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However, all is not lost for the good people in Scandinavia have also nominated someone who is deserving of this coveted award - Pope John Paul II. The question we have, however, is not why the Pope is finally being considered for his accomplishments this past year but why he wouldn't be considered the "Top Peace Proponent of the Century!!!" Think about it! Who masterminded (with a lot of help from above) the fall of the Iron Curtain? Who has intervened in every conflict with one solution - a compromising peace where human dignity is the winner? Who plays no favorites, taking on the powerful superpowers in regards to aggressiveness, unwarranted bombing and embargoes? Who is not afraid to be the one logical voice in the wilderness against the hollow echoes of a global UN conspiracy intent on reducing the world's population their way? Who strives to uphold life in all its stages? Who does the world listen to and respect, even if they don't always agree? Only one man: the Sovereign Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church now in the twenty-first year of his productive pontificate!
While Clinton continues to garner headlines and be the darling of those who comprise the "misery loves company" crowd, there is another buffoon out there who threatens the Sanctity of Life. Just as Jesus had His detractors, so also our Holy Father has his. One of those is the dangerous loose cannon Ted Turner, billionaire media mogul who wants to be taken seriously. Folks, if he continues with the kind of remarks he made at a gathering for the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association this past Tuesday in Washington D.C. he should seriously be considered as "Clown of the Century!" If he wasn't such a jerk, Turner might be seriously considered as a potential antichrist with his barbaric remarks and actions over the past several years! As we reported in yesterday's News and Views, he took great pleasure in insulting the Pope and Catholics during his talk to the culture of death group Tuesday, degrading the Holy Father with the snide remark, "Ever seen a Polish mine detector?" and inferring that the Pope is an "old fuddy-duddy who should get with it." Turner completed his sarcasm by snippedly chiding, "Welcome to the 20th Century." If he had been referring to a black leader, a Jewish leader or a gay rights leader you can believe the media would have been all over it, crying for his head to apologize and make amends for his insensitivity. But because it is the Pope, because Catholic-bashing is an accepted sport in today's society, it goes virtually unnoticed and people laugh in agreement with this "Mouth of the South."
Turner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but over the past several decades that utensil has been replaced by a podiatristic implement better known as in "foot-in-mouth" disease! Like most spoiled rich kids, it seems ol' Teddy gets what he wants. That is evident from his hording of so many properties and entities. He oversees the CNN global dynasty in America, Europe and South America. He channels programming for TNT, TBS, the Cartoon Network, New Line Cinema, Rough Cut, Castle Rock Entertainment and many other cable networks in his vast Time Warner conglomerate. He also owns the Atlanta Hawks NBA entry and the National League Atlanta Braves. No wonder it's so easy to root against the Tomahawk choppers! No wonder it was so natural to root against the Pharisees!
Like another billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, lord of the Fox empire, they are two peas in a pod! No wonder it's going to be so easy to root against the Los Angeles Dodgers this year! You see, Murdoch has bought the once vaunted boys of summer and turned them into money grubbers with no consideration for the good of baseball just as he has no moral conscience for what he displays on his numerous networks. Here are two men who, combined, mold the minds and consciences of billions of people. They could both do so much good, but rather than taking the high road, they choose the low road, buying off anyone or anything they can including those who are willing to sell their soul to the devil! Murdoch has long been the king of slease and Turner is not far behind. While Murdoch seldom speaks, open a refrigerator door and Turner is ready. In 1997 he told the National Press Club that Christianity is a religion for "losers," demeaning those who believe in a Heaven and a hell. Not only that but he actually said that he looks forward to going to hell because "hell is supposed to be a mess and Heaven is supposed to be perfect and who wants to go to a place that's perfect?" Ah, excuse us, Mr. Turner, but we do! And we're willing to pay the price; not counted in what comes from the wallet, but from the heart. Turner tried to include others in the media as enlightened icons when he said that most journalists are going to hell because they're not religious and know too much, inferring that religious people are ignorant and those who reject religion are smart. Clever and dumb like a fox, this Turner creation.
