Peter Kreeft

uHUsnNuVrAtCsBbqp (Guest)

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:22:43 GMT

Essays like this are so important to broadening poelpe's horizons.

eZLuKUBkdYG (Guest)

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:42:44 GMT

A bit surrpiesd it seems to simple and yet useful.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:42:59 GMT

Nobody puts constraints on God. She doesn't like it.
Andrew Greeley

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:30:29 GMT

Are you saying women are in some kind of perpetual childhood needing men to be in authority over them? That women need "parenting in perpetuity by men," as your analogy has parents in authority over children so you maintain women need men in authority/responsibility over them.

NONSENSE for you to claim women are perpetually children and never adults, and never self-responsable or family/children responsable. God has made both men and women for parenthood, and both are responsable.

NONSENSE because throughout the world it is mostly women who often solely care for their children and families ( elderly parents too taken care by daughters, wives of the son) while the former husband or common-law male spouse too often abandons the wife and children to cope on their own.

That is the reality for many, many women and children: the women fully responsable for all the family while the irresponsable man has abandoned them. This happens far too often all over the world.

Are you trying to make us laugh, it is NONSENSE what you claim, that men are given by God the "headship' over women. Women must definately "keep their own heads" as too often women end up with a dead-beat male ex-partner who has flown the coop entirely. No, God and Jesus have given women too equality of responsablility in the church and in the family and the community. It is to be mutual love, mutual respect, mutual responsability.

It is the women who were loyal. who stayed by Jesus and the men who were cowards and abandoned Jesus in the most dangerous times. Jesus chose lots of women disciples and women apostles.

Christianity survived because of the women. Women witnessed and preached to all about the most significant parts of the faith: crucifixion, resurrection. John the beloved was a youth, a child, see Mark , he is the boy who ran away wearing the loincloth at the arrest of Jesus, probably ran to tell Mary Magdala and Virgin Mary what was happening to Jesus.

It is women who were loyal, responsable, brave for Jesus. Jesus is wise and made women full co-workers in the church, full apostles like the men. Yes, ordain women too. You have it very wrong saying men are to be heads of women. They lose their heads in cowardice, irresponsability , lust and fickleness too often. I love men and I so far luckily have a very stable marriage and family, yet I know the situation in the world, that too many families have been abandoned by the fathers. It is women who need to be the head for so many famililes through no choice of their own because too many men are not willing to be any kind of "head" of others, too many men are not responsible for the welfare of their own children and wife.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:27:48 GMT

ORIGINAL: Guest

To give a more organic example, if you have children, you (and your spouse) are the "head" of them in the sense that you (and your spouse) have been given/delegated/entrusted by God (and most societies secondarily) with authority over them. Does that make you better or more superior to them in God's eyes?

Parents exercise authority over their children because children do not have the intellectual, emotional, or spiritual maturity to operate independently.

In making the parent/priest analogy is this person suggesting that men have all the authority in the Church because women do not have the intellectual, emotional, or spiritual maturity to serve in the role of a priest? Or is he saying that God discriminates against women just because they are women?

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:20:18 GMT

Men are not the "head" of women. This is a mistranslation of the words of Paul.

Mistranslation, Misquoting, substituting incorrectly the Greek word arche head, arche, authority, superiority in rank above another for the word Paul really used kephale self-less giver.

Instead Paul used the word Kephale which means NO authority, NO superiority in rank above anyone.

Kephale means instead self-less giver, to give one's life to another, as Jesus does.

from Dr. John T. Bristow's book

What Paul Really Said About Women: The Apostle's Liberating Views On Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love, 1991.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:11:48 GMT

The Second Century Church Manuals shows that women were ordained.

The Didascalia which is Third Century Church Manual also prooves women were ordained.

Yes women were ordained, and there is lots more proof. Over 200 theologians agree women should be ordained,. many have their works, books, articles listed and posted in the website, Resources section of this web too.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:08:35 GMT

                  Plenty of Proof Women Were Priests In Early Church

Many authors, theological scholars, theologians, church history professors, archeologists, have published books and articles which provide proof women were ordained in the Early Church.

The women are called priests, not priestesses.
Women lawyers are not lawyeresses.
Women doctors are not doctresses
Women judges are not judgesses.
I think you use that term to denigrate women. Women are called priests, and yes women were ordained in the first 1000 years of the church.

