all is well guys, just taking a breather from social media for health and wellness and all that, checking in here and there. fear not i still love you.
I'll leave you alone, I just took exception to some things you were saying, a lot of people read twitter.
"God does not give these favors [infused contemplation] because the souls who receive them are holier than those who do not, but so that His greatness may be known... and to show that He distributes His gifts to whom He wills." — The Book of Her Life, Chapter 22
"Contemplative prayer is the poor and humble surrender to the loving will of the Father in ever deeper union with his beloved Son." — CCC §2712
"Contemplative prayer is a gift, a grace; it can be accepted only in humility and poverty." — CCC §2713
@akathrosary "Very few actually do any of that." this is the part i was responding to. This is incorrect.
You cannot earn contemplation. Prayer isn't a puzzle to solve or a game to win. Sorry.
You said not any of them. I was just noticing what you said was a wild overreach and pointed it out.
To judge what others are doing or not, as if we could see into their heads and hearts, is hasty judgement. For all you and I know, we are the least spiritually developed people on earth and would have no way of knowing. Humility is important.
@akathrosary Teresa and John of the Cross both say that God can and does bestow contemplative prayer on anyone, regardless of methodological progress. There are illiterates without formal training now and in the past participating in contemplative prayer. You are mistaken.
@selentelechia That is the most direct and obvious reading. It's not clear if satan is working with God collaboratively in Job, or if he is just the adversary that God confines in control, but God is obviously working with / using satan towards a purpose, they have some form of relationship.
Once you have (usually been given) a framework for understanding life and something as complex as the Bible, it's extremely difficult and pretty rare to be able to break free of it and change it. We think with our framework, giving it up is leaping into confusion.
I've spent years exploring different strains of Christianity in person. In my experience all the apostolic churches are the good place to be, and in protestantism I've met true followers in every denomination I've encountered, but they're a bit tough to break through in as a believer, because they have modernist thinking patterns baked in which gum things up.
@RussNRoses Millions of people every week go out to eat without eating meat. I haven't seen a menu outside of BBQ joint that doesn't have a least a few good non-meat options. WIth love, you're making up a problem that isn't really there, you'll be fine.
Well it's not some official term with a definition obviously. What I mean to point to with that informal description is black and white rigid doctrinally focused judgemental and often combative thinking patterns.
Example would be encountering some guy who isn't orthodox who says he worships in spirit and truth, and responding they because the guy is from XYZ protestant denomination it's impossible that he worships in spirit and truth, and XYZ believes this, that they can't understand worship, etc. When the truth is the ortho bro has literally no idea whether the guy is correct about his worship, they're just logic chopping nonsense in ignorance without humility. It usually comes with sneering and scoffing, like, look at these doctrinally confused impoverished idiots they're less than us, type of tone.
With Stephen de Young you can hear it lately in his response to Catholics and such, no charity, no nuance, no brotherhood, just judgement and sneering. It's kinda rough to listen to.
They can be obnoxious but its the modern mind and modern worldview thats the problem.
They think a loaf of bread is the real thing, and the spiritual pattern of bread which manifests the loaf of bread in reality is imaginary. The spiritual pattern is reality, the loaf of bread is just a shadow.
Its a kind of blindness.
The true nature of Jesus, the Logos, is the organizing principle of reality. God made bread so that we would have a chance to understand when Jesus said this is my body. Thats the only purpose of bread in the universe, thats why it exists, to be the eucharist and help us unite with Christ. Everything else it does is to serve that fundamental core purpose which is the reason it exists at all.
No modernist can understand this.
My dude hi.
You have literally no idea how the apostles thought of communion of saints or whether they prayed for intercession.
A couple of them watched Jesus have a conversation with a dead guy and a guy in heaven, so its definitely possible they believed it could be done.
Without actually knowing probably its not good to make claims.
Cmon my dude.
Lol.
@Xtopher_Uzo For me, she is a helping window for my heart, as it learns to love jesus more and more.
She knew him better and loved him more than anyone on earth.
When I meditate on scripture I often try to see christ with her eyes and heart, over time its deepened my love a lot.