph
This is Ephesians 1:4-5 in the Douay Rheims Bible:
📖Ephesians 1:4 “As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity.”
📖Ephesians 1:5. “Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will:”
In NAB it is written this way:
📖Ephesians 1:4 as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love
📖Ephesians 1:5 “he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will,”
In the NAB, with the “period” being placed after: “holy and without blemish before him”, my train of though stopped there. It began anew with the new sentence: “In love he destined us for adoption to himself...”. So my concentration was on the great love of God for us. That through His only Begotten Son, He is drawing us to Himself as His children. Upon reading in the Douay Rheims version: “that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity.”, the thought immediately coming to mind at that time was a quote by St. John of the Cross. It didn’t strike me that way when reading from the NAB version. What a big difference it makes where a period is and how a new sentence begins.
How transforming it was to experience the scripture from the Douay Rheims version. With clarity it is possible to see the mandate to be in God’s sight, holy in charity. How we love matters and the quote from St. John of the Cross is explicit as to why:
🎚St. John of the Cross: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.
This led to trying to find a few more quotes along that line, and one that was found was used as a “text mess” of the day:
🎚Madeleine L'Engle "In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come"
How wonderful for a snowball effect to be operational, stirring hearts as spiritual juices are being secreted by the power of the Holy Spirit. Here are two responses that came in:
🗣Cindy: “She is correct in that we all have fallen short in this
“Valley of Tears”. 😭
🗣Mrs.Bonnie: “How BLESSED we are that He’s called each of us—so let us be SURE to respond to HIM. If we do our part, HE WILL Not abandon us as we know He’s PROMISED. Our God is so GOOD, for as we all know, we’ve fallen short”
Always like a “trinity”, so found two more quotes to share:
🎚Pope Francis: “At the end of our life we will be judged on love, that is, on our concrete commitment to love and to serve Jesus in our smallest and most needy brothers.”
🎚Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas: “The final exam on the last day will not be a test in dogmatic theology (that’s a given) but a test in moral theology – based on what we did or did not do for the Christ revealed in our neighbor"
In conclusion, the Douay Rheims version did something for me, can’t help but keep in mind that in regard to love, quality is a very important component.
Info from this site
www.discerninghearts.com/catholic-podcasts/the-nine-ways-of-prayer-of-st-dominic/
The Sixth Way of Prayer- Our holy Father, Saint Dominic, was also seen to pray standing erect with his hands and arms outstretched forcefully in the form of a cross. He prayed in this way when God, through his supplications, raised to life the boy Napoleon in the sacristy of the Church of Saint Sixtus in Rome, and when he was raised from the ground at the celebration of Mass, as the good and holy Sister Cecilia, who was present with many other people and saw him, narrates. He was like Elias who stretched himself out and lay upon the widow’s son when he raised him to life. In a similar manner he prayed near Toulouse when he delivered the group of English pilgrims from danger of drowning in the river. Our Lord prayed thus while hanging on the cross, that is, with his hands and arms extended and “with a loud cry and tears … he was heard because of his reverent submission”
📖Hebrews 5:7 “Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence”
Nor did the holy man Dominic resort to this manner of praying unless he was inspired by God to know that something great and marvelous was to come about through the power of his prayer. Although he did not forbid the brethren to pray in this way, neither did he encourage them to do so. We do not know what he said when he stood with his hands and arms extended in the form of a cross and raised the boy to life. Perhaps it was those words of Elias: “O Lord, my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body”
📖III Kings 17:21
He certainly followed the prophet’s exterior manner in his prayers on that occasion. The friars and sisters, however, as well as the nobles and cardinals, and all others present were so struck by this most unusual and astonishing way of prayer that they failed to remember the words he spoke. Afterwards, they did not feel free to ask Dominic about these matters because this holy and remarkable man inspired in them a great sense of awe and reverence by reason of the miracle.
