Month: January 2018

Tweets Preserved (In reverse order)

mmcdonald72014 Leave a comment

2/10/18

  2. Replying to So, Putin is having so much fun beating us at checkers, why play chess? Mutually Assured Destruction? Gee, how did North Korea advance their missiles so quickly? “King me.” Kaspersky,”handling secuity for 4 hundred million” Duh!

  3. Their first move, following Machiavelli, was to control the arms, so that armed opposition to tyranny became impossible. Declaration, 2nd sentence, fourth assertion: Whenever…our right…our DUTY.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    What if the NRA were actually conspiring with and using the Kremlin to help Trump?

  4. The NRA Should Disclose Any Russian Ties. Is it running and gunning with Putin allies? Time to remove the NRA tax exemption status, long overdue.

    https://twitter.com/i/cards/tfw/v1/961570514484412416?cardname=summary&autoplay_disabled=true&forward=true&earned=true&edge=true&lang=en&card_height=130&scribe_context=%7B%22client%22%3A%22web%22%2C%22page%22%3A%22me%22%2C%22section%22%3A%22profile%22%2C%22component%22%3A%22tweet%22%7D&bearer_token=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYXBAAAAAAACLXUNDekMxqa8h%252F40K4moUkGsoc%253DTYfbDKbT3jJPCEVnMYqilB28NHfOPqkca3qaAxGfsyKCs0wRbw#xdm_e=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com&xdm_c=default3431&xdm_p=1

  5. Have you noticed that the Trump-Russians control the means of protecting free elections, and continue to entrench their tyranny in all 3 branches of U.S. Government, while no one does a thing?

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    Every election is important, but the 2018 Congressional elections are as important as they get. We need to take Congress back from Trump’s gang of followers and vote Democrat! No matter where you live you NEED TO VOTE! …

  6. I do not even bother calling the FBI: They hung up on me about Kaspersky, and will use anything I say only against me. I do still let Congress stare in blank amazement then ignore it, but that’s because we must not give up hope.

  7. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Vote Trump Pics  📘

    Again, my face, but not my clothes. No photo of my face has ever been posted on the internet with consent. Law enforcement And Congress will not do a thing. Nor about 3 death threats, being seized, or sabotage of the revote effort.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    That face you make when Trump gets officially voted in by & liberals are still crying …

  8. More

    Mark A. McDonald Retweeted CNN

    ICE is participating in murder, especially regarding the Chaldeans and also regarding the Mexicans in some cases. Will the states let ICE walk in and accessorize murder? I think we should press charges by state law for harms occurring on the other end of illegal deportations.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    With nothing but the clothes on his back and less than $300 in his pocket, this ‘pillar of the community’ was put on a plane and deported to Jordan after living in the United States for nearly 40 years

  9. Joe Biden might be the legitimate president right now, if Barack, the last elected president, is term limited.

  10. Israel: In new ‘large-scale strike,’ military bombs 12 Syrian, Iranian targets – Israel News

    https://twitter.com/i/cards/tfw/v1/962242315841503232?cardname=summary_large_image&autoplay_disabled=true&forward=true&earned=true&edge=true&lang=en&card_height=343.9930725097656&scribe_context=%7B%22client%22%3A%22web%22%2C%22page%22%3A%22me%22%2C%22section%22%3A%22profile%22%2C%22component%22%3A%22tweet%22%7D&bearer_token=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPYXBAAAAAAACLXUNDekMxqa8h%252F40K4moUkGsoc%253DTYfbDKbT3jJPCEVnMYqilB28NHfOPqkca3qaAxGfsyKCs0wRbw#xdm_e=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com&xdm_c=default3432&xdm_p=1

  11. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Dr. C. K. Coop

    Meanwhile, we will make Congress get Facebook, Twitter and Amazon back on the side of liberty by ending spy-marketing, i.e. data collection.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    Replying to @mmcdonald77
    “ur umm I beg to differ… The more than 54% of the VOTERS– made up of WOMEN– WILL show up AND show OUT in 2018!”…

  12. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Jackie

    Come join the CLC, or start your own centrist party. “Republican” used to mean NOT TYRANNY!

    Mark A. McDonald added,

  13. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Jackie

    Trump-Putin method. And we’ve been chasing that memo about, while he replaces FBI and CIA one position at a time. Indict and impeach, before it is too late.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

  14. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted lennutrajektoor

    It’s really the hookers who control Russian politics, and the men are just the “escourts”-KGB is tricky! Melania just hired the Don cause she’s Czech! She is the real president. ‘Least she has a bruisable heart!

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    BREAKING A Moscow escort who shagged Russian oligarch Deripaska on his yacht in Norway blow how Russia’s government grey cardinal Sergey Prihodko had a 3 day negotiation about Russian sanctions when Paul Manafort offered Trump campaign weekly reports. …

  15. As long as we allow data collection, targeted interference and companies like Kaspersky to control 4 hundred million computer security accounts from Moscow without blinking an eye, they will control speech, press and the voters. But yes, paper backup ballots, sealed copies kept.

  16. Liberty now hangs with justice by the thinnest of threads, because everyone must stand up at once, and no one who can see will stand.

  17. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Olivia Massey

    Russian interference is a violation of voter rights, and the 2016 election does not confer legitimacy. Void the election and revote, #17-857 (9th Amendment); #16-1464 . The latter bolsters Mueller as special master appointed also by the court.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    👇🏻…good point…but let them try…can dance-punch, too💃🏻🥊…☺️…👇🏻

  18. We must restore the Fourth Amendment, the right to be secure in our homes from cameras and microphones and etc., or we will never have another free election. Speech and Press are channeled and controlled by internet companies, who are being used, and we just do not get it.

  19. More

    Even impeachment, proposed now three times in the House, receives NO PRESS because the Americans are corrupt and do not understand their own government. End data collection and control of the internet by companies paying off Congress with “Campaign contributions.” Restore 4&1A.

  20. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Mark A. McDonald

    Democracies cannot foresee. We will not believe disasters are occurring until the blood is actually on the pavement. Void the 2016 election due to Russian interference: Supreme Court Case #17-857 is being obstructed as was #16-1464 and #16-907. NO PRESS.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    Tyranny is seizing the law. Maybe Mueller will just continue to investigate for, oh, eight or ten years- just as if there were no investigation at all, no, better!

  21. What does Socrates say? Just like someone who has figured out how to control a great, huge beast…” The internet is new, and someone figured out how to use it to control politics. Just like the election of 2016, over before we knew what hit us. We cannot imagine the perfidity.

  22. Meanwhile, with Crimes and obstruction piling up, all the gangster has to do is straighten the frosting on the cake like a Toupee, and America won’t do a thing to fix this. We are toast if we do not ALL stand up AT ONCE. INDICT, IMPEACH, REVOTE!!!

  23. America is like, “Ok, Putin chose our president. How is the stock market doing?” Why does the implication not sink in? IS CONGRESS ON OXY!!

  24. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Adam Goldman

    Entrenching tyranny one office at a time. WE WILL GET NUKED. WHY DOES AMERICA NOT GET IT!!! INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE!!!

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    SCOOP: No. 3 Official at the Justice Department Is Stepping Down

  25. The Americans are just going to sit here on our hands like it is a foregone conclusion that we must accept Putin’s choice for and wait and see what else he has in mind! Any Remedy get ZERO PRESS!? Go figure!

  26. More

    Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Anabelle

    Why do we not deal with this mobster, then? INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE!! Any other ideas? Power of the purse? 50 State secession?…

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    Russian mob boss Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, ‘The Russian was not nabbed by US law enforcement. Since being indicted in the United States a decade earlier for allegedly rigging an ice skating competition at the 2002 Olympics, he had been living in Russia’…

 

2/5/18

  1. You don’t need to go to church to get back into the fold, but assuming one is there because one is there might keep him from it.

  2. Trying to know for most is like trying to see the sun while the moon is in front of it, and love is the same, impeded by the shadow. The answer is penance, continuous, otherwise known as conquest of the fear of death.

