It appears that Fr Nix, in that article, also rides in the wake of enthusiasts and charismatics that rose to prominence in the 20th century. He wrote “.. I do know my sins enough to write this this: The only time, every year, that I totally feel all of my Purgatory time totally relieved is on Divine Mercy Sunday. It is so palpable and so true ..”.
The statement is presumptuous, fuelled with “power of feelings”, which posture as “a private revelation”. Not even Apostle St Paul was so bold to claim such irrational things.
Regarding divine mercy matter, the Church had already said:
“The distribution of pictures and writings which present the devotion to the Divine Mercy in the forms proposed by this Sister Faustina, should be forbidden…”
— The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, March 6, 1959
Man who investigated this matter was no other than Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty, the man portrayed in the film “The Scarlet and the Black”.
It would be a pity that anybody holds onto theological speculation and divination that the Church had already dismissed. If the divine mercy idea was dismissed, there was a good reason for it.
However, the 20th century is marked by the continuous rise of charismatics across the Catholic world, who use (1) the power of their convictions, (2) traumatic happenstances in their lives, and (3) resulting feelings accompanying them, as a catalyst to justify themselves as new “Catholic role models.” “Living saints”.
It’s a Messianic complex.
It is unfortunate that Pope JP2, who was a self-infatuated charismatic rather than a careful man, abandoned the safety of proven truths and practices, but resurrected many previously dismissed ideas, and introduced brand new speculations and practices as a staple of his mandate.
Charismatics in the Church today often quote him in any context; he is their “patron saint” whenever they want to justify vain speculations.
Charismaticism, leading by feelings, and self-infatuation in unsound ideas was the cornerstone of Protestantism of the Renaissance. But if the same process is allowed to “burn slowly”, so to speak, we have the same situation in the Catholic Church after the WW2, and especially after the V2. Right now, we are at the culmination of it.
https://www.padreperegrino.org/2019/04/div-mercy/
I do not agree with Fr. Nix. However, that article was written 5 years ago. Perhaps he changed his mind.
It appears that Fr Nix, in that article, also rides in the wake of enthusiasts and charismatics that rose to prominence in the 20th century. He wrote “.. I do know my sins enough to write this this: The only time, every year, that I totally feel all of my Purgatory time totally relieved is on Divine Mercy Sunday. It is so palpable and so true ..”.
The statement is presumptuous, fuelled with “power of feelings”, which posture as “a private revelation”. Not even Apostle St Paul was so bold to claim such irrational things.
Regarding divine mercy matter, the Church had already said:
“The distribution of pictures and writings which present the devotion to the Divine Mercy in the forms proposed by this Sister Faustina, should be forbidden…”
— The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, March 6, 1959
Man who investigated this matter was no other than Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty, the man portrayed in the film “The Scarlet and the Black”.
I wonder if Fr. Nix still holds to the Divine Mercy devotion today. He didn’t mention it at all this year as far as I am aware.
It would be a pity that anybody holds onto theological speculation and divination that the Church had already dismissed. If the divine mercy idea was dismissed, there was a good reason for it.
However, the 20th century is marked by the continuous rise of charismatics across the Catholic world, who use (1) the power of their convictions, (2) traumatic happenstances in their lives, and (3) resulting feelings accompanying them, as a catalyst to justify themselves as new “Catholic role models.” “Living saints”.
It’s a Messianic complex.
It is unfortunate that Pope JP2, who was a self-infatuated charismatic rather than a careful man, abandoned the safety of proven truths and practices, but resurrected many previously dismissed ideas, and introduced brand new speculations and practices as a staple of his mandate.
Charismatics in the Church today often quote him in any context; he is their “patron saint” whenever they want to justify vain speculations.
Charismaticism, leading by feelings, and self-infatuation in unsound ideas was the cornerstone of Protestantism of the Renaissance. But if the same process is allowed to “burn slowly”, so to speak, we have the same situation in the Catholic Church after the WW2, and especially after the V2. Right now, we are at the culmination of it.