“The humility that cries, ‘Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness’ is synonymous with sanctity.” - Magnificat
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It goes well with, ‘A saint is a sinner who keeps trying’.
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Photo: From Elena at Tea At Trianon
Ever wonder about the “Rapture”?
My answer to the first question; “Not so much.”
My answer to the second question; “No.”
Since I’m coming off as a fundamentalist lately, I thought I’d share this from Corrie Ten Boom. Nope - I do not believe in the Rapture - as one local priest once said, “Why would Jesus want to cheat us out of our sharing in His cross?” As for the “end times” we’ve been there all along.
“No pit so deep… His love is not deeper still.”
Anyway - I love the Ten Booms - both Betsy and Corrie. They both have a great deal to teach Christians. Their ‘witness’ and ’confession’ are as relevant today as ever. Corrie wrote a letter in the 1970’s - warning Evangelicals that they are wrong about the rapture, here are a few excerpts:
“There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.
In China, the Christians were told, “Don’t worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated – raptured.” Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,
“We have failed.
We should have made the people strong for persecution,
rather than telling them Jesus would come first.
Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution,
how to stand when the tribulation comes,
– to stand and not faint.” I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it.
We are next.” - Letter 1974
The triumph of the Cross.
The day before she died, Betsy told Corrie she was going to be healed, she was going to come out of this triumphant. Betsy died the next day. Years ago, I knew an annoying little nun, bent over with age and afflicted with many illnesses, as well as deep depression. A few days before she died she said to me, “Oh Terry, the Lord has healed me!” But then she died.
Don’t you see? The struggle, the tribulation, the suffering; that is our victory… “Oh death! Where is thy sting?”
The “little way”.
“When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down.”
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”, (Job 13:15) - Letter 1974
St. Therese of Lisieux said exactly the same thing.
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