Video Shows Virgin Mary’s Lips on Painting Moving During Prayer at Sydney Church; Catholics Believe They Are Witnessing ‘Miracle’

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Video Shows Virgin Mary’s Lips on Painting Moving During Prayer at Sydney Church; Catholics Believe They Are Witnessing ‘Miracle’

<b>Christian Post Report</b> – Recorded footage in July 2015 shows a Middle Eastern Catholic picture of the Virgin Mary moving her lips at a Sydney church.” title=”<b>Christian Post Report</b> – Recorded footage in July 2015 shows a Middle Eastern Catholic picture of the Virgin Mary moving her lips at a Sydney church.” name=”jpg” src=”http://images.christianpost.com/full/85147/recorded-footage-in-july-2015-shows-a-middle-eastern-catholic-picture-of-the-virgin-mary-moving-her-lips-at-a-sydney-church.jpg” class=”imgPhoto” width=”550″ height=”450″ /> <small class=(Photo: George Akary Facebook video)

Christian Post Report – Recorded footage in July 2015 shows a Middle Eastern Catholic picture of the Virgin Mary moving her lips at a Sydney church.

Roman Catholic parishioners at a church in Sydney claim to be witnessing a miracle concerning a painting of the Virgin Mary, with a video that has gone viral online showing her moving her lips during prayer time.

Members of the congregation at Saint Charbel’s Maronite Catholic Church in Punchbowl in Sydney have uploaded a number of videos of the alleged miracle, Yahoo7 News reported, which are now being shared around social media.

One such video uploaded by church-goer George Akary from Sunday shows the old Middle Eastern Catholic painting of the Virgin Mary, who is holding the baby Jesus, moving her lips as prayers are read at the church.

Akary claimed on Facebook that the video is not a trick, as he has seen the lips moving during prayer on several occasions and under different lighting.

“To clarify for the viewers … I saw this during mass and at the end of mass the rosary is prayed. I went to the altar and wanted to confirm via recording it … lights are not relevant and there flickering, etc. as I have seen this occur under various lighting and have considered those possibilities. It is what it is. … I also did notice whilst the people were praying the lips sped up or slowed down to the prayer been said,” he wrote.

Akary added that the supposed miracle also occurs with other images at the church during rosary prayer, and invited people to come to the church and witness the occurrences for themselves.

Another Catholic who uploaded footage of the painting was Kirsten Keirouz, who told Daily Mail Australia she first witnessed the Virgin Mary moving her lips when two of her friends nudged her during church service and told her to “look at the painting.”

“Once I looked up, I had no idea what they wanted me to look at and I saw her [the Virgin Mary] mouth moving. I then asked my friend: ‘Is it her mouth?’ She replied ‘yes.’ and then I got the shivers throughout my whole body. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I kept blinking in case I was seeing things,” Keirouz said.

Not all are convinced by the video, however, and Saint Charbel’s Father Superior Joseph Sleiman said that he believes parishioners are seeing an optical illusion rather than a miracle.

“I do not consider this to be a miracle, but I still encourage personal reflection and spirituality,” Sleiman said.

Source : Christian Post

Over 1,000 Children Killed, 1.5 Million Wounded for Life as World’s Silence Encourages Bloodshed in Syria, Says Human Rights Group

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Over 1,000 Children Killed, 1.5 Million Wounded for Life as World’s Silence Encourages Bloodshed in Syria, Says Human Rights Group

Syria (Photo: Reuters/Sultan Kitaz)

Christian Post Report – A civil defence member holds a rescued schoolgirl after what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and hit a school and a residential building in Seif al-Dawla neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, May 3, 2015.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that more than 1,000 children have been killed in airstrikes carried out by the Syrian government in the ongoing civil war. The watchdog group adds that 4,879 civilians in total have died in aerial bombardments by warplanes and helicopters, with a U.N. envoy deriding the “unprecedented levels of destruction” Syrians are suffering.

SOHR is keeping records on the civilian casualties in the civil war, which is being waged between the government of President Bashar al-Assad, various rebel forces, and terror group ISIS.

All sides have been accused of causing mass civilian casualties, though SOHR has pointed out that the barrel bomb attacks by the government on cities and towns has been especially deadly to civilians trapped in the cross fire.

Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. envoy to Syria and Iraq, told Reuters that new government airstrikes had caused “unprecedented levels of destruction and many deaths among the civilian population” in the city of Zabadani.

Assad’s forces, backed by close to 3,000 Hezbollah soldiers, have been looking to recapture the rebel-held city, which is near the border with Lebanon. Rebel forces, which include the al-Qaeda affiliated groups of Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, have retaliated by firing rockets and heavy mortar shells on several villages.

“In both cases, civilians are tragically caught in the middle of the fighting,” Mistura added.

Children are especially vulnerable in the conflict, with the BBC documenting another major barrel bomb attack in May in the northern province of Aleppo, which left children and other victims “burned beyond recognition.”

“The use of barrel bombs must stop,” Mistura stated back then. “All evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of the civilian victims in the Syrian conflict have been caused by the use of such indiscriminate aerial weapons.”

The airstrikes have also caused widespread public and private property damage, forcing millions to fee as refugees or become internally displaced throughout Syria.

In June, SOHR reported that the total death toll from the civil war since March 2011 has passed the 320,000 mark, and over 1.5 million people have been wounded.

The human rights group has been highly critical of what it says is the international community’s continued silence on the issue, which it blames for encouraging more bloodshed.

