LOSING MY RELIGION - R.E.M.
"Consider this
Consider this the hint of the century
Consider this the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fantasies come
Flailing around
Now I've said too much .........
.... That's me in the corner
That's me in the spot-light Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much, I haven't said enough .."
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This morning The Old Girl and I talked about religion which is rare for us being atheists. Admittedly The Old Girl, as an atheist, is a bit more red toothed' than I am but we generally agree that religions are a ridiculous concept and that its devotees, especially the Catholics are batshit crazy. Take Robert. Please.
We were having a discussion about something and I said "It doesn't matter - the world will blow up some time soon anyway."
That led us into talking about Putin, Russia and the imminent invasion of Ukraine. The Old Girl said that Nostradamus's prophesies might be coming true although they did focus on the Middle East. I said that the Christian crazies will all come out soon with "the end is nigh" and "repent now" messages. We then discussed that if Robert's god did come down to help the Christians he/she/it should be 'man' enough to say: "Oops. I fucked up. Sorry about that. I could have and should have prevented all of this bad stuff right from the beginning. Mea Culpa*"
Naturally any references to god, Christians and crazies led me straight to Robert. Here's his latest witter.
ROBERT'S CRAZY BOX
Robert mentions a crazy by the name of Maria Faustina Kowalska who was canonised (don't ask) as Saint Faustina. Robert states that he's listening to a podcast series on this particular crazy as he's now finished listening to " 365 days of batshit-crazy Catholic nonsense" - an ongoing series.
Here's a link to Faustina:
Saint Faustina
And here's a summary of the contents.
A Polish Saint, who reportedly had visions of Jesus Christ Himself (sic), is Sister Mary Faustina Kowalska.
Poland has a history of very religious people (Pope John Paul II) which is a by-product of the centuries of strife and repression that it has endured.
Born in Głogowiec, Poland in 1905, Helena Kowalska was stirred from an early age to join religious life. At the age of seven, she already knew she wanted to be a nun, though her parents didn’t support the idea. Still, religious life drew her like a magnet, and her parents would ultimately prove unable to counter its force.
In a later age she would have wanted to be a princess, an astronaut or a president.
At age nineteen, while attending a dance, Helena had a vision of Christ, who told her to drop everything and immediately travel to Warsaw to join a convent. It was a testament to her faith and piety that she set off for the capital in obedience. She joined the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and received her habit and religious name of Faustina in April 1926.
At this dance she probably met some charmer who told her to drop her pants and then, after spiking her drink, spirited her away kind of like those hippie cultists like Charles Manson did with naive young women in the 1960s.
In 1930, Sister Faustina was transferred to a convent in Płock, Poland, an assignment that would have an inconceivable impact on her life and on Roman Catholics everywhere.
More likely some kind of mental institution funded by the Catholic Church.
One February night, Sister Faustina was in her room when she said Jesus appeared to her, dressed in white, with red and white rays emanating from His heart. He told her to paint an image of the way He appeared, signing it with the phrase “Jezu, ufam Tobie” (Jesus I trust in you). Initially, few took her story seriously. It wasn’t until after Sister Faustina took her final vows in 1933 and was transferred to Vilnius (today the capital of Lithuania) that she was able to begin fulfilling Christ’s request of her.
This sounds hallucinogenic to me. If Faustina wasn't taking drugs or eating funny mushrooms then her own internal chemistry was creating schizoid components which explains the fantasy.
While working as a gardener in Vilnius, as part of that city’s convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, Sister Faustina met Father Michael Sopoćko, who was the nuns’ confessor. She told him about her conversations with Jesus, and he was initially skeptical, going so far as to order that Sister Faustina undergo a complete psychiatric evaluation. After taking all the necessary tests, she passed and was declared mentally sound.
Father Michael Sopoćko should have been investigated. His name alone sounds suspicious and he probably lusted after Faustino who, going by that portrait of her, was easy on the eye.
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| Father Michael Sopoćko |
After that, Father Sopoćko was fully dedicated to helping Sister Faustina complete the mission given to her from above. He tasked an artist, Eugene Kazimierowski, to paint a picture based on Sister Faustina’s vision of Christ.
Grooming.
At one point, Sister Faustina had written in her diary that Christ elaborated on His image proclaiming, the two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized (sic) heart was opened by a lance on the Cross. These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. (Diary of Sister Faustina,
Painting the image wasn’t enough, however, as Sister Faustina had received further instructions from Christ to ensure that it would be publicly venerated and that the second Sunday of Easter become a feast day called Divine Mercy Sunday. Unfortunately, Sister Faustina would not live to see all of this come to fruition.
In 1935, she had another vision, which inspired her to write the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a rosary-based prayer recited by faithful Catholics to this day. Not very long after, Sister Faustina was diagnosed with tuberculosis and moved to a sanatorium in Krakow, Poland. She died on October 5, 1938. She had reportedly spent her last moments praying in ecstasy.
It's a pity that Fruitloop Faustina's Jesus didn't warn her that Poland, in a few short years was going to be devastated first by Nazi Germany and then by Stalinist Russia but I guess that old Jesus was more interested in having another feast day named after him.
It's all laughable really and suggests some kind of mental illness exacerbated by the fact that she was taken away at a young age and cloistered. Her fantasies suggest yearning (sexual and also missing the love of her family) that no-one in their right mind could suggest was saintly ....oh. that's right, it's catholicism we're talking of here.
OK, let's leave it there. In the link above there is mention of how she was canonised which makes me think that given it's so easy nowadays (no longer having to be roasted alive or shot full of arrows) that I could become a saint if I pulled the right strings. Maybe Robert can give me some ideas or at least write a reference for me.
* For those who didn't make the 'P' classes back in school this means "It was my fault" in Latin.
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