As a Catholic reflecting on how wealth should be handled in society, I’ve looked to the Old Testament for guidance. God gave Israel a set of laws that weren’t capitalist or socialist, but deeply concerned with justice, mercy, and the well-being of the whole community. These laws still speak to us today.

The Year of Jubilee – Leviticus 25​

Every fiftieth year, God commanded a Jubilee:

In this year:

• Land was returned to its original owners (Leviticus 25:13).
• Debts were forgiven.
• Slaves were freed (Leviticus 25:39–41).

This law reminded Israel that:

The Sabbatical Year – Deuteronomy 15​

Every seventh year, debts were to be cancelled:

God warned against stinginess:

Instead:

Gleaning Laws – Leviticus 19 & Deuteronomy 24​

Farmers were told not to harvest everything:

This ensured the vulnerable had access to food with dignity.

---

What the Church Teaches​

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

The Church recognises that while the ceremonial laws are fulfilled in Christ, the moral and social principles remain valid.

In Economic Justice for All, the U.S. bishops wrote:

---

These laws and teachings challenge me to think about wealth not as a private entitlement, but as something entrusted to us for the good of all. They call for justice, mercy, and a deep concern for the poor. What do they say to you about yourself, your community, state, nation?

"CNN reported on a publicly available app, which is generating attention across the United States, and reached out to ICE for comment prior to publication. After CNN published its reporting, ICE posted a response, which is now included in the story," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The response reported by CNN came from ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, who said ICEBlock "basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs" and that "officers and agents are already facing a 500% increase in assaults."

She makes a good point.

I know there is a litany, are there any other devotions anyone wants to share?

July is devoted to the Precious Blood of Jesus.

God bless

Pope Leo XIV recently addressed a large group of seminarians in Rome for a special Jubilee week, thanking them for their willingness to devote their lives to the Church. If the number of major seminarians worldwide has fallen 12% over the past twelve years, one reason is due to the increase in the number of homosexual bishops, priests, and seminarians in the Americas and Europe which has had a negative impact on the retention and recruitment of heterosexual priests and seminarians.

After graduating as the valedictorian of his high school class, Anthony Gorgia from Staten Island, New York, was offered a full scholarship with a stipend to a prestigious university. Having felt called by Christ to be a priest since he was six-years old, Gorgia turned down the scholarship to pursue his vocation to the priesthood. After graduating summa cum laude from St. John’s University with a master’s degree in philosophy, Georgia was sent by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to study theology in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Even though he maintained a 4.0 grade point average and received outstanding evaluations, Cardinal Dolan informed Gorgia, half-way through his second year of theology, that he was being discontinued based on the advice of the North American College (NAC) rector, Father Peter Harman. Dolan refused five requests to meet with Gorgia and his parents because he knew Gorgia’s dismissal was unjust.

Continued below.

People could donate land and apartments to the Catholic Church.

On one condition.

The Catholic Church starts making women priests, bishops, and cardinals.

Look at this article, all those who call Russia an aggressor.

All my articles can be found at this link: Hello comrades. I am Russian and I live in Russia. If you want to meet me and become my friend, let's do it.

Look, I will literally change your understanding of what is happening with just one fact and make all Western propaganda regarding the demonization of Russia meaningless.



The fact is the following: the USSR, and then Russia, made several attempts to join NATO.
That's all.

Putin V.V., 2001 (joint press conference with Bush):
I will now read to you a recently declassified...actually, this was in the press a long time ago, the accompanying documents were secret at the time. It says: a copy has been declassified, but it was top secret.

This is a note from the Soviet government from 1954, sent to NATO member countries.

The following is written here:
"Guided by the unchanging principles of its peaceful foreign policy and striving to reduce tension in international relations, the Soviet government expresses its readiness to consider, together with interested governments, the question of the USSR's participation in the North Atlantic Treaty."

And here is the answer:
"Such and such proposals were accompanied by the expansion of the Atlantic Pact by the Soviet Union's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty. There is no need to emphasize the completely unrealistic nature of such a proposal."
This is the answer.

About a year ago, I answered a question about whether it was possible for Russia to somehow join NATO.
I said: "Why not?"
And immediately the former US Secretary of State, Ms. M. Albright, said: "Well, that's not being discussed now."

Now some basic logic.

If the US and its vassals had responded to the proposal, there would be no war now.

There would be no:
❌ Cold War,
❌ Arms Race,
❌ Crazy Weapons Spending,
❌ Nuclear Crises That Almost Contributed to the Destruction of the Earth, etc.

This information gives a detailed answer to who needs war.

If Russia were accepted into NATO, it would accept the rules of the alliance. Formally, as during the Second World War, the USSR and the USA would be allies, and would resolve disputes, so to speak, in a friendly manner.