See Karen Jo Torjensen, PHD, Chair of Religion, Clairmount Graduate School. also professor at Institute For Antiquities and Christianity.   Her extensive, scholarly documentation and research : Author of :

When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in The Early Church and The Scandal of Their Subordination In The Rise of Christianity

Giorgio Otranto, Church Historian, Theological History professor has researched Papal letters, archeology,. church archives, gravestones and prooves that women were ordained as priests, bishops, deacons, prebyters in the first 1000 years of the church.

There are lots more theologians, archeologists, church historians who show us women were ordained.
Look at Archives, Treasures For Keeping , Theologians Who Support Women Priests.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:39:55 GMT

This is no "knee jerk reaction" to explain to you the central teachings of Jesus and God of the NT.

Women too are entrusted with the responsibilities of the faith. Jesus made no divisions in the church, we are really ONE in Christ, NO female or male, no Greek or Jew, no slave or free, all are One.

Those are not shallow, meaningless words. Jesus teaches us to be Humble Servants of one another, to love each other, to in humility serve one another. Self-less giving. Men and women, together, partners, not one in authority over the other, BOTH sexes have responsibilities to serve God and the community..They are truly One in Christ. Jesus got women to do all roles in the church to the shock and astonishment of the male apostles too and to female ones like Martha, for example.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:28:16 GMT

Jesus tells us we are to be like Children of God, like a child. That the children enter heaven.
Paul gets it wrong and tells us to put away the child in us.

As adult men and women as parents, we are to be the self-less givers, who are willing to give our life for our children. We are to be wise loving parents, to be Mutual Partners, in loving mutual respect man and woman, not man the "head" of the woman.

Jesus tells us and God's command is to Love God with all your Heart, Mind and Soul.

Women too have their own Mind, their own Head, God is the head, NOT Man. God is the head,

God is a Spirit, Jesus tells us in John 4 and female images of God are part of God too, both Old and New Testament tell us that. Man is not the "head " of women or to lord it over women.

God created man and woman, and it is good. Women too are redeemed by God and Jesus and not in perpetual unredeemed sin of Adam, Jesus gives women salvation too, No, man is not the head of women. St. Peter says in 1st Peter, that God, not the husband, is the master of women. So you are incorrect to try to say men are the heads of women. We are to be humble servants of one another and it is not about "headship." It is you who misunderstand this important concept which robs our church of the true service of women to the Catholic community. Women ought to also be ordained.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:18:30 GMT

Jesus and God and we as Parents are Kephale: not arche, not head : Kephale : Self-less giving,
willing to give our life for others in the service of others.

Not headship, not authority or superiority. Like Jesus, willing to give our life for others in the service of others.

Your obsession with men being the "head" of women is not in communion with Jesus or God.

It is Servant of Others, the Other that Jesus teaches us to be, washing the feet of the apostles.

Jesus was always trying to tell them, no, I tell you no one is to be the leader, the "head", no one is to lord it over the others, all are to be in service to each other, serve each other in humility, love, mercy, compassion.

You sadly seem to miss the very important teaching and example of Jesus: be the Humble Servant of God, no one's "head", be the loving, merciful servant of each other. Equality, dignity, women too are true daughters of God and are to do all good works too in the church. No barriers, all are ONE in Christ.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:09:43 GMT

Jesus also said ONLY GOD is the JUDGE and often Jesus refused to inflict punishment or judge others even when requested by the apostles. He taught us WE can NOT be the JUDGE of others. Love, forgive, mercy.

Jesus said too there are many rooms in my father's house and he goes to prepare them for us.

You have strange, unChristian notions in your opinions not in communion with the New Testament.

Whenever the pope is mistaken and disobeys God and Jesus we must in good conscience try to correct the pope's errors. The pope's errors harm the RC church.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:03:37 GMT

St. Therese of Lisieux was deeply frustrated at not being allowed to be a priest. From heaven she felt she could rectify that. Yet we are told from heaven and earth we should be able to answer to God, so what is in heaven should be on earth: her ordination.

Even while dying, she proclaimed her calling to be a priest and said she should have been ordained that June.

There is no getting around the truth here, she expressed many times her genuine calling to the vocation of priesthood.

She sublimated this to trying to support male priest postulates and through throwing rose petals through the hands of the statue of Jesus. Here is a prime example of the enormous suffering unjustly imposed on women by limiting what they can do in the church.

