Pope Benedict’s general prayer intention for October is: “That the terminally ill may be supported by their faith in God and the love of their brothers and sisters”.
His mission intention is: “That the celebration of World Mission Day may foster in the People of God a passion for evangelisation with the willingness to support the missions with prayer and economic aid for the poorest Churches”.
Just came across some tcleoogihal observations on the Debra Movement and the Magnificat Meal Movement. I’ve never heard of either, but the commentary “Principles on Discernment of spirits” was most interesting. It quoted from Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s book, “The Three Ages of the Interior Life” [should that be Stages?] which lists the evil effects of having a desire for revelation being at least a venial sin, even when the soul has a good end in view. He writes: “St. John of the Cross strongly reproves the desire for revelations. On this point he is incomplete accord with St. Vomcent Ferrer, and shows that the soul desiring revelations is vain; that by this curiosity it gives the devil the opportunity to lead it astray; that this inclination takes away the purity of faith, produces a hindrance for the spirit, denotes a lack of humility and exposes it to many errors…All this clearly shows the error of imprudent directors who, impelled by curiosity, are concerned with souls favored by visions and revelations. This curiosity is a deformation of spirit which casts the soul into illusion and trouble, and turns it away from humility through vain complacency in extraordinary ways.”St. John of the Cross concludes his chapter on this subject with the following: “The devil rejoices greatly when a soul seeks after revelations and is ready to accept them; for such conduct furnishes him with many opportunities of insinuating delusions, and derogating from the Faith as much as he possibly can; for such a soul becomes rough and rude, and falls frequently into many temptations and unseemly habits.” (Ascent of Mt Carmel, Book 2, chapter 11)The commentary concludes: The above texts, fruit of multi-secular experience, show that the prince of darkness is an expert at telling us something is very wrong, and then gradually making us do the very thing. He knows how to divert the attention on something else while he makes us do that very thing.Something to think about!