ALL LIES COME FROM SATAN

Lucifer is banished from Heaven

When you become holy, the devil hates you. When you pray, it makes him scream in rage. He wants you to be HIS minion. He is jealous of God, and that jealousy is what got him kicked out of Heaven to begin with . Lies are the method by which Satan binds followers to himself, and lies are a sure sign of someone who has given themselves to the dark one.

The number, kind and degree of lies that a person spews is a sure indicator of just how much the liar is in thrall to Satan.  If you are a holy person, however, the degree to which you are merged with God is the same degree to which the Devil's people will attack you.

"Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth:

I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came 

to set a man at variance against his father, and the 

daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law

against her mother in law. And a man's enemies shall

be they of his own household. He that loveth father

or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he

that loveth son or daughter more than me is not 

worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross

and followeth me, is not worthy of me"

~Matthew 10:34-38~

When we give our lives to the Lord, and if we obey his commandments, we become part of the body of Christ. As adopted sons and daughters of the Lord, we share the goodness that is God. There is no deceit in God. There cannot be! Therefore, people who lie distance themselves from God and join themselves with Satan. Liars share Satan's hatred for the goodness of God, and if a liar sees goodness in another person, the liar automatically hates the good in that person.

This is why the holier you become, the more troubles you may have. You will be the prime target of every evil that you encounter.

Some people imagine that the more holy you are, the more fun your life will be, and the more worldly success you will have. Just look at the lives of Jesus and his followers and you will realize the folly of that idea. Jesus and all but one of the apostles died in grisly fashion because they were holy.

We are called by Jesus to carry our cross. Carrying a cross isn't pretty. It is a harsh, sweaty, bloody struggle. Like Jesus, a crowd may taunt you, spit on you and call you names. They will lie about you and tear your reputation to shreds with vulgar cat calls. It isn't pretty, but we must not lose our nerve.

Saint Peter, on whom Christ built his church,

was crucified upside down

Banish the idea that love of God brings you earthly success. Quite the opposite. If you are a true believer, and if you follow our Lord sincerely, you may be in for a bumpy ride. Satan will pursue you unmercifully. He will torment you and try to turn you to him, tempting you with every earthly delight.

You may be surprised at the guise in which the Devil appears to allure you. There is no profession, no status and no beautiful visage that is automatically exempt. Satan sits within the most unexpected persons, squatting there like a fat toad, belching lies, calumny, and all manner of deceit. Satan has been a liar from the beginning, and appears in the first book of the Bible, coaxing Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil that God told her not to eat. Satan appeals to her ego, promising that she will be a God herself as a result of her disobedience, encouraging her to compete with the Lord - something with which he himself is familiar, having refused to serve God and been thrown out of heaven for it.

"And the serpent said to the woman, 'no, you shall

not die the death. For God doth know that in what 

day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be

opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good

and evil."

Genesis 3:4-5

If you are one of those holy people who has truly given themselves to the Lord, and you find yourself the target of lies and calumny, do not lose heart. Being attacked by liars is a sure sign that you are on the right track.

Pray for those who are trying to destroy you here on earth. They will be destroyed at the end of their lives and thrown into Hell like Satan, if they do not renounce him, not only by words, but by their actions. After all, even Satan can recite the Bible. It is one's actions that determine whether or not we really love the Lord.

Thy pride is brought down to hell,

thy carcass is fallen down: under

thee shall the moth be strewed, and

worms shall be thy covering. How 

art thou fallen from heaven, O

Lucifer, who didst rise in the 

morning? How art thou fallen to

the earth, that didst wound the nations?

~ Isaias 14:11-12 ~

IF YOUR FIRST INSTINCT IS TO CRITICIZE, YOU ARE MISSING THE BLISS

We all know that Jesus said to love your enemies.  When I first read the Bible, I was struck by the passage that says, "They will know you by how you love one another."  One of the two most important commandments, according to our Lord, is to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves.

He told us to show this love by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners, etc.  He said that, when we served the poor and needy that we were really serving him directly.  What a glorious opportunity!

Love. Love. Love.  Jesus is all about the demonstration of love, yet today we have an upsurge in the amount of toxic public discourse in which the poor are demeaned in every way.   Mostly, the people who complain about the poor claim that they are lazy people who are "working the system" and taking advantage.

