Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: Mother Mary has had many visitations to the Earth since her "Assumption". Who is this spirit that came to Lourdes, and many other places? Was Mary a disciple of Jesus?

A: Marian visitations and apparitions have been going on for decades. I remember as a child in Catholic school, Fatima and Lourdes were very hot topics, and they were always quite a mystery to me...still are! As late as the 1960s, apparitions - supposedly of Mary - were seen for many months by some young girls in Garabandal, Spain and caused quite a stir in the Catholic community. These apparitions are often accompanied by warnings, many very dire, about coming disasters, chastisements, and so forth. I remember in the Fatima visitations, there was supposedly a miracle, where the sun seemed to descend upon many thousands of people. This is pretty well documented through eyewitness reports, but seems to have been somewhat subjective, as many - even believers - saw nothing at all.

Over the centuries since Jesus walked the earth, Mary has been elevated to the status of a virtual deity among Catholics. She is seen as an intercessor, pleading with mortals to mend their ways, lest her son wreak some sort of disaster upon humanity for its wicked ways. She is seen as almost begging us, implying that she cannot stay her son's hand forever, meaning that Jesus will punish us severely if we don't repent. It is interesting to note that all of these apparitions occurred to Catholic youngsters, primarily adolescent girls.

The Urantia Book offers no information that I can find about this sort of thing, although I wish that it did. Were these phenomenon purely subjective? Were they a case of mass hysteria? Was there really a good spirit communicating with young children, offering clues to the future? If so, who could it be? As far as I know, there are no documented corrobortions of the predictions of any of these visitations. Many, many people experienced healing of ailments, as at Lourdes, but was this a real case of miraculous healing, or was it the faith of the ailing person that cured them? We have evidence of this happening during Jesus' life, as in the case of the woman with the spirit of infirmity. Faith is a powerful adjunct to healing.

Unfortunately, I can offer no explanation for these events, and while I find them very interesting - even amazing - I have a hard time believing that they are Divine visitations. Our heavenly Father does not deal in fear and warnings, but in love and salvation. God works from within the individual heart and soul, and I think he would not need to use such dramatic means to call attention to himself. He waits for his children to come to him, and dwells as the "still, small voice," leading the way to his will. Having said that, I sometimes wish that there could be some kind of world-wide Divine event that would get the attention of people who need some proof of God, but so far, that has not happened. The truth is that we humans are engaged in a life that requires rugged faith and the religion of personal spiritual experience to produce any real spiritual progress - not apparitions and visitations by supposedly supernatural beings. Consider this Urantia Book quote:

Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.
p1105:1(101:1.4)

As to the second part of your question: Mary, the mother of Jesus was not strictly a disciple of Jesus. She was his mother; and throughout Jesus life, Mary was at various times loving, proud, perplexed, hopeful, and also bitterly disappointed as to the course that her son's life took. She was quite a normal human mother, with a normal mother's care and concern for her child's welfare. You can read more about Mary HERE

The "Marys" who were disciples of Jesus were Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the sister of Lazarus.

I wish I could have given you a better answer, but I hope this has been of some help to you...

Labels: apparitions, Jesus, Lourdes, Mary, Mary Magdalene, The Urantia Book

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Sunday, April 16, 2006

Did Jesus have a daughter with Mary Magdalene?

Q: Did Jesus have a daughter with Mary Magdalene?

Q: The question really is, was Jesus the incarnation of a divine being or was Jesus just a great guy. In either case the life and teaching of Jesus changed the world so he continues to be the pivot point for both spiritual and secular thinkers.

If Jesus was really just a nice guy and had had children what would it mean to us today? Actually, nothing. Greatness comes through the spirit, through the inner life and that connection to what is of true value. The value of bloodline is a superstition -- bloodlines do not breed greatness.

Secularists are struggling as hard today to undermine the values religion imparts to culture as they ever have in the past and culture is being tested today as never before. Popular and thought provoking books like The Da Vinci Code put new doubts into peoples thoughts and the media seems to work overtime to enforce the doubt so this particular question is at the forefront of that long-asked question of who was Jesus .

The Bible states emphatically that Jesus was divine naming him the only begotten son of God and claiming that Jesus is the Son of the Trinity. The Bible appears to find less and less favor in our culture today and there's a struggle even among the clergy -- one of the main underpinnings of Western culture is eroding.

The Urantia Book is more modern than the Bible, it gives greater detail and appeals to both faith and the logical mind. It states emphatically that Jesus was divine and that in coming here he had specific purposes both for himself and for this world; this is described in detail in Paper 120 and elsewhere in the book. And just prior to his mortal life the bestowal guidelines set before him included that he not marry nor have children. As a divine being incarnating as a mortal yet having recall of his previous existence, Jesus saw all who inhabit the earth as his children, sons and daughters.

Even though our culture is sexually repressed we fixate on sex and see life thought sex tinted glasses. Others are seen as objects to be exploited for pleasure. It's assumed that everyone is also seeing everyone around them as sex objects too yet even with this near obsession most fathers do not see their daughters as sex objects. So one would ask, why would the father of us all see any of us as sex objects?

If you have concerns or doubts about this then read The Urantia Book. It clears the confusion and dispels doubt. Jesus was not like you or I -- he was a divine being here for a purpose which he fulfilled flawlessly.

This is a great question and we've added it to our discussion board so that you can have the benefit of the thoughtful responses of our online Urantia Book reader community. You can visit this board and see these responses by clicking here:
http://forums.truthbook.com/viewforum.php?f=11 and going to the forum titled "Questions & Answers."

May I also recommend that if you're not already signed up that you consider subscribing to the Quote of the Day. It's a free service that offers a daily quote from the incomparable teachings of this marvelous book along with a beautiful and inspiring image, a great way to start one's day as well as to begin to understand the teachings of the book. To subscribe go to the upper right corner of our home page, click on Quote of the Day and follow the instructions.

Thank you for your question.

Larry Watkins
Truthbook.com

Labels: Da Vinci Code, Jesus, Larry Watkins, Mary Magdalene, The Urantia Book

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