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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: Oct 17 2011 at 8:45pm | IP Logged
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Does anyone have this book (or read it):
Holy Ghosts: Or, How a (Not So) Good Catholic Boy Became a Believer in Things That Go Bump in the Night by Gary Jansen
I do not care to review anything that is even remotely anti-Catholic. I am interested in a good book (pro-Catholicism) that offers a reality check on the supernatural. Any suggestions appreciated.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
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JennGM
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Cay, I have not read it. I would seriously doubt that this would provide a true Catholic perspective on this area merely because it's printed by a secular press.
I'm not sure all that he covers, but I'll take a stab at some areas.
I don't know any books in particular to recommend. I know there are various books that treat on the Four Last Things (Death, Heaven, Hell, Last Judgement), Poor Souls in Purgatory, etc. That should be our focus. I would think all the Peter Kreeft's books on Heaven would be helpful.
The measuring sticks would be from the Catechism and this from The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (emphasis mine):
Quote:
Other Suffrage
255. The Church offers the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist for the dead not only on the occasion of their funerals, but also on the third, seventh, and thirtieth day following their deaths, as well as on their anniversaries. The celebration of the Mass in suffrage for the souls of the faithful departed is the Christian way of recalling and prolonging, in the Lord, that communion with those who have crossed the threshold of death. On 2 November, the Church incessantly offers the holy sacrifice of the Mass for the souls of all the faithful departed and prays the Liturgy of the Hours for them.
The Church daily supplicates and implores the Lord, in the celebration of the Mass and at Vespers, that "the faithful who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith [...] may be given light, happiness and peace"(370).
It is important to instruct the faithful in the light of the celebration of the sacrifice of the Eucharist, in which the Church prays that all of the faithful departed, of whatever place or time, will be brought to the glory of the risen Lord, so as to avoid possessive or particular ideas that relate the Mass only to one's "own" dead(371). The celebration of Mass in suffrage for the dead also presents an important opportunity for catechesis on the last things.
The Memorial of the Dead in Popular Piety
256. As with the Liturgy, popular piety pays particular attention to the memory of the dead and carefully raises up to God prayers in suffrage for them.
In matters relating to the "memorial of the dead", great pastoral prudence and tact must always be employed in addressing the relationship between Liturgy and popular piety, both in its doctrinal aspect and in harmonising the liturgical actions and pious exercises.
257. It is always necessary to ensure that popular piety is inspired by the principles of the Christian faith. Thus, they should be made aware of the paschal meaning of the death undergone by those who have received Baptism and who have been incorporated into the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ (cf. Rm 6,3-10); the immortality of the soul (cf Lk 23, 43); the communion of Saints, through which "union with those who are still on their pilgrim journey with the faithful who repose in Christ is not in the least broken, but strengthened by a communion of spiritual goods, as constantly taught by the Church"(372):"our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective"(373); the resurrection of the body; the glorious coming of Christ, who will "judge the living and the dead"(374); the reward given to each according to his deeds; life eternal.
Deeply rooted cultural elements connoting particular anthropological concepts are to be found among the customs and usages connected with the "cult of the dead" among some peoples. These often spring from a desire to prolong family and social links with the departed. Great caution must be used in examining and evaluating these customs. Care should be taken to ensure that they are not contrary to the Gospel. Likewise, care should be taken to ensure that they cannot be interpreted as pagan residues.
258. In matters relating to doctrine, the following are to be avoided:
• the invocation of the dead in practices involving divination;
• the interpretation or attribution of imaginary effects to dreams relating to the dead, which often arises from fear;
• any suggestion of a belief in reincarnation;
• the danger of denying the immortality of the soul or of
detaching death from the resurrection, so as to make the Christian religion seem like a religion of the dead;
• the application of spacio-temporal categories to the dead.
259. "Hiding death and its signs" is widespread in contemporary society and prone to the difficulties arising from doctrinal and pastoral error.
Doctors, nurses, and relatives frequently believe that they have a duty to hide the fact of imminent death from the sick who, because of increasing hospitalization, almost always die outside of the home.
It has been frequently said that the great cities of the living have no place for the dead: buildings containing tiny flats cannot house a space in which to hold a vigil for the dead; traffic congestion prevents funeral corteges because they block the traffic; cemeteries, which once surrounded the local church and were truly "holy ground" and indicated the link between Christ and the dead, are now located at some distance outside of the towns and cities, since urban planning no longer includes the provision of cemeteries.