This banning of women from ordination comes from men, not from God or Jesus. Jesus chose plenty of women apostles, disciples to fully represent him to the community. Jesus did not ban women from being servants of God like the men, Jesus did not fail to teach women theology or ban them from preaching to the public or being apostles like the men. Jesus and St. Paul give a clarion call for the equality and dignity of women to do all in the church that the men do: no barriers, no discrimination comes from Jesus.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:53:07 GMT

Women are valid priests in the eyes of God. Men are the ones who perpetuate the discrimination in the Church.

They certainly will have to answer to God for that.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:48:34 GMT

ORIGINAL: Guest

I must point out your knee-jerk reaction to the term "head". You equate being the head of something synonomously with control (probably like a dictator) and superiority. That is a bastardized understanding that makes it a strawman. To give a more organic example, if you have children, you (and your spouse) are the "head" of them in the sense that you (and your spouse) have been given/delegated/entrusted by God (and most societies secondarily) with authority over them. Does that make you better or more superior to them in God's eyes? Definitely not, it just means you have responsibilities over them that you are going to be held accountable for to God.

So according to you God gave all the authority positions in the Church to men.
God discriminates against women.

What kind of God would that be?

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:38:44 GMT

ORIGINAL: Guest

Jesus does not claim to be the ""head"" of the church.

Jesus says he too is a Humble Servant of God, that only God can judge others.

Jesus asks us to pray to God, to make requests of God to loosen and bind , God is also the master of Jesus too. (Matthew) Jesus does not ask anyone to lord it over anyone. We are taught by him to serve each other, serve one another in humility and be servants to one another. It is not about ''headship"" or control of others or superiority of one to another.

It is true that Jesus never used the term "head", regarding the church. He never used the term misogynist or sexist or spoke against these types of people, so does that mean that he isn't against these behaviors? Of course not, context of what little we have of his sayings in the gospels (for those who question this assertion, please read John 21:54-25) shows how much he loved and respected all women and men. The same is true with what you claim as "head" of the church. I must point out your knee-jerk reaction to the term "head". You equate being the head of something synonomously with control (probably like a dictator) and superiority. That is a bastardized understanding that makes it a strawman. To give a more organic example, if you have children, you (and your spouse) are the "head" of them in the sense that you (and your spouse) have been given/delegated/entrusted by God (and most societies secondarily) with authority over them. Does that make you better or more superior to them in God's eyes? Definitely not, it just means you have responsibilities over them that you are going to be held accountable for to God. NOW, that being said, have men abused authority positions, paving the way for such an bad understanding of these positions? Guilty as charged. There have been many scoundrels inside and outside the Church. Important side note though, there have also been some women who have abused positions of authority, inside and outside the Church, so corruption is a human condition, not a gender one. As for scoundrels in authority positions of the Church, Jesus said there would be and geve us the first example in Judas, then in Peter's denial, then in the other apostle's cowardice from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Resurrection. Jesus taught there would be wheat and weeds in the Church, good and bad fish, all until the end when He came again and had them separated.

In Matthew 16:13-19 he proclaimed building HIS Church (not the democratic church), and that evil would never prevail over it. That would include evil from the outside as well as the inside. He said this to the apostles, not the multitudes, and to Peter alone did he entrust the keys of the kingdom with full authority of the King of kings. You cannot understand the Church without understanding the nature of the kingdom being proclaimed; and you can't understand the kingdom without understanding the covenants up to and especially the Davidic covenant in the OT. For those quick to dismiss the OT, remember that Jesus said himself that he did NOT come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. The law is the Torah and the prophets are the Haftorah ... the whole OT. So his establishing His Kingdom, His Church is a fulfillment of what was prophesied and promised in the OT.

Jesus not only said it was HIS Church, but that He WOULD come back as JUDGE, and that He is the vine, the door, the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. He spoke in love, but love does not speak without justice and truth.

Women ARE VERY IMPORTANT in the NT as in the OT (remember the story of Jael, Judith, Esther, Ruth, just to name a few). As St. Therese of Lisieux discovered after reading through 1 Cor. 11-13, was that everyone has an important place and we should fulfill whatever vocation we are able (licitly and validly) with LOVE.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:35:39 GMT

ORIGINAL: Guest

. I read that all cannot become Apostles, Prophets, and Doctors; that the Church is composed of different members; that the eye cannot also be the hand. The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires, or give to me the peace I sought. "Then descending into the depths of my nothingness, I was so lifted up that I reached my aim."

What physical impediment does a woman possess that prevents her from being a priest? If she is denied the priesthood simply because of her gender then it would be as if you were to discriminate against people with red hair or a different color skin, etc. Discrimination against women is wrong and it is a sin.

