Yellum Notnef

If any of you know whats good for you you will keep far away from that thread. It`s a trap or,if you will,a bizarro world where nothing makes any sense and minds seem to be controlled by other organs.

I dared to laugh there and found myself severely beaten about the head and buttocks.
No one came to my aid until I was already unconscious so I assume it was just to dispose of what they thought was my dead body.


(Nevermind my warning. I see that a moderator has closed the thead saving any laughing infidel who just happened to wander in from the same dire situation I`m now recovering from)

<the above has been a comical dramatization based on actual events>

Gemma Therese

Godless Dave --

I am responding your question of the closed thread on "elsewhere" -- "What did St. Therese do?"

She loved -- she realized in her life, as a Carmelite nun, she could do nothing great, so she did her simple chores and manual labor with great love. As she lay dying, she said, "I have said all ... all is consummated ... only love counts."

Regardless of whether we do anything great, we can all love.

She has made millions of lives better through her autobiography, The Story of a Soul.

Gemma Therese

Godless Dave

But who was the object of her love, and how did he/she/they benefit from her love?

In what ways were the lives of readers made better?

abe smith

To deny the existence of Purgatory (:Is of course a HERESY!) would deprive a whole lot of leech-clerics from collecting BIG BUCKS for "offering" Masses for the repose of the souls of the dear Departed. You know, that the way Catholics now/still express their sympathy/condolences to one another in the deaths of Catholics is to "send a Mass card": the process is to go around to the Rectory, pay some money ("the stipend") to have a Mass "said" for the dead person; get a "Mass card" to witness to this purchase, and give or send the card to the mourners. There are Monastic orders who make a nice income "selling" Masses for the dead. The Franciscan Friars minors do this, I know: they sent me a batch of the cards recently = pay as you use them. An infallible moneymaker! Ask some Dear Old Lady to explain it to you.
It doesn't QUITE look the same as purchasing "indulgences" =paying money to priests to get Purgatory time shortened: but the dirty truth is that that's what Catholics think they're doing. Maybe I'll ask some of my near & dear why they do that? =??? Pay some money to show their respects = "what Catholics do."****************
**************
Thomas Aquinas's big UNFINISHED book, the Summa theologiae, is a bunch of jolly fun, often useful to put you to sleep on a long night. Some of his (bland) assertions are hilarious! = plain BULLSHIT. Most of it is about human fictions totally-alien from anything humankind CAN know or investigate. ThAq's INITIAL
premise, that "God" exists, is of course JUNK. And everything else he has to say is derived from it. There is a second work, like unto it, called the Summa contra Gentiles, also good fun for a rainy week at the shore....

Gemma Therese

God was the object of her love, as was all of humanity. To understand St. Therese, you must understand the vocation to Carmel, or any cloistered, contemplative life for that matter. It must be extremely difficult for an atheist to understand the concept, but these men and women live in seclusion, spending their day in private and communal prayer, and manual labor. Their purpose, or mission, it to pray for humanity and for the salvation of souls.

People who read her autobiography learn her "little way of spiritual childhood" -- complete trust in God, and the very concept that most of us are not called to greatness, only love.

Gemma Therese

Godless Dave

So her labor did not provide tangible benefits to anyone except her sisters, with possibly some profit from goods or services sold going to the order. Lots of people live in communes, it doesn't prove they're full of love or compassion.

If people did indeed learn a message of love from her autobiography then that is an accomplishment, and she should be due the same respect given to any good writer. However "complete trust in God" is at best a neutral lesson, not a positive one, and in most cases would end up being negative, since the Catholic church, like all churches, tries to convince people that "trust in God" is the same as "trust in the church". She doesn't get any extra respect because she lived in a commune, nor should she (or anyone) be above criticism or inquiry.

Proxima Centauri

Many claims of supposed testing of Christian Saints are based on as much, or as little evidence as Fenton Mulley's quote above.

Yellum Notnef

The claims of the Xian saints are based on less evidence.

Gemma Therese

Godless Dave,

As I said, you probably need an appreciation of the purpose of cloistered, contemplative communities to appreciate the greatness of St. Therese of Lisieux.

Contemplative life

Gemma Therese

Godless Dave

OK I just read it. Here are some select quotes and my thoughts. All quotes from Contemplative Life at NewAdvent.org.

I do not find it admirable for a human being to lie prostrate before anyone, nor to proclaim their own "nothingness".

The idea that self-denial and self-sacrifice are desirable is disturbing. The idea that the needs of the flesh are an "enemy" to be overcome is one of the most unhealthy things about Christianity and many other religions.

Unsupported assertion.

Prayer and penance accomplish nothing and do not count as "deeds". As I suspected, cloistered brothers and sisters may indeed feel love for others but they have no opportunity to act on it - any love they feel has no tangible effects and is wasted.

That's just sick. There is no benefit to be gained by self-inflicted suffering, nor does it help anyone else.

So St. Gemma Therese is a role model because she felt love for others but did nothing about it and denied herself the pleasures and comforts of human life for no good reason.