Wednesday, November 28, 2018

About Those Offended By Depicting Jesus As A Blonde European

There are people who say they have a problem with depictions of Christ being blonde, saying He is "too European" and that such images are not "inclusive." 

Their problem is that they are too worldly and not sincerely seeking God in the privacy of their own hearts, with all mind, heart and soul. They are insincere people.

I'm not a blonde European with blue eyes, and I am not offended by such a depiction of Him.

They say they want inclusiveness, but they're being bullies, they want to put themselves above other people by their self-righteousness.

Jesus is God, and man is made in the image and likeness of God. I've seen Jesus and Mary endearingly depicted as Irish, Russian, Chinese, African, Japanese, British, Indian, various Native American ethnicities: because He is God, and humans are made in His image and likeness. Therefore He can be depicted as any race of human, because they are all made in His image. 

These ethnic depictions are not offensive to the Church, nor to me, and likely the people complaining about European depictions of Jesus wouldn't complain about how Mary so gloriously depicted herself as a mestiza in the miraculous Our Lady of Guadelupe image. So the people complaining are, perhaps inadvertently, racists themselves, which is inherently not an "inclusive" group.

Nor a group that sincerely loves God, but rather one caught up in the mindset of the world.

It seems like some of them would only be happy if He were painted grey. As grey as a dead man...

"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is, they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me also hates my Father. If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, 'They hated me without cause.'" John 15:22-5

I'm not even "offended" by the group of racists offended by blonde, blue-eyed Jesus, although by justice and logic I would have the right to be. 

In reality, they need God in their lives, and only they can help themselves with that through prayer, holy reading, and time with Jesus in the Eucharist, so they can learn that pleasing God is more important than idolatry to the passing and unwise opinions of the world. 

As likely they will not seek God sincerely or with fervor, this makes them very sad and pitiable. They are in much need of prayer...

Despite that God can be depicted in any ethnicity, He had an ethnicity because He was born a human. 

If you look at the Vilnius Divine Mercy Image, which was painted under the approval of Saint Faustina, who saw Jesus, and then you look at instagrams of Israeli people, you see that her depiction of Him is one of a very beautiful Jewish man with Semitic features. Jews can have all different colored eyes and hair and even skin. That sort of unique and strange gold-ish colored hair and golden skin in the Vilnius picture, which I think is very beautiful (and certainly doesn't "offend" me), is highly plausible.

The Vilnius Divine Mercy Image is a holy image, one that God said He would answer our prayers if we ask Him through that image; it is an image that we adore God through, just as God the Son took on the form of a man that we might have an image of God by Him to adore.

Identity politics is a Marxist ploy to separate us from God and divide us among each other. Mary repeatedly warned about Communists (socialists are the same thing) at her apparitions at Fatima, because many many people would be separated from God and be plunged into Hell because of their works and propaganda. Therefore, the propagation of Marxist lies has no place among the people of God, who need to first sincerely seek God themselves so that, through their prayers, they can lead other souls to salvation.

If you pray the rosary daily until you die "for the purpose of knowing the truth and receiving contrition and pardon for your sins," God will de-program you, de-brainwash you, take away the sting and significance of the propaganda and persecution of the world, and lead you to His Glory and Truth, lead you to sincerely love Him — and the souls of all people, who are made in His Image and likeness. You will become a channel of His grace and mercy in the world, and through your prayers, you will save other souls from eternal death.

If you don't pray to know the truth and receive contrition and pardon for your sins, it won't happen.

"Now there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where he was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with Him, and said 'Lord, if You wish, You can make me clean.' Jesus stretched out His Hand, touched him, and said, 'I do will it. Be made clean.' And immediately the leprosy left him." Luke 5:12-3.

God can heal our souls of spiritual leprosy (the lies of the world and idolatry to it) and we can spiritually rejoin His mystical body — if we pray sincerelyto know the truth and receive contrition and pardon for our sins, until the day we die.

It's ridiculously easy, you just have to actually do it, and not stop. 

Cling to prayer, cling to God through prayer, like your eternal salvation and the souls of many others depend on it: because they do.