  3. Witch hunt? Find water.- Dorothy of Oz (the Real one).

  4. An old teaching of the services is to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, because these bastards are in with the Accuser, and will use appearance to paralyze action. But that is all they know, appearance, and will dissolve like the wicked witch of the West at substance.

  5. Articles of impeachment have been proposed in the House 3 times now, there is no press, except the bald Trumpster assertion that it is impossible. Same with the Supreme court cases- Which is the proper way to deal with an illegitimate election, again, contrary to Putin +.

    I am not watching the Superbowl and on Twitter it sounds a nihilistic shitshow. MLK is being used to sell cars? Trump nuclear war jokes to sell grills? All this is actually happening?

  6. Apocalypse or dystopia? Take your pick, if we do not all stand up at once, defend the FBI and the rule of law. Just say “NO” to Putin! INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE, #17-857 Supreme Court Case. No press, so no one even knows about it. Articles of impeachment have been proposed 3X!!

    I am not watching the Superbowl and on Twitter it sounds a nihilistic shitshow. MLK is being used to sell cars? Trump nuclear war jokes to sell grills? All this is actually happening?
  7.   Retweeted

     11h11 hours ago

    More

    Putin-bots are crankin’ out 40-60 tweets a minute callin’ for the firin’ of Rod Rosenstein. all in the middle of the SuperBowl. Sounds like somethin’ big is about to happen.

    Direct message

  8. If we all stand up at once, maybe we can preserve Liberty without a civil war, or even anyone getting hurt. INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE!!!

  9.  Lets all crowd flock to Putin’s platform with the “Republicans” [sarcasm]
    Putin-bots are crankin’ out 40-60 tweets a minute callin’ for the firin’ of Rod Rosenstein. all in the middle of the SuperBowl. Sounds like somethin’ big is about to happen

  10. A little prophesy from Pink Floyd, if we do not all stand up at once. Pink Floyd – Waiting for the Worms.

  11. If we were still a great nation proud of our liberty, we would not be wondering whether our future were dystopia or apocalypse.

  12. Britain, Canada and Australia would not be the hope of free peoples,alone, while tyranny steadily advances internally and outside, in Marxist Russia and China and the struggling Islamic nations.

  13. We would stand up for one another, and our government would not even consider suspending constitutional rights one person and one issue at a time.

  14. Imagine if we were still a proud, free nation. We could protect refugees, and help them to return to dismantle the tyrannies which made it necessary for them to leave.

  15. We need 67 of the Senators who voted 98-2 to keep the sanctions for the torture of Magnitsky. INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE!!!

    Republicans distance themselves from memo… “I think it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest the special counsel should not continue his work,” Stewart told Fox News Sunday. “This memo, frankly, has nothing at all to do with the special counsel.”

  16. There is not a single person around Trump or in his campaign without questionable of indicted ties to Russia.

  17. Encouraging in one way and discouraging in another: It is amazing that Trump resorts to obviously foolish attempts to obstruct the Trump-Russian election investigation.

  18.   Retweeted

     21h21 hours ago

    More

    Pretty shocking. Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus tells NBC he “never heard of Majinsky Act” as he goes all in on ‘adoption’ narrative on the Veselnitskaya/Trump Jr meeting. Go to minute 5:23 in video

 

Here is a newer string, of fundamental points repeated. The numbering is involuntary.:

  1. Indict and Impeach to end the obstruction, such as interference with the efforts of citizens to bring a Supreme Court case. Impeachment will allow the court to proceed and void the illegitimate election.

  2. The effect is the rise of fascism leading America toward civil and foreign war, to Putin’s delight. Whether Putin is a fascist, communist, or just a tyrant who thinks these can be used does not matter. If we continue, this will destroy America.

  3. Trump knew. But the Court can void the election even without “proving” collusion. Russia wanted us to have an incapable president, who would otherwise have been eliminated in the primaries.

  4. Again: A usurpation has occurred in the American presidency. Throughout the primaries and the election, Russian control of the internet, as through data collection, fake news and targeted interference allowed this to happen.

  5. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Ted Lieu

    Nor is there a word in the Constitution that says the Court cannot void an illegitimate election. Voter rights are violated by data collection and targeted Trump-Russian interference, as through Kaspersky.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    Now is a good time to remind people that there are no words in the U.S. Constitution that say the President can’t be prosecuted for committing crimes, including Obstruction of Justice or Perjury. A fundamental tenet of our democracy is that no one is above the law.

For the Trump organization to attack free political action, as of citizens bringing a Supreme Court case, is highly unconstitutional, but Congress and the FBI did not listen or understand. It is proven and traceable by the photo of my face used by trumpics, + what they did to me.

  1.  Supreme Court case #17-857 strengthens Mueller by asking the court to appoint a special master, so that Mueller cannot, for example, be simply replaced by Trump. This and #16-1464, written up by , have been attacked by the executive’s organization, as was #16-907.
  2. We stand on the verge of Trump being able to entrench Trump-Russia in our agencies and courts. We must INDICT, IMPEACH and Revote, or what comes after Trump will be civil war or fascist tyranny in America.
  3. …a leader of skinheads now penitent, describes in a book how white supremacists have indeed spent 30 years infiltrating, including the FBI. KKK who never smoked weed, for example, would walk right past the strict measures meant to exclude organized crime and ensure integrity.

  4. Here again: projection accusation? Trump says there is a secret society inside the FBI of those opposed to him. 1) There are those opposed to genuine crime, who will be partisan against gangsters in the White House, but, 2) the fellow who was on 1A recently,…

  5. Ja, Donney, the FBI used to be partial-against crime, like Trump-Russia-if you can’t fire and replace them fast enough. Nice try. They have to say something. INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE!!!

Here’s an earlier string:

  1. The “whites” are in a position to oppose white supremacy, where the “browns” are less able, without causing racial division. Bonhoffer: You are next! Stand up against tyranny. The truth is, they’re a bunch of sissies, Putin included. Even if not, u got something better to do?

  2. The Michigan governor, whom Trump intimidated, allows ICE to enter his state, violate law and participate in murder, under the cover of immigration law. That is how tyranny works, and this is race based tyranny.

  3. ICE has found lots of brown immigrants brought here as children, but I’v seen only 1 “white” guy. The Chaldean Iraqis in Michigan were targeted in a corrupt treaty with the Muslim Iraqi gov’t: Their lives are in danger in Iraq, so ICE is participating in MURDER, illegal.

  4.  The Three Secrets of Fatima

  5. If Trump is allowed to implant Trumpsters in the FBI and the Judicial branch, American justice will soon work just like ICE. You thought tyranny would be more obvious than it is before it becomes entrenched? Move. Act. NOW INDICT! IMPEACH!! REVOTE!!! Much damage is already done.

  6. PFFF!: The “two big questions” are not even the simple obvious questions: Did someone tell you the election would be thrown? And was the weakening of NATO to be a reward, to be followed by other influence in U. S. politics? But see Jeffy trip and lie: “not remember the details”

  7. When I called the federal offices overseeing elections and government ethics, to ask what constitutes election fraud, I was told first they only investigated money, not, say influence for interfering with voters by data collection. Then they told me to go read Tik Nat Han.

  8. The executive had no problem seizing me for 20 days and trying to drug me on a perjurous third hand complaint without a single word on my side. Subject Donney to the same, since we “equal,” eh?

  9. They surely did a thorough twelve year investigation before destroying Al Franken and Garrison Keillor

  10. The wheels of Justice sure turn slowly once power has what it wants. Oh, then procedure must be followed, for ten or twelve year investigations that just cannot manage to attain philosophical certainty.

  11. Twitter archives are gone. Crimes committed are scrubbed, nothing remaining but the effect.

  12. Mueller needs to ask Don the simple questions, and bust him when he lies or tells the truth or will not answer: Why were you prepared to remove sanctions for Magnitsky and dissolve NATO? Did someone tell you the election would be turned, and the means undetectable?

  13. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Daniel Dale

    When tyranny is allowed to seize the law, every thin legal cover allows intimidation: which, by the way, IS a genuine crime. No one will do a thing. Still like your FBI?