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:57 GMT

3. Didn’t Paul say that there is neither Jew nor Greek, servant nor free, male nor female, since we are all in Christ? So why should our gender matter to God? We should all have equal rights.

Whenever a verse is paraphrased to defend a particular position, take the time to find that passage and read it in context. When Paul wrote about there being neither male nor female in Christ (Gal. 3:28), he is discussing our justification through faith, not our roles in the Church. Even in 1 Corinthians 12, when Paul speaks about there being Jews, Greeks, slaves, and free being baptized into the one body of Christ, he mentions that within this one body, there are different parts:

"There are varieties of service, but the same Lord . . . All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. . . . If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. . . . Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles . . . Are all apostles?" (1 Cor. 12:5–29).

So, while Paul acknowledges the universality of God’s plan for salvation, he’s clear that there are different roles within the body of Christ. Men and woman are equal in the eyes of God, but this equality is not synonymous with sameness. They play different roles within the Church, as there are different instruments within an orchestra. Just as the instruments are arranged for a symphony, God has "arranged the organs of the body" (1 Cor. 12:18), and we are not to reconstruct the design that he has established.

Since God is the one who has appointed the different roles within the Church, no one can claim a right to any position within the body of Christ. This is especially the case with sacraments. No one—male or female—has a "right" to be a priest. It is not like a governmental office that anyone can run for. It is a sacrament, and no one has a title to grace. It is an unmerited gift from Christ.

This may strike some as unfair, but realize that God has given women other gifts that he has not given to men. For example, women bring the body of Christ (souls) into the world one birth at a time. Men do not have this privilege. Priests bring the body of Christ (Eucharist) into the world one Mass at a time—a gift reserved to them, acting in the person of Christ.

4. Didn’t the early Christians ordain women?

If you walk into any secular (and perhaps even Catholic) bookstore, you’ll inevitably run across any number of books that claim to have unearthed ancient evidence in favor of the Catholic Church ordaining women to the priesthood. The average Catholic might not know where to begin when refuting these texts, but a review of what the Church Fathers said on the matter is a good place to start (see http://www.catholic.com/answers/tracts/_wpriest.htm ).

Some early Christian women belonged to orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses, which are all forerunners of modern nuns. However, none of these orders were ordained to the priesthood. Since there were sects in the first centuries, especially within Gnosticism, that allowed women to become priestesses, the Church Fathers too the question under consideration but rejected the idea as incompatible with the faith.

Evert, Jason; "Why Can't Women Be Priests;" This Rock Magazine, January 2002

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:48:13 GMT

To the responses on St. Therese Lisieux:

Thank you for the responses. It had been a while since I'd read Story of a Soul or her poetry. I understand better what you see in the quotes chosen in this website from her writings and Celine's. My fault lies in not checking to see we are using the same definition of terms. I have submitted myself to the classical definition of "vocation", which has always meant that one is either called: to serve God in marriage (self-explanatory); to serve God as a single person (living in the world celibately); or to serve God in dedicated ministry (the renunciation of the world - so to speak - and taking vows of an order of nuns, sisters, or brothers, friars, and priests or taking vows as part of the diocesan community). As you both stated, she does say that at one time she wished she could have been a priest. She is very poetic in describing her feelings and struggles in Story of a Soul chapter 5 in discussing her vocation to serve God, but nowhere in her writings does she ever claim that: 1) she should be ordained a priest, 2) that the Church should change this teaching regarding priestly ordination, and 3)she felt her vocation as a nun was less in importance than priests. I hope the excerpts below (1st from Story of a Soul, and the 2nd is her poem Answer From the Child Jesus):

…Pauline was the only one who encouraged me in my vocation; Marie thought I was too young, and you, dear Mother, no doubt to prove me, tried to restrain my ardour. From the start I encountered nothing but difficulties. Then, too, I dared not speak of it to Céline, and this silence pained me deeply; it was so hard to have a secret she did not share.
However, this dear sister soon found out my intention, and, far from wishing to keep me back, she accepted the sacrifice with wonderful courage. As she also wished to be a nun, she ought to have been given the first opportunity; but, imitating the martyrs of old, who used joyfully to embrace those chosen to go before them into the arena, she allowed me to leave her, and took my troubles as much to heart as if it were a question of her own vocation. From Céline, then, I had nothing to fear, but I did not know how to set about telling Papa. How could his little Queen talk of leaving him when he had already parted with his two eldest daughters? Moreover, this year he had been stricken with a serious attack of paralysis, and though he recovered quickly we were full of anxiety for the future…

