mark46 said:

Yup

Perhaps you think that Trump should have taken Biden's moral high ground and given up on peace in the Middle East, as Biden did.
============
Let's be very, very clear.

In both terms, Trump is doing more to bringing us closer to peace in the Middle East than anyone since Jimmy Carter.

FIRST TERM
The Abraham Accords were a huge, huge move forward. Arab countries were finally accepting Israel's right to exist as a country. Also, as a side discussion the Arabs and Israel agreed that the enemy was Iran and the terrorists that they financed throughout the region. Trump made the Arabs and Israel see common cause. Trump also had them understand the business benefits from having peace between Israel and the Sunni Arabs.

IN BETWEEN
crickets from Biden
Hamas started a war
crickets from Biden

SECOND TERM
Trump again made peace in the Middle East his #1 priority. Trump supported all of Israel's efforts to remove the terrorist threats in the region and their efforts to greatly disable Iran. Trump then got the Arabs to look the other way as Israel continued to be aggressive in killing Arab terrorists and also so many Palestinian citizens in Gaza.

Trump finally bombed Iran! He then got Israel to agree to a peace deal and to implement the first steps.

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Hooray! Trump bombed Iran!

So peaceful.

The cordoning off of the sanctuary from the outer court was the basis of what became altar rails in churches. Altar rails have been in the news lately. Starting about a year ago, a Chicago cardinal began telling his diocese they should stand and not kneel when receiving Holy Communion. Earlier this fall, that same cardinal sought to give an award to a Catholic senator who has promoted abortion and sodomy for over forty years.

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Day 3... 11/20/25

O Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Lord Jesus and our Mother, penetrated with the most lively confidence in your all-powerful and never-failing intercession, manifested so often through the Miraculous Medal, we your loving and trustful children implore you to obtain for us the graces and favors we ask during this Novena, if they be beneficial to our immortal souls, and the souls for whom we pray.

(Privately form your petitions here.)

You know, O Mary, how often our souls have been the sanctuaries of your Son who hates iniquity. Obtain for us, then, a deep hatred of sin and that purity of heart, which will attach us to God alone so that our every thought word and deed may tend to his greater glory. Obtain for us also a spirit of prayer and self-denial, that we may recover by penance what we have lost by sin, and at length attain to that blessed abode where you are the Queen of angels and of men. Amen.

keras said:

No. we will know soon enough.

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I was asking you if you think it's a PERSON, a human being.

keras said:

A knee jerk reply totally lacking in scriptural or scientific support.

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But you are trying to make the "day of wrath" nothing more than a scientific calculable event, that being a wildly powerful sunspot or 2.

keras said:

God does that, He commands the sun to send out a consuming fire to judge the peoples. Psalms 50:1-6

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Psalm 50:
1 The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

Tell me you are not trying to equate God to sunshine please.

keras said:

Your unintelligible comments and failure to prove what I point out from the Prophets- wrong, is your bad.

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I merely point out that your depictions have a basic TWO FOLD problem, one being a complete lack of effort on your part to understand and address the unseen spiritual realm and instead focus on a strictly external literal set of fairy tales, followed by a nearly complete lack of understanding the enemies, unseen, the devil and his messengers and focusing just on people.

Homily Friday, November 21 2025

33rd OT



1M 4:36-37, 52-59

"For eight days they celebrated the dedication of the altar and joyfully offered burnt offerings and sacrifices of deliverance and praise."



Joy and bliss, is the feast of the Heart to hearts, of God with us, in our being.



Luke 19:45-48

The Presentation of Mary in the Temple inspires us to present ourselves to God, in order to receive from Him all that we need in the present moment.



A suggestion to achieve this: let us follow this recommendation from Pope Saint John XXIII: "Let us simplify complicated things and not complicate simple things."



Jesus repeats what is written: "My house shall be a house of prayer."



Mary is a person in prayer. Prayer is to be in the presence of God.



Lord, thank you for being with us and in all people.



May each person allow Jesus to open their heart so that His Love may pass through them and touch the hearts of others along the way.



Biblical texts: NAB-RE

Normand Thomas.