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    A man who volunteers to help unauthorized immigrants has been arrested on the federal charge of illegally “harboring” them – after agents “conducted surveillance on a building where two immigrants were given food, water, beds and clean clothes.”

  14. The problem with Jerusalem: If the temple is restored, will they not pick up where they left off? James the Just was thrown from the top. Will they not resume animal sacrifice, and the killing of Christians? What have we learned?

  15. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted The Detroit News

    F Amazon. Did you hear, on the BBC, what one gives up to shop there?

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    .: Our failure to lure speaks volumes about our competitiveness vis-a-vis the places that made the cut.

  16. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Anabelle 🕊

    Anyone else ready to go smash up a troll farm? Bring jackets for the girls when we evict em- its cold in St. Petersberg.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    ‘The chief of the general staff, Gen Sir Nicholas Carter, has described Russia as the biggest state-based threat to the UK since the cold war and warned that hostilities could begin a lot sooner than the UK expects.’
  17.   Retweeted

    Dr Kelly Sennholz‏ @MtnMD Jan 22

    Dr Kelly Sennholz Retweeted Ed Krassenstein

    Wilmington, N.C. reports Russian spy ship off their coast. HUGE spy ship.

    Dr Kelly Sennholz added,

    BREAKING: A Russian spy ship has been spotted 100 miles off the coast of North Carolina. NOT BREAKING: Donald Trump does nothing!

  18. What is wrong with us? The Ruskies threw our election, and by the self interest of those elected, and the stupidity and cowardice of everyone else, we are resolved…to DO NOTHING!! INDICT! IMPEACH! REVOTE!!! But you do not get it, and my voice is stifled. Congress is on Oxy.

  19. They, or it, might kill us if mattered, but it does not. They monitor and stifle our voice. I’d cry, but tears are meaningless. Orwell’s Winston tried to imagine, but he could not. Dystopia would be here, but instead it is apocalypse.

  20. BBC: Amazon has indeed invented the “smart cart” to eliminate the supermarket checkout- and put us in, or simply built it around us, without asking. People go in, and no one is smashing. Why? What is wrong with us?

  21.   Jan 22

    UK Treausry freezes assets of Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun (suspected of murdering Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006)

  22. Mark A. McDonald Retweeted VoterSupress StoleIt

    Gerrymandering is sin.

    Mark A. McDonald added,

    PA Supreme Court ruled that GOP-drawn districts “clearly, plainly and palpably” violate state’s constitution & ordered map be redrawn in the next 3 weeks…

 

 

 

What Algorithm Causes These Things To Appear In This Order?

mmcdonald72014 Leave a comment
When I access my Twitter page, these things appear, and we cannot find any reason other than that this is more useful to a Trump-Russian Troll, both for me and them to see. As I have said, I believe I received three death threats, great harrassment, and no help at all from the nine levels of government to which these things are reported.

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “No news may be good news! https://t.co …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/912682283651485696

Sep 26, 2017 – Replying to @mmcdonald77. It is actually October 2 and I do think that no news is good news this time. I believe they are getting their ducks in a row before saying. 1 reply 0 retweets 1 like. Reply. 1. Retweet. Retweeted. Like. 1. Liked. 1. Mark A. McDonald @mmcdonald77 Sep 26. More. Copy link to Tweet

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “This Russian method of seizing and …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/930513471581671425

Nov 14, 2017 – … of seizing and using the law-as to accuse Browder of the murder of Magnitsky- will take over U. S. politics if we allow obstruction, etc.https://twitter.com/MelanieLieberm1/status/930506615249358848 … Mark A. McDonald added,. Melanie Lieberman @MelanieLieberm1. Replying to @mmcdonald77. Yes.

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “@marksmall1973 Now do you see why …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/914998870798716929

Oct 2, 2017 – Replying to @mmcdonald77 @marksmall1973. If the turning of the election was covert, the court can establish that by being addressed by the agencies, either in the lower courts or by listing those like Hayden as you have done or literally bringing them in. In original Jurisdiction cases, the court can hear …

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “Google mmcdonald77 Twitter- which is …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/923241271233310726

Embed Tweet. Google mmcdonald77 Twitter– which is how I get to my account. Listed second is something from January related to Trumps “sore loser ad hom. 10:34 AM – 25 Oct 2017. 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes. Reply. 1. Retweet. Retweeted. Like. Liked. Mark A. McDonald @mmcdonald77 Dec 18. More. Copy link to Tweet

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “@marksmall1973 We might try again, if …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/914915395206881281

Oct 2, 2017 – Pending Pending follow request from @mmcdonald77. Cancel Cancel your follow request to @mmcdonald77. More. Copy link to Tweet; Embed Tweet. Replying to @marksmall1973. We might try again, if the question of election fraud is different from foreign invasion. We let the Russians elect our president …

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “@marksmall1973 I am trying to call you …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/915000131229044736

Mark A. McDonald · @mmcdonald77. PhD Politics; Psych, Lit, Bible, Lyrics, Hist. Joined October 2014 …. I am trying to call you, but your message box is full. Twitter was questioned by Congress along with Facebook. Call if you get a good time-m. 4:46 PM – 2 Oct 2017. 0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes. Reply. Retweet. Retweeted.

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “@marksmall1973 Why?”

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/914913261694455808

Replying to @mmcdonald77 @marksmall1973. If the turning of the election was covert, the court can establish that by being addressed by the agencies, either in the lower courts or by listing those like Hayden as you have done or literally bringing them in. In original Jurisdiction cases, the court can hear evidence. 0 replies …

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “@westcoasttruckr @VoteTrumpPics …

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/816930448588898304

Mark A. McDonald @mmcdonald77 22 Dec 2016. More. Copy link to Tweet; Embed Tweet. Replying to @VoteTrumpPics. Indictment for election fraud. Impeachment. Deal with the U. S. CIA! 1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes. Reply. 1. Retweet. Retweeted. Like. Liked. Jim @westcoasttruckr 22 Dec 2016. More. Copy link to …

Mark A. McDonald on Twitter: “@BrooklynPoets @thirdmanbooks Ouch!”

https://twitter.com/mmcdonald77/status/875042250111279104

Jun 14, 2017 – Mark A. McDonald · @mmcdonald77. PhD Politics; Psych, Lit, Bible, Lyrics, Hist. Joined October 2014. Tweets. © 2017 Twitter; About · Help Center · Terms · Privacy policy · Cookies · Ads info. Dismiss. Close. Previous. Next. Close. Go to a person’s profile. In this conversation. Verified accountProtected …

The Three Secrets of Fatima

mmcdonald72014 4 Comments

   Jack Van Impe does not study the Catholic mysteries, nor does he consider political philosophy in order to understand Twentieth Century tyranny. So, despite having a most solid study of Daniel and the Revelation out of the Baptist tradition following Scofield, etc, he does not raise questions nor ascend from hypotheses. Often he presents an interpretation, then says that such a thing, such as the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem, is in scripture, when that is not quite what is in there. The Baptists base their confidence in the rapture, by which it is those other people who suffer the tribulation, upon a reading that inserts the Rapture at 4:1 of the Revelation. But the rapture, discussed by Paul, is not directly addressed in John’s Revelation, and it is not at all clear how Paul and John fit together. In John, “Come up hither” is indeed repeated at 11:12, in a symbol, and indistinguishable from that following martyrdom.

   In 1917, from April though October, three children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary, attended by a “miracle of the sun,” filmed and witnessed by 70,000 people. What more can we say? They would not believe, or even inquire, if one should literally return from the grave and tell them. But these are wonders, not things we understand, which are marks or indications of a genuine vision. Go look up the history surrounding the event. I have seen the 1917 video. Here are the three secrets, the third released in part (there is a lacuna) only in 2000 by John Paul II, who, like the evangelicals, seemed primarily concerned, rightly or wrong, to read himself into the prophesy.

   Two of the Children died young, and Sister Lucy was left in charge of the message. The first two were published, while the third remained the preserve of Lucy, her Bishop and the Pope.

I: After she showed the children a terrifying vision of Hell, she said to them:

You have seen Hell, where the poor sinners go.* To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my immaculate heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.