Now Turner is trying to muscle and buy his way into the world political scene with his one billion dollar donation to the United Nations Population Fund. But there is a catch, the money is earmarked not for poor Third-World countries who are in such dire poverty, but rather for abortions, forced sterilizations and forced contraception in his one-man effort to control the world. He has the audacity to propose that everyone in the world should be limited to procreating no more than one child over the next century. His bizarre logic says that will reduce the world population from nearly six billion to only two billion. Guess what, folks, there's another way to reduce the world population faster. It's called the Purification, the re-cleansing of the earth and God's people when the Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart will finally triumph ushering in a new age of peace, the glorious Reign of the Sacred Heart - an era where the likes of the actions of men like Turner, Murdoch, Clinton et alii will be a thing of the past and we will live in harmony with all men as the Almighty always intended.
There were other men who spoke nonsense like Turner's manifesto when he proposes such outlandish, inhumane solutions; men like Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche, Karl Marx, Joseph Engels, Nikolai Lenin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Adolph Hitler, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot and the list continues to the edge of the third millennium with men like Saddam Hussein, numerous South American, Southeast Asian and African dictators as well as the current regimes of China and Vietnam. We all know the consequences of their philosophies and experiments forced on mankind. What is the difference between Hitler and Turner? Very little, both want a super race; one tried to acquire it by force, the other with money. Both turned their backs on religion and God. Hitler was a former seminarian who disdained God's will for his own, following the rebellious course another German monk four centuries before at Augsburg had taken. Turner doesn't seem to take the Heavenly Alpha and Omega very seriously, constantly mocking religion and God's Commandments, stating "If you're going to have 10 rules. I don't know if adultery should be one of them." Just like Hitler, terrible Ted is no dummy. He knows that the only serious obstacle to his fulfilling his agenda is the Pope and the Catholic Church. That's why he denigrates the Holy Father with his slurs and ethnic "jokes" at the expense of a billion Catholics. He's mad that this old Polish Prince of the Church thwarted his efforts at Cairo. He's incensed that this "out-of-touch medieval marvel" of Rome constantly counters Turner's culture of death agenda and campaign to demoralize the world with words of common sense and the supernatural sense, guided by the Word of God and His Spirit. Ted has Jane "Hanoi Hanna" Fonda; the Holy Father has the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Peace, Mother of Providence. Whose camp would you rather be in?
No matter what we or anyone else write, no matter what Church leaders say in defending the Vicar of Christ and Holy Mother Church, the "Mouth" will continue to say whatever he wants, bashing whatever is decent and good in his familiar good ol' boy twang; he'll continue to fork out millions for his pet project of eliminating God from the face of the earth and playing himself up as a god to the masses. But the bottom line is that when it comes time to meet his Maker, he's going to need a lot of prayers from all of us. Even though he's expressed an interest in going to hell, he can't really mean it. Can he? Let's face it: until this ultra-liberal loon gets his act together and wises up to Whose really in charge, he may get just what he wishes for. No matter how much of a temporal fortune one accrues, hell is free for the taking! It's Ted's choice, but Ted Turner will never be able to muscle or buy his way into Heaven!
Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied..."Things aren't always what they seem."
The next night, the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had, the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest.
When the sun came up the next morning, the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel, "How could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him," the first angel accused. "The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let their cow die."
"Things aren't always what they seem," the older angel replied. "When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn't find it. Then last night, as we slept in the farmer’s bed, the angel of death came for the farmer's wife. I gave the angel the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem."
Sometimes, this is exactly what happens when things don't turn out the way we think they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every outcome is always to your advantage. You might not know it, however, until some time later.
So let us try to remember, that nothing can happen to us that is not within the Providence of God.
God is weaving a beautiful tapestry with our lives on this earth. Right now, we only see the side with all the cut strings, and the picture doesn’t look very beautiful. But one day, God will show us the other side - His Work - and we shall be amazed at the beauty He has wrought with our lives and we shall praise and bless Him forever.
Hope your Lent is a prayerful and sacrificial one. If so, we are giving God beautiful thread with which to weave the beautiful tapestry.
God bless you!
My Dear Children, ponder also in your hearts that my Divine Son rode upon a beast of burden. When my Divine Son was to be born it was a beast of burden which took Joseph and I to Bethlehem. The beast of burden gave warmth later to the new-born babe. Many months later the Holy Family journeyed into exile upon the beast of burden. Throughout the lifetime of my Divine Son the beast of burden was present. A symbol of obedience. A symbol also of the earthly exile of all God’s children.