But, no, friends, no one wanted or wants to see the USSR and Russia as partners.

❓ Why?

⚠️ Because in that case the Anglo-Saxons would not have a major enemy that they could demonize and use to frighten their electorate and Europeans.

➡️ In the first case, by intimidating its population, the US manages to spend trillions of dollars on weapons.
➡️ In the second case, under the guise of protecting its allies, the Europeans, the US occupies their territories.


NATO bases on the world map

❓ What is NATO expansion?
⚠️ It is the occupation of territory in a military sense. And what is the point of expansion if there is no enemy?

Here is the answer to the question - who needs wars and why?


❓ And here let's take a closer look at what NATO is?
❓ Why is it needed?
❓ How did Stalin and Putin want to join NATO?
❓ And how did they recruit Nazis instead of communists into NATO?

⛔️ Today, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the largest military force - it has concentrated up to 80% of the world's military power in its hands.
⛔️ The size of the NATO army is 3.36 million people
⛔️ of 32 member countries,
⛔️ which spend more than a trillion dollars on military expenses.
⛔️ The Alliance was created as a defensive union based on democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
⛔️ But it has never protected anyone.

*Libya, Yugoslavia, the Middle East - wherever NATO troops are present, states disintegrate, wars and deaths begin.

⛔️ Over the past 30 years, NATO has carried out 23 military operations against other countries.
⛔️ Millions of civilians have fallen victim (to the war).
⛔️ Between 38 and 60 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
⛔️ Damage to the environment and infrastructure exceeds several trillion dollars.
⛔️ $542 billion worth of bombs were dropped in Yugoslavia alone.

CREATION OF NATO

The starting point is considered to be 1946, when former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered the famous Fulton speech.



Churchill's Fulton Speech

In this speech, he acknowledged the leading role of the new hegemon – the USA, and also scared Europe with the "iron curtain": "From Stettin to Trieste, across the entire continent, an "iron curtain" was lowered. Behind this line are all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe, which fell into the sphere of Soviet influence and high control from Moscow."

Also in this speech, he emphasized that the entire English-speaking world is obliged to fight the red threat.

*By the way, the phrase "iron curtain", which would eventually stick to the policy of the Soviet Union, Churchill borrowed from Joseph Goebbels, one of the ideologists of Nazism.

The USSR's position was simple - it was creating a buffer of friendly states in Europe that would prevent a sudden attack on the country. Moscow did not want a repeat of June 1941, or other wars that were coming from the West. The Soviet Union was in ruins, and a lot of effort was needed to restore it.

⛔️ The allies of the anti-fascist coalition were doing something similar in Western Europe.
⛔️ In France, intelligence was fabricating documents about a communist conspiracy being prepared.
⛔️ In Italy, the communists were being crushed in the elections.
⛔️ Then the United States adopted the Marshall Plan and allocated $13 billion to restore 17 European countries after the war.

⛔️ In return, Washington demanded:
➡ remove all communists from power,
➡ abandon the principles of free trade and
➡ tie their imports and exports to the United States.

As a result, Europe split: the eastern part was pro-Soviet, and the western part was pro-American.



The Warsaw Pact (Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance), signed on May 14, 1955, included eight countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and the creator of this union - the USSR, with its control center in Moscow.

n 1947, American President Harry Truman said that America would do everything possible to contain the USSR, while democratic regimes, on the contrary, would be supported and saved from communism.

Simply put, he decided to secure the right of the United States to interfere in the affairs of the entire world.

Thus, the “Truman Doctrine” obliged America to pursue a policy of
❌ wars,
❌ interventions and
❌ gigantic military budgets.

All this continues to this day.

Plus, the West could not calm down and developed plans for a total war with the USSR.

⚠️ What is “Dropshot” ( Operation Dropshot - Wikipedia ) worth, according to which they were going to drop 300 nuclear bombs and 29 thousand high-explosive bombs on 100 Soviet cities!

The NATO bloc was formed on the “Truman Doctrine” - April 4, 1949. Allegedly, as a peaceful and defensive alliance against external aggression. Naturally, this meant the aggression of the USSR.

And look, friends, in the same year, Moscow offered the British government to participate in the creation of NATO. But NATO refused Moscow.

After this refusal, Joseph Stalin called the alliance “an undermining of the UN.” Which, in fact, was the case.

That is, this means that the creation of NATO is an undermining of real international law.

Initially, it included 12 countries.

* In general, the United States could not enter into military alliances if they were not at war themselves. But for the sake of such a matter, they adopted the “Vandenberg Resolution,” which allowed
➡ to conclude treaties in peacetime,
➡ and to place military bases in other countries.