II:

   The war [World War I] is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine and persecutions of the church. and of the Holy Father.

   To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; The Holy Father will have much to suffer., various nations will be annihilated.

In the end, my Immaculate heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc…

III: “After the two parts which I have already explained…,”

   …at the left of our Lady and a little above, we saw an angel with a flaming sword in his left hand. Flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire, but they died out in contact with the splendor that our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand, pointing it to the earth with his right hand, the angel cried out in a loud voice, “Penance, Penance, Penance!

   And we saw in an immense light that is God, something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it, a Bishop dressed in white. We had the impression that it was the Holy Father. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women religious going up a steep mountain at the top of which there was a big cross of rough hewn trunks, as of a cork tree with the bark; before reaching there, the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins, and half trembling and with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way, having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big cross he was killed by a group soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the cross there were two angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls  were making their way to God.

I and II are from Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity, The Third Secret of Fatima, pp. 48-49.  The third is from the Vatican website, released in 2000. Sister Lucy died in 2007.

   There is a lacuna evident because the second and third parts of the secret do not flow into one another, and the third secret begins with three dots, indicating the it indeed was said “after,” but something was left out. In a video, “Akita and the Fatima Secret,” the narrator, David Dionisi, at 1:10-1:36, or early in the first minute of the video, flashes what he says is a reconstructed third secret, in a “statement based on” things said “by people who read it.” It is also said that the whole text of the third secret would not be released by those entrusted to release it. The source document is a Book, Akita The Tears and Message of Mary, by the Reverend Teju Yusuta, approved in 1984 by Bishop John Tujeroito. The message was communicated to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa. It is the message of Mary, Our Lady of Akita, and the accompanying miracle of 101 occasions of tears on a statue of Mary at Akita are communicated. This seems genuine for a number of reasons, one of which is that is sounds translated. Another is that it refers to the 21st century, which means that John Paul II misinterpreted 3b as referring to him, except that b may have indeed been averted, to occur later. It seems to be 3a, while what was released is 3b. The text is as follows:

In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, but if people do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. A great war in the 21 st Century launched by Satan’s partisans in the East will come. Those surviving will envy the dead. Death will briefly reign, raised to triumph by the brothers of death, who seek to be masters of the earth. All the world will be thrown into great confusion. Fire and smoke will fall from heaven and waters from the ocean will turn to steam, throwing their foam into the sky. Millions of people will die by the minute. The only arms which will remain for you will be the rosary and the sign left by my son. Each day recite the prayer of the Rosary and pray for the Pope, Bishops and priests. A time of very severe trial is coming for the Church. Satan will reign over the highest places and succeed in infiltrating to the top of the Church. One third of the clergy will serve Satan. Entire nations will lose the faith and almost everyone on earth condemned to hell. Cardinals will oppose Cardinals and Bishops will oppose Bishops. Rotten changes in Rome must not be retained. The Church will be obscured. At last, those who survive these events will repent and become true followers of Jesus Christ, and serve him like before, when the world was not so corrupted…In the end, my immaculate heart will triumph.

COMMENT

   The vision contains deep thoughts unusual for children, and one indication that it is a genuine vision is that it came to children. Another is the compassion of our Lady for the poor sinners. A third involves the deep understanding of what  has occurred in Russia in the context of the history of the West. Hell indeed gaped wide in 1917, and we do not usually think of what occurred in the Twentieth Century as requiring explanation, but one million people were killed by their own governments per year in Russia, China Cambodia and in the right wing version, allowed to ascend in part because of the opposition of fascism to Marxism or “Communism,” in Nazi Germany. A new kind of evil possessed many, or henchmen able to enact such horrors could not have been found. These indeed had better hope the soul is not immortal, and we do not become eternally what we become by the actions we do on earth. That each is judged by his works (Revelation 20:12) may mean just this, and nothing quite like the question (of whether we are “saved” by “faith” or rather by “works”) Luther and the Catholics later made of it. What we do to others is inflicted on ourselves, so that if we do not forgive others, we are not forgiven. And how do you expect the Lord will have mercy on you, if you will not even have mercy on your dog?

*”If people do not cease offending God:” Modernity is a reaction against medieval Christianity, which is compelled to assume knowledge for itself, while measuring all else by its own opinion. Splintering the Church and making more opinions does not root out this failure of humility common to humanity. So the Protestant idolatrize the Book, rather than the Pope, and condemn any who indicate that there is no support in scripture for such an opinion, literally no saying that the Bible is the word of God. If one wants such a medieval teaching, one may as well turn to a medieval text, as is the Quran. But Rome did not recognize the Greek, Armenian, Chaldean, Syrian or Coptic Eucharist. This means that Rome took its own and love of its own to be above God and the truth and the Holy Spirit. He who loves his neighbor is a Christian, and if the soul is immortal, becomes this eternally. Salvation is a spiritual mystery of which the sacraments are images, not that the two cannot be synonymous. Justin Martyr, the first Christian to read Plato, saw that these were Christian” despite appearances in the world. If we repent our sin, we may be reborn, and this is by the Christ, even if it is called “Krishna.” But the conventionally baptized mob murderer or Inquisitor gets to live forever with his crimes in light of the truth if the soul is immortal, and until death and in infamy if the soul is not immortal, as we conceive of this in our spatial and temporal image. By the way, if the soul is immortal, it is so now, and we, what, did not notice? The obviousness of this truth has made many Atheists.

   So out of modern Atheism, following the French Revolution, the Christian imagination is literally inverted. Or did it not occur to us that Marxism, most similar to the Christian imagination in certain ways, surely does not arise from nihilism, nor from history, historicism, nor from modern science? Beginning in atheism, fueled by the hatred of medieval Christian law, and aiming at an Utopia, German philosophy inverted the modern imagination. We say this anti-Christianity is the result of making a nomos out of the Christ, and is why we teach the distinction between the Messiah and a lawgiver. In fascism, the same occurs on the right, fueled also by the hatred of Marxism-out of the frying pan and into the…

   World war II is especially a punishment of the world for its crimes. As we now see even more clearly, the consecration of Russia may have brought peace though men do not understand or even believe how these things work by nature upon the human imagination through the course of history. The division between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Rome- which we identify even with the two witnesses, the Olive trees, the legs of the ten toed statue seen by Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar- is based upon our making the light into a law and holding it as our own, something we posses, so that we can then go about saving others, assured of our own salvation: taking rebirth to be something akin to joining or being the fan of a certain football team.

   But the Baptist reading allows for a crucial distinction between the seven heads and ten horns of the beast in the Revelation. The seven heads are indeed seven empires through history, perhaps world empires that thought to rule over Jerusalem. The last head is indeed a revived Roman empire and the ten horns are the ten toes and ten “kings,” upon whom the whore of Babylon enters riding (Revelation 17). So, you all wanna “make” a world religion and start persecuting heretics? All the sins of the Church, including the Jewish murder of Christians, unrepented, may be repeated in the end times. The Jews in Israel may be set up for a false messiah, killing all but 144,000 Christians who happen to be Jews by blood, under a Jewish fascism, and the Christians about to suffer a persecution similar to the 10 that began with Nero and ended with Diocletian, indeed a martyrdom of the two witnesses, to scorn the hope of joining the right team in order to be raptured. Jews are not exempt from fascism because they suffered the holocaust, and indeed have a better argument for racial superiority than the “Whites.” But fascists do not even believe their own drivel, but rather use any and every opinion to gain power by force and fraud. One saved turns to the Christ for its own sake, not to gain salvation as a reward, or for what comes out of it, like a child obedient to avoid punishment and get candy, though the pleasures of the soul are true. (Righteousness is healing and refreshment, says the Proverb.) But our suggestion is that the Bride of the Lord is not a thing made by man.

   Sister Lucy herself identified the three secrets with Revelation 9-11. She was obedient to her Bishop and the Pope. John Paul II thought he was saved from assassination by Our Lady of Fatima.

