Catholicism -St. Joseph wanted to divorce Mary? Re-writing the bible and Hannah and the Geese

 

Catholic Complaint 

For several Sundays  during Advent my church had us singing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" for the procession and exit.

 

Wow is that boring?  There are a million Christmas songs and we got to sing this song (not that this is a bad song as one of many) twice each mass, at least twice during Advent if I remember.

 

I so anxious to hear some Christmas songs but this song was constantly on the menu.

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"St. Joseph wanted to divorce Mary but an angel came to him"?

Gospel

Matthew 1:18-24

I admit readily I do not know as much about biblical passages as I should.  If I were to suggest softly that Catholics, as I argue, know less about the bible than most protestants but I could be wrong.

At any rate, I never knew that St. Joseph was going to divorce Mary but an angel came to him in a dream and explained about Mary, the Holy Spirit and that unexpected pregnancy.



18Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; 19and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; 21she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). 24When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife,

I'm serious, I often wondered how Joseph felt about all that.
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Chinese want bible re-written

It's not Catholicism or anything but the concept of what is essentially a political party demanding that the bible be re-written boggles the mind.

No wonder those kids in Hong Kong don't want to be turned over to these people.

And whoever these groups are they appear to have readily agreed to do so.
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiz7476vdHmAhVOpFkKHVY2ByEQ0PADMAF6BAgEEAk&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysabah.com%2Fasia%2F2019%2F12%2F25%2Fchina-to-rewrite-quran-bible-to-fit-socialist-values&usg=AOvVaw2bsHgF20i17VgMLJ2GkZBB

The Chinese Communist Party instructed the Bible and other religious texts to be rewritten in an expressly pro-communist perspective that conforms with the party’s goals

. In November, a group of 16 different experts and religious representatives were called on to attend a meeting of the Chinese Committee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Those religious leaders were then instructed to review their religious texts and reinterpret them to conform with the values of the country’s communist party doctrine, according to the Daily Mail. Wang Yang, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, reportedly told the gathered religious leaders they must interpret their religious views in their texts to meet the instructions of Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping and fulfill “the requirements of the era.”

 Those selected religious officials reportedly agreed with instructions of the Chinese ruling Communist Party and agreed to undertake the effort to review and amend or re-translate their various religious texts.
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Hannah and the Geese......Christmas Homily

Why yes I did go to church on Christmas Sunday.

And I quite enjoyed the homily (not to mention the priest and the deacon's lovely vestments).

Her name was Hannah.  She'd had a hard life but one Christmas day she'd had it.  She looked at an old manger scene she had on a mantle, left from many years ago.  Hannah decided that this story about God sending down his son to be human was a silly notion and right then resolved to believe no more nonsensical bible stories.

Then the geese landed in her yard and as Hannah squinted to try and ascertain, the geese running about her yard appeared to have gotten off the path of the lead geese and fallen out of the sky in their confusion of the migration.

Hannah thought about it more as she tried to distract the restless but lost geese into going into the shed that they be warm and comfortable for the night.  The geese refused Hannah's efforts and continued to run amok with no perceivable purpose.

Giving up on the hapless geese, Hannah considered.  Maybe this is why God sent his son.  For as Hannah chased those geese she wished she could be a goose for a minute to better communicate and lead them.

And so God sent his son to become human and better lead God's flock.

I enjoyed it and the lesson taught.
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CLARION CALL All of America loses power. The citizens take over.