Which the United States began to actively do.

Today, they control more than 900 bases and spend about $100 billion a year on them.

The anti-Soviet nature of the Treaty was, in fact, not hidden either then or now. The first NATO Secretary General Ismay Hastings formulated the organization's goal quite simply: "To keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans in a subordinate position."

▶️ On the one hand, the NATO Charter is for the peaceful resolution of disputes.
▶️ On the other hand, according to Article 5, an attack on one NATO country is an act of aggression against all. And each member of the alliance must come to its defense.

But due to the vagueness of the wording, a number of participants, including the United States, may consider an attack a potential threat to their military bases.

Considering that there are more than 900 such bases, it turns out that NATO is responsible for the entire world.


NATO bases on the world map

In this way, the alliance ascribes to itself the function of ensuring global security, and this contradicts the foundations of the UN international order.

*By the way, Article 5 of the NATO charter was used once - after the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Then NATO troops entered Afghanistan. True, they left 20 years later, abandoning their allies, without defeating the Taliban.

Now another important fact.

When Turkey and Greece were included in NATO in 1952, once again declaring the peaceful nature of the organization, Stalin grinned and said: “Shouldn’t we join NATO then?”

And indeed, in 1954, the USSR officially asked to join the alliance.

Moreover, as part of a peace project, it wanted to unite West and East Germany on the condition of its constitutional neutrality.
For modern Germans, this was a shock, since until the destruction of the Berlin Wall, they believed that only the Soviet Union was responsible for the division of Germany.

But the West refused. Allegedly, the participation of the USSR was incompatible with the democratic goals of the alliance.

Although Portugal, where the dictatorship flourished for almost 50 years, did not stop it from becoming one of the founders.

And, in order not to lose face, NATO put forward conditions that Moscow could not accept:
⛔️ namely, a certain capitulation in the Cold War,
⛔️ withdrawal of troops from Germany and Austria,
⛔️ abandonment of military bases in the Far East and
⛔️ limitation of weapons.

In general, it is unlikely that the Soviet Union seriously believed that it would be happily accepted into the alliance. Most likely, it wanted to clearly demonstrate that talk of a peaceful NATO was worth nothing, and that the alliance itself was hostile to the USSR.

That is, the Anglo-Saxons refused negotiations and peaceful coexistence from the very beginning.

Look what happened.
The Anglo-Saxons say: "We are building, supposedly, a defensive alliance against the USSR."
The USSR says: "We are not going to attack anyone. Let us even join NATO ourselves."
The Anglo-Saxons were taken aback and naturally refused - against whom then will we be friends and intimidate the population - with whom?

And think about how truly peace-loving the USSR was: in order to avoid this confrontation, a possible future war, it went for unification with its enemy.

In 1955, just 10 years after the victory over fascism, the FRG was accepted into NATO.

That is, the USA and its vassals immediately began to create a military bloc against the USSR after the end of World War II.

The States refused all calls from the USSR for peaceful coexistence.

Therefore, in response to their aggression, the USSR and the socialist countries had to create their own military bloc - the Warsaw Pact Organization for Peace and Security in Europe.

That is, the Soviet alliance, no matter how you look at it, was only a response to the actions of the West.

An interesting fact about NATO. This organization positioned and positions itself as a white and fluffy defender of democracy, Western values and, in general, everything good. Well, just an angel keeping peace on Earth.

But nevertheless, the Western average person is not told whose services this bloc used.

⛔️ The most striking example is the Nazi Lieutenant General Reinhard Gehlen, who fought against the USSR and formally against the United States of America.


Reinhard Gehlen - Nazi Lieutenant General

In 1945, the general surrendered to the US Army. But before that, he hid secret documents: the developments of German military intelligence, data, an agent network and other valuable information. The cunning general believed that the Americans would give a good price for this.

And so it happened. As a result, Gehlen was tasked with organizing a department that would deal with purely Russian issues.

So in 1946, Gelenorg appeared. And instead of one Russian department, two worked in the West: one in the US - the CIA, the second - in the FRG, the Gehlen Organization.

Both pursued the same goal: the destruction of communism as an ideology and the weakening of the USSR as a state.

Later, by the way, Gelenorg was transformed into the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany, BND, which is still functioning.

By the beginning of the 50s, more than 4 thousand officers of the former Wehrmacht and SS served under Gehlen's command.

Before Trump took office, a 2023 Supreme Court ruling struck down the use of racial preferences in university admissions. Lawsuits have challenged the use of race in scholarships as well as a federal program designed to funnel tens of millions of dollars to colleges and universities with large percentages of Hispanic students.
The battle against DEI is now advancing to target the use of proxies for race—which might include geography or class—in order to boost diversity, said Scott Schneider, a higher-education attorney in Texas.
“This is the next wave,” Schneider said. Opponents of DEI are “saying if the intent is to circumvent the direct use of race, proxies are just as bad, that’s the novel issue that courts are wrestling with.”