CLEEB said:

How could Adam or Eve have any concept of what good and evil is prior to eating the fruit that would give them that knowledge ?

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I think scripture is pretty clear that Adam, the first natural man, was in fact quite totally carnal and incognizant of his condition, as are all natural people. And Eve as well. I do find it interesting that Satan attacked Eve first, technically the "weaker-inner" vessel of Adam. I think our inner man knows good and evil. Eve, as the opening post shows, did demonstrate sin in both thought and word prior to the final act of eating.

But in the closer look behind the curtain, we should be able to see that Satan had in fact entered into the minds/hearts of both Adam and Eve immediately after God first spoke to them, just as Jesus shows us in Mark 4:15 for example. That IS how God made all of us, subject to INTRUSIONS from an alien unseen agent or his own.

We all bear the infection. And if we claim we don't we're merely lying pawns of Satan.

Everyone IS tempted in MIND, beyond any question and evil thoughts defile everyone, period. God Himself in Christ being the only and sole exception.

CLEEB said:

The only thing Adam knew was that GOD told him not to eat from the forbidden tree and I would think he passed the information on to Eve.

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I said as much in the opening post, AND Adam apparently either didn't pass on the information correctly to Eve and didn't bother to correct her when she was addressing the serpent. I think she could have even been discussing the matter WITH Adam at that moment and was actually talking to the SERPENT in Adam's sorry hide. The notions that it was some physical snake in a physical tree is kinda lame imho. That's just a fairy tale account. The serpent INHABITS people. This would be a fact of scripture and not a fairy tale.

In either case they "added" to the words of God beyond any doubt by tagging on the "may not touch it" part. God never said that. It must have already been in the mind of them both to at least "touch it." And they made up their own law to try to forestall the inevitable.

In any case they sinned, and sin is, as we know from scripture, "of the devil," 1 John 3:8, Mark 4:15

There is no use blaming either Adam or Eve. Satan was in play within them both. And this carries on in all people to this day.

CLEEB said:

When GOD first created Adam and Eve they were innocent they could not have fallen from grace because they were never under grace, there was no need for grace as there was no sin.

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Well, that's really not true. IF Jesus was true, then Satan entered them immediately after God's Words were spoken to them.

How can we tell Adam was already fouled prior to the act? Because God laid the LAW and the DEATH PENALTY on him with the "do not eat OR ELSE" law. Yes, that was A LAW.

So who is the law for you ask? Why the law is for SINNERS. 1 Tim. 1:9. Yes, Adam was already a sinner. It just hadn't yet bubbled to the surface with an external lawless act yet is all. But lawless thoughts were already at work within them both as were lawless words just prior to eating. That's the progression of sin, from thought to word to deed. But it's all sin all the way through the pile.

CLEEB said:

The man had to have a free will choice to obey GOD or not.

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IF it were only a question of Adam and choices you'd have a point but that was never the case. The SERPENT was given access to the dust bodies of both of them, and all subsequently. Your position is merely overlooking the obvious culprit and trying to blame and accuse BAD CHOICES rather than SATAN. And in fact that is exactly what Satan does "in people." Satan blames and accuses PEOPLE and tries to obscure his role in the matters, crafty red dragon that he is.

And your positional subsequent whole story about then being later saved by a good choice followed by a supposedly endless stream of good choices made by you to keep you in good stead is also a false position, again, because it utterly fails to account for the enemy of us all, the tempter.

Yes my friend, bad and evil and lawless thoughts do defile us all, without any question. Mark 7:21-23

Those who claim that is not the case have merely been made lying pawns of the tempter. I don't blame people for this activity because I know who the cause of that blindness is, and it's not the persons.

Comedian Bill Maher denounced the Left's embrace of gender ideology earlier this week and claimed many on his side of the political spectrum are not scientifically sound.

During a discussion with fellow comedian Patton Oswalt on Maher's "Club Random" podcast, which aired Monday, the two discussed the post-election soul-searching among Democrats, with Oswalt pushing back against the notion that Democrats have veered too far to the political fringe.