“The silence of the International community for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria encourages the criminals to kill more and more Syrian people because they have not found anyone that deter them from continuing their crimes that cause to wound more than 1,500,000 people; some of them with permanent disabilities, make hundreds of thousands children without parents, displace more than half of Syrian people and destroy infrastructure, private and public properties,” SOHR said in June.

Source : Christian Post

James Lankford Asks: Will We Protect Animals, but Not Children?

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James Lankford Asks: Will We Protect Animals, but Not Children?

Tom Lankford Asks: Will We Protect Animals, But Not Children?

Christian Post Report – “Mr. President, I’d like to take just a moment to be able to speak about a subject that’s very, very difficult for me to speak about, and quite frankly difficult for a lot of Americans to talk about and hear about. It connects to all of us, in extremely personal ways.

Let me set some context. Not long ago a group of animal rights activists gathered around a research facility, a research facility that was using animals for their testing. The activists gathered around the facility and chanted and had signs that they held up saying “it’s not science, it’s violence.” And other signs that said “animal lives are their right, we have just begun to fight.” As they protested to protect the lives of the animals that were being used in that facility for research.

Now, I understand their frustration there. But let me put it into context of some things that came out this week. We learned that this week an organization called Planned Parenthood is using children that are aborted and sending the bodies of those aborted children to research facilities, sometimes for sale, different body parts, to be used in research. These are not mice, these are not lab rats, these are children. Children that have gone through the process of a horrific abortion.

This morning in an appropriations hearing, that the president and I both were in, we had extensive conversation about the rights of orca whales. And this protracted conversation went on and on — that many people were also connected to — about the rights of orca whales and the care for them. Then we had a protracted conversation about horse slaughter and how horses would be humanely put down. But in the middle of all that conversation happening today, there were children still being aborted with an instrument reaching into a mother, tearing apart a child but carefully protecting certain organs because those organs would be valuable to sell.”

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/sen-lankford-slams-planned-parenthood-in-emotional-speech-on-senate-floor-debate-horse-slaughter-but-become-numb-to-children-video-141628/

Source : Christian Post

Potter’s House Pastor Chris Hill Explains Why His Denver Megachurch Needs Armed Guards

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Potter’s House Pastor Chris Hill Explains Why His Denver Megachurch Needs Armed Guards

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  • Armed members of the security team at The Potter's House of Denver in Colorado check their weapons.(Photo: screengrab)
Armed members of the security team at The Potter’s House of Denver in Colorado check their weapons.
  • The Potter's House of Denver in Colorado has kept armed guards among its security team for years, according to pastor Chris Hill in a New York Times video feature.(Photo: screengrab)
    • The Potter’s House of Denver in Colorado has kept armed guards among its security team for years, according to pastor Chris Hill in a New York Times video feature.
  • Pastor Chris Hill of The Potter's House of Denver in Colorado is seen in a New York Times video.(Photo: screengrab)
    • Pastor Chris Hill of The Potter’s House of Denver in Colorado is seen in a New York Times video.

    The Rev. Chris Hill, senior pastor of The Potter’s House of Denver in Colorado, has shared that members of his congregation who were once critical of the presence of armed guards in the sanctuary now understand the necessity of such security measures in the wake of the Charleston church massacre.

    The Charleston shooting was certainly not the first time a church had been targeted by a gunman. The Christian Post reported in 20Christian Post Report – 12 that a former employee of Creflo Dollar’s World Changers Church International in College Park, Georgia, had walked into an early morning Bible study and shot a member point blank while he prayed. In 2009, late-term abortion Dr. George Tiller was murdered while serving as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. In fact, Carl Chinn, a former Focus on the Family safety manager and a church security expert, tracks “deadly force incidents” at faith-based organizations. According to Chinn’s data, there have been 97Christian Post Report – 1 such incidents between Jan. Christian Post Report – 1, Christian Post Report – 1999 and Feb. Christian Post Report – 15 of this year.

    “You are not safe on a plane. You are not safe in an elementary school. You are not safe in a high school. You are not safe in a movie theater. Guess what? You are not safe in a church,” Hill told The New York Times in a “Protecting the Sanctuary” video feature on The Potter’s House of Denver published this week.

    Hill shared that the church he grew up in did not have a safety team, and did not need one. Times are different now, he said, “We need safety.”

    “This is a pastor who is doing Bible study on Wednesday night. I do Bible study on Wednesday night, for the last 25 years,” Hill said at another point. “For someone in my calling and in profession, that just hits home.”

    Hill was referencing the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a South Carolina state senator and pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Pinckney, along with eight members of his congregation, were murdered in cold blood by a white supremacist during a Bible study at the church on June Christian Post Report – 17. Dylann Storm Roof, the alleged confessed 2Christian Post Report – 1-year-old gunman, was charged for the murders, reportedly inspired by his desire to simply kill black Americans.

    The Colorado pastor was not the only church leader considering, perhaps again, the security of his congregation since the Emanuel A.M.E. mass shooting, although Hill installed safety measures for The Potter’s House of Denver years ago. In June, The Wall Street Journal spoke with several black pastors who said they were seriously considering for the first time incorporating armed guards in their churches’ safety measures.

    Hill said some members who were previously critical of his desire for a semi-armed security team called him after the Charleston shooting and said, “Now I get it. Now I understand.”

    The Times video gives an inside look at how Hill’s 25-member security team does its job in protecting the congregation and its pastor. Hill also gives insight into the makeup of the 7,000-member congregation, which he shared was about 50 percent black and 35 percent white, with the remaining members being Latino and of other ethnicities.

    Watch the “Protecting the Sanctuary” video below:

    Contact: [email protected]; follow me on Twitter @vinfunaro

    Source : Christian Post