It will be a constant battle, they keep trying to find ways to push Marxism and racism.

All my articles can be found at this link: Hello comrades. I am Russian and I live in Russia. If you want to meet me and become my friend, let's do it.

Let me tell you what American democracy is. So, in 1989, the United States decided to take the Panama Canal from Panama. The Panama Canal is a shipping canal that connects the Gulf of Panama in the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. That is, a very important route for crossing from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa. For example, thanks to the Panama Canal, there is no need to go around South America and the sea route from New York to San Francisco is reduced from 22 thousand kilometers to 9 thousand kilometers.
Annually, about 14 thousand ships pass through the canal structure, carrying about 280 million tons of cargo. This is again percent of the world's ocean freight. The canal is overloaded, so the queue for passage through it is sold at auctions. The total fee for a vessel to pass through the canal can reach 400 thousand. So, earlier, in 1977, in Washington, the head of Panama, Amarta Rijas, and US President Jimmy Carter signed an agreement according to which the states were to transfer control of the Panama Canal to the government of this country at the end of 1999. Before that, this canal was also controlled by the United States. They took possession of it at the beginning of the 20th century, having staged a coup d'etat in Colombia, thereby breaking up the country. Panama and Colombia were one country. Thus, in 1903, a new independent state appeared on the world map, it was called just that - the Independent Panamanian Republic. Just two weeks later, Panama "independently" signed an agreement with the United States, according to which, in fact, all rights to the canal and adjacent territories were transferred to the Americans. Democracy, human rights and freedom are good bait for fools, but when serious money is at stake, there is no time for jokes.
Therefore, in order not to give up the Panama Canal in 1999, the Americans first opened a criminal case in the United States against the supreme leader of the national liberation of Panama, Manuel Nariega, who after Tarijas was the main defender of national interests. The pressure did not frighten him. Then the United States, through its agents from among the Panamanian officers who were undergoing training in the United States, tried to overthrow the leadership of Panama as part of an armed coup.
But the rebellion was suppressed. Therefore, later, on December 20, 1989, the US army carried out a military intervention in Panama called "Right Cause", during which 26 thousand American servicemen landed on the territory of the country. They seized the television center, launched their channel, with pre-prepared content that convinced everyone not to resist, and threw mud at Nariega. At the same time, they announced the overthrow of the dictatorial regime.
Nariega himself was kidnapped, taken to the United States and sentenced to 40 years for drug use. They installed their own Guillermo Gallimani, an opposition politician at the time who studied in the United States, as the head of Panama. Just draw parallels with today. Guillermo's first act was to replace all school textbooks and histories with those prepared in advance and sealed in the United States, a print run with the necessary historical assessments, the creation of the Panama Canal and the villainous role, in quotation marks, of presidents Tarijas and Nariega.
Well, a month after the military coup, he signed amendments to the treaty allowing the United States to own the Panama Canal indefinitely. He also disbanded the army as unnecessary. And to this day, Panama, like many other countries, is a colony of the United States. Here is another instructive story.

Please pray that my son Jakeb is happy and healthy today and when he goes to the dr he won't be scared, have good blood pressure and hasn't lost too much weight. Please pray for his health and happiness and that nothing is seriously wrong and if it is God's will he will protect us and our home from the storms and keep power so we can stay cool. Also please pray that God will allow me to have a day without pain and be comfortable. I ask in the name of Jesus. Please pray. God bless you.

I know I need to love my God more
Because I feel that
I don't love God enough
I know that in the mornings
I have the blues that I hate
I know that I should be grateful
That I have health
I know that I Iove the sun
I know that I will be happy
When Spring will be here
I know that I need to go to sleep
Early every night
So, I can get a proper night's sleep
I know that I should look
After my health
I know that I should look after
My hygiene better
I know that I need to pray more
I know that I should love myself more
I know that I should speak up for myself

New York Times columnist and author David French drew scorn on social media over the weekend when he affirmed the transgender identity of a male staff writer at The Dispatch who identifies as a woman.

French congratulated Jessica Riedl, who was born Brian and has a wife and children, for joining as a contributing writer at The Dispatch, where French formerly served as a senior editor. The online magazine was founded by Jonah Goldberg, Stephen F. Hayes and Toby Stock in 2019 after The Weekly Standard went defunct.

"This is great news for The Dispatch. Nobody is better on fiscal policy than Jessica. Jessica and I recently had a great conversation about the grim realities of the federal budget on The Opinions podcast," French tweeted Friday. He also affirmed Reidl's feminine pronouns during an interview published in The New York Times in March.