Oswalt suggested that the widespread notion that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is "too far left" shows the country is "broken," adding that the U.S. is still reeling from having "freaked out" over the election of former President Barack Obama.

Continued below.

Dan Perez said:

And most will never believe Heb 9:18 I know that it is. your choice. and ROM. 10:9 and 1 0. is the only to be saved

and only Jesus shed BLOOD on. the. CROSS can anyone be saved , so keep reading Paul.

dan p

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I do believe Jesus is the Savior of the world and actually gets the job done regardless of various formulas and concoctions that people come up with to not save their neighbors

d taylor said:

-

​

There are no other verses supporting Job 26:7 to be translated this way.

Hang which is the Hebrew word teleh
Means to hang, suspend, or support by actual contact. never to hang on nothing: thus, to give a few instances/examples

Genesis 40:19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.”

Psalms 137:2 We hung our harps Upon the willows in the midst of it.

Ezekiel 15:3 Is wood taken from it to make any object? Or can men make a peg from it to hang any vessel on?

Job 26:7 using (supporteth the Earth upon fastenings (foundations) )." is supported by other areas of The Bible as a few times God states in The Bible, the earth is set upon foundations.

Job 38:4 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Job 38:6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,

Psalms 104:5 You who laid the foundations of the earth, So that it should not be moved forever,

But the word belimeh wrongly translated "nothing" is the crucial word. Our translators appear to have derived it from the noun blee, signifying consumption or desolation, and the pronoun meh, who which what, but the meaning "nothing" drawn from these words, seems to be very far fetched. Hebrew is a very ancient language, to all probability the most ancient of any, and this being the only place in the Bible where the word belimeh occurs, it is, of course, difficult to test the meaning. I (David Wardlaw Scott) have myself, however, not the slightest doubt, that Parkhurst is right in deriving the noun belimeh from the verb belem, to confine, restrain, or hold in, so used in
Psalm 32:9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed(belem) with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you.

and that belimeh simply means "fastenings," or "supports," and this interpretation exactly agrees with what Godh asked Job a little farther on in

Job 38:6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone

So verses like Job 38:6 support Job 26:7 to be translated from the Hebrew as

"He spreadeth out the North over the desolate' place (the abyss of waters), and supporteth the Earth upon fastenings."

And not, hang on nothing, as there is no other verse supporting this "hang on nothing"

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Well it’s interesting that the harnessing of a mule or a horse is similar to that of the opposite of wisdom.

Are we to praise our Lord verbally? Yes! Absolutely! Out in the open where others can hear? Sometimes, yes! But not for show. Not as a performance. Not to get attention. But for the purpose of sharing Christ with the people of the world, and for sharing with them the gospel of our salvation so that they can come to know the Lord, too. But under the direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit, as being led by the Spirit in what to do, and how to do it, and in what to say, so that it never becomes a flashy performance to please flesh.

And just because we sing or shout praises to the Lord with our lips, it does not necessarily mean that we are truly praising or worshiping the Lord. For we can sing and shout all kinds of praises and thanksgivings to the Lord with our lips and it mean nothing to God if our lives are not surrendered to him in obedience to him and to his commands in holy living. For our true praise to the Lord is in how we live, and in what we do in service and in obedience to him and to his teachings. So the verbal must match with how we live.

For, if we are truly rejoicing in the Lord, it needs to be in truth and in righteousness, as evidenced by our submission to the Lordship of Christ over our lives. And our joy needs to be based in the reality of changed lives which have been transformed of the Holy Spirit out of living in sin and for self, to now living for God in obedience to his commands in holy living. And we should be thankful to the Lord for rescuing us out of our sinful lifestyles so that we can now live holy lives, which are pleasing to our God, in his power.

For, because you attend a “worship service” or a large gathering of people who are all singing “worship songs,” it does not necessitate that any true worship of God is taking place. For true worship of God is in presenting our bodies to God as living sacrifices to God, acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship of God. And it involves us no longer being conformed to the ways of this sinful world, but us being transformed of God in the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what the will of God is (see Romans 12:1-2).