   The consecration was to be be done with all the Bishops, and there is some question as to whether this was done about 1984, leading to the conversion of Russia. We think it obvious that “all” includes the Greek Orthodox, that their sacraments are fine despite the division that grew through history, and that if we kept our divisions while repenting the thought that these regional differences are fundamental, Putin would not now be poised to take the world or cause the nuclear destruction of 1/3 of the globe, the prelude to the Seventh trumpet and the Antichrist. But as Luke says, “The end is not at once.” We do not even care, but the two-dimensional reading of the Revelation, looking for the “end of the world,” is a joke for people who do not care about reading or the truth, content by compulsion to take opinion for knowledge.

   Finally, the mirror reminds of the self-critical ability imposed upon the third millennium church, as by the molestation scandals, and recalls what we call the prophecy of the millstone (Matthew 18:6). We are now in the bi-millennium of the life of Jesus, as Jack Van Impe indicates from Hosea (6:2), “After two days, he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up.”

The following is from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html

Pope Benedict XVI, then Cadinal Ratzinger, comments: …

…the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism.

  1. It may be clearer after 1960 because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, eh? Just 15 years prior, Russia was an ally opposing Hitler, and no one except, like, Churchill knew they were killing and torturing millions to re-make them.

  2. Papa has it fine here: “…the prediction of the immense damage that Russia would do to humanity by abandoning the Christian faith and embracing Communist totalitarianism.” Communism is an intellectual perversion, an inversion of the Christian Kingdom.

  3. What if WE repent, the sins of the church, such as killing “witches,” heretics, and allowing the robes of the priesthood to be used to hide the molesters of young boys? Penance, Penance Penance! Loving OUR OWN doctrine and group more than God.

  4. The unity of the Christian Church already exists, and is not made by man. Nor is “unless one is born of water and the Spirit.” The divisions are lesser. Jesus and Jefferson: is that too hard for the church that killed heretics? Madison: What we owe to God we cannot give to men.

    Having asked “God” on Twitter to cancel the apocalypse as a Christmas present for Jesus, the answer was “Repent like Ninevah.” This probably won’t happen. 7x worse if mankind continues this way. So I did a blog: Jonah and the Ninevehite Penance via

    Tweet: In the history of the West, the rejection of Christianity is due the assumption of the authority of the Spirit in combination with the murder of “heretics.” The atheistic history led to Marx, and Nietzsche, or Hitler, the principle of power. Imagination inverted: DIABOLIC utopia.

    (translation) (6) 

    … This will entail my speaking about the secret, and thus answering the first question.

    What is the secret? It seems to me that I can reveal it, since I already have permission from Heaven to do so. God’s representatives on earth have authorized me to do this several times and in various letters, one of which, I believe, is in your keeping. This letter is from Father José Bernardo Gonçalves, and in it he advises me to write to the Holy Father, suggesting, among other things, that I should reveal the secret. I did say something about it. But in order not to make my letter too long, since I was told to keep it short, I confined myself to the essentials, leaving it to God to provide another more favourable opportunity.

    In my second account I have already described in detail the doubt which tormented me from 13 June until 13 July, and how it disappeared completely during the Apparition on that day.

    Well, the secret is made up of three distinct parts, two of which I am now going to reveal.

    The first part is the vision of hell.

    Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.

    We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly:

    “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world”.(7) 

     

    THIRD PART OF THE “SECRET”
    (original text)

      

    (translation) (8) 

    “J.M.J.

    The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.

    I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

    After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

    Tuy-3-1-1944”.

     

    INTERPRETATION OF THE “SECRET”

     

    LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
    TO SISTER LUCIA
    (original text)

      

     

    (translation)

    To the Reverend Sister
    Maria Lucia
    of the Convent of Coimbra

    In the great joy of Easter, I greet you with the words the Risen Jesus spoke to the disciples: “Peace be with you”!

    I will be happy to be able to meet you on the long-awaited day of the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, which, please God, I will celebrate on 13 May of this year.

    Since on that day there will be time only for a brief greeting and not a conversation, I am sending His Excellency Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to speak with you. This is the Congregation which works most closely with the Pope in defending the true Catholic faith, and which since 1957, as you know, has kept your hand-written letter containing the third part of the “secret” revealed on 13 July 1917 at Cova da Iria, Fatima.

    Archbishop Bertone, accompanied by the Bishop of Leiria, His Excellency Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, will come in my name to ask certain questions about the interpretation of “the third part of the secret”.

    Sister Maria Lucia, you may speak openly and candidly to Archbishop Bertone, who will report your answers directly to me.

    I pray fervently to the Mother of the Risen Lord for you, Reverend Sister, for the Community of Coimbra and for the whole Church. May Mary, Mother of pilgrim humanity, keep us always united to Jesus, her beloved Son and our brother, the Lord of life and glory.

    With my special Apostolic Blessing.

    IOANNES PAULUS PP. II

    From the Vatican, 19 April 2000.

     

    CONVERSATION
    WITH SISTER MARIA LUCIA OF JESUS
    AND THE IMMACULATE HEART

    The meeting between Sister Lucia, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent by the Holy Father, and Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, took place on Thursday, 27 April 2000, in the Carmel of Saint Teresa in Coimbra.

    Sister Lucia was lucid and at ease; she was very happy that the Holy Father was going to Fatima for the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, something she had looked forward to for a long time.

    The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima read the autograph letter of the Holy Father, which explained the reasons for the visit. Sister Lucia felt honoured by this and reread the letter herself, contemplating it in own her hands. She said that she was prepared to answer all questions frankly.

    At this point, Archbishop Bertone presented two envelopes to her: the first containing the second, which held the third part of the “secret” of Fatima. Immediately, touching it with her fingers, she said: “This is my letter”, and then while reading it: “This is my writing”.

    The original text, in Portuguese, was read and interpreted with the help of the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima. Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation that the third part of the “secret” was a prophetic vision, similar to those in sacred history. She repeated her conviction that the vision of Fatima concerns above all the struggle of atheistic Communism against the Church and against Christians, and describes the terrible sufferings of the victims of the faith in the twentieth century.

    When asked: “Is the principal figure in the vision the Pope?”, Sister Lucia replied at once that it was. She recalled that the three children were very sad about the suffering of the Pope, and that Jacinta kept saying: “Coitadinho do Santo Padre, tenho muita pena dos pecadores!”(“Poor Holy Father, I am very sad for sinners!”). Sister Lucia continued: “We did not know the name of the Pope; Our Lady did not tell us the name of the Pope; we did not know whether it was Benedict XV or Pius XII or Paul VI or John Paul II; but it was the Pope who was suffering and that made us suffer too”.

    As regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy Father—as the children immediately realized during the “vision”—who is struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full agreement with the Pope’s claim that “it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).

    Before giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Sister Lucia wrote on the outside envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. Archbishop Bertone therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that date?” Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope.

    Finally, mention was made of the unpublished manuscript which Sister Lucia has prepared as a reply to the many letters that come from Marian devotees and from pilgrims. The work is called Os apelos da Mensagem de Fatima, and it gathers together in the style of catechesis and exhortation thoughts and reflections which express Sister Lucia’s feelings and her clear and unaffected spirituality. She was asked if she would be happy to have it published, and she replied: “If the Holy Father agrees, then I am happy, otherwise I obey whatever the Holy Father decides”. Sister Lucia wants to present the text for ecclesiastical approval, and she hopes that what she has written will help to guide men and women of good will along the path that leads to God, the final goal of every human longing.The conversation ends with an exchange of rosaries. Sister Lucia is given a rosary sent by the Holy Father, and she in turn offers a number of rosaries made by herself.

    The meeting concludes with the blessing imparted in the name of the Holy Father.

     

    ANNOUNCEMENT MADE BY CARDINAL ANGELO SODANO
    SECRETARY OF STATE

    At the end of the Mass presided over by the Holy Father at Fatima, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, made this announcement in Portuguese, which is given here in English translation: 

    Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!

    At the conclusion of this solemn celebration, I feel bound to offer our beloved Holy Father Pope John Paul II, on behalf of all present, heartfelt good wishes for his approaching 80th Birthday and to thank him for his vital pastoral ministry for the good of all God’s Holy Church; we present the heartfelt wishes of the whole Church.