Continued below.

Idaho man lights wildfire, shoots at firefighters responding, kills two, apparently kills self.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/idaho-coeur-dalene-firefighters-shooting

Seems like one disturbed or upset person has the power to cause a lot of chaos and suffering.

....to the 600k+ Medicaid recipients in North Carolina

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Luke 9:26 / Mark 8:38

If you are ashamed of me and my message, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of his Father and the holy angels.

Click to expand...

If a person is a proper Christian does that mean they're so happy and grateful that they're saved that they want to tell the world about it and save souls, etc? I used to be a young earth creationist (YEC) until I started university (and went straight to atheism like in this Old-Earth Creationism "tract") but I just wanted to spread the word about YEC and not about Jesus. I went to a Lutheran high school but the year level I was in mostly didn't sing in chapel at all (I can't remember if I did). I think the two other smartest kids in the year level were atheists.
Note my youngest sister's favourite TV show in high school was Sex and the City (where the 4 women have sex with lots of men) but she eventually became a hard core Christian and wrote 5 Christian books
(can be downloaded here - except for Heart of the Father 2)
So what kind of attitude about talking to others about Jesus should a Christian have in order to be saved?
Also my sisters' pastor (or "prophet") says that most so-called Christians are going to hell, including his Christian grandmother:
Login to view embedded media Maybe that's why my sisters would think they're very fortunate to be saved (compared to if large numbers of people were saved)
Matthew 7:13-14

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Click to expand...

Shalom

This weekend, evangelistic meetings are taking place here in Salzburg, Austria.

In addition, the brothers and sisters here regularly hold book tables and distribute evangelistic literature.

We ask for your support in prayer in Jesus' name.

And may God continue to draw the people we have already reached to Himself in Jesus' name, Amen (John 6:44; 1 Corinthians 3:6).

Thank you for your prayers!

May the Lord bless you abundantly (Luke 6:38; Job 42:10) and may He bless Israel in Jesus' name, Amen!

Soli Deo Gloria

PS And I pray that the Lord will send out harvesters into His harvest (Matthew 9:38).

There is a very good reason why the Scriptures, Old Testament and New Testament, warn us to not put our trust in human beings, particularly in people of prominence, wealth, and importance in the world, some of whom are leaders of nations, newscasters, or well-liked preachers and evangelists, etc. And that is because we are all human. And not all humans can be trusted, because not all humans tell the truth about who they are, and what they are doing, and of their motivations for why they do what they do.

Liars, deceivers, manipulators, tricksters, clowns, entertainers, and actors abound, playing their tricks on the human race, lying to them, deceiving them, and convincing people to trust them unequivocally. And some of this is ingrained in us from childhood on up, such as I was brought up to put my hand over heart and to pledge (vow) my allegiance (fidelity) to my government, and to sing patriotic songs of worship of my government, and to treat our military as though they are our “saviors” who keep us safe.

And I also grew up on television, beginning in the early 1950’s, and so my mind was programmed with all sorts of stuff that I believed because I had no reason to think that any of them were lying to me. I was very naïve and trusting, even when I had very good reasons not to trust other human beings. I didn’t believe everything they told me, but a lot of it, I did. And it did partially shape my thinking about things early on in my life, and into adulthood. And so the Lord had to reprogram my mind to see the truth.

As Christians, our trust needs to be in the Lord, and in his Word (taught in context), and not in human flesh. And just because someone claims to be a Christian, it doesn’t necessitate that they are Christians, biblically defined. For there are a lot of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who are among us, passing themselves off as followers of Jesus Christ who are just using that to deceive Christians into trusting them and believing them and putting their faith in them, believing that they are the “good guys” who are on our side.

But remember that the Scriptures warn us against those who pretend to be Christians, who disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, but who are of the devil, and whose intent it is to destroy us and our faith in Jesus Christ so that we will believe the liars and the manipulators who charm the people into thinking that they are of God, and therefore that they are to be trusted. And the Scriptures instruct us to be on the lookout for those who pretend to be of God but who are workers of iniquity, instead. Test them!

And don’t raise any human up to God-like status. Too many people are putting politicians and newscasters and preachers on pedestals that they are bound to fall off of. And they are believing whatever these people tell them, and then they are regurgitating whatever those people tell them, as though it is absolute truth, when they don’t even know if it is truth, or not. We who believe in Jesus need to be seekers of truth who do not put our trust in human beings, but in God, and in his word taught in the proper context.