For our Lord is the only great God who is King above all that are called gods, but are not God. And he is completely sovereign over all that he has made and that he has brought into being. Everything is under his ultimate control, not that he has anything ever to do with evil, but he does presently allow evil to exist, and he allows people to do evil things, not in giving them approval to do evil, though. But he ultimately has control over all that is on the earth, or that is part of this world, including all who live on the earth.

And he serves as Judge and Jury over all that he has made, too. Therefore, he is not fooled by false performances of thanksgiving, praise, and adoration to our Lord, in word or in song, which are lip service only, but which are not followed up with dying to sin and living for God in walks of obedience to his commands. For he requires of us who profess the name of Jesus that we deny self, die to sin daily, and that we walk (in conduct) in obedience to his commands, or we do not have salvation from sin and eternal life with God.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; 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 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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Sing for Joy to The Lord
An Original Work / November 20, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Vambram said:

However, those Senators are very clearly implying that President Trump has issued or shall issue illegal orders to the military.

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Courts have too.

Vambram said:

I've been in the US military for more than 27 years and I have more trust in President Trump than any other President whom has been my Commander-in-Chief.

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That your right but plenty of military men have condemned his actions. Of course, we have had much to choose from in the past 27 years, including Trump

Vambram said:

President Trump has not, and he shall not issue any illegal orders to the military.

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The courts say that he already has.

johansen said:

not the ones i know.

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They do around here. My sister-in-law just retired from nursing.

JohnB445 said:

this has worried me, do I need to be a Catholic to be saved, or a Protestant? Or does the denomination have nothing to do with it?

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Denominations are just a variety of traditions that Christianity has assumed, due to the fact Christianity has penetrated different regions and different cultures. And sometimes Christianity is in decline and needs new movements to reinvigorate what has fallen.

So there are many denominations. Some denominations are in worse condition overall than others. But there may be good local churches in weak denominations. Or, there may be weak congregations in strong denominations.

Salvation is your relationship with Christ. Is his word in your heart, and are you following it day in and day out? Do you know what unconditional love is? Are you willing to maintain love in the face of attack? Are you willing to share the Gospel with those open to it?

Salvation is simply when Christ has "come into your heart," making you aware of your choice for him by the indwelling of his word within your conscience. You know you'r saved when your nature is being changed into the likeness of Christ, albeit imperfectly.

A Devil's Advocate said:

Disclaimer: This post is intended for those who follow the True God of the bible and not the lesser form of God commonly associated with Christianity (sarcasm intended).

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Why the Disclaimer? You think the God of the Bible is to be separated from Christianity?

A Devil's Advocate said:

There is this popular belief that mankind messed up. We were given a test. Should we choose correctly, we would remain in a relationship with God, completely dependent on Him. But if we choose wrong, we would end up cast out from a relationship with Him and left to eventually die, unless God were to intervene. This test was made known through the two trees in the midst of the Garden; the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course, as we've all been made to understand, mankind messed up and made the wrong choice. This is absolutely ridiculous!

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It is hardly ridiculous. Everything about the trees in the Garden was a test of loyalty with consequences. God also tested Israel in the wilderness with consequences.

A Devil's Advocate said:

Let's start with the fact that God is the creator of the very reality in which we exist. All existence comes from God. The very idea that God would create a life form, from the infinite possibilities of what He could create, that would be capable of messing up, if He did not want them to mess up, is absolute fantasy.

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Not at all. Yes, God created all existence. And yes, God has infinite possibilities. But he did create the ability for angels and men both to "mess up." He did not want them to mess up due to His holiness. But He wanted them to be able to mess up because He wanted to test their loyalty, preferring their choices based upon free will.

A Devil's Advocate said:

If God did not want man to sin, man never would've sinned. When the serpent told Eve she would become like God, the serpent was speaking in reference to knowledge, not some form of godly power capable of messing up God's plan.

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Yes, God allowed the serpent to offer Man the knowledge of disobedience to God's word. That is not "godly power," but rather, "ungodly power."

A Devil's Advocate said:

Also, the idea that God was testing man to see if he would remain loyal is just as ridiculous. In everything that God created, He said that it 'was all very good.' There was nothing God created that could possibly tempt man away from God.

