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val4u
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| Joined: | Tue Jan 23rd, 2007 |
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| First Name: | bill | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | cradle Catholic |
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Posted: Mon May 12th, 2008 09:05 am |
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Now that Israel has survived 60 years, when will ( if it hasn't already ) the Catholic Church recognize it and the prophcies that relate to " a nation being born in a day"?
Is it wrong for a Catholic to entertain the ideas of the soon coming of the Lord? I'm not talking rapture but I do see things such as the internet and world wide TV as relating to various prophcies and ideas concerning things that must happen before the Lord returns.
I confess that I watch Dave Reagan and put up with his Catholic bashing because he does make sense of other things. I don't have specifics now but I can get them.
Make no mistake, I am fully Catholic and very interested in the Mass/Seder connection which connects me from the Last Supper to Todays Mass.
Your thoughts and instructions please,
Bill
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CajunRick
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
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| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Mon May 12th, 2008 12:02 pm |
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val4u wrote: Now that Israel has survived 60 years, when will ( if it hasn't already ) the Catholic Church recognize it and the prophcies that relate to " a nation being born in a day"?
The Church has been in talks with Israel to establish formal diplomatic relations. It is my understanding that to this point, Israel has refused, but there are official ties between the two nations below the ambassadorial level.
Is it wrong for a Catholic to entertain the ideas of the soon coming of the Lord?
Absolutely not. We do not know the hour or the day; that knowledge belongs only to the Father. The end could come in a moment … or in a thousand years. We need to be prepared for both.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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David W. Emery
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Brownsville, Texas USA |
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| First Name: | David | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic |
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Posted: Mon May 12th, 2008 12:19 pm |
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Bill, I am quite reluctant to place a religious value, especially fulfillment of prophecy, on any secular event. That is just not what matters to God. Salvation depends on how we live, not who is in power.
[Personal Opinion] I stated the following paragraph in a previous thread on dispensationalism. While I recognize that you are not interested in the rapture ideology of that persuasion, I do believe that the point still holds.
The modern Israel is a secular state, an ethnic entity, not a religious one. This was of set purpose, since Hitler and Stalin cared not a whit what a Jew believed, but only that he was ethnically a Jew. Less than 20 percent of Israel’s population believes in God, let alone practices a religion.
How is a secular state created for ethnic purposes by a secular entity, the United Nations (whose recent record has been anything but godly), supposed to be related to God’s plan of salvation for the entire human race? Is not the Church the society he set up and is interested in, as also the Israel of old? The Church is the “new Jerusalem” (Revelation 21:2); how, in “these last days” (Hebrews 1:2) when “the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4), is the earthly Jerusalem relevant? Do we not have a “new heaven and a new earth” (ibid., v.1)? Did we not receive the new order “coming down out of heaven from God” (ibid., v. 2), as witness our celebration of Pentecost just yesterday?
And as to how technological advances enter the eternal plan, I am at a loss to explain. It seems to me to be totally irrelevant to mankind’s ultimate salvation whether airplanes or television or computers or any other physical thing exist or not. Mankind’s salvation problem is moral and spiritual, not material. We will be judged on whether “you gave me to eat” and “you visited me” (Matthew 25:35–36) rather than whether we use the internet or the Vatican has diplomatic relations with an ethnocentric creation of the UN. [/Personal Opinion]
David
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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4983 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Mon May 12th, 2008 05:19 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: The Church has been in talks with Israel to establish formal diplomatic relations.
Apparently this statement of mine was incorrect. According to the Vatican Information Service, the pope acccepted the credentials of the new Israeli ambassador to the Vatican on Sunday, May 11, 2008, so apparently diplomatic relations were established at some time in the past, but I have not been able to determine when.
My statement that it was acceptable for a Catholic to be prepared for the end times to come soon was not in contradiction to David's post, by the way, but rather a recognition that Jesus told us to be ever vigilant because we do not know the time when the King will return. It could be tonight, and it could be a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years from now. I don't believe any prophecy can accurately predict the Second Coming. Certainly if Old Testament prophecies indicated the time of the Second Coming, Jesus would not have been able to say that even he did not know the day or the hour.
It never ceases to amaze me how these televangelists know exactly when the end of the world will come, so of course you'd better hurry up and send them all your money because you won't need it when the trumpet sounds! On the other hand, apparently they'll be able to make pretty good use of it after your house is foreclosed.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Mon May 12th, 2008 11:37 pm |
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I just wish American Christians, of any branch, particularly those associated with the hard core evangelical right wing zealots working under the "leadership" of guys like John Hagee, Tim LaHaye and Joel Rosenberg would just stand down on this very touchy issue.
If this isn't a theological (not to mention reverse example) of why we have the Monroe Doctrine, I don't know what it. It's up to God to determine when Jesus will return, not a bunch of manipulative, imperialistic and militaristic bible thumpers bloviating out of their megachurches for our government to do whatever it can to aid and assist a very small group of like-minded Israeli pols whose sole goal is to use their nation's military might to push every Arab into every far patch of desert land they can find for them.