In a grave and mature manner, he would slowly pronounce the words in the Psalter which mention this way of prayer. He used to say attentively: “O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day and in the night before thee,” as far as that verse “All the day I have cried to thee, O Lord: I stretched out my hands to thee”
📖Psalms 87:2-10 “O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day, and in the night before thee. Let my prayer come in before thee: incline thy ear to my petition. For my soul is filled with evils: and my life hath drawn nigh to hell. I am counted among them that go down to the pit: I am become as a man without help, Free among the dead. Like the slain sleeping in the sepulchres, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. They have laid me in the lower pit: in the dark places, and in the shadow of death. Thy wrath is strong over me: and all thy waves thou hast brought in upon me. Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me: they have set me an abomination to themselves. I was delivered up, and came not forth: My eyes languished through poverty. All the day I cried to thee, O Lord: I stretched out my hands to thee. Then he would add: “Hear, O Lord, my prayer give ear to my supplication in thy truth . . .” He would continue the prayer to these words: “I stretched forth my hands to thee . . . Hear me speedily, O Lord”
📖Psalms 142:1-7 “Hear, O Lord, my prayer: give ear to my supplication in thy truth: hear me in thy justice. And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight no man living shall be justified. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to the earth. He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old: And my spirit is in anguish within me: my heart within me is troubled. I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all thy works: I meditated upon the works of thy hands. I stretched forth my hands to thee: my soul is as earth without water unto thee. Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit hath fainted away. Turn not away thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit”
This example of our father’s prayer would help devout souls to appreciate more easily his great zeal and wisdom in praying thus. This is true whether, in doing so, he wished to move God in some wonderful manner through his prayer or whether he felt through some interior inspiration that God was to move him to seek some singular grace for himself or his neighbor. He then shone with the spiritual insight of David, the ardor of Elias, the charity of Christ, and with a profound devotion, as the drawing serves to indicate.”
“Spooky -Doxy”, Fr. Joseph Huneycutt
info from this site: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/orthodixie/2005/01/spooky-doxy.html
"The “Prophecy of St Nilus,” thanks to the Internet, has had quite a shelf life. And, like Chick tracts on toilet backs, I’ve even found stacks of xeroxed copies of the St Nilus Prophecy, in death-to-the-world “zine” form, lying around on tables at Orthodox church conferences. Alas, if memory serves me, I believe I even printed it in a parish newsletter once. Oops? I was recently reminded of the Prophecy when poking around on the Canadian Classical Anglican site (an otherwise excellent forum). It was strange to see St Nilus Prophecy sandwiched between traditional Anglican polemics. Then again, if I were an orthodox Anglican these days I’d be waxing apocalyptic too. Here’s the text of the Prophecy; commentary to follow:
The Prophecy of Saint Nilus
The Plight of the World and the Church during the 20th Century, By SAINT NILUS (d. circa AD 430)
After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, people’s minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognizable. People’s appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.
At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism and equally of remorse. The Churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose their faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. Then they will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints. And all this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be Lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation with another from one end of the earth to the other. At that time men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is deceit of the Antichrist.
And, the impious one! — he will so complete science with vanity that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence of God in three hypostases. Then the All-good God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible… then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear and kill the perverter and his servants.
Obviously, the text is spot on concerning our own times. But, speaking of time, the above text has been altered for in some earlier versions it read “toward the middle of the 19th century“. Since what began in 1900, was the 20th century, not the 19th century, it was necessary to change the text. You may be able to google “St Nilus” and find earlier versions still littering the Net.
Secondly, the century began in 1901, not 1900. Quoting Fr Dimitri Cozby from the Indiana List: In the second place, the practice in the 4th century was to date from the Creation, from the founding of Rome, from the accession of the current emperor, or from the Era of Diocletian and according to the Indiction. The practice of dating from the birth of Christ was introduced by Dionysius Exiguus (“the Short”), a Roman monk, in the 6th century. It did not enter into general use in the West for a couple of centuries. Orthodox countries did not generally date things from the Nativity until after the Fall of Constantinople. The practice did not become official in Russia until Peter the Great. Thus, IF the writing is by St Nilus (a big IF), then he certainly was not referring to the century just past. Or, IF the writing is by St Nilus, whoever did the translation has monkeyed with the text.