Learn to be those who question everything but God, who ask questions, and who seek answers, and who are students of the Scriptures who study them in the correct context, under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit, and then who obey the teachings intended for the church, Christ’s body. And know what the Scriptures teach when they are taught in the right context. For many lies stem from Scriptures being taught deliberately out of context to make them say what they do not say if taught in the right context. For..

By God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:6-8; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10]

Seek the Lord

Based off Isaiah 55
Musical Instrumentation by Mark Bradley
An Original Work / July 20, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

“Come to Me all you who thirst; come to waters.
Listen to Me, and eat what’s good today,
And your soul will delight in richest of fare.
Give ear to Me, and you will live.
I have made an eternal covenant with you.
Wash in the blood of the Lamb.”

Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him.
Let the wicked forsake his way, in truth.
Let him turn to the Lord, and he will receive mercy.
Freely, God pardons him.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,”
declares the Lord, our God.

“My word that goes out of My mouth is truthful.
It will not return to Me unfulfilled.
My word will accomplish all that I desire,
And achieve the goal I intend.
You will go in joy and be led forth in peace.
The mountains will burst into song… before you,
And all of the trees clap their hands.”

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Put Your Hope in God
An Original Work / June 30, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

This post has been reuploaded from a thread on a completely Christian forum by me. The original post was also by me, so if you happen to have seen this on another forum, this is a reupload.

For context, I'm 19 years old and male. A lot of my peers (including me) play video games, but where our similarities end is in the nature of what exactly we play. At one point in my younger teenage years (maybe 13-15?) I played a video game called Grand Theft Auto but stopped abruptly after. Never once have thoughts of homosexuality or sexual conduct in general really notably crossed my mind. I'm a teenager, of course I know about and understand sex, but the idea of actually partaking in it has never truly been something I've been too invested in, and I'm proud of that milestone against lust considering I've been abstaining since three years ago. And I would consider myself strictly heterosexual/straight. Until these recurring dreams started.

These dreams are usually almost entirely the same. One of the main protagonists from the game I mentioned earlier and I usually have some form of intercourse. I won't go into too many details for the sake of both my self respect and your mental wellbeing, but they're far from standard and don't seem very 'loving' at all, usually revolving around some form of disrespect being passed to me during the act. I doubt this could be a sign that I need to find a partner or work on my life - this feels more lustful than anything else. Don't exactly know why this particular character considering last time I touched the game chances are I couldn't even drive, but dreams are very strange sometimes so I'll excuse that particular bit. I looked up his name (I believe it's Trevor) and didn't find any direct ties to Satan or even the Bible as a whole.

This dream is certainly lustful, and I can't find any way to make it stop before I get tempted and potentially do something rash or before it successfully pushes its agenda onto me. If anyone could interpret what exactly (most likely) Satan or some other being is trying to tell me and what this spells for my future, because I'm beginning to grow accustomed to and even comforted by these dreams which is not good at all lol. I don't trust my judgement enough to go with my interpretation (something from my past/childhood is trying to turn me away from God).

TL;DR: Having a questionable/lustful dream that I believe Satan has some part in???

Anyone who spends an inordinate amount of time attacking a particular denomination, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, is harming themselves and others.

With regards to themselves, they are distracting themselves from what the Greek fathers called “nepsis”, that is to say, watchfulness, over their own sins, by focusing on the alleged or historical sins of others which are in many cases literally ancient history. The time spent attacking Rome endlessly is better spent in repentence.

With regards to others, much of what they say has the effect of also causing great offense to other traditional liturgical Protestants, such as the Lutherans and High Church Anglicans, who are among the oldest Protestant denominations, and Moravians, who are the oldest Protestant denomination to preserve their own distinctive theological and liturgical identity (the Waldensians are older, but converted to Calvinism, and later embraced a hybrid Methodist doctrine in becoming the main Protestant denomination in Italy; their original beliefs were eccentric, not quite in line with later Protestantism, and from what we know about them, were quite possibly erroneous after the fashion of the Donatists). These liturgical Protestants share many beliefs with the Roman Catholic Church and many worship practices; many of them call their main Eucharistic service “the Mass” for example.

Furthermore, harm is caused to Eastern Christians - the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East. These churches were at one time in communion with Rome, but were historically independent, and later were separated in schisms, many of which are close to healing (for example, Roman Catholics and members of the Assyrian Church of the East can receive the Eucharist in all of each others parishes, and this is also true for some Oriental Orthodox parishes, and would be the case for the Eastern Orthodox, except most bishops are not prepared to allow it, but some probably do in certain parts of the world; indeed some of the EO churches with the most formidable reputations for being conservative are actually among the most liturgically relaxed.