This is ethnic cleansing if I ever saw it and it does not do justice to Israel, the United States, nor the purposes of God for a small bunch of zealots and kooks to use the good offices of both nations' diplomatic corps, militaries and of course, top leadership, for the sake of pursuing selfish goals.
If these fruitcakes get their way and get a "green light" to push the Muslims off the Temple Mount grounds, (which thankfully I rather doubt), they won't realize their goal of regaining full sovereignity for Israel, nor be able to see any rebuilding of the Temple. But there sure will be hell to pay all around.
Israel is a secular nation that offers religious freedom like no other nation in that part of the world. Why on earth would a secular, albeit ethnically dominant Jewish nation whose population hardly attends its own Synagogues, be willing to risk its own citizens so a handful of predominately bible thumping evangelical American Protestants -- no less -- be able to build a new Temple that won't necessarily result in Jesus' return, but sure as heck bring forth the strongest likelihood of real Muslim unity for the sake of wiping every Jewish and Christian person off the map of the Middle East (and possibly elsewhere?) Have we forgotten our nutsy buddy over in Teheran who promised to "wipe Israel off the map"? Why should we be guiled into giving him a reason?
Let's leave Israel's defense and her future up to her people. But for Israel's sake, I hope she has an Israeli Monroe Doctrine -- if need be, to protect her from -- of all people -- well-meaning, but wholly misguided, American zealots. 
Do we really want to see American GI's stationed at the Temple Mount? If this doesn't seem terribly troublesome, by all means then, start reading Bruce Feiler's Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, particularly his first opening chapter about Jerusalem. This isn't what the armchair strategists in several of our largest megachurches and Washington Beltway think tanks want us to keep in mind when they're trying to sell us a very dubious bill of bad goods (for Americans, especially) would like American parents and spouses to see ahead of time.
You'll see.
Last edited on Mon May 12th, 2008 11:51 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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val4u
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| Joined: | Tue Jan 23rd, 2007 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
| First Name: | bill | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | cradle Catholic |
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Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 10:59 am |
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Thanks for your replies everyone !.
Just as our own deaths are closer today than yesterday, the coming of the Lord is also. And as we see or feel things that might hasten our demise so also when we see things coming to light that were spoken of in the past we know that His coming is closer.
Bill
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Steven Barrett
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Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 03:38 pm |
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 Bill, with all due respects, I agree with you spiritually that we need to be alert and ready The Day.
On the other hand, it's not the proper role of citizens to manipulate the misuse of their diplomatic corps and military to pursue imperial designs for the sake of fulfilling a religious end.
Just because we have the highest number of practicing Christians means we have to also have the nation with the highest number of spiritually jingoistic and reckless Christians as well.
Let Israel take care of her defense. She's done a very good of fending for herself the past 60 years, perhaps century if you also include the years that Israel was British Palestine. If need be, we should never hesitate to aid our Israeli friends and we should step into protect her from a complete surrender to the Arabs; a most unlikely event. However, any idea of working together with the IDF to push the Muslims off the Temple Mount for the sake of being able to rebuild the old Temple shouldn't even be given the time of day.
Unfortunately it's being bandied about by the far Israeil right wing and our good Christian and ever-loving Catholic friend John Hagee. (Some "friend," who calls our Church the "whore of Babylon.")
If we reall care about Israel's future, the best way is to stay out of her domestic interests and stop all this imperialistic saber rattling (for religious purposes, of all things. My God, haven't some of our more "notable" Christian leaders heard what Jesus told his apostles about relying onl on the sword? That's what these ideas would lead to. No thanks; and certainly not in my Catholic Christian name.
One last thing: Check out Joel Rosenberg's blog. Rosenberg is a convert to evangelical Christianity from Judaism, but not just any convert. He's actively--no, make it extremely, involved, in both American and Israeli politics, the head of the Joshua Fund and a strong believer in almost everthing I've cautioned against above.
http://joelrosenberg.blogspot.com/2005/05/war-of-gog-and-magog-understanding.html
Take a look at this stuff and ask if this is stuff we really want to sacrifice American and/or Israeli youths for. Heck, I'd have no problem throwing this guy in St. Elizabeth's hospital outside of Washington as a potential security risk. Too fraught with risk to even contemplate giving the Rosenbergs or even Catholics working in cahoots with him the time of day.
(However, if somebody in high places should ever decide to buy into Rosenberg's ideas and we edge closer to that war of Gog and Magog, I hope nobody will hold it against me if I'm seen holding on to a bottle of Mad Dog. I'll need it: We'll all need it. Because it won't be God's doing. It'll be the workings of some terribly misguided people who couldn't resist letting go of their urgings to use our state and defense departments to in effect "play God." If some of the Iranian senior clerics seem willing to back down, maybe we'd better wonder why.Last edited on Tue May 13th, 2008 04:19 pm by Steven Barrett
____________________
For anyone suffering from a mental illness or has a loved one with a mental illness, my book "Lead kindly Light: A Devotional For The Mentally Ill" might be of some help: http://www.lulu.com/ (Use search box at the top of page.)
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