@SqueakySqueakSqueak — Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”
What things? How many? Some? A few?
ALL includes redeeming/ making new and FULFILLING (Remember the pagan Wise Men) all things which may be redeemed. Art, music, architecture, culture, writing, poetry, literature, urban planning, education, medicine, public health.. ALL of it.
When the pagans of Europe were first evangelized, the preachers didn’t come and start wrecking and changing and condemning things. They took what was, and redeemed it, and gave it a totally new meaning in Christ.
So Germanic pagans sacrificed people on or under trees at the Winter Solstice (Dec 21-22). Do you start yelling at them and telling them how wrong & stupid they are?
The missionaries said: you know of blood sacrifice.. I will tell you of the One Sacrifice Once for All, and His name was Jesus. You put a precious thing under the tree to satisfy the gods? I will tell you of the Wise Men who were led by a star to Holy Bethlehem, where the Holy God-Man from heaven was born, sent from the Father to save us all. You have a holy place? God’s Son Jesus has come to make us holy, by obeying and serving Him, who died upon the Cross and Rose Again to give us eternal life. Let us remove your wooden idols, and put up a wooden cross, that we may glorify Him.
I must insist that there’s no such thing as “Pagan Cooties” which stick to everything pagans ever said or did, unless you’re literally talking a place of human sacrifice, magic, or the like. Pagans used knives.. shoes.. words.. fire.. buildings.. they ate food, they sang songs and told stories.. are these all forever poisoned by pagan cooties? Or else is Jesus Christ the Lord of All so weak and flawed that He cannot redeem all the things, and make all things new? ALL.
And contrary to your comment, I am a Christian, a Pureblood, and remain unconvinced by your rhetoric.
~ BINKS JUST LOVES him some Poinsettias.. in all their 100+ varieties of colour and look. I loved to have the church loaded with them where & when possible. It was only later I learned the dark history of the man behind popularizing the Mexican plant we display at Christmastime.
The remarkable Joel Roberts Poinsett was a son of Charleston, South Carolina. As a young man, he learned many languages, law, and military affairs, then travelled widely through Europe, and South America. Later, he became the first United States ‘Minister’ (diplomatic spy) to Mexico in 1822-3, appointed by President John Quincy Adams.
The diplomat loved the Mexican plant “flor de la nochebuena“, or Christmas Eve flower, or Catarina. It was later named after him, after he introduced it to the United States in 1829– at a flower show in a Masonic Lodge.
Utopians At Work
For the remarkable Poinsett was also a Master Mason, and a Past Master of Recovery Lodge #31, Greenville, and Solomon’s Lodge, Charleston. His widespread interference on behalf of American interests in Mexico and South America tended in an anti-Catholic and U.S. democratic direction, and he was an expert in exploiting divisions within the newly independent Mexico, so to benefit American politics and aspirations, and his Freemasonic notions.
He helped quickly spread several forms of freemasonry to Mexico, then used the Mexican lodges to political ends… as he did wherever he went in the New World, against the forces of “aristocracy” and the Catholic Church.
Poinsett was rightly accused of fomenting revolution in Mexico, and he was expelled in 1829. He went back to begin a life in internal American politics.
He Helped Start The Fire…
Public execution of a priest in Mexico, 1927.
Radical Mexican Freemasons ruled Mexico, and so Poinsett’s interventions twisted Mexican politics and religion for the next 120 years. Masons presided over many bloody persecutions of Mexican Catholics from 1815 through to the 1940s, including the famous ‘War of The Cristeros‘ in the 1920s. Countless persecuted Catholic martyrs suffered or died because of Poinsett’s Masonic new world religion.
In the early 20th century, the Freemasons were on the march, and militant secularism was the next great thing: no more kings or priests, just one great fellowship of humanity. Revolutionary France, Italy, Mexico, the new USSR, and soon Hitler’s Germany would all part of the same movement. “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad” as the ancient saying has it.
A Word From Heaven
It was partly in response to the cruel realities & predations of socialist Freemasonry in Mexico and around the Western world that in 1925 Pope Pius XI instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King, and issued the Encyclical ‘QUAS PRIMAS’.