The problem is that a great many anti-Catholic polemics were written by people unaware of the Eastern churches, or the history of the early church; for example, they were unaware that most of those present at the Council of Nicaea were Greek, with a Roman Emperor and two Roman legates among the 318 bishops who signed the Nicene Creed. There were also probably some Syriac Fathers, who did attend at some ecumenical synods, and perhaps even an Armenian, Ethiopian or Georgian (Ethiopia and Georgia were either the fourth or fifth countries to convert entirely to Christianity, or the fifth and sixth to embrace it officially, counting Rome; I forget the order in which they converted, but the basic order was the City State of Edessa in 301 AD, followed by the Kingdom of Armenia in 306 AD, the Roman Empire in 314 AD with the conversion of St. Constantine, the Edict of Milan and the defeat of the pagan co-emperor Licinius, who was a known persecutor of Christians (interestingly, St. Constantine’s mother St. Helena had been Christian for some time); followed by Georgia and Ethiopia.

Some people falsely claim that Constantine imposed all of these doctrine on the churches, which is hugely offensive to Eastern Christians who were persecuted by Arian Emperors like Constantius, and who had been involved in the Council of Nicaea and the later Ecumenical Synods, all of which were held in the East, in Constantinople or elsewhere in Asia Minor.

Lastly, the attacks against the Roman Church are scurrilous in many cases, ignoring the extremely important humanitarian work performed by the RCC, which is the largest charitable organization on Earth, with operations that as an Orthodox I greatly admire; due to communism nearly all Orthodox hospitals and universities in Eastern Europe were seized, leaving only some facilities in the Middle East (in particular, orphanages in Egypt, which are necessary because the Muslims cruelly oppose their religion’s objection to adoption on all orphaned children in Egypt, not just Muslims but the Christians who comprise over 10% of the population, including Coptic Catholics as well as Coptic Orthodox and Alexandrian Greek Orthodox.

The Roman Catholic Church was also indispensible in procuring the repeal of Roe v. Wade in the United States and has stood with other traditional Christian churches in opposing abortion, euthanasia and other contemporary evils.

Thus perhaps we should consider the beam in our own eye before complaining about the splinter in the eye of Roman Catholics, and cease constant and unwarranted criticism of their denomination.

Greetings, my dearly beloved Catholic friends, from an Orthodox Christian who supports reunification.

I wanted to ask you what your level of familiarity was with different Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic liturgical texts. Specifically, how many of you have read the following (in either vernacular translations or in the original languages such as Latin, Greek, Coptic, Syriac and Church Slavonic):

• The current version of the Roman Missal, including the propers for Years A, B and C of the lectionary, and the various options for the service available to priests? Either in concert with, or instead of, the disposable Missalettes issued by various music publishers that are pre-arranged for the liturgical calendar of each year?
• The General Instructions for the Roman Missal (GIRM), the book of rubrics controlling how it is to be used (sort of like the old Ordo of the Breviary and the General Rubrics of the old Missal, and the Byzantine Rite Typikon, and the Armenian Rite Directory.
• The complete Liturgy of the Hours, including proper lessons (which are primarily for the Office of Readings, formerly Matins).
• On a related note, how many of you have attended a service from the Liturgy of the Hours such as the Office of Readings, Lauds, Midday Prayer, Vespers or Compline in person? And how many of you attend churches where these are regularly available?
• Any edition of the Tridentine Missal (1962 or earlier) or other Extraordinary Form Missal (such as the 1959 Dominican Rite Missal)?
• Any Extraordinary Form Breviary, such as the 1967 Dominican Rite Breviary or the Monastic Breviary in its 1517, 1930 or other recensions, or the Tridentine breviary, or the version revised by St. Pius X?
• A traditional Roman Rite hymnal (some of which are still used with the current missal), such as the Graduale Romanum, or a hymnal issued by a ltiurigcally conservative diocese such as the Diocese of Pere Marquette, or a traditional hymnal used by multiple dioceses such as the Lumen Christie hymnal used by the Diocese of Madison?
• Any missal or breviary from a less common Traditional Latin Mass version still in use, such as the aforementioned Dominican Rite, or the Use of Lyons, the Use of Braga, the Use of Cologne, or the four ancient English uses (Sarum, York, Durham and Hereford? Or the missals and breviaries of religious orders that either had their own breviary, like the Benedictines and Cistercians (whose breviaries are different from each other), or both their own breviary and missal (such as the Dominicans ( also used by the Order of St. Vincent Ferrer), Carthusians, Carmelites, and Norbertines (Premonstratensians)?
• Any missal or breviary from a non-Roman Western Rite, either in its pre-Vatican II or post-Vatican II form (among the two surviving rites, the Ambrosian and Mozarabic Rites); there are also the extinct Gallican Rite and Beneventan Rite); all of these are variants of the ancient Gallican Rite or in the case of the Ambrosian Rite, a hybrid of Gallican, Roman, Byzantine and indigenous Milanese influence, dating back to the vigil St. Ambrose had in his cathedral in 386 AD, where he introduced Greek-style antiphonal hymns to keep high the spirits of his flock?
• Any version of the Ritual or Pontificale, which include instructions for sacraments and other services like baptisms, extreme unction and funerals and in the case of Pontificals, sacraments and other services such as Confirmation, Ordination, the consecration of churches, etc).
• Any Byzantine Rite Catholic liturgical text, such as the Divine Liturgy, the Horologian (which contains the common parts of the missal), the Horologion (containing the invariant parts of the Liturgy of the Hours), the Euchologion (containing services one would otherwise find in the Ritual or Pontifical) or the books containing the propers, such as the Octoechos, the Festal Menaion (important fixed feasts throughout the year (the Nativity of the Theotokos, the Feast of the Holy Cross, the Entry of the Virgin Mary into the Temple, Christmas, the Baptism of Christ, Candlemas, the Annunciation, the Feast of the Apostles St. Peter and Paul which we just celebrated, the Transfiguration and the Assumption? Or the Monthly Menaion, whiich has all the propers for the fixed feasts? Or the Triodion and the Pentecostarion, which contain propers for Lent and Holy Week, and the period from Pascha through All Saints Day (which in the Byzantine Rite is the first Sunday after Pentecost rather than November 1st; there are multiple Soul Saturdays as well starting in the pre-Lenten period). Some Eastern Catholic churches (and Orthodox churches) have consolidated all of these into volumes that make them easier to access, such as the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Hymnal, the “Nasser Five Pounder” and other titles (one common one being Anthologion). There is also the Typikon, which ties it all together liturgically.
• Any non—Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic liturgical books, such as the current version of the Missal of the Maronite Catholics, or of the Chaldean Catholics, of which English translations exist, or other rites where I’m not sure if English translations exist or not, such as the Syriac Catholics, Coptic Catholics, Ethiopian Catholics, etc.
• The service books of the Anglican Ordinariates, such as the Book of Divine Worship? (the name of which I really liked, as it represented the ideal of the Ordinariates, that of Anglo Catholicism but with all negative residual traces of the iconoclastic English Reformation expurgated).