    On this solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima, His Holiness has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you know, the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two “little shepherds”. Nevertheless he also wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for her protection during these years of his papacy. This protection seems also to be linked to the so-called third part of the “secret” of Fatima.

    That text contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in Sacred Scripture, which do not describe photographically the details of future events, but synthesize and compress against a single background facts which extend through time in an unspecified succession and duration. As a result, the text must be interpreted in a symbolic key.

    The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war waged by atheistic systems against the Church and Christians, and it describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses of the faith in the last century of the second millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Crossled by the Popes of the twentieth century.

    According to the interpretation of the “little shepherds”, which was also confirmed recently by Sister Lucia, “the Bishop clothed in white” who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his way with great difficulty towards the Cross amid the corpses of those who were martyred (Bishops, priests, men and women Religious and many lay people), he too falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a hail of gunfire.

    After the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, it appeared evident that it was “a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path”, enabling “the Pope in his throes” to halt “at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, Insegnamenti, XVII, 1 [1994], 1061). On the occasion of a visit to Rome by the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided to give him the bullet which had remained in the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the shrine. By the Bishop’s decision, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

    The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the Communist regimes which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers heartfelt thanks to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks against the Church and against Christians, with the burden of suffering they bring, tragically continue. Even if the events to which the third part of the “secret” of Fatima refers now seem part of the past, Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today. “The Lady of the message seems to read the signs of the times—the signs of our time—with special insight… The insistent invitation of Mary Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness” (Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1997 World Day of the Sick, No. 1, Insegnamenti, XIX, 2 [1996], 561).

    In order that the faithful may better receive the message of Our Lady of Fatima, the Pope has charged the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with making public the third part of the “secret”, after the preparation of an appropriate commentary.

    Brothers and sisters, let us thank Our Lady of Fatima for her protection. To her maternal intercession let us entrust the Church of the Third Millennium.   

    Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix! Intercede pro Ecclesia. Intercede pro Papa nostro Ioanne Paulo II. Amen. 

    Fatima, 13 May 2000

    Here is the interpretation of Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, written in 2000:

    An attempt to interpret the “secret” of Fatima 

    The first and second parts of the “secret” of Fatima have already been so amply discussed in the relative literature that there is no need to deal with them again here. I would just like to recall briefly the most significant point. For one terrible moment, the children were given a vision of hell. They saw the fall of “the souls of poor sinners”. And now they are told why they have been exposed to this moment: “in order to save souls”—to show the way to salvation. The words of the First Letter of Peter come to mind: “As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls” (1:9). To reach this goal, the way indicated —surprisingly for people from the Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world—is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A brief comment may suffice to explain this. In biblical language, the “heart” indicates the centre of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation. According to Matthew 5:8, the “immaculate heart” is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore “sees God”. To be “devoted” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat—“your will be done”—the defining centre of one’s whole life. It might be objected that we should not place a human being between ourselves and Christ. But then we remember that Paul did not hesitate to say to his communities: “imitate me” (1 Cor 4:16; Phil3:17; 1 Th 1:6; 2 Th 3:7, 9). In the Apostle they could see concretely what it meant to follow Christ. But from whom might we better learn in every age than from the Mother of the Lord?

    Thus we come finally to the third part of the “secret” of Fatima which for the first time is being published in its entirety. As is clear from the documentation presented here, the interpretation offered by Cardinal Sodano in his statement of 13 May was first put personally to Sister Lucia. Sister Lucia responded by pointing out that she had received the vision but not its interpretation. The interpretation, she said, belonged not to the visionary but to the Church. After reading the text, however, she said that this interpretation corresponded to what she had experienced and that on her part she thought the interpretation correct. In what follows, therefore, we can only attempt to provide a deeper foundation for this interpretation, on the basis of the criteria already considered.

    “To save souls” has emerged as the key word of the first and second parts of the “secret”, and the key word of this third part is the threefold cry: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind: “Repent and believe the Good News” (Mk 1:15). To understand the signs of the times means to accept the urgency of penance – of conversion – of faith. This is the correct response to this moment of history, characterized by the grave perils outlined in the images that follow. Allow me to add here a personal recollection: in a conversation with me Sister Lucia said that it appeared ever more clearly to her that the purpose of all the apparitions was to help people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love—everything else was intended to lead to this.

    Let us now examine more closely the single images. The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgement which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. The vision then shows the power which stands opposed to the force of destruction—the splendour of the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons to penance. In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined: the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them.

    The next phrases of the text show very clearly once again the symbolic character of the vision: God remains immeasurable, and is the light which surpasses every vision of ours. Human persons appear as in a mirror. We must always keep in mind the limits in the vision itself, which here are indicated visually. The future appears only “in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor13:12). Let us now consider the individual images which follow in the text of the “secret”. The place of the action is described in three symbols: a steep mountain, a great city reduced to ruins and finally a large rough-hewn cross. The mountain and city symbolize the arena of human history: history as an arduous ascent to the summit, history as the arena of human creativity and social harmony, but at the same time a place of destruction, where man actually destroys the fruits of his own work. The city can be the place of communion and progress, but also of danger and the most extreme menace. On the mountain stands the cross—the goal and guide of history. The cross transforms destruction into salvation; it stands as a sign of history’s misery but also as a promise for history.

    At this point human persons appear: the Bishop dressed in white (“we had the impression that it was the Holy Father”), other Bishops, priests, men and women Religious, and men and women of different ranks and social positions. The Pope seems to precede the others, trembling and suffering because of all the horrors around him. Not only do the houses of the city lie half in ruins, but he makes his way among the corpses of the dead. The Church’s path is thus described as a Via Crucis, as a journey through a time of violence, destruction and persecution. The history of an entire century can be seen represented in this image. Just as the places of the earth are synthetically described in the two images of the mountain and the city, and are directed towards the cross, so too time is presented in a compressed way. In the vision we can recognize the last century as a century of martyrs, a century of suffering and persecution for the Church, a century of World Wars and the many local wars which filled the last fifty years and have inflicted unprecedented forms of cruelty. In the “mirror” of this vision we see passing before us the witnesses of the faith decade by decade. Here it would be appropriate to mention a phrase from the letter which Sister Lucia wrote to the Holy Father on 12 May 1982: “The third part of the ‘secret’ refers to Our Lady’s words: ‘If not, [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated’”.

    In the Via Crucis of an entire century, the figure of the Pope has a special role. In his arduous ascent of the mountain we can undoubtedly see a convergence of different Popes. Beginning from Pius X up to the present Pope, they all shared the sufferings of the century and strove to go forward through all the anguish along the path which leads to the Cross. In the vision, the Pope too is killed along with the martyrs. When, after the attempted assassination on 13 May 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the “secret” brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following words: “… it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (13 May 1994). That here “a mother’s hand” had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies.

    The concluding part of the “secret” uses images which Lucia may have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing intuitions of faith. It is a consoling vision, which seeks to open a history of blood and tears to the healing power of God. Beneath the arms of the cross angels gather up the blood of the martyrs, and with it they give life to the souls making their way to God. Here, the blood of Christ and the blood of the martyrs are considered as one: the blood of the martyrs runs down from the arms of the cross. The martyrs die in communion with the Passion of Christ, and their death becomes one with his. For the sake of the body of Christ, they complete what is still lacking in his afflictions (cf. Col 1:24). Their life has itself become a Eucharist, part of the mystery of the grain of wheat which in dying yields abundant fruit. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians, said Tertullian. As from Christ’s death, from his wounded side, the Church was born, so the death of the witnesses is fruitful for the future life of the Church. Therefore, the vision of the third part of the “secret”, so distressing at first, concludes with an image of hope: no suffering is in vain, and it is a suffering Church, a Church of martyrs, which becomes a sign-post for man in his search for God. The loving arms of God welcome not only those who suffer like Lazarus, who found great solace there and mysteriously represents Christ, who wished to become for us the poor Lazarus. There is something more: from the suffering of the witnesses there comes a purifying and renewing power, because their suffering is the actualization of the suffering of Christ himself and a communication in the here and now of its saving effect.

