Aye, on no basis whatsoever but that he was dead by the time Jesus was 30. Which is theologically interesting: Jesus didn’t - couldn’t - perform any miracles before then.
She was with child. She was still a virgin when Christ was born.
By the time Christ was murdered, women of means were supporting him and the disciples. They could afford a donkey. One was used for the benefit of His triumphal entry.
God’s heart broke as He looked at his mother who was watching him up there, bloody, dirty, writhing in agony, unable to breath as blood filled his lungs You can see them there if you keep looking down through the pages of time. You can go back in time and see what happened in vivid detail. You can see and smell and hear and feel what is happening. The sharp words. The wailing. Mary. You can see Jesus squirm and gasp for air. You can see the agony as He pushes on his feet to rearrange his position. You see blood everywhere. The air is a misty red from his blood. You can see him twitch. You can see their cheeks swollen and purple and tears steaming onto their clothes, mucous, mud, the sky growing black. You can feel God’s wrath sweeping into that unbelievable setting. It is the most horrible, the most disgusting, the most sickening thing you have ever experienced. And Mary’s there. She looks dead.
But, Sunday’s coming
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Adoptionist Christology?
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Not mine Vinnie, but it’s certainly readable from 2/3rds of the synoptics. Assuming He was God incarnate, the power of the Holy Ghost was not available to Him for miracles until He was baptized.
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Yes, it is difficult to rescue alcoholics from their addiction, which they must do for themselves, just as it is difficult to rescue people from the power conspiracy theories, and from the power of sin. In a true sense we a really all sinners saved by the grace. We have done nothing to deserve salvation.
Addicts are not really too sick to be sick. What the priest meant was that when an alcoholic is drinking he/she is not her/himself, but under the power of alcohol. When the alcoholic is not drinking; she/he is able to think, even though that thinking is impaired.
Only when we hit the bottom with our sin/addiction are we willing/able to turn away from man’s theories to God’s Will.
Interesting. IMO, the illness called alcoholism impacts the thinking of the alcoholic even when he isn’t intoxicated. His entire life becomes diseased and he must drink or he will go completely out of his mind, die or end up in prison. Alcohol doesn’t do something to him. It does something for him. And this is the difference. Alcohol does something for him. It’s his only comfort, his only friend, the only thing that makes his life bearable. A heavy drinker can step back due to some misfortune and decide he’s had enough and he quits. Detoxes would produce recovered alcoholics if it only required the cessation of drinking. But, they don’t work, not for the alcoholic. He needs an entire new life along the lines Bill Wilson experienced during his last hospitalization. He prayed that God would show himself to him if He was real and He did. Never drank after that. But, he almost did. What saved him? Giving away what he had to a hopeless drunk in Akron, Ohio, Dr. Bob Smith, a fanny doctor. He shared his past with Bob and what God had done for him. Through the Oxford group, a sort of first century back to basics Christian group, Bill learned he needed to make amends and do other things to stay true to his God and stay sober. Bill told Bob what was helping him and soon Bob went around Akron making amends. Neither Bill nor Bob drank again. They had to give away what they had received to stay sober and follow a spiritual way of living. No one had ever seen anything like it.
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