..On October 31, 1887, alone with Papa, I started for Bayeux, my heart full of hope, but also excited at the idea of presenting myself at the Bishop's house. For the first time in my life, I was going to pay a visit without any of my sisters, and this to a Bishop. I, who had never yet had to speak except to answer questions addressed to me, would have to explain and enlarge on my reasons for begging to enter the Carmel, and so give proofs of the genuineness of my vocation…

CHAPTER XI A CANTICLE OF LOVE
It is not only when He is about to send me some trial that Our Lord gives me warning and awakens my desire for it. For years I had cherished a longing which seemed impossible of realisation--to have a brother a Priest. I often used to think that if my little brothers had not gone to Heaven, I should have had the happiness of seeing them at the Altar. I greatly regretted being deprived of this joy. Yet God went beyond my dream; I only asked for one brother who would remember me each day at the Holy Altar, and He has united me in the bonds of spiritual friendship with two of His apostles…

… Last year, at the end of May, it was your turn to give me my second brother, and when I represented that, having given all my merits to one future apostle, I feared they could not be given to another, you told me that obedience would double their value. In the depths of my heart I thought the same thing, and, since the zeal of a Carmelite ought to embrace the whole world, I hope, with God's help, to be of use to even more than two missionaries. I pray for all, not forgetting our Priests at home, whose ministry is quite as difficult as that of the missionary preaching to the heathen. . . . In a word, I wish to be a true daughter of the Church, like our holy Mother St. Teresa, and pray for all the intentions of Christ's Vicar. That is the one great aim of my life. But just as I should have had a special interest in my little brothers had they lived, and that, without neglecting the general interests of the Church, so now, I unite myself in a special way to the new brothers whom Jesus has given me. All that I possess is theirs also. God is too good to give by halves; He is so rich that He gives me all I ask for, even though I do not lose myself in lengthy enumerations. As I have two brothers and my little sisters, the novices, the days would be too short were I to ask in detail for the needs of each soul, and I fear I might forget something important…

O my Beloved! this was but the prelude of graces yet greater which Thou didst desire to heap upon me. Let me remind Thee of them to-day, and forgive my folly if I venture to tell Thee once more of my hopes, and my heart's well nigh infinite longings--forgive me and grant my desire, that it may be well with my soul. To be Thy Spouse, O my Jesus, to be a daughter of Carmel, and by my union with Thee to be the mother of souls, should not all this content me? And yet other vocations make themselves felt--I feel called to the Priesthood and to the Apostolate --I would be a Martyr, a Doctor of the Church. I should like to accomplish the most heroic deeds--the spirit of the Crusader burns within me, and I long to die on the field of battle in defence of Holy Church.
The vocation of a Priest! With what love, my Jesus, would I bear Thee in my hand, when my words brought Thee down from Heaven! With what love would I give Thee to souls! And yet, while longing to be a Priest, I admire and envy the humility of St. Francis of Assisi, and am drawn to imitate him by refusing the sublime dignity of the Priesthood. How reconcile these opposite tendencies?
Like the Prophets and Doctors, I would be a light unto souls, I would travel to every land to preach Thy name, O my Beloved, and raise on heathen soil the glorious standard of Thy Cross. One mission alone would not satisfy my longings. I would spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth, even to the most distant isles. I would be a Missionary, not for a few years only, but, were it possible, from the beginning of the world till the consummation of time. Above all, I thirst for the Martyr's crown. It was the desire of my earliest days, and the desire has deepened with the years passed in the Carmel's narrow cell. But this too is folly, since I do not sigh for one torment; I need them all to slake my thirst. Like Thee, O Adorable Spouse, I would be scourged, I would be crucified! I would be flayed like St. Bartholomew, plunged into boiling oil like St. John, or, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, ground by the teeth of wild beasts into a bread worthy of God.
With St. Agnes and St. Cecilia I would offer my neck to the sword of the executioner, and like Joan of Arc I would murmur the name of Jesus at the stake.
My heart thrills at the thought of the frightful tortures Christians are to suffer at the time of Anti-Christ, and I long to undergo them all. Open, O Jesus, the Book of Life, in which are written the deeds of Thy Saints: all the deeds told in that book I long to have accomplished for Thee. To such folly as this what answer wilt Thou make? Is there on the face of this earth a soul more feeble than mine? And yet, precisely because I am feeble, it has delighted Thee to accede to my least and most child-like desires, and to-day it is Thy good pleasure to realise those other desires, more vast than the Universe. These aspirations becoming a true martyrdom, I opened, one day, the Epistles of St. Paul to seek relief in my sufferings. My eyes fell on the 12th and 13th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. I read that all cannot become Apostles, Prophets, and Doctors; that the Church is composed of different members; that the eye cannot also be the hand. The answer was clear, but it did not fulfill my desires, or give to me the peace I sought. "Then descending into the depths of my nothingness, I was so lifted up that I reached my aim."
Without being discouraged I read on, and found comfort in this counsel: "Be zealous for the better gifts. And I show unto you a yet more excellent way." The Apostle then explains how all perfect gifts are nothing without Love, that Charity is the most excellent way of going surely to God. At last I had found rest.
Meditating on the mystical Body of Holy Church, I could not recognise myself among any of its members as described by St. Paul, or was it not rather that I wished to recognise myself in all? Charity provided me with the key to my vocation. I understood that since the Church is a body composed of different members, the noblest and most important of all the organs would not be wanting. I knew that the Church has a heart, that this heart burns with love, and that it is love alone which gives life to its members. I knew that if this love were extinguished, the Apostles would no longer preach the Gospel, and the Martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. I understood that love embraces all vocations, that it is all things, and that it reaches out through all the ages, and to the uttermost limits of the earth, because it is eternal.
Then, beside myself with joy, I cried out: "O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! Yes, I have found my place in the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my God, Thou hast Thyself given to me: in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be LOVE! . . . Thus I shall be all things: thus will my dream be realised. . . ."