    And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the “secret” of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: “… the events to which the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima refers now seem part of the past”. Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.

    I would like finally to mention another key expression of the “secret” which has become justly famous: “my Immaculate Heart will triumph”. What does this mean? The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise.

     

    JosephCard. Ratzinger
    Prefect of the Congregation
    for the Doctrine of the Faith 

      

    (1) From the diary of John XXIII, 17 August 1959: “Audiences: Father Philippe, Commissary of the Holy Office, who brought me the letter containing the third part of the secrets of Fatima. I intend to read it with my Confessor”.

    (2) The Holy Father’s comment at the General Audience of 14 October 1981 on “What happened in May: A Great Divine Trial” should be recalled: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, IV, 2 (Vatican City, 1981), 409-412.

    (3) Radio message during the Ceremony of Veneration, Thanksgiving and Entrustment to the Virgin Mary Theotokos in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, IV, 1 (Vatican City, 1981), 1246.

    (4) On the Jubilee Day for Families, the Pope entrusted individuals and nations to Our Lady: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, VII, 1 (Vatican City, 1984), 775-777.

    (5)

    (6) In the “Fourth Memoir” of 8 December 1941 Sister Lucia writes: “I shall begin then my new task, and thus fulfil the commands received from Your Excellency as well as the desires of Dr Galamba. With the exception of that part of the Secret which I am not permitted to reveal at present, I shall say everything. I shall not knowingly omit anything, though I suppose I may forget just a few small details of minor importance”.

    (7) In the “Fourth Memoir” Sister Lucia adds: “In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc. …”.

    (8) In the translation, the original text has been respected, even as regards the imprecise punctuation, which nevertheless does not impede an understanding of what the visionary wished to say.   

     

     

Psychiatry Defeated: For Juliethemadblogger!

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BREAKING: Neurology discovers brain wave patterns of psychiatrists when they are being ignorant and subjecting others to harm: NPR Stateside and Dr. Rosenberg have discovered that shrinks are not responsible for Psychiatry! So stop stigmatizing them, eh?

Sometimes one can apply the principles of these modern practices to themselves, reflexively.

But seriously:

The soul is very delicate, much easier to harm than to help, at least by human art. That is why we do little unless it is necessary, and we really know what we are doing.

If the shrinks were backed by scientific knowledge of neurons, they would not be prescribing 30 different concoctions in succession trying to get one that makes the subject look right.

The assumption of our “psychiatry” that every person they see has a malady to be treated with a drug is barbarism and not science at all. The harm done is incalculable.

God forbid one should be “off” one’s “meds.” In the place of first principles, our psychiatry holds fashionable opinions and unexamined assumptions, held in place by fear.

The health of the soul is a high mystery, and not obvious at all. The “normal” is indeed not well, and justice is very rare.

The right functioning of the mind is dangerous when in contact with these practitioners of our “mental health profession. Ask Plato and Aristotle what it is. The shrinks have never asked, and apparently do not care to ask.

The Appearances of Justice

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   Long ago, in graduate school, I said to a friend with whom I studied the Republic, that after all we had been through, I still did not really get what justice is. “Your not serious,” he said, “really?” This caused me to pause and consider whether I did not have some much clearer thought about this than when I began, but I’m still not sure. We love, believe in and follow righteousness (dike), otherwise translated justice, but really do not have hold on what it is.

  It always seemed amazing to me that those who spent their lives supposedly concerned with justice, such as lawyers or members of the “Justice” department, have no interest at all in the best efforts to consider what justice is, despite making their livings at it. These do not love justice, and soon treat anyone who does as unjust, as though any who would bid them to inquire were convicting them of their negligence. Soon these will use their powers, and obedience to law-their working definition of justice, as means to attack those who inquire. That is what was done to Socrates, in what is described as being like the trial of a doctor by a pastry chef before a jury of children.

The following was given as an attempt to address the question of justice in a class on Book V of the Republic, so much text and certain questions are assumed. But rather than stand over the class like Socrates himself, it seemed right to give an opinion or an attempt to state what justice is, however defective.

Justice exists in the relations, 1) between individuals; 2) between individuals and political bodies, ) between political bodies, and 4) within individuals and within political bodies. The political bodies, roughly, and with some qualification, are :

(Humanity)

Orders

Nations

States or provinces

Counties or townships

Organizations and groups

Cities

Villages

Extended families

Families

(Individuals)

   A constitution (Politea) is an ordering of a political body (politeuma). The political bodies differ in their origins and natures. Some, like the nation, the state, the Geek city and the pre-civilized tribe or village, are “sovereign,” meaning simply that there is no authority above them in practice. The family is ordered by nature, and is among the “things that grow,” whereas the city is founded and given a constitution or ordering by the lawgiver or legislator. Nations are a mixture of the principles of the city and the family. Like the “English,” or the French,, the nations are one by differing combinations of the principles of common descent, government, language and location. At some point in our history, the nations each unified by opposition to an invading people or nation (ethnoi). A group of cities repeats the process of the unification of villages into a city, as was done by Theseus in founding Athens, and as Plato indicates in the Laws, choice is then made among the ways and gods of the peoples unified. Empires, which seem to be founded in conquest, are different still. These join a number of states or nations, but their universality is unnatural, and they are not really different from nations joining states. There seem to have been seven of these, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Alexandrian Greece, Rome and perhaps Great Britain, though none of these were truly universal, and others such as China or the Indus valley, the Inca and the Aztec, are not considered among the seven. Orders, such as “the West,” or “Christendom,” are aggregates of those political bodies which share a common character and fundamental thought or law.” Confederacies might be included here, groups of cities, states or nations joined for a particular purpose, usually defense. Humanity is by nature universal, and may be a natural body, though it is not a political, but a trans-political body (perhaps perversely imitated by the empire). The seven empires have been identified, in one reading at least, with the seven heads of the beast in the Revelation. Humanity, though, is not a political body but a natural species, though it has a common good, and so there is justice among all mankind. The individual, too, has a good by nature, though one cannot be unjust to oneself in most senses, or, only in a qualified sense.

   Within these political bodies, the appearances of justice are:

I) Equity: the principle of fair exchange, such as just weights and measures.

But equity can conflict with law, with the common good, with the fitting, and with the right. An example would be fulfilling a fair and legal contract when the profit would be used to buy a murder weapon. Something similar occurs in Book One of the republic, where justice is said to be returning deposits, or paying what is owed. Gifts, or the giving of what is not owed but advantageous, and what are called “graces,” would then be “more than just.”

II) Law and obedience to law (Republic, Book I).

But: a) there can be unjust laws, and circumstances where just laws conflict with the equal, the common good, the fitting and the right. The rule of law is best because individuals are deficient. We do not have a wise man to rule. And b) The legislator attempt to enact just laws, rather than simply imposing the “advantage of the stronger,” leading to unjust laws. When Socrates gets Glaucon and Adeimantus to join in constructing a city in speech in order, by looking through this, to see justice in the soul, he gets them, like legislators, by necessity, to transcend legal positivism and look toward natural right.

III) The common good and dedication to the common good. The principle of the three  right constitutions is that the one, the few or the many rule looking to the good of the whole (Aristotle, Politics, III.6).

But: a) The common good often conflicts with the good of individuals, and with the good of other commons, and b) The question remains as to what the common good is: Is it wealth, honor, empire, wisdom, security or noble action, or some combination of these? In this sense, the common good is the right ordering of the priorities in the soul and the regime.

IV) To give to each what is owed or fitting (Republic, Book I). These are a) Distributive: The distribution of goods, especially honors and offices, and

b) Retributive: The civil and criminal balancing of harms with penalties and recompense: The Justice system.

V) To care for one another, or  “Love thy neighbor.” The Biblical word “righteousness could be translated “justice.” This is said to summarize and fulfill the law or the ten commandments. It is universal, or between all humans, rather than fellow citizens, etc., even in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:17-18). Unlike particular laws (and like #6 below), it might be right in all circumstances. The command is to “Love oneanother…” (John 1:34-35, and its unity with the individual good is similar to the unity of self-love and friendship (Aristotle, Ethics, VIII-X). One saying is “guard your brother like the pupil of your eye” (Thomas). Another is the parable of the speck in your brother’s eye (Matthew 7:-5; Luke 6: 41-42). The mysterious reason for the first law, against murder, is that man is “in the image of God” (Genesis 9:6; 1:26-27), and this proves to be the basis of the whole law, both the laws regarding or governing eros and anger.