God is Beauty Itself. However He is painted, if with sincere and pure devotion in the heart of the artist and with litergical accuracy, can't be anything but beautiful. It's not possible. 

Even under a veil of Blood, with His Face swollen and beaten and bruised, and thorns ripping His Head, He is still Beauty itself.

It's the heart of the viewer that may need some converting before they can see that.

Painting by Joey Velasco 


(I've read before that His nose is damaged, and his abdomen distended from fluid built up from the Cross.)

Monday, November 26, 2018

The Number of Sins Beyond Which God Pardons No More

Please pray along with CatholicExorcism.org prayer videos under resources. The more you understand God's love for you in a profound way you can feel, the more you are liberated from spiritual wounds, the easier it will be for you to follow God.

Absolutely forgiveness does not mean absolute permission. God gives us Divine Mercy so that we will run to Him to ask for grace to give up sin and to truly love Him. If we don't take the opportunity now to run to Him, to receive His grace and give up sin, which is His Mercy, we can lose that opportunity and be forced to face His Justice, the wrath we deserve for our sins. We must flee to God's Mercy: we must stop holding onto sin and Mammon and idolatry so that we can hold onto God.


"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" – Matt., 4:7
A sermon by St. Alphonsus Mary De Liguori (1696-1787), Bishop and Doctor of the Church. 
In this day's Gospel (Matthew Ch 4:1-11) we read that having gone into the desert, Jesus Christ permitted the Devil to set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and say to Him: "If Thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down"; for the angels shall preserve Thee from all injury. But the Lord answered that in the Sacred Scriptures it is written: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. The sinner who abandons himself to sin without striving to resist temptations, or without at least asking God's help to conquer them, and hopes that the Lord will one day draw him from the precipice, tempts God to work miracles, or rather to show to him an extraordinary mercy not extended to the generality of Christians.
God, as the Apostle says, "will have all men to be saved" – I Tim. 2:4; but He also wishes us all to labor for our own salvation, at least by adopting the means of overcoming our enemies, and of obeying Him when He calls us to repentance. Sinners hear the calls of God, but they forget them, and continue to offend Him. But God does not forget them. He numbers the graces which He dispenses, as well as the sins which we commit. Hence, when the time which He has fixed arrives, God deprives us of His graces, and begins to inflict chastisement. I intend to show in this discourse that when sins reach a certain number, God pardons no more. Be attentive.
1. St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine and other fathers, teach, that as God according to the words of Scripture, "Thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight" – Wis. 11:21 has fixed for each person the number of the days of his life, and the degrees of health and talent which He will give him, so He has also determined for each the number of sins which He will pardon; and when this number is completed, He will pardon no more.
2. "The Lord hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart" – Isa. 61:1 God is ready to heal those who sincerely wish to amend their lives, but cannot take pity on the obstinate sinner. The Lord pardons sins, but He cannot pardon those who are determined to offend Him. Nor can we demand from God a reason why He pardons one a hundred sins, and takes others out of life and sends them to Hell, after three or four sins. By His Prophet Amos, God has said: "For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not convert it" – 1:3. In this we must adore the judgments of God, and say with the Apostle: "O the depth of the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments" – Rom. 11:33. He who receives pardon, says St. Augustine, is pardoned through the pure mercy of God; and they who are chastised, are justly punished. How many has God sent to Hell for the first offense? St. Gregory relates, that a child of five years, who had arrived at the use of reason, for having uttered a blasphemy, was seized by the Devil and carried to Hell. The divine Mother revealed to that great servant of God, Benedicta of Florence, that a boy of twelve years was damned after the first sin. Another boy of eight years died after his first sin, and was lost. You say: I am young; there are many who have committed more sins than I have. But is God on that account obliged to wait for your repentance if you offend Him? In the Gospel of St. Matthew (21:19), we read that the Savior cursed a fig tree the first time He saw it without fruit. "May no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. An immediately the fig tree withered away." You must, then tremble at the thought of committing a single mortal sin, particularly if you have already been guilty of mortal sins.