Modern society refuses to accept the "visibility of death", and hence tries to conceal its presence. In some places, recourse is even made to conserving the bodies of the dead by chemical means in an effort to prolong the appearance of life.
The Christian, who must be conscious of and familiar with the idea of death, cannot interiorly accept the phenomenon of the "intolerance of the dead", which deprives the dead of all acceptance in the city of the living. Neither can he refuse to acknowledge the signs of death, especially when intolerance and rejection encourage a flight from reality, or a materialist cosmology, devoid of hope and alien to belief in the death and resurrection of Christ.
The Christian is obliged to oppose all forms of "commercialisation of the dead", which exploit the emotions of the faithful in pursuit of unbridled and shameful commercial profit.
260. In accordance with time, place and tradition, popular devotions to the dead take on a multitude of forms:
• the novena for the dead in preparation for the 2 November, and the octave prolonging it, should be celebrated in accordance with liturgical norms;
• visits to the cemetery; in some places this is done in a community manner on 2 November, at the end of the parochial mission, when the parish priest takes possession of the parish; visiting the cemetery can also be done privately, when the faithful go to the graves of their own families to maintain them or decorate them with flowers and lamps. Such visits should be seen as deriving from the bonds existing between the living and the dead and not from any form of obligation, non-fulfilment of which involves a superstitious fear;
• membership of a confraternity or other pious association whose objects include "burial of the dead" in a the light of the Christian vision of death, praying for the dead, and providing support for the relatives of the dead;
• suffrage for the dead through alms deeds, works of mercy, fasting, applying indulgences, and especially prayers, such as the De profundis, and the formula Requiem aeternam, which often accompanies the recitation of the Angelus, the rosary, and at prayers before and after meals.
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Also helpful is from the Vatican's New Age document. From this paragraph
Quote:
2.3.2. The essential matrix of New Age thinking
The essential matrix of New Age thinking is to be found in the esoteric-theosophical tradition which was fairly widely accepted in European intellectual circles in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was particularly strong in freemasonry, spiritualism, occultism and theosophy, which shared a kind of esoteric culture. In this world-view, the visible and invisible universes are linked by a series of correspondences, analogies and influences between microcosm and macrocosm, between metals and planets, between planets and the various parts of the human body, between the visible cosmos and the invisible realms of reality. Nature is a living being, shot through with networks of sympathy and antipathy, animated by a light and a secret fire which human beings seek to control. People can contact the upper or lower worlds by means of their imagination (an organ of the soul or spirit), or by using mediators (angels, spirits, devils) or rituals. |
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and continuing.
As a culture, We are being onslaught by vampires and other spiritualism (mediums), witchcraft, etc. It's becoming an everyday accepted occurence, so it is important to sort through from a Catholic viewpoint.
The spiritual world is more "real" than the human world, although we cannot understand or fathom it. It's those saints who were holy that seemed to closer and communed with the angels and God.
But that isn't the same as the dead visiting or haunting places -- that would be against this: "the application of spacio-temporal categories to the dead."
I can't find the references, but I have been taught that no saint, Poor Soul, angel or devil is allowed to visit humans without God's permission. We have had recording visions of Poor Souls visiting, or devil tormenting some good soul like St. John Vianney. The Poor Souls are completely helpless, making reparation for their sins. This is why the Communion of Saints is so important, to help others in need: we on earth (Church Militant) and the Poor Souls (Church Suffering).
I have found Women of Grace's blog on the New Age very helpful. This post on ghosts and mediums even mentions a few books that might help.
Father Herbert Thurstons two books on spiritualism, Ghosts and Poltergeists, and The Church and Spiritualism.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven by Peter Kreeft
She also treats the latest TLC show Long Island Medium very well.
I had posted this last year in my All Souls post:
Quote:
Can the souls of the dead leave heaven or hell? If so, why are spiritualistic seances condemned by the Church?
The possibility or impossibility of a departed soul’s appearing to the living has no bearing whatsoever on the Church’s condemnation of Spiritism. The Church frowns on Spiritus as superstition because that occult practice is a presumptious attempt on the part of man to effect apparitions for insufficient, or even evil, reasons. The Church’s attittude is based also on the knowledge that the other circumstances ordinarily attended seances are hardly in accord with God’s wisdom and holiness–and only God can permit the appearance of separated spirits.
There is no doubt that the souls of the dead have appeared, but always with God’s permission and for God’s purposes.
