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Dear Ray and Zenovia,

Happily, the last Sobor of the Russian Church has denied all possibility that Tsar Ivan the Terrible could be canonized a saint . . .

Just thought you might like to know . . .

Alex

Dear Ray,

Thanks for your interesting post. Where there is diabolical evil in a person, there is a sense of the person lacking a soul, a blank look behind the eyes...this is sadly true.

Where there is holiness, the person seems to radiate with goodness.

Holy Monastic Elders who have been given charismatic gifts often meet people by first looking into the person's eyes to discern the person's spirit.

Dear Alex,

Actually, I am the one who brought up Tsar Ivan!

I will sleep much better knowing that both he (as well as Rasputin) are not being considered for canonization! LOL! :rolleyes:

Regards,
Alice

Alice,

I can see this being true and it would terrify me to death to meet such a person. I have little confidence that i would be able to stand such holy scrutiny.

Jason

Hi Zenovia,

May I draw you attention to this parable:

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, 'You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went.

Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, 'Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You go into the vineyard too.'

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.'

And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'

So the last will be first, and the first last." Holy Gospel of St Matthew 20.1-16

I believe this clearly indicates that those who come to faith late/last are indeed equal to those of us who have served all the day long. :-) That's the generosity of Our God, it surely seems.

take care, wg

Dear Alice,

There was a case of a western saint that perhaps shouldn't have been . . .

An antipope canonized Charlemagne as a saint, but when the real pope came back, he moved quickly to limit Charlemagne's cult and declared him "Blessed" only.

To this day, Blessed Charlemagne's public cult is limited to Aachen that has a gorgeous reliquary of him.

When I was on tour of Greece, our guide, Eleftherios, talked alot about Charlemagne and when I mentioned this above, he couldn't believe it and then looked to my wife and said, "Your husband knows so much about the saints - thees ees a sateesfaction!"

I guess he could of said, "Eess outrage!"



Alex

Dear DJS,

This has nothing to do with our Lord's forgiveness. What I mean is that the Kingdom of God is within us. We open our hearts to our Lord in repentance, and the Holy Spirit comes in. With this, we keep growing in Grace until we achieve divinity.

If a person is a great sinner, and he repents before he dies, of course all of heaven rejoices...But! It will take time for him acquire the same extent of Grace as a Saint. If he has died, then (I should think), his spiritual growth will be accomplished in some sort of after life. Isn't this what we pray for when we pray for the dead?

Yet, time as we know it doesn't exist in our afterlife, because all personal experiences cease...At least as we know them. So how can one grow spiritually? Of course it's all a mystery.

Zenovia

I recall seeing Germans after WWII with that blank cold look behind the eye's. I realized much, much later, that they had to be Nazi's.

I also know some people with black sharp beady eyes, that I'm positive are diabolic. This is much more common. I can't help but feel they have subjecated themselves to demons.

Now there is also another look, where the eyes are like deep hollow pools. Oh well! Didn't our Lord say that the eyes reflect one's soul.

One thing I have found that they all have in common is a lack of presence as well as a lack of reason....yet, even without any logic or reasoning, they tend to acquire whatever they want. Very diabolical!

Don't mind me, my experiences in life have been very unusual. Someday I'll say a little more, and maybe the stories I've heard about the supernatural experiences of my great grandfather and one of my grandaunts. They had to be quite close to sainthood.

Zenovia