“At the end of the encyclical, he declared that he expected three ‘blessings’ to flow from the celebration of the feast: first, that ‘men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state’; second, that ‘Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ’; and third, that ‘The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal.'”
Long before the CIA existed, or ever gunboat diplomacy and banana republics were made, the remarkable Joel Poinsett was the very model of a scheming, opportunistic, imperialistic ‘Monroe Doctrine‘ Masonic utopian busybody. Likewise at home he presided over the explusion of many Native tribes from their homelands– including the infamous Cherokee “Trail of Tears”– as a Congressman and Minister of War under President Martin Van Buren.
The Infection Spreads
Cardinal Rampolla, nearly Pope
Sadly, the Church herself is often effected by the fads and power-seeking conspiracy-loving ways of the fallen world– it was only by a last-minute intervention that Cardinal Rampolla, possibly of the the Masonic Ordo Templi Orientalis, was not elected in 1903 instead of Pope St. Pius X. Later Masonic-insider revelations in the 1970s indicate that many leading Roman Catholic prelates, cardinals, and ecclesiastical movers and shakers were likely members of Masonic lodges, despite the Catholic restriction on such things. Such men included many of the architects of the radical Vatican II event.
Glory To The Newborn King!
All of this ugly history is not the Poinsettia’s fault. The plant is the plant.
The humble Flor de la nochebuena is one of God’s lovely creations, and despite Mr. Poinsett & Co.’s own best efforts, it has become a much-loved Christian and seasonal symbol of the birth of Christ the King, helping churches everywhere celebrate with beauty and colour the nativity of the newborn King, God incarnate, Man Divine, God with us, our true saviour, judge, friend, ruler, and salvation.
After more than 200 years of well-meaning but futile utopian scheming & blood-letting, God is still God, Man is still Man, fallen and lost and needing the imparted life of heaven through Jesus, The Lord. Each of us still has to decide who is our ultimate king: Christ, or some idol of humanity.
“Glory to the new-born king!”
So saith,
The Binks
———————————————————————————————————————————
HARK! the Herald Angels sing:
Glory to the new-born King!
Peace on Earth, and Mercy mild,
God and Sinners reconcil’d.
Joyful all ye Nations rise,
Join the Triumphs of the Skies;
Nature rise and worship him,
Who is born at Bethlehem.
Hark! The herald-angels sing: “Glory to the new-born king!”
Christ, by highest heaven adored
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb:
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! The herald-angels sing: “Glory to the new-born king!”
Hail the Heav’n-born Prince of Peace
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and Life around he brings,
Ris’n with Healing in his Wings.
Mild he lays his Glory by,
Born that Men no more may die;
Born to raise the Sons of Earth,
Born to give them second Birth.
Hark! The herald-angels sing: “Glory to the new-born king!”
Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in us thy heav’nly Home;
Rise the Woman’s conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in us the Serpent’s Head.
Adam’s Likeness now efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place;
Second Adam from above,
Work it in us by thy Love.
Hark! The herald-angels sing: “Glory to the new-born king!” +
![Christ the King stained glass [Wide]](https://steynian.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/christ-the-king-stained-glass-wide.jpg)
, Pope Pius XI,Encyclical promulgated on 11 December 1925https://biblestudyforcatholics.com/pope-laity-christ-king-sunday/The Pope, the Laity, and Christ the King Sunday; and Viva Cristo Rey! Remembering Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. on his Feast Dayhttp://saltandlighttv.org/blogfeed/getpost.php?id=66878https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Roberts_PoinsettJoel Roberts PoinsettI JUST LOVE Poinsettias.. in all their 100+ varieties of colour and look. I lovedsed to have the church loaded with them where & when possible. It was only later I learned the dark history of the man behind the Mexican plant we display at Christmastime.JRP-SoW,_S.jpg)
“At the end of the encyclical, he declared that he expected three ‘blessings’ to flow from the celebration of the feast: first, that ‘men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state’; second, that ‘Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ’; and third, that ‘The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal.'”
A Swift Sunrise 