Destiny Star's Blog

Yesterday, someone made a tweet about his radio show question about Halloween and the fact that no one was replying with a biblical justification for their opinions. I replied with a message about the Pope’s denunciation of Halloween as being dangerous to Christians with the biblical justification of Matthew 16:18, which is “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

He responded saying that he wasn’t Catholic and I replied by asking how he biblically justified that given Matt 16:18. He proceeded to make some weak arguments attacking my character given my (now former) profession, and by making a few semantic arguments about how Catholics calling priests “Father” made us apostates because of some verse saying no one but God should be called “Father.”

He made a few other comments of similar irrelevancy without ever adressing how he justified rejecting God’s one, holy, universal (catholic), and apostolic church based on semantic distinctions when Jesus himself makes statements making clear Peter’s primacy of place among the Apostles.

The relevant passage is Matthew 16:17-19 which reads (in KJV for my protestant friends out there)

“And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’”

In this, Jesus refers to the fact that he changed Simon’s name to Peter, and made a pun about the word for Peter in Aramaic (Cephas) being quite close to the word for rock. The pun works even better in the contemporary Greek, which Jesus also spoke.

Jesus states that He will build his church on Peter and that hell will never prevail against the church. He also tells Peter that he will give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven and that his word on earth will be as good as Jesus’ own personal word in heaven.

This was, at the time, undisputed to be conferred on whatever successors Peter might have. This is seen fairly clearly with Pope St. Clement’s epistle to the Corinthians of AD 95. Clement was the third successor to Peter and wrote to the Corinthians ordering them to receive back the bishops that a faction in the city had expelled.

This incident is telling because the Apostle John was alive in Ephesus at the time, which was much closer to Corinth. Clement’s letter was welcomed by the Christians of Corinth and had its effect of restoring the Corinthian bishops to their proper places. If the Corinthians appealed to Rome and Clement, it shows that they recognized the primacy of Rome over even an Apostle. If Clement wrote the letter of his own accord, it shows that the Church at Rome had already become conscious of a special authority over the rest of the church.

So, it’s pretty clear that from the earliest days of the church, back to the time of Christ, it was intended that Peter and his successors should be considered to be Christ’s Vicars on earth. So, anyone who claims to follow the bible literally and is not a Catholic, it seems clear to me, is not following with Jesus Christ’s own words recorded in Matthew 16:17-19.

The person arguing with me claimed that the Catholic church had become apostate. A simple review of the logic will show this to be impossible. Christ granted Peter and his successors primacy over the church itself, and, in fact, gave him the power to speak for Christ in matters of faith. When the man on the throne of St. Peter speaks on matters of faith, Christ says in Matthew 16:17-19, it is as Heaven wishes it to be.

Last night as I was stopping by the grocery store after going to a late mass, I saw the creepy guy from one of my last nights at work again. He was at my grocery store! This is really scaring me. I don’t know if he recognized me, since I was dressed for mass, not for work.

I don’t even know what’s going on I’ve been up all night with my pistol next to me, worried about what might happen next… I can’t bear the thought of being taken again, I just can’t. I feel like I’m losing my mind here.

I’m rocking myself, holding my rosary and praying for my safety as the night goes on. This guy just really trips all the wrong triggers with me. He was scary and creepy, and then he showed up in my neighborhood, just a few blocks from where I live. Where I live!

I can’t do this… I can’t live where I’m afraid that I’m being stalked constantly. I need to get out of this town. I need to get out of this life and into the new one that’s waiting for me. I can’t live on hold anymore.

I looked at my lease and it would cost me two thousand dollars to get out of my lease here and then about two thousand more to find a short-term place to rent near the Institute where I start school in January. I’m worried I’ll be taken and hurt again unless I make a break from my life here. If you can help me out with this, please, please help me. I need out of here.

Since I’m trying to get back on a normal person’s sleep schedule, I drank some chamomile tea and took a melatonin. That put me right out and I woke up at a reasonable time.

What happened in between, though, wasn’t something I was going to immediately blog about at first, because I’m sure some people will think I’m crazy for it.  I thought and thought and realized that there’s nothing crazy about it when I really think about it.

