Posted on 04/30/2008 7:47:49 AM PDT by Pyro7480
Some Protestants accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped one of the 10 Commandments. "You're idolators! You worship statues! And because you do, your Church dropped the commandment against graven images!"
The truth, of course, is that the Catholic Church did not and could not change the Ten Commandments. Latin Catholics and Protestants simply list them differently. It is incredible that such a pernicious lie could be so easily spread and believed, especially since the truth could easily be determined by just looking into the matter. But the rumor lives.
Now, below are the ways in which Protestants and Roman Catholics enumerate the Commandments:
[See link above or below]
So what the heck? What did happen to the commandment about graven images in the Catholic listing? Did the Church just "drop" a commandment?
Um, no. The Old Testament was around long before the time of the Apostles, and the Decalogue, which is found in three different places in the Bible (Exodus 20 and Exodous 34 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21), has not been changed by the Catholic Church. Chapter and verse divisions are a medieval invention, however, and numbering systems of the Ten Words (Commandments), the manner in which they are grouped, and the "short-hand" used for them, vary among various religious groups. Exodus 20 is the version most often referred to when one speaks of the Ten Commandments, so it will be our reference point here....
Catholic ping!
God did the Top Ten list about 4000 years before Letterman was born.
Thanks if it was you who inserted the needed links into my thread. :-D
“You’re idolators! You worship statues! And because you do, your Church dropped the commandment against graven images!”
I won’t waste the time of day refuting such nonsense. Everytime that I have debated individuals on this it turns out that they are not particularly interested in the truth, but have their own agendas.
Many Christians that I know will patiently listen to my explanation that we don’t “pray to statues” or, for that matter, pray “to saints and dead people” and simply give me an “oh, I didn’t know that.”
And much more meaningful too right?
Thank you. You receive my award for “Post of the Day!!!”
So, what are Catholic people doing when they appear to be praying to Saints? I ask because all of the devout Catholics that I have met have been wonderfull people and the Catholic church has done a better job on social issues than most protestant churches. But as a protestant some of the Catholic practices seem a little strange to me. Especially the Mary veneration which always seemed like idolotry.
We pray to saints asking for their intercession with The Almighty.
At this very moment, I am wearing a St. Anthony’s medal.
I pray to the Blessed Mother every morning by saying three “Hail Mary’s(not the pass).”
There’s nothing nefarious about this practice. It is an ancient one within the church.
Many of my non-Catholic friends are always happy to hear that I remember them in prayers to the saints for assistance in their lives - especially the ill or troubled.
Great post, but given what I’ve seen on FR whenever the Church is addressed... I can only predict great things for this thread. ;) I sometimes think that when it comes to the Church, FR nearly rivals DU for its sheer antipathy.
most protestants, in this regard, are agitators who set up strawmen, some willingly, some out of ignorance, and sometimes it is hard to talk with them about His true One Holy CATHOLIC and Apostolic church, but you try, just the same, even if just to plant a seed...
and lots of prayer to water it....
Thanks for the explanation. Do you know if there is any Biblical support for this practice?
Ok, now that we've got that in front of us, we consider our prayers to Saints, asking them to help us bring our petitions to God, no different than the various prayer threads posted on FR every day. And the reason Mary is the greatest advocate is because she is the Mother of God, and Jesus, as a devout Jew, honored (and continues to honor) His Mother. I'm gone for most of the day, but if you'd like to keep talking about this (and 500 other people can't answer all your questions) I am happy to!
The fundamentalist types have all kinds of weird ideas about what goes on in Catholic Mass.
Among the weirdest was Jack Chick’s assertation that the IHS (Iesus Hominum Salvator-—Jesus, Savior of Men) on Communion wafers really means “Isis, Horus and Seb” (the first two were pagan deities in ancient egypt, which he claimed that Catholics were actually worshipping. I have never even heard of Seb. The other charge is transparently ridiculous, but many of the fundamentalist crew believe it or things like it)
I think the confusion comes with the word, “Pray”.
I talk to the saints the same way I talk to my dead mother.
I have been asking St. Monica to intercede for me to Our Lord about my Goddaughter who turned Wiccan. Yesterday she called me and said she is joining a church. WooooHooooo!
It’s a “two people praying together” type thing.
Top 10 signs humans still don't get it.