LETTERS OF SOEUR THÉRÈSE TO HER SISTER CÉLINE

… Our vocation is not to go forth and reap in Our Father's fields. Jesus does not say to us: "Look down and reap the harvest." Our mission is even more sublime. "Lift up your eyes and see," saith our Divine Master, "see how in Heaven there are empty thrones. It is for you to fill them. . . . You are as Moses praying on the mountain, so ask Me for labourers and they shall be sent. I only await a prayer, a sigh! Is not the apostolate of prayer--so to speak--higher than that of the spoken word? It is for us by prayer to train workers who will spread the glad tidings of the Gospel and who will save countless souls--the souls to whom we shall be the spiritual Mothers. What, then, have we to envy in the Priests of the Lord?

ANSWER OF THE CHILD JESUS. (by St. Therese of Lisieux)

Dear Angel of My childhood's hours!
I grant the answer to thy prayer.
Many shall be the innocent flowers
I will preserve all lily-fair.
Yes, I will cull those blossoms gay,
Fresh with their pure baptismal dew;
And they shall bloom in endless day,
In ecstasy forever new.
Their fair corollas, silvery bright,
More brilliant than a thousand fires,
Shall be the Milky Way of light
'Mid all the starry heavenly choirs.
I must have lilies for My crown, '
The Lily of the Field am I!
And I must have to grace my throne,
A sheaf of lilies in the sky.
The Angel of the Holy Face asks pardon for sinners.
ANSWER OF THE CHILD JESUS.
Dear Angel of the Eucharist!
Thou, thou dost charm Me every hour;
Thy song, by heaven's own breezes kissed,
Over My suffering soul hath power.
Ah, the great thirst of My desires!
I crave, I crave, the hearts of men.
Dear Angel, melt them with thy fires,
And win them to My Heart again!
Would each anointed priest might be
Like Seraphim beyond the skies,
What time he comes to offer Me
My pure and holy Sacrifice!
To work such miracle of grace,
It needs must be that night and day,
Souls near the altar seek a place
To watch and suffer, weep and pray.
The Angel of the Resurrection asks what will become of the poor exiled ones left on earth when the Saviour shall have ascended into heaven.
ANSWER OF THE CHILD JESUS.
Back to My Father I shall go,
Thither to draw the men I love;
And heaven's long bliss they then shall know,
When I shall welcome them above.
When the last hour of time appears,
My flock shall come again to Me;
And I shall be, for endless years,
Their Light, their Life, their Ecstasy

RE: Peter Kreeft (Guest)

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:50:13 GMT

See also besides Dr. John T. Bristow's book , Rex Weyler's 2008 book The Jesus Sayings. Another excellent book about how misquotes, mistranslations have corrupted the understanding of the teachings of Jesus.