OCA Bishop Tikhon, on the same List enters the fray:
After all, this is by no means the first time the “Prophecy” of Pseudo-Nilus (that appellation is used to distinguish the creator(s) of the “Prophecy” from St. Nilus himself) has been discussed on this panel or elsewhere in the Church. I remember in the days before anyone thought of an Internet how a very conservative Republican Priest and friend of mine used to brandish that prophecy about in order to show that Hippies were evil and predicted by a Saint (long hair, don’t you know) but, most serious of all, a clear sign of the end times. How many times was the 20th century held up as being clearly depicted in not only such dubious “Prophecies” but even in the Apocalypse of St. John!! Now, here we are in the 21st century…
Another problem is, there being more than one “St Nilus,” who wrote it? The above text purports to have been authored by St Nilus of the 4th-5th century. You can read about him on, of all places, the Opus Dei site: But others claim that the Prophecy was written by St Nilus the Myrrhstreamer of Mt Athos in the year 1651. There’s even a site claiming the Prophecy comes from the 14th century. The Prophecy has been discussed on various boards, here’s an example: It’s also, as they pointed out, a fake prophecy. When you get a “prophet” who writes only one prophecy and it concerns YOUR century, it’s time to haul out the “skeptic-o-meter.” When you get a prophecy that’s a rip-off of another faked prophecy (Mother Shipton), it’s time to get out your “skeptic-o-meter”. When you get a saint who howls warnings about the 20th century and very conveniently forgets the Middle Ages when the rule of the robber barons was widespread and sex and licentousness (in the church as well as in the secular world) was widespread, when men openly kept mistresses, when there were two classes (the rich and the slaves), when men sinned as they liked and bought penance on Sunday… when a prophet has no problems with behaviors like those and rails against the 20th century (where such practices are frowned on), then you can bet your booties that you’ve got a Faked Prophecy.
Either that — or you’ve got a prophet of a diety who wants to see the humans dragged back to the time when there were only the rich and the serfs (so you who are not rich better start looking for a wealthy person to sell yourself to as a slave); a deity who will excuse a wealthy man who contributes to the deity’s temples; a deity who condones land-grabbing and killing off villages and towns in the name of religion. A deity who condemns abortion but approves of babies and children and old people being thrown out on the hillsides to be starved to death and eaten by the wild beasts (yep. common practice then.) A prophet of a deity who condones all the above… and gets bent out of shape when women cut their hair and wear trousers. Golly. That’s quite a set of ethics. A little research will show that this “prophecy” didn’t exist before 1950. And finally, according to that “prophecy” the Antichrist should already be here… and about 70 years old. Getting kinda late for him to make a move, eh? Poking around on Google, I even found someone on an e-board who incorporated St Nilus prophecy into the mysteries of the Tsunami tragedy! It’s obvious, thanks to Google, that Roman Catholics of the Marian Visions stripe love them some St Nilus. But, other RCs doubt it no matter what: Then why would Inside the Vatican, along with a traditionalist website print it?
It would be better to ask them that. But I’ve seen this in several trad and neo-Cat places. No one ever provides where the source document is, though. You don’t have to be a lit crit to realize that no fifth-century author would ever say “After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century.” They just wouldn’t. So even if there is some sort of sermon castigating sinners, or even Nilus’ actual prophecy, you know the text has been tampered with, at the very least. But to me the whole thing sounds contrived. When I first saw it, I tried to search out a source, any shred of a textual source, behind it, and came up empty-handed. Everyone just repeated the whole thing verbatim. Some said it was approved by Pope So-and-so, but that thread led nowhere. It also started circulating fairly recently (late-80s or mid-90s, I think), and does not appear in, say, Catholic end-time books from the ’50s.
I’m even a bit suspicious of the use of the name “Nilus.” It sounds to me like whoever invented it was making an “inside joke” about the Protocols of the Elders of Sion, published by Sergei Nilus in 1905.
Even Lutherans are captivated by the little Prophecy of St Nilus. Folks, it just goes on and on … here’s the ROCA positing an e-worry from someone in 1986. If you wanna get really spooky, there’s even a site that incorporates the Prophecy into Fatima and other visions. All of this is to say … what? First of all, I think there’s a segment of folks that really major in this kind of Spooky-Doxy. I must confess it gives me the willies. Makes me, an Orthodox priest, wonder: What would Jesus do? Secondly, the Prophecy is popular, no doubt, because it seems factual, real. Right? I mean it contains elements of foresight — even if it’s hindsight — that ring true to modern ears. But, to my mind, it portrays God as just sitting there waiting till we invent the proper number of gizmos and wear the wrong hair styles and clothes … and then WHAMO! Spanking time! Gosh. I best go make my bed and clean my room. No time to waste. Better still, I think I’ll say my prayers … to the Good God who lovest mankind. Cuz, you know, that’s often harder to believe than fiction. But at least we know it is true. And, just in case there’s any Anglicans reading this: Beloved! It shouldn’t take a dubious prophecy to help you in your plight! As an old friend and seminary mate stated as he was leaving ECUSA … “What constitutes proper health care changes entirely when the hospital is on fire.”
📖Phillipians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things”
Video link: https://youtu.be/B2nPLiNuml4