Posted on 05/13/2005 8:59:21 AM PDT by NYer
Honest questions always deserve a good answer...(as I say in my last reply on the topic. You never know when you will be planting a good seed in someone's mind!)
At some point, one must decide that enough is enough and it is pointless to continue.
Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Matt 7:6
You are speaking real truth. When you use the same words with people, but you and the people you are talking to have different concepts or definitions for those words, then communcation breaks down fast.
There are people who have honest debates, but for the most part, the ones I witnessed have a lot of the same old things going round and round and round again. I think it's a sport.
That's because some people only want to argue and shout you down. They were really never interested in discussion in the first place. Our priest says that you should walk away from those types, they are only setting snares.
After literally dozens of responses, including absolute proof that the reformers who started the Protestant movement (Luther, Calvin, Wesley) all had views of Mary that are close if not identical to Catholicisms, I decided I had answered enough "honest" questions and quite a few ignorant ones.
They are not "setting snares," they are trying to rationalize bigotry.
I stayed away from the discussion there, knowing what was going on. Our Lady was another one of the reasons I converted, and the hard-heartedness of some people towards her makes me sad.
You're not alone. If I remember correctly, Convert From ECUSA and Mark in the Old South also cited Our Lady's role in the conversions.
Excellent point.
I told someone once that every denomination has their tradition of how to interpret the scriptures and what to believe, and ours just goes back to the Apostles instead of the 17th or 19th century like some other groups...
I am not sure of what she thought about that.
The differences between Roman and Orthodox Catholicism do not (in modern times) act as a hinderance to dialog and cooperation between the two, for that matter neither do the differences between Catholicism and traditional mainstream Protestantism (Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.). Traditional Protestants actually have a far bigger gap between themselves and these fringe groups than they do with Catholics.
When Mary comes a-calling, trying to bring you home, she can get pretty persistant, like all good mothers!
"I got fed up myself with their arguments. I bluntly declared a truth in post #653."
Ah, well, you're young. You shouldn't let people get to you like that. Most Orthodox people think it best to simply demonstrate what we live and believe and leave it at that. Actually contesting with heretics is a waste of time. As St John Chrysostomos says:
"By Contentions," he means, with heretics, in which he would not have us labor to no purpose, where nothing is to be gained, for they end in nothing. For when a man is perverted and predetermined not to change his mind, whatever may happen, why shouldest thou labor in vain, sowing upon a rock, when thou shouldest spend thy honorable toil upon thy own people, in discoursing with them upon almsgiving and every other virtue?
How then does he elsewhere say, "If God peradventure will give them repentance" (2 Tim. ii.25); but here, "A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself"? In the former passage he speaks of the correction of those of whom he had hope, and who had simply made opposition. But when he is known and manifest to all, why dost thou contend in vain? why dost thou beat the air? What means, "being condemned of himself"? Because he cannot say that no one has told him, no one admonished him; since therefore after admonition he continues the same, he is self-condemned." Homily 6 on Titus
The Fathers have guidance on just about everything important for the likes of us.
Not to flame any fires, but I fear that Catholicism (at least in the United States) is "drifting" towards the left as well. I have had several discussions with Anglicans about the parallels between the leftist attacks that both of our Churches are under. The Anglican Communion is on the verge of a schism because of American and Canadian liberalism, and we shouldn't be so certain that something similar can't happen to Catholicism. I am thankful that the Pope has made his intentions clear.
I respect St. John Chrysostomos' viewpoint. However, I also like St. Francis de Sales' approach in hand-delivering apologetic pamphlets to many households in Calvinist Switzerland, thus converting thousands of people.
"The differences between Roman and Orthodox Catholicism do not (in modern times) act as a hinderance to dialog and cooperation between the two, for that matter neither do the differences between Catholicism and traditional mainstream Protestantism (Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.). Traditional Protestants actually have a far bigger gap between themselves and these fringe groups than they do with Catholics."
Other than with some Lutherans and some Anglicans, I'd steer clear of any so called main stream protestants; they may be the biggest heretics of all.
St. Jerome had quite a reputation of being overly argumentative...it gives me, and probably ought to give all of us who forget sometimes to let an argument go, that there is hope of sanctity for even us!
"I respect St. John Chrysostomos' viewpoint. However, I also like St. Francis de Sales' approach...."
Patristic/Scholastic, East/West; different strokes etc. Remember though that +Chrysostomos is a Father of the Church and one of the Three Great Hierarchs.
What do you expect, the man was a Serb! :)You're right, there's hope for all of us!
Yup, I actually know him as St. John Chrysostom (wihout the -os). That ending confused me at first. I ask for his intercession whenever I do any public speaking. ;-)
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