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Actually, what God allowed the serpent to offer Man in the Garden was precisely God's creation of circumstances that tested his loyalty. The creation was good. The choice to disobey by Man was not good. Having free will was good. The choice to use free will to rebel against God's word was not good.

A Devil's Advocate said:

By introducing the tree of knowledge, with the commandment not to eat from it, creates the very condition where disloyalty becomes possible. Meaning, God creates the very thing to cause disloyalty. This is illogical. If He did not want man to be tempted, He would not have created the potential for it.

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False, God thought it good to give Man free will. He did not wish Man to use his free will to rebel against His word. But God thought it good to allow Man, in his free will, to rebel against His word if he so wished to do so. Who are we to say that this is illogical or absurd? It is precisely what happened!

A Devil's Advocate said:

It should also be understood that you cannot know the character/nature of God without evil.

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That does not follow. I can know God as a good God without ever having sinned, just as the good angels who never sinned still know God is holy. They say so in the book of Revelation.

May God comfort those who mourn!

Servus said:

Maybe if you didn't usually misinterpret what I say and didn't add in what I didn't say, I'd have some hope of a proper discussion rather than the usual rabbit hole.

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If I've misinterpreted or misunderstood your point, you've had more than enough opportunity to explain it better, or show me what I got wrong. Instead, you simply call my points strawmen and ignore them.

And since you've gone out of your way to miss my points, let me try to explain your point better, and see where we stand.

Your point, that even if Trump were framed, it wouldn't change our minds about him, misses one key, salient point: he wasn't framed. He did what he was accused of doing, and the evidence of that convinced a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's not all. Trump has been accused of many other crimes and misdeeds, a good number of them proven in a court of law. Fraud, defamation, sexual assault, just to name a few, and there are others going back well before his entrance into politics. His life has been public long before he descended in that escalator.

So, your implied premise that our criticism of Trump comes from bias alone is incorrect. One can easily object to Trump based on Trump's actions, and his character as has been observed and reported on for decades. The 34 felony convictions is just the tip of the iceberg.

So, of course if someone came out and said Trump was framed, it wouldn't make a difference. A negative view of Trump doesn't come from that one single trial where he was proven guilty of 34 felonies, it comes from a much larger body of evidence of dubious and questionable behavior over the years, including a previous term as president. Add to that, the fact that the possibility of him being framed for those crimes is so monumentally unlikely, it's frankly laughable. That doesn't help your premise.

Trump being framed is about as likely as Trump singlehandedly curing cancer, another ridiculous scenario some have come up with to pretend that a justifiable and understandable objection to Donald Trump could not possibly come from the man himself, but must be due to an irrational bias. That's a false premise.

-- A2SG, the real difference between Trump detractors and Trump supporters is the former choose not to ignore reality, while the latter has to......

HantsUK said:

Just remembered: To Sir with Love.

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One I forgot also, but absolute classic. We had a tv wheeled into the class so we could watch the film too.

It could be a word directed at you,
see, words people speak to you, like
'you are going to get sick'
'You lack memory'
'Cancer'

if that word enters you, it can happen it doesn't, but if a negative word enters you
it can have all kind of bad effects, including giving rights to the devil to torment.

If you have some communion with the Holy spirit, you could ask him if this is a word, and what word it was.
If the Holy spirit brings an idea of this to you, the rest is easy you just pray for it to go away.

sovereigngrace said:

The good olive tree is true Israel. We have been joined to them - the elect remnant according to grace. It is a spiritual Israeli tree. It is a believing tree. It is the household of faith from the beginning.

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The text does not say that the good olive tree is Israel.

The good olive tree is people who believe God and are saved. Not any particular nation.

this was good , i sat the gun of interest on the bench ,target is a thumb tack in the center of a paper plate @100 yd the shot was made ,the pin disappeared ,the plate fell . i went home

Valletta said:

A lot of them don't know what fascism is.

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Kind of like when some accuse others of being socialists or communists.

-- A2SG, a lot of people today don't know the meaning of many words....