As My Divine Son now approached the summit of His mission which was to culminate on Calvary, it was only fitting that the beast of burden carry Him to Jerusalem to deliver Him into the hands of His enemies, as many years before the beast of burden had allowed the Holy Family to escape satan’s plots to thwart the Divine Will.
I am asking each of my Little Ones who, in their heart know they are approaching the Calvary of the world, to lay not false promises (palm fronds) before my Divine Son. If you would truly make His Sacred Passion meaningful, then line His path of suffering, agony and death with your hearts. Bow before Him, Who is God, and thank Him profoundly for all He endured that you might be saved.
Place yourself upon the road to Jerusalem and see my Divine Son coming along, entering upon the final phase of His exile. Imitate Him in all ways. Be obedient to God, even unto death. Do not allow the babble of voices of the modern world to cause you to be a traitor who, in the time of trial, betrays the Truth to possess only momentary earthly security and comfort.
I solemnly tell you that you are my little, faithful children who must walk the same path as My Divine Son. Love as He loved. See only the soul so as to overcome all human prejudice. See only the Will of God, and be steadfast in your desire to be one with the Divine Will.
Then you will have laid down your heart. Upon it my Divine Son’s footprints will forever be engraved, so that as the world experiences great chastisement and divine justice, you will know the True Path you must follow—for the footprints are upon your heart, and the burden He has already taken as His own.
My Little Ones, be the beast of burden in these years of tears and sorrow. Only in this way shall you know full peace, absolute trust and love so profound as to rend the heart asunder.
Pray and meditate upon these words, for they will help you to remain faithful to all my Son taught.
NEXT INSTALLMENT: Part One of Lesson 2: FAREWELL TO THE HOLY WOMEN AND THE MOTHER
From God's point of view nothing is great, nothing is small as we measure it. The worth and the quality of any action depends upon its motive and not at all upon its prominence or any of the other accidents which we are apt to adopt as standards of greatness. Nothing is small that can be done from a mighty motive, such as the mite which the widow dropped into the Temple treasury. Conscience knows no such word as "large" or "small;" it knows only two words, "right" and "wrong." "He who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive the reward given to prophets," because though not gifted with the prophet's tongue he has the prophet's spirit and does his small act of hospitality from the very same prophetic impulse which in another and one more loftily endowed leads to burning words and mighty deeds.
A man is much more inclined to concentrate his moral actions in one great moment and thereby often wins the merit of a hero. A woman, on the contrary, scatters her tiny little sacrifices through life and multiplies them to such an extent that very few give her credit for sacrifice because it has been so multiplied.
In the spiritual order it is much easier to do some mighty act of self-surrender than daily and patiently to crucify the flesh with all of its inordinate affections. The smallest duties are often harder, because of their apparent insignificance and their constant recurrence. Unfaithfulness in little things can also prepare for unfaithfulness in the great. By a small act of injustice the line which separates the right from the wrongs is just as effectively broken. Infidelity in little things deteriorates the moral sense; it makes a person untrustworthy; it loosens the ties that bind society together, and it is a counteracting agency of that Divine Love which ought to be the cement of good human relationships.
Men in public life who are accused of confiscating great sums of money or else profiting by their office to secure gifts or enrich themselves in any manner whatsoever, began with unfaithfulness in the minor details of life. Somewhere and somehow the wall and partition between right and wrong had to be broken down, and what is tragic about our national situation is that there is no longer a moral indignation against such infractions of the law of honesty.
Little things make up the universe. The clouds gather up the rain and moisture and part with them in drops; time is so precious that it is given out second by second; stars do not leap about in their orbits but keep a measured pace. In like manner, humans will find little to do if they save their energy for great occasions. In every direction the great is reached through the little. The turning of a tiny needle steadily toward a fixed point is a little common thing, but it guides navies along the uncharted seas. The most significant trifle becomes a great thing if the alternative of obedience or rebellion is involved in it. To live by the day and to watch each step is the true pilgrimage method, for there is nothing little if God requires it.
