Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Karol Wojtyla)
Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Nationalism, capitalism, and hoarding. The idea of every nation
should be forgot, price should be struck from the commons, and
princes should be seen for the devils they are. The sins include
our church, secret societies, and other religions which make of
the spirit of God a divide."
Last rites declaration of Ioannes Paulus PP. II (Karol Wojtyla)
2nd April 2005
--
so much use made of their own
reason in the convictions they have received; they are afraid that they
have no illumination above the natural force of their own faculties: and
many make that an objection against the spirituality of their
convictions, that it is so easy to see things as they now see them. They
have often heard, that conversion is a work of mighty power, manifesting
to the soul what neither man nor angel can give such a conviction of;
but it seems to them that these things are so plain and easy, and
rational, that any body can see them. If they are asked, why they never
saw thus before, they say, it seems to them it was because they never
thought of it. But very often these difficulties are soon removed by
those of another nature; for when God withdraws, they find themselves as
it were blind again, they for the present lose their realizing sense of
those things that looked so plain to them, and, by all they can do, they
cannot recover it, till God renews the influence of His Spirit.
Persons after their conversion often speak of religious things as
seeming new to them; that preaching is a new thing; that it seems to
them they never heard preaching before; that the Bible is a new book:
they find there new chapters, new psalms, new histories, because they
see them in a new light. Here was a remarkable instance of an aged
woman, of about seventy years, who had spent most of her days under Mr.
Stoddard's powerful ministry. Reading in the New Testament con