St. Thomas said that no soul can leave heave or hell in the sense that its place is no longer heaven or hell. Moreover, no soul can leave, even for a time, in ordinary course of nature. A soul can leave, however, by a dispensation of Divine Providence.
The main reasons that departed souls cannot leave heaven or hell in in the ordinary course of nature are:
1) There is a great difference between the state of the living and the state of the dead. The living man’s knowledge comes through sense impressions; the departed soul is bodiless, and cannot communicate with the living through nature means.
2) Ordinarily the departed soul, since it is in its final state, has no special reason to communicate with the living.
(From Ask and Learn: Questions and Answers on the Life of the Church by Rev. Reobert E. Kekeisen, M.A., Litt.D., Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1957. ) |
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CrunchyMom
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Didn't a former Vatican exorcist recently write a book? I would think that would also be helpful in discerning this area because, imo, any "real" paranormal activity is likely connected to occult practices in some way.
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organiclilac
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| Didn't a former Vatican exorcist recently write a book? I would think that would also be helpful in discerning this area because, imo, any "real" paranormal activity is likely connected to occult practices in some way. |
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Fr. Gabriele Amorth's An Exorcist Tells His Story is a good, but very disturbing read. It seems that there is a lot of occult behavior prevalent in Italian culture (superstitions, curses, hexes, etc.) that he deals with there, so some of it I didn't feel applied to American culture very well, but it certainly affirms the reality of spiritual warfare.
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JodieLyn
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I don't know much about the topic or the books.. but I did want to mention that typically if a book is very Catholic that the negative reviews will bring that up in some way.. so sometimes I find that it's the 1 and 2 star reviews that give me the best information on if a book has what I'm looking for.
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Betsy
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JodieLyn wrote:
| I so sometimes I find that it's the 1 and 2 star reviews that give me the best information on if a book has what I'm looking for. |
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Sad, but so true! 
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Cay Gibson
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CrunchyMom wrote:
| Didn't a former Vatican exorcist recently write a book? |
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I had both books written by a former Vatican exoricist. Loaned one out and never got it back but I have the other.
CrunchyMom wrote:
| I would think that would also be helpful in discerning this area because, imo, any "real" paranormal activity is likely connected to occult practices in some way. |
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That's why I'm searching. We caution and warn teens and young adults away from the paranormal and occults and, partly because of that, many have begun viewing the "real deal" as some fake hocus pocus. At this time of year they are viewing it for fun and curiosity, not because they think it's real or can touch them in any way.
When we tell them about spiritual warfare being real, they look at us as though to say, "Prove it!"
More than believing the occult and paranormal are real, I think many children think it's just something fun to dabble in...like a game. Or am I being naive?
They flirt with it until they get bored with it and go looking for something more elsewhere.
Confusing!
JennGM wrote:
| Cay, I have not read it. I would seriously doubt that this would provide a true Catholic perspective on this area merely because it's printed by a secular press. |
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I thought the same thing, Jenn.
JennGM wrote:
| I would think all the Peter Kreeft's books on Heaven would be helpful. |
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I will check into his books. Thank you!
Thank you, Jenn. This is very timely. I'm printing it for a more thorough reading.
JennGM wrote:
The Christian is obliged to oppose all forms of "commercialisation of the dead", which exploit the emotions of the faithful in pursuit of unbridled and shameful commercial profit.
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Really! And these "forms of commercialisation of the dead" would be?
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks
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JennGM
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Cay Gibson wrote:
JennGM wrote:
The Christian is obliged to oppose all forms of "commercialisation of the dead", which exploit the emotions of the faithful in pursuit of unbridled and shameful commercial profit.
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Really! And these "forms of commercialisation of the dead" would be? |
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I would take some guesses. It's NOT the buying of things that honor the dead, like the grave blankets, flowers, flags, etc. to clean and decorate graves. And I don't think it refers to memento mori or the folk customs of honoring the dead.
There might be a fine line where it is taken overboard, carried into superstition or peer pressure, so that a person feels it obligatory to buy certain things for his dead family member. I can't think of examples, because I'm not in that situation, but I think in other countries there might be common.
I do think it definitely refers to people who try to profit by manipulating people -- mediums, fortune tellers -- that say they communicate with the dead, or says they know the wishes of the dead and gets monies or sells things that way. Or items for sale purported to help communicate or channel, etc.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: Things That Go Bump in the Night