Last night, after falling asleep, I had a dream that was unlike anything I ever remembered dreaming about before.  Everything seemed incredibly real, but I somehow knew I was dreaming.

Shortly after I realized this, I found myself walking through a flower garden with lots of beautiful bushes, flowers, and trees I’d never seen before.  In the middle of the garden, sitting near a fountain, I saw a man and two women.

I went up to them and realized that the man was Jesus.  The women were Mother Mary and Mary Magdelen.  They said hello to me and asked me to join them.  Jesus told me right away that I was dreaming, and I told him that I knew.

We sat and talked like old friends for what felt like hours.  Jesus huged me and kissed me on the cheek and called me daughter whenever He spoke to me.  The Marys hugged me and called me sister.

They all said they were proud of me for the changes I’m making in my life, and Jesus told me that He has big plans for me.  We continued talking and eating, and in the end, they told me to enjoy my night’s sleep, and that they would try to see me again soon.

I’m not trying to claim that this was an actual appearance by Jesus and two Saints in my dream, because there’s no way I can really know that.  I don’t know whether it was just a lucid dream where I subconsciously decided I wanted to meet Jesus, Mary, and Mary Magdalene, or if they actually decided to come to me.

What I do know is that it was easily one of the most moving experiences of my life.  I woke up this morning crying with the memory of it.  I haven’t felt so perfectly loved in years, and I haven’t felt so worthy of love in years.  If Jesus Himself tells you to your face that He loves you, how can you doubt that?  How can you doubt that He’s right to love you?

I know I can’t.  Today I’m happy.

This is my prayer to my patroness, St. Mary Magdalene

St. Mary Magdalene, penitent who had the courage to wash Jesus’ feet with your tears and dry them with your hair, pray for me to your friend, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that He will grant me the great gifts you were given.

Ask Him to teach me your penitence, that I may weep at His feet for forgiveness of my sins, as you did.
Ask Him to show me a penance as perfect as yours, that I may serve Him as perfectly as you did.
Ask Him to show me the miracle of His resurrection with the clarity He showed it to you.
Ask Him to teach me humility, for while my sin of pride was not as great as yours in your sin, I am still too proud of my beauty and do not use it for His purposes.
Ask Him to grant me the peace and the joy of serving Him that he taught to you.
Ask Him, as He cast seven devils from you, to drive the devil’s influence from my life.
Ask Him to show me the forgiveness He showed to you, as I weep at His feet.

Pray for me, St. Mary Magdalene, that I may find my way out of sin and perfectly into His service as you did.
Amen

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I don’t want to turn into another church politics blogger, because there are plenty of them out there already who will always do a much better job than I ever could, because it’s so much more interesting to them than to me. I just wanted to put this out there: His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI just recently issued a proclamation.

That proclamation opened up the door for thousands of traditional Anglicans who have long been calling their churches “Anglo-Catholic” churches to rejoin with the Catholic Church. They’ll be allowed to keep most of their liturgy (which I’ve heard and is nearly as beautiful as the Traditional Catholic Latin mass), many of their priests, including married ones, will have the chance to be ordained as Catholic priests, as will any unmarried bishops.

The churches have had to state that they believe the same way the Catholic Church believes and that they accept the doctrine that St. Peter was appointed by Christ himself as the head of the Church on Earth.

This is really exciting to me! I mean, to see all these people at once coming back to the Church after having been separated from the church since King Henery VIII of England decided getting divorced was more important than his duty to God is quite simply one of God’s clear miracles!

One of the great things about this is that the man at the head of the group of Anglican parishes is Archbishop John Hepworth, a man who left the Catholic priesthood to become an Anglican priest, married, divorced, remarried, and has three children. Under these conditions, not only can he not become a Catholic Bishop, he’ll likely also be barred from even serving in the Catholic clergy.

So Archbishop Hepworth has offered up his own position in a church hierarchy, surrendering his power, influence, and position for the spiritual well-being of his flock. To my mind, this means we may have witnessed two men earn sainthood at the same time.

So pray for soon-to-be-former-Archbishop John Hepworth and his family for the sacrifices they are making as they do what is best for the souls of thousands of God’s children. Pray for Pope Benedict and give thanks for his wisdom and his willingness to ignore trivial political difficulties to do God’s work and bring souls fully back into the body of the church.

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