6) The right ordering of the parts of the soul and city (Republic IV). A kind of justice is “complete virtue in relation” to others (Aristotle,  Ethics, V.1). The right heirarchy of the parts of the soul is synonymous with the right ordering of the priorities among the goods, and ethics is in each case a matter of the right priorities.

7) What is right to do, and the ability to see and do the one right thing in each situation (Aristotle, Ethics, II.6, with III.4 and VI.8,11. Justice is one with prudence or practical wisdom (phronesis).

8) Justice is somehow what is the same in all of these manifestations or appearances of justice.

Aristotle on What Makes A Polis (City)

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   The necessity for us of the separation of Church and State, as well as the end of the age of the polis,* makes modern politics fundamentally different from ancient politics. The Greek polis is the sovereign city. The closest thing to this in the modern world might be certain colonies, like Plymouth and Providence Rhode island, though these are not completely sovereign. Prior to the age of the empire and Christianity, the polis concerned both the spiritual and political virtues. In a teaching traced to Jacob Klein, the contract theory of government is one of the few great achievements of modern thought, so it is interesting to see how Aristotle (Politics, 1280b) writes of the social compact* below. One point appears which turns out to be more fundamental for us than Aristotle could have known. He is discussing democracy and oligarchy, and the claim of the oligarchs to have a greater share in the city because per individual, they pay more (and are forgetful of the political liberty and the lives of the soldiers that has allowed them to grow rich and secures their wealth).

…But no offices…take thought that the others…or none of those coming under the compacts should be unjust or depraved in any way, but only that they should not act unjustly toward one another. But concerning virtue and vice, politicians look through and consider the well legislated (eunomias). It is clear that any true polis, and not only those we name city, not only in speech, must be caring for virtue. For otherwise it becomes a mere battle alliance, which differs only in place. And law becomes a compact, and, as the sophist Lycophon says, a guarantor among one another of the just things, but not the sort of thing to make the citizens good and just…..

…the city is not a partnership in a location and for the sake of not committing injustice against each other and of transacting business…but the city is the partnership in living well both of families and clans, for the sake of a complete and self-sufficient life…friendship consists in a common social life…The end and purpose of a polis is the good life…A polis is… the association of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficient existence; and such…is a life of happiness and goodness. It is therefore for the sake of noble actions that political associations exist. Hence, those who contribute most to this sort of an association share more in the city than those who are equal or greater in freedom and birth, but unequal in political virtue, than those who exceed them in wealth, but are exceeded by them in virtue….

    Our government is set, by Jefferson, to secure rights, rather than to cultivate virtue. Happiness, by the way, enters our Declaration from Aristotle’s Ethics, where happiness is the end or goal and the health of the soul. But our right is the pursuit of happiness. Rights are prior to duties, due to human ignorance and the deficiency of everything man-made or artificial compared to the life of the soul. We leave virtue to be cultivated in private, and get this incredible diversity, often doing at least as well as anyone. It has been said that some universities are more like a polis than our cities. (After all, we are the only guys reading Aristotle!) As noted by ‘Tocqueville, religion too flourishes in a sense, in contrast with Europe. But this fits well with Socratic ignorance, or, everywhere except the best regime, ruled by wisdom or philosopher king, the contract theory of government seems to prevent a reign of ignorance. Christian poleis, such as the colonies, fail because Christianity is not a law like Islam or Israel, but the fulfillment of the law of Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. The Old Testament is law for the Jews governed by Moses, and it is most amusing to see gentiles apply the book directly, as though the whole thing were a rule book or law, not sparing the rod, etc. We, the Christian nations, are in truth given a single commandment, and otherwise left on our own for fundamental legislating, taking Moses for a guide even as he did Abraham and Noah, in the first law against murder.

   What we have, or had, in the United States, is a nation and states that share sovereignty, while the cities, townships and counties do not share a common way of life, law, nor defense, beyond the high school football game. Central concerns such as defense are the job of the national government, while education, for example, is the concern of each district. Decentralization is supposed to facilitate liberty and local concerns, while these will be mishandled by the national government in a more unitary system.

   Soon, in a blog from an old Republic course called “The Appearances of Justice,” we’ll consider the associations in which justice appears, and the different definitions in the Republic, such as “minding one’s own business.” But it- justice- is only in associations: marriage, the family, the clan, the village, the city, township, county, state, nation and between nations, or among all humanity.

 

*Polis is the root of our words police, politics, polity, polite, politic, etc. “Politician” has no ignoble meaning in Geek, and the words for noble and beautiful are the same, Kalon, distinguished according to context with a double meaning. (We tried to reintroduce these in English, speaking of “noble wenches,” Greek and Shakespearean archaic terms to rile contemporary opinion. My Greek is rusty, and this Greek is difficult. Translation is mostly Carnes Lord, Laurence Berns, and Mr.Barker.

**Hobbes Locke and Rousseau famously develop this theory, available to but not developed by Socrates, as in Book II of Plato’s Republic. These hold fist that man is not by nature, but by contract political, and do not believe that justice is necessarily a part of happiness or the good..

My Face, But Not My Clothes

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  •  The Trumpsters will surely take their own advice and deal with impeachment, indictment, and a good new-fashioned revote.

     Jan 4

    More

    Mark A. McDonald Retweeted Vote Trump Pics  📘

    Acquiring and using the photo of this face is almost surely illegal. It may be from the Republican party, the U of M hospital, hacked, etc, but nothing like it has ever been voluntarily set on the internet. Donney’s boys sent it to me to gloat after the electoral College vote, and I post it here as proof of the method. Having received what I took to be three death threats, then being taken away on the perjurous “mental health” complaint of 3 Trumpster relatives, the publication and use of the photo has caused quite a bit of damage, and could have made them an accessory to murder, not that they mind. If the picture was the one snapped from my computer screen in the middle of the night, the FBI may have been used, and the picture acquired by Trumpsters before the inauguration.

    The picture came with this caption:
    “That face you make when Trump gets officially voted in by & liberals are still crying …”

Agape and Philia

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   Agape and Philo are distinguished nicely at the close of the Gospel of John. Meeting again before a charcoal fire,* Peter is asked by the resurrected Jesus, “Simon, son of John, Do you love (agapas) me more than these? Peter answers, “You know I love (philo) you, and Jesus tells him, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:17). One wonders what the Aramaic words would be, encompassing the subtle distinctions. At John 15, “You are my friends (phil-) if you do what I command you…that you love (agapeis) one another as I have loved you.” The word agape is developed out of Homeric words for admiration and the beloved or the darling, the object of affection.

   Jesus then asks Peter again, Do you love (Phileis) me? Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love (Philo) you.” Jesus answers “Tend my sheep.” And a third time, “Do you love me!” And Peter answers, “lord, you know everything; You know that I love you.” Jesus answers, “Feed my sheep” Three kinds of phronesis are distinguishable. Agape” goes with ” Feed my lambs” Then two kinds of friendship with the raised Son are first to tend his sheep. These are men, and this is politics. Third, there is to feed the adult sheep, the higher kind of education. The “friend of God,” and friendship with God is shown in three aspects, three kinds of phronesis. Friendship with God is written of by Socrates, in the Symposium (212a; Epinomis 992b; Republic (VI-VII), and spoke of by Jesus (John 15:14). God apparently wants friends. Why be alone?

   So too, we say that those who do this are Christians,” however these appear, and those who do not are not, however these appear.

The slave or servant does not know what the master is doing, but as much as he does, these are called friends.

To “feed” the young is education. To tend the sheep is politics. To feed the adult sheep is the highest phronesis, to tend the adults theoretically.

* A Catholic priest on the radio was talking about the two instances of Peter and the charcoal fire, here and when he denied 3 times that he was a follower of Jesus.