Francine Nicholson wrote:
>
> > From: kwildgen [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> >
> > Is it my imagination,or is there a very thin line between prophecy and
> > fortune-telling? As I recall, the latter was ferociously forbidden by the
> > Church, with certain exceptions made for OT types and Jesus himself.
> >
> Fortune-telling--fore-seeing future events--was/is one part of
> seership. Other parts concern obtaining "supernatural" knowledge of current
> events--like cause of illness, whereabouts of missing people or objects,
> etc. My understanding, at least for Ireland and the Highlands, is that
> general condemnation of such practices was more widespread in the modern
> period. In the late medieval period, for example, some methods employed by
> seers were considered OK, while others were condemned because they were
> perceived as invoking "demons."
>
> In the modern era of biblical exegesis, prophecy has been defined as
> something separate and distinct from predicting future events, a speaking
> out, a call to reform and return to the ways of God. While this was
> certainly part of the prophet's function, I think to remove the predictive
> element is a mdern attempt to rationalize away a mindset and attitude that
> was characteristic of earlier times.
True indeed, and we have seen an example of this attempt at
rationalization (some have defined it "whitewashing") last June 26, when
part of "The third secret of Fatime" was made public June, with much
brouhaha and learned commentaries by distinguished Vatican officials.
However, the prediction which is part of the secret was never made
public - and for all we know, some pope may have destroyed it. What was
given to the public was a "symbolic" vision, to be interpreted according
to the psychology of Lucia of Fatime, a simple and illiterate peasant
girl, with the disclaimer that no Catholic is under obligation to
believe such things. So, it all boiled down to a very, very generic call
to penance and reform.
Luciana
The way I see it, even if documents
> were composed after the events they purported to predict, the audience was
> supposed to view them as predictions.
>
> Francine Nicholson
--
****************************************
Luciana Cuppo Csaki
Societas internationalis pro Vivario
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.geocities.com/athens/aegean/9891/
****************************************
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|