St. Anthony’s Face, God’s Mercy & Lazy Gun

Hello,

On June 10, 2014, a reconstruction of the face of St. Anthony of Padua was made public in the auditorium of the St. Gaetano Cultural Centre of Padua. The group responsible applied forensic computer techniques on the skull that is supposed to be his. The display is intended to be a homage to the Saint, whose feast day is June 13, tomorrow.

I took some pictures from the video by Gloria TV, and am posting them here for the benefit of TIA readers. To facilitate a comparison, I also copied two paintings of him by Giotto, also a Franciscan, who lived one generation after St. Anthony and, therefore, should have had knowledge of his physical appearance.

Although the reconstruction seems credible regarding the general lines of the face and skull, it appears deficient to me in the gaze. The eyes do not express great intelligence; they reveal a meddlesome and roguish personality, afflicted and slightly unbalanced. Those characteristics hardly harmonize with that which we know about St. Anthony of Padua, aka, St. Anthony of Lisbon, the city where he was born in Portugal.

     Cordially,

     A.S.G.

Dear TIA,

The Church teaches that one must be baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven. But besides the baptism by water, there is also baptism by blood and baptism by desire. These are exceptions which exist and are valid. Of course, conditions allowing, one must be baptized by water as soon as possible.

I read the book you have been using about St. Patrick, The Life of Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland by Fr. William Morris, published in 1898, and I found the following quote quite interesting. He speaks of a branch of the Saints in the Church’s Martyrology called the Adaucti (Latin for additional or added), who were baptized by blood only.

“We know enough now of St. Patrick to understand that his words and actions were heroic in the highest sense of the word, and such characters have always power to lift others to the same level. Sudden conversions, with the unhesitating acceptation of all the consequences of faith, have been phenomena of conquering grace in all ages. Such were the Saints without a name, the Adaucti, with whose commemorations the Martyrology is studded, who were converted at the mere sight of Martyrs on their way to victory, and by the baptism of blood became their companions.

"If even now the written words of St. Patrick are like a torrent of living fire in the heart, what limits can we place to the power that went with them, as they fell from the lips of one who seemed to his auditors to be ‘one of those spirits who inhabit the heavens’?“ (p. 206).

So, for those who only accept baptism of water – which is the general rule and the most common and most secure – here we have another proof that the Church also accepts the exception, baptism of blood.

     In Jesus and Mary,

     M.J.

TIA,

I love your site!!

B.M.

Hello,

Just wanted you to know that I like your site and I have posted your url in my post: Fatima Secrets - if you wish to look...

God Bless and Love,

     T.J.

TIA,

Re: The Pains Inflicted on the Reprobates in Hell

There are other accounts of the number of people in hell. Chrysostom, Gregory The Great, Louis de Montfort, Alphonsus Ligouri, to name a few. I can't argue with them or with you. What I take from this article is that so few people go to Heaven, that there is no point in even trying.

Augustine said "it is certain that few are saved." St. Jerome said, "Out of 100,000 sinners, who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved." Bede the Venerable says that "Christ's flock is called small in comparison to the greater number of reprobates." And finally, Aquinas says that "There are only a select few who are saved."

I don't know about you, but I am in a constant state of mortal sin. I break at least two commandments daily. I commit ALL the seven deadly sins, ALL the time, as I think most people do.

So, since virtually ALL of us are going to Hell, what is the point of God's "mercy"? I've heard others say that Hell is God's mercy for those who reject Him. Do you agree with that? I do not. Eternal fire and torment is not my idea of mercy.

So what is the point of existence, if 99.999% of us are damned?

     F.S.


TIA responds:

F.S.,

We believe that what you need, before any argument, are prayers. You can be sure that you have them from us. We pray that Our Lady of Good Counsel finds a way to give you calm and peace so that you can evaluate things without the strong nervous influence of a distressed temperament.

When she is successful in giving you some serenity to allow your reasoning to operate normally, you will see that the opportunity God gave us, human beings, of sharing His eternal happiness is an enormous act of mercy. He did not need to open this door for us, but He did. This is, properly speaking, what mercy means.

Since we have free will, we have to merit this gift. It is a requirement of the most elementary justice. In this test, many fail. It is sad for them, but this does not change anything in the purpose of that initial offer.

Do you remember the parable of the King who invites his friends to the wedding of His Son? It applies here. For different reasons, many do not accept the offer. By rejecting the invitation, they obviously reject being in the King’s presence. And so He invites others. What happens to those who rejected the invitation? They go to a place where the King is not present. His absence constitutes the penalty of damnation, which is the worst punishment in Hell. The other sufferings are nothing but a consequence of the absence of God.

It is so simple, so clear, so logical.

What we need is to be convinced that on our own, we cannot do anything good. We need help to respond well to that invitation; otherwise we may lose hope and fall into despair.

Since we need help, why should we not have recourse to Our Lady, who is Janua Coeli, the gate of Heaven? She is there waiting for us to ask her help and come to our succor. She never abandons one of her children who calls on her.

We hope you will take this initial step.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

Dear TIA,

I received the document below from a relative and I believe it was well written. I thought you would enjoy reading it.

E.M.



Today I swung my front door wide open and placed my Remington 30.06 rifle right in the doorway. I left 6 shells beside it, then left it alone and went about my business.

While I was gone, the mailman delivered my mail, the neighbor boy across the street mowed the yard, a girl walked her dog down the street, and quite a few cars stopped at the stop sign near the front of our house.

After about an hour, I checked on the gun. It was still sitting there, right where I had left it. It hadn't moved itself outside. It certainly hadn't killed anyone, even with the numerous opportunities it had been presented to do so.

In fact, it hadn't even loaded itself. Well you can imagine my surprise, with all the media hype about how dangerous guns are and how they kill people.

Either the media is wrong or I'm in possession of the laziest gun in the world.

Well, I'm off to check on my spoons. I hear they're making people fat.

The United States is 3rd in Murders throughout the World. But if you take out Chicago, Detroit , Washington DC and New Orleans, the United States is 4th from the bottom for Murders.

These four cities also have the toughest Gun Control Laws in the United States. ALL four are controlled by Democrats.

It would be absurd to draw any conclusions from this data – right?