What I love most about the Roman Catholic church is the liturgical diversity; some priests have multi-ritual faculties and are able to celebrate the mass in multiple rites; for example, in Los Angeles, where a rare Armenian Catholic church exists, a local Roman Rite priest learned Classical Armenian so he could celebrate the mass at that parish on the frequent occasions when they are unable to find an Armenian priest. The Armenian Catholics used to be the largest sui juris Eastern Catholic Church, but the Genocide of 1915 and the subsequent persecutions after the Soviet conquest of Armenia resulted in them becoming the smallest, although they do have a lovely monastery in Venice (and their own religious order, the Mechitarist Fathers; unfortunately in the Armenian Apostolic Church there are very few operational monasteries other than those connected with the main cathedrals in Holy Etchmiadzin, Lebanon (the headquarters of the other worldwide Armenian jurisdiction, led by the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, which owes its existence to the time when there were two Armenian kingdoms simultaneously, and its growth to mistrust of the church headquartered in Armenia after the Soviet conquest of it), Jerusalem (where there is an Armenian Cathedral that also supports the Armenian liturgical activity at the Holy Sepulchre, where along with the Greeks and the Franciscans they are one of the three main groups, and also are responsible for supervising the other Oriental Orthodox), and in Bethlehem at the Church of the Nativity (which like the Holy Sepulchre, is jointly operated by the Franciscan Brotherhood of the Holy Cross, that if i recall was given charge of the pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land centuries ago, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and Armenians).

Also I’d be interested in any information on prayer books you are using in your personal devotional life.

As a gift of fellowship to my Catholic brethren to commemorate the election of Pope Leo XIV and the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, I will do everything in my power to make my vast library of Roman Catholic liturgical books and hymnals available and to help Roman Catholics who wish to find certain liturgical books to do so.

Please pray for me, a sinner who is in ill health.

Two first responders were dead and one was in surgery tonight after an "ambush" in Coeur d'Alene, the Kootenai County sheriff said.

What to know​

Continued below.

"Work hard, brothers, edit the issue into short clips, take the pictures out of it and publish the efforts of your brothers in the pages of the apostates. Participate in the war, and spread terror, the [Islamic] State does not want you to watch it only, rather, it incites you, and if you are unable to, use it to incite others," Al Safoo allegedly wrote in another post.

There is a real threat from terrorists.

7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Hebrews 12:7-8

How would you say God has disciplined you? What form did it take?

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