1. They are still fighting about where to put the numbers in the 10 commandments.
A very, very good question. I really don’t know. I’ve never thought of that question.
I’ll ask St. Anthony! :)
Oh,yeah, big time. I can think of a couple that will have a field day with this thread ... except that field days are for those with idle hands, I think. But they'll go nuts on the whole graven images and idoltry stuff. And then they'll ask you to explain stuff, when they're really saying, "Give me an opening to spew . . . "
Yup. Gotta check this thread out again tonight to see how it turned out.
Ok, I think I understand the distinction that you are making between prayer as a petition and prayer as worship. And it certainly would make sense to me to ask a living (on earth) Christian to pray for someone. However, when you talk to someone who is dead isn’t that similar to the seance type of thing that we are not supposed to be involved with. Kind of like what Saul got in trouble with when he tried to have the Witch of Endor call up Samuel so that he could ask his advice. I am not trying to be hostile - you gave me a great answer to my first question and I do genuinly want to hear a Catholic perspective on this.
ME: ds, veneration is just that, you seem to know the meaning...As Christ said on the cross, ‘behold your mother’, she is the mother of all of us now, the second eve, etc.
and you are to honor your mother as the commandment says (we already honor our father)
veneration doesnt take away, it celebrates the grace that God has instilled into his saints....
and ‘the prayers of a righteous man availeth much’, how much more effective can the prayers be than from his perfected mother in heaven? asking her to pray for me and others is in communion with the angels and saints, not in a substitution for Christ, who’s mediation makes all prayers more efficacious (sp?)
YOU:
So, what are Catholic people doing when they appear to be praying to Saints? I ask because all of the devout Catholics that I have met have been wonderfull people and the Catholic church has done a better job on social issues than most protestant churches. But as a protestant some of the Catholic practices seem a little strange to me. Especially the Mary veneration which always seemed like idolotry.
One of the first things Moses heard that God is the God of the living, not the dead. When Saul did that, the gates of Heaven were closed and the righteous dead were waiting for the coming of Christ. But all of those are now in Heaven and alive in Christ.
The Catholic Church also makes a distinction between the Church Triumphant (the saints, canonized and uncanonized, in Heaven), the Church Suffering (those is Purgatory), and the Church Militant (the faithful on earth). Though the three are in different places, they are part of one Church and pray on behalf of each other to the Most Holy Trinity.
So, when Christ spoke to John saying “behold your mother” you would interpret him to be ultimately speaking to all of us? In the Protestant church where I grew up we simply interpreted that passage as Jesus instructing John to look after his mother after his death.
Those of us whose earthly mothers are less than optimal are very grateful that Christ gave us his own mother at the cross.
As far as the other saints, I consider my patron saint, Martha, as my spiritual Big Sister. I converted as an adult so got to choose my own, as opposed to having one chosen for me as an example by my parents. I chose Martha because I too am easily led away from spiritual concerns by earthly ones, and since she overcame that flaw to become a saint, I have hopes that her assistance will help me to do the same.
Interesting distinction - I will have to think about that.
GREAT thread topic.
Very informative, especially at the link, where a table is posted aligning verses to commandment numbers in the various systems.
Chick tracts had lots of issues. Their main goal seemed to be to scare people. I remember reading one about two little boys jumping into a murky lake that turned out to be full of poisonous snakes. I was scared to death of murky lakes after that.
Pyro gave you a great answer. We don’t believe that the Saints are dead - see his answer regarding the three parts of the Church. When the veil was torn, the souls of the rightgeous came out of their graves and the Gates of Heaven were opened by His Sacrifice. That is the big kicker. And I can tell you are being genuine in your questions - thank you for that. It is very refreshing to see on this board!
I'm going to disagree with your first word and only your first word.
It is not "most." It is not even "many." In fact, there aren't enough of those you describe to form a softball team.
Just curious - do you believe Reason and Logic are gifts from God? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely wondering...
I believe the RM has issued a standing proscription of even the mention of that lying bastard’s name.
ds,
in one sense, you could say that Christ was just saying to watch his mother, but there is more to the words of the dying Jesus that actually show that his first intention was not to entrust his Mother to John, but to entrust the disciple to Mary and to give her a new maternal role.
remmber to when he uses the term, “woman”, also usedat the wedding in Cana to lead Mary to a new dimension of her existence as Mother?
it shows how the Saviour’s words are not the fruit of a simple sentiment of filial affection but are meant to be put at a higher level.