3. "Be not without fear about sin forgiven, and add not sin to sin" – Eccl. 5:5. Say not then, O sinner: "As God has forgiven me other sins, so He will pardon me this one if I commit it." Say not this; for, if to the sin which has been forgiven you add another, you have reason to fear that this new sin shall be united to your former guilt, and that thus the number will be completed, and that you shall be abandoned. Behold how the Scripture unfolds this truth more clearly in another place. "The Lord patiently expecteth, that when the day of judgment shall come, He may punish them in the fullness of sins" – II. Mac. 6:14. God waits with patience until a certain number of sins is committed but, when the measure of guilt is filled up, He waits no longer, but chastises the sinner. "Thou hast sealed up my offenses as it were in a bag" – Job 14:17. Sinners multiply their sins without keeping any account of them; but God numbers them, that, when the harvest is ripe, that is, when the number of sins is completed, He may take vengeance on them. "Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe" Joel 3:13.
4. Of this there are many examples in the Scriptures. Speaking of the Hebrews, the Lord in one place says: "All the men that have tempted Me now ten times. . . .shall not see the land" – Num. 14:22, 23. In another place, He says, that He restrained His vengeance against the Amorrhites, because the number of their sins was not completed. "For as yet the iniquities of the Amorrhites are not at the full" – Gen. 15:16. We have again the example of Saul who, after having disobeyed God a second time, was abandoned. He entreated Samuel to interpose before the Lord in his behalf. "Bear, I beseech thee, my sin, and return with me, that I may adore the Lord" – I Kings 15:25. But, knowing that God had abandoned Saul, Samuel answered: "I will not return with thee, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee," etc. – 5:26. Saul, you have abandoned God, and He has abandoned you. We have another example in Balthassar, who, after having profaned the vessels of the Temple, saw a hand writing on the wall, Mane, Thecel, Phares. Daniel was requested to expound the meaning of these words. In explaining the word Thecel, he said to the king: "Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting" – Dan. 5:27. By this explanation, he gave the king to understand that the weight of his sins in the balance of divine justice, had made the scale descend." The same night Balthassar, the Chaldean king, was killed" – Dan. 5:30. Oh! how many sinners have met with a similar fate! Continuing to offend God till their sins amounted to a certain number, they have been struck dead and sent to Hell! "They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to Hell" – Job 21:13. Tremble, brethren, lest if you commit another mortal sin, God should cast you into Hell.
5. If God chastised sinners the moment they insult Him, we should not see Him so much despised. But, because He does not instantly punish their transgressions, and because through mercy He restrains His anger and waits for their return, they are encouraged to continue to offend Him. "For, because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the children of men commit evil without any fear" – Eccles. 8:11. But it is necessary to be persuaded, that though God bears with us, He does not wait, nor bear with us forever. Expecting, as on former occasions, to escape from the snares of the Philistines, Samson continued to allow himself to be deluded by Delilah. "I will go out as I did before, and shake myself" – Judges 16:20. But "the Lord departed from him." Samson was at length taken by his enemies, and lost his life. The Lord warns you not to say: I have committed so many sins, and God has not chastised me. "Say not: I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me; for the Most High is a patient rewarder" – Eccl. 5:4. God has patience for a certain term, after which He punishes the first and last sins. And the greater has been His patience, the more severe His vengeance.
6. Hence, according to St. Chrysostom, God is more to be feared when He bears with sinners, than when He instantly punishes their sin. And why? Because, says St. Gregory, they to whom God has shown most mercy shall, if they do not cease to offend Him, be chastised with the greatest rigor. The saint adds that God often punishes such sinners with a sudden death, and does not allow them time for repentance. And the greater the light which God gives to certain sinners for their correction, the greater is their blindness and obstinacy in sin. "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than, after they had known it, to turn back" – II Pet. 2:21. Miserable the sinners, who, after having been enlightened, return to the vomit. St. Paul says, that it is morally impossible for them to be again converted. "For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated-have tasted also the Heavenly gifts. . . and are fallen away, to be renewed again to penance" – Heb. 6:4, 6.