Stories ABOUND in which nosy people examine the shopping carts and personal dress of a person using a food stamp subsidy to pay for their groceries and then extrapolate that, if they can afford those things, then they shouldn't be receiving help buying food.  Never mind that the critic knows absolutely nothing about the personal finances of the person upon whom they wished additional poverty.  The critic does not know who is paying for the cell phone they wish the poor person did not have.  The critic begrudges the poor person the nice vehicle he or she is driving, yet does not know to whom the car belongs or even if the poor person paid for it themselves when they were working and successful.

Critics assume that poor people have been poor their whole lives, it seems, because they can't imagine that a poor person would be in possession of things purchased when they were financially successful.

I could give many credible reasons why someone would have a cell phone, a car, a pair of earrings...but it doesn't matter because it is irrelevant.

Jesus did not say to love your neighbor as much as yourself provided that you approve of all of his or her life decisions.  No.  We are to love one another.  PERIOD.  Love.  Not criticism.  Not judgment.

If your first instinct is to criticize, then your mind is inclined in a direction away from Jesus and away from his commandments.  In fact, all this criticism of the poor is a distraction from the commandments of God.  It is a method of grasping onto one's own greedy little pile of comfort.  If a person can convince themselves that the poor have some egregious character defect, then the critic thinks they can assuage their conscience and continue to live in comfort while others go hungry, unhoused, unchurched, and unhealthy.  They grow to think that the poor deserve to be poor...and the poorer, the better, so that they'll be forced to get off their lazy bums and get a job.

I have written many times about the facts that disprove every one of the critic's arguments about the conditions of the poor in America.  Today I write about saintliness.

When Mother Teresa picked up the filthy, scabby, maggoty, sick old man from the streets of Calcutta, she did not first interview him to determine if he was worthy of her love and care.  She did not sit there on the curb, pad and pen in hand, asking questions and checking off boxes on some form. She did not consider if he had bad habits that contributed to his pitiful condition.  She did not care about any of that.  She dispensed the love of Christ.  That was all.  She did not hesitate.  She picked him up and brought him indoors where she and the nuns loved him and cared for him, washing, dressing, feeding and coddling him until he revived or he died.  Mostly, they died.  But they died in love, surrounded by sweet, gentle, smiling faces.

I do not imagine that this tendency to criticize lays outside of myself.  I have also experienced bouts of criticism in my lifetime, when my heart has not been soft enough and I needed to lean into a person with God's love instead of arrogance.  It is a daily process, to check one's mind and make sure that it is inclined toward Jesus, in tune with his love and his intentions.  Lots of prayer helps.

Writing this constitutes my commitment to maintaining a loving inclination of heart, to look upon all others with a compassionate eye and see them the way God sees them, in the radiant beauty of the image of God in which they were made.  To think well of others is a delightful thing.  It generates a deep feeling of joy and bliss.  Come join me, all you critics and pessimists, and partake of the bliss. In the meantime, I pray for you.  Please pray for me.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose Parnell

LYING IS STILL A SIN

Saints in heaven

I am becoming alarmed that increasing numbers of people are lying and spreading rumors and defending the lies when they are found out.  They don't even have the good sense to be ashamed of it!

This is ever more true on Facebook which can be, at times, a scary ride.  Today a Facebook contact posted a story that has been making the rounds on Facebook for a long time.  Supposedly, a pastor, poses as a homeless man to see how his new congregation will treat him.  This "news" item is a hoax.  The events detailed never happened.  The picture that is provided is said to be that of Pastor Jeremiah Steepek (a fictitious name.)  In fact, the photo is one taken in 1970 on the streets of London, England.  The man pictured has no relation to the story whatsoever.  By including his photograph, the "news" item is geared to mislead people into believing that the story actually happened and that the characters are real.  The whole purpose of the story is to slam Christians for, supposedly, being hypocrites when confronted with the poor, which is ironic because most of the efforts to care for the poor throughout the world are conducted by Christian, and especially Catholic organizations.

Homeless man on a London Street

whose picture was used in the hoax.

He was falsely identified as "Pastor

Jeremiah Steepek"

When I offered the snopes.com link that exposed the hoax, the person posting the item defended it, saying that it was heart warming and insinuating that I was a scrooge.  According to the poster, I was offering "bah humbug."  The Facebook poster extolled the "beautiful message" that was contained in the bogus news item.  (See that item on the snopes.com website by searching for the name "Jeremiah Steepek.")

What is really sad is that the person posting this lie and defending it considers themselves a highly spiritual person with big credentials.  I wish I could say that I had never seen this kind of disconnect between what people claim to believe and what they actually defend.  More and more, I am seeing the deification of personal opinion at the expense of religion and sp