>>Prayer to dead saints may be valid. I’ll stick with God’s promise and not waste my time on maybe. <<
Fine with me. As long as you don’t slam me for going with the maybe. I need all the friends I can get.
Even here on FR.
So many non-Catholics here, walk the walk and talk the talk.
I see Christ in many FReepers!
Verse 17 doesn't divide up that way because 'house' comes before 'wife' and then the other possessions are listed after the wife. But in Deuteronomy 5:21 'wife' comes before all of the possessions so it can be divided into parts a (lust) and b (greed).
I can only presume that the RCC uses Deuteronomy 5:21 as the basis for this division and not Exodus 20:17. But the article makes no mention of it at all and thus confuses the issue further.
The related link I posted is above is a bit better presented in that regard I think.
You can pray for my wife who is fighting Leukemia and I don’t care if you ask a saint to relay the message to God as long as he gets the request.
I will have to go back and read the account of the wedding in Cana again. How do Catholics interpret the account found in Matthew 12:46-50. Here is what it says in the NIV version.
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
They scared me very badly-—to the point I was terrified of Catholic Mass for a while. It was only after investigating, reading the Bible, learning about Christian history and theology, as well as more about what the Catholic Church actually stands for that I got out of my neo-Protestant phase.
Learning about the beliefs and practices of the other denomination that has existed since Apostolic times, the Eastern Orthodox, and how much it resembles Catholicism in practice (except for having the Pope and the centralized hierarchy of the Vatican, of course) gave me more confidence that Catholic Mass, the Eucharist and various other sacramental practices are far closer to the original Christian Churches than those of the modern fundamentalist Protestants.
Another help was reading other Deutrocanonical early Church writings like the Didache, the basic creeds (The Apostles, the Nicene) and the writings of the Saints (like the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians).
There is such a wealth of knowledge in these early writings, passed down orally from the Apostles and Disciples (like St.Irenaeus learning from St. Polycarp who learned from St.John The Evangelist who sat next to Jesus at the last supper), or just from learned teachers interpreting the scriptures (like Augustine or John Chrysostom)
The Didache is a genuine treasure. All of the writings you mention are great gifts, of course, but I am especially fond of the Didache.
This verse does not disown Jesus’ mother and family, it expands His family to all the saints.
ME: DS, im not sure of the NIV as the catholic version (RSV) has that exchange thusly:
46 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.
48 But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”
49 And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!
50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
ME: to me this is self explainatory in that he simply states that those who wish to be his ‘family’ will do the will of his father in heaven, not that he is excluding Mary, or his cousins, who are waiting for him outside.
YOU:
will have to go back and read the account of the wedding in Cana again. How do Catholics interpret the account found in Matthew 12:46-50. Here is what it says in the NIV version.
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
How many people can a person listen to at once? Logically, it would be ridiculous to expect one person to be able to really listen to millions of people at the same time.
If I accept that it's possible for Mary to hear prayers, and if I accept that she can filter out millions of prayers to hear a single individual, that means that you're better off playing the lottery than praying to Mary.
We have a promise when praying to Jesus. The pseudo logic of praying to saints is so full of unsupported assumptions that I can't find the benefit other than a placebo.
"Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is."
-1 John 3:2
>>If I accept that it’s possible for Mary to hear prayers, and if I accept that she can filter out millions of prayers to hear a single individual, that means that you’re better off playing the lottery than praying to Mary. <<
Do you think Mary still has an Earthly ear?
Do you think time is the same in Heaven?
Why can’t people in Heaven have powers that people on Earth do not? How do you know what heavenly bodies are like?
>>You can pray for my wife who is fighting Leukemia and I don’t care if you ask a saint to relay the message to God as long as he gets the request.<<
I’ll pray for your wife!
May Our Lord bless her and guide the doctors with healing hands!
May both of you have good news and peace!
Thanks for proving my point. The number of unsupported assumptions required to believe in prayer to the dead is astonishing.
How do you know what heavenly bodies are like?
Exactly. We have no idea what heavenly bodies are like. We just don't know. But I'll tell you what we do know. We know that Jesus has promised to hear our prayers. So who are you going to pray to?
“He Who Shall Not Be Named”
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