7. Listen, then, O sinner, to the admonition of the Lord: "My son, hast thou sinned? Do so no more, but for thy former sins pray that they may be forgiven thee" – Eccl. 21:1. Son, add not sins to those which you have already committed, but be careful to pray for the pardon of your past transgressions; otherwise, if you commit another mortal sin, the gates of divine mercy may be closed against you, and your soul may be lost forever. When then, beloved brethren, the devil tempts you again to yield to sin, say to yourself: If God pardons me no more, what shall become of me for all eternity? Should the Devil in reply, say: fear not, God is merciful; answer him by saying: What certainty or what probability have I that, if I return again to sin, God will show me mercy or grant me pardon? Behold the threat of the Lord against all who despise His calls: "Because I have called and you refused,...I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when that shall come to you which you feared" – Prov. 1:24, 26. Mark the words "I also"; they mean that, as you have mocked the Lord by betraying Him again after your confession and promises of amendment, so He will mock you at the hour of death. I will laugh and will mock. But, "God is not mocked" – Gal. 6:7. "As a dog," says the Wise Man, "that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly" – Prov. 26:11. Bl. Denis the Carthusian gives an excellent exposition of this text. He says that, as a dog that eats what he has just vomited, is an object of disgust and abomination, so the sinner who returns to the sins which he has detested and confessed, becomes hateful in the sight of God.
8. O folly of sinners! If you purchase a house, you spare no pains to get all the securities necessary to guard against the loss of your money; if you take medicine, you are careful to assure yourself that it cannot injure you; if you pass over a river, you cautiously avoid all danger of falling into it: and for a transitory enjoyment, for the gratification of revenge, for a beastly pleasure, which lasts but a moment, you risk your eternal salvation, saying: I will go to confession after I commit this sin. And when, I ask, are you to go to confession? You say: On tomorrow. But who promises you tomorrow? Who assures you that you shall have time for confession, and that God will not deprive you of life as He has deprived so many others, in the act of sin? "Diem tenes" says St. Augustine, "qui horam non tenes." You cannot be certain of living for another hour, and you say: I will go to confession tomorrow. Listen to the words of St. Gregory: "He who has promised pardon to penitents, has not promised tomorrow to sinners" – Hom. 12 in Evan. God has promised pardon to all who repent; but He has not promised to wait until tomorrow for those who insult Him. Perhaps God will give you time for repentance, perhaps He will not. But, should He not give it, what shall become of your soul? In the meantime, for the sake of a miserable pleasure, you lose the grace of God and expose yourself to the danger of being lost forever.
9. Would you, for such transient enjoyments, risk your money, your honor, your possessions, your liberty, and your life? No, you would not. How then does it happen that, for a miserable gratification, you lose your soul, Heaven, and God? Tell me: do you believe that Heaven, Hell, eternity, are truths of faith? Do you believe that, if you die in sin, you are lost forever? Oh! what temerity, what folly is it, to condemn yourself voluntarily to an eternity of torments with the hope of afterwards reversing the sentence of your condemnation! "Nemo," says St. Augustine, "sub spe salutis vult aegrotare." No one can be found so foolish as to take poison with the hope of preventing its deadly effects by adopting the ordinary remedies. And you will condemn yourself to Hell, saying that you expect to be afterwards preserved from it. O folly! which, in conformity with the divine threats, has brought, and brings every day, so many to Hell. "Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, and evil shall come upon thee, and thou shalt not know the rising thereof" – Isa. 47:10, 11. You have sinned, trusting rashly in the divine mercy: the punishment of your guilt shall fall suddenly upon you, and you shall not know from whence it comes. What do you say? What resolution do you make? If, after this sermon, you do not firmly resolve to give yourself to God, I weep over you and regard you as lost.

About St Liguori: St. Francis Jerome, when he visited the parents of St. Alphonsus shortly after his birth, made this prophecy: "This child will be blessed with length of days; he shall not see death before his ninetieth year; he will be a bishop and will do great things for Jesus Christ." This prophecy certainly came true. One of the most accomplished of all the saints is Alphonsus Liguori. He was a lawyer in both civil and Church law before he dedicated his whole life to serving God. He was founder of a religious order, author of more than a hundred books, originator of modern moral theology, renowned preacher and confessor, bishop, musical composer and painter. For all of his 91 years on earth, he was also a man of prayer and deep personal holiness. He gives an example of true Christian living that all of us would do well to follow.