I just had a discussion tonight with my 80-year old friend Brian, who I thought was ignoring me due to my disbelief in Fatima.  

I called him and we cleared the air, and then instantly began arguing again.  I actually have done a lot of work on my temper but I was hollering my head off on the phone tonight.  I am hoarse.  The man is incorrigible.  

I spent around two hours trying to warn him about the Baltimore Catechism heresy, because I don't want him to meet God with that in his mind.  But he would not let me finish a sentence.  He kept saying "Mike, you're getting sidetracked.  You need to do the Consecration to Mary of St. Louis De Montfort.  Put everything else aside."  Then he kept accusing me of not knowing Mary, and considering that I was screaming on the phone, it made him seem like he was right, but it was just so aggravating -- what makes it worse is that he can't hear me and kept switching phone lines.

I said "BRIAN WILL YOU LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS HERESY -- I'M TRYING TO SAVE YOUR SOUL AND YOU KEEP BRINGING UP DISTRACTIONS."  He said, "I'm trying to save yours by telling you to do the Consecration to Mary."  "BRIAN, MANY PEOPLE IN VATICAN II WHO ARE RIDDLED WITH HERESIES DO THE CONSECRATION. I WANT TO AND WILL DO THE CONSECRATION BUT RIGHT NOW I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING."  "Put all that on the back burner Mike.  SAINT Louis de Montfort says..."  And then, because he's a big Fulton Sheen fan, he will start speaking in a slow, stentorian, radio announcer voice about how he's a great sinner, or how he is devoted to Mary, and I can't get a word in edgewise.

Anyway, at one point in this conversation, he brought up La Salette.  He is very big on prophecies and has the tendency to call various seers "saints."   He'll say "St. Anne Catherine Emmerich" or "St. Anne-Julie Jahenny."  I'll say "THEY ARE NOT SAINTS."  "Huh?  I can't hear you."  "THEY ARE NOT SAINTS, DANG IT!"  Then he'll say "Michael, do you think Jesus would give someone the stigmata who is not chosen?  Do you think Jesus would reveal himself to someone who is not a saint?"  He doesn't seem to get that only the Church can declare someone a saint, and that stigmatas can be hoaxed.

He also thinks that almost any time "Mary" appears to someone, that we must believe it is really Mary, and then he gets all sanctimonious.  He refuses to believe that anyone knows Mary the way he knows Mary.  He even said that until I know Mary for real I won't understand why Mary loves the freedom granted us by the American constitution.  He keeps quoting Moses talking about liberty, some quote he never gives me the exact chapter and verse for, and tries to make it look like the foreshadowing of America.  But then he says he is against the separation of Church and state.  

I'm so angry, I may have to avoid further conversations with him as an occasion for sin.  He also curses sometimes and it puts me in a salty mood and I curse ( mildly ), usually instantly regretting it afterwards.  I feel like he was almost trying to rile me up.  It's too bad because he is with me on NFP and about the slow disintegration of the Church starting long before Vatican II.  He lived through it and tells me stories about it.

Back to La Salette.  He kept trying to talk about it, and I mentioned that Benedict XV forbade us to talk about it.  Now, Benedict XV may very well have been an occult heretic of some kind, but I don't know that for sure, and until then, I'm going to obey the Pope, no matter if he's a Rampolla Pope.  So I told him, "BRIAN I'M NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT LA SALETTE.   I'M GOING TO HANG UP ON YOU IF YOU KEEP BRINGING IT UP."  Of course, he kept working it into the conversation, over and over, and I'd try to hold the phone away from my ear.  

The irony is that he says he doesn't care what Benedict XV says about not talking about La Salette, but yet I must believe in Fatima because Pius XII -- or was it Pius XI? -- declared it worthy of belief.  And he rejects Pius XII along with me!

To the website I ask, after this tortuous preamble, would you dare talk about La Salette?




 

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I have had too many sensory stimuli tonight.  Happy 2010!

You mean the sensory stimuli?  Ha ha, no, though I did drink wine earlier.  The stimuli were in this conversation I describe where I unfortunately gave reign to impatience, if not wrath.  

Maybe my friend is right that I don't know Mary, at least not as well as I should.  If I did, I would have kept calm.

I am starting to really fear my own propensity to anger.  I've been paying too much attention to lust and pride -- anger is what I must work on.  My buttons are too easy to push.  

I figured I already knew what your advice would be on La Saletta, CM, seeing what you think of Benedict XV --

You don't believe in Fatima?!! Why not?

As far as La Salette goes, it is one of nine major Marian apparitions that have been approved by the Church (the others being Guadalupe, Rue du Bac, Lourdes, Pontmain, Knock, Fatima, Beauraing and Banneux).

ECCLESIASTICAL APPROVAL

The Bishop of La Salette named two theologians to investigate the apparitions and all the healings that had occured. For five years detailed investigations took place. In approximately 80 different places throughout France, bishops named canon lawyers to investigate the miraculous healings that had occurred as a result of prayers to Our Lady of La Salette and from the water of the fountain. Hundreds of miracles were registered.

The Holy Father, Pius IX, approved the devotion to Our Lady of La Salette. He requested that the children send him the events of the apparition in writing.

Anger comes from pride, and lust, in large part, does too.  Pride is the seat of sin.

True enough. I would also argue that anger can be evoked out of lust as well.

He meant della Chiesa