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thoughts? just wanted to see what others thought of this "miracle".....
what is one to think of a video of this manner? Is it wrong to believe in something like this blindly, is this not what faith is? and what is the borderline between faith and ignorance? is there even one?
....an argument arose between one of my colleagues and myself, and i was just curious to see others opinions on this matter.....and do me a favor think before you post, don't post after a rush of emotion because after all emotion does cloud judgment....
God bless
Comments
We must be faithful, but not credulous.
Father Peter
I think we have discussed this video before and a real, live monk can be seen walking around earlier than in this section of the film, so it is not a miracle at all.
We must be faithful, but not credulous.
Father Peter
a monk wearing his tonia?
neither of us was there personally, though.
i think it's important our faith is not based on these appearances, however miracles can happen.
This man is a holy man... and he appeared during his funeral, we need to respect that, while on earth he was one of the sewah... also on earth through his life, he was not given much glory, by his choice... but now that he's dead, we need to give glory to this Godly action... which is done through the visitation of a Saint to us!
neshkor Allah, akhadna el barka!
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1)
Superman Fr. Peter was referring to the frames in the first couple of seconds - there's a monk walking on the roof who is different to the monk at 0:16. He is standing right in the sun, which is why he looks negative. And besides, nobody is pointing at the figure or surprised by it, even the person recording the video who doesn't even seem to notice it - probably because all they saw was a person in galabiyya standing on the roof to get a better view.
Edit: Actually I was just running it past someone who's interested in photography and he reckons that since the exposure is set to focus on the crowd below, everything above is overexposed which is a better explanation for why the sun is so bright and the man's appearance is negative.
Pray for me
pp4me
Not to argue or anything, just a thought but why not take every opportunity to strengthen our faith by believing in a miracle and only draw a line and be skeptical when it contradicts the Truth..
If we say, "I believe this is a miracle" and it is not a miracle, then we believe a non-truth. When someone claims that God has intervened in the world and committed a supernatural act, we must do all we can to be sure that it comes from Him.
Skepticism is important because truth is important - and by simply taking every miracle at face value and not 'testing the spirits', we will repeatedly adopt non-truth as truth. Our faith is based on truth, and as such it has nothing to fear from skepticism or scrutiny.
PPFM too :D LOL Geomike :)
Geomike- always the clown... ;D
-I am sure you knew exactly what I meant :)
We are taught that if a some spiritual being appears we should first of all assume it is from the devil not from God.
2 Corinthians 11:14 since Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
Matthew 24:24 For false christs and false prophets will appear and display great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
The records and sayings of the Desert Fathers are filled with warnings not to believe in appearances.
One monk had a shining visitor who said he was an angel, and the monk said "I am not worthy to have an angel sent to me", and with that the demon vanished.
The devil appeared to a brother disguised as an angel of light and said to him, 'I am Gabriel and I have been sent to you'. The brother said to him, 'See if it is someone else to whom you have been sent; as for me, I am not worthy of it' - and immediately the devil vanished.
The dangers in trusting to our own judgement in these things are surely many:
i. Our faith can become like that of the crowds that followed Jesus. When exciting things are happening we find our faith is strong, but when nothing is happening we find our faith weak, because our faith starts to rest on signs and wonders and not in Christ Himself.
ii. I know of a false prophetess who believes that our Lord and the saints dictate messages to her. She leads many astray into a demonic deception, but her followers all say that they are giving glory to God, and what is the harm in believing. But they are being deceived and the spiritual lives are in great danger.
iii. Those outside the Church who hear people speaking with credulity will look at things like this video and say that it is just a man on the roof. The person videoing hasn't see anything out of the ordinary, the crowd haven't seen anything out of the ordinary, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the video. They will then think that our faith in Christ is also a matter of credulity and will reject what we say.
iv. As has been said, if something is not a miracle then to say it is is a lie. And Satan is the father of lies. He delights in us believing less than we should and more than we should. This is a spiritual danger. We should be guided by our spiritual father, and by the bishops and priests in all things like this.
v. If we are adding to a rumour of some spiritual manifestation that did not take place then we are essentially guilty of spiritual gossip. Sometimes it happens like this.
a. I tell a friend that I visited a ruined monastery of St Theophorus. While I was looking around an old man touched me on the shoulder and said, 'You are welcome here'. I started pointing out the ruins to him but when I turned around to speak to him he was gone. It was as if he was St Theophorus welcoming me there.
b. The friend tells a friend that St Theophorus appeared to me when I was visiting the ruins of his monastery and jokes that maybe he wants his monastery rebuilt.
c. The friend of a friend posts on Facebook that St Theophorus has appeared at his monastery with detailed instructions about how his monastery should be rebuilt.
d. A Facebook group is started called 'Rebuild St Theophorus' Monastery as he instructs'.
etc etc.
This really does happen. And it can and has lead to serious spiritual harm.
vi. When we begin to think that we should expect angelic visitors all the time then we are prey to all manner of deception. There are records in our history of people, even monks and priests, who have been led completely astray, so that they fall into sin or even commit suicide under the influence of such visitors who persuade them that they are angels.
The world is not neutral. There are spiritually dangerous and wicked forces at work who wish to destroy us. If they cannot make us discount the spiritual world so that we believe nothing they will happily encourage us to see more than is true so that we believe everything.
We must be careful. We must seek the advice and counsel of our spiritual fathers in all these things and must not trust in our own judgement when we can easily be advised by others. If something is not true then it is a lie, and if we rest our faith on a lie we will be harmed.
None of this is to dismiss the miraculous, but it is safer for us to reject the visit of an angel, who will come again if he is from God (think of the prophet Samuel when he was a child), than to welcome a demon or a deception.
Father Peter
we should all take note of them.