Posted on 06/01/2013 2:23:13 PM PDT by NYer
I was Protestant for a time. I sang modern Christian music and swayed and held up my hands and loved the other members of the church. I found it difficult when there were divisions in the congregation and when some of my “family” decided to “plant a church” of their own. The trust was broken and there were allegations of “sheep stealing.”
In retrospect, I often wonder why it is “sheep stealing” to invite someone to another protestant church, but luring people away from the Catholic Church is encouraged. I always felt like something was missing there, but I didn’t know what was missing. I had been born and raised Catholic, but I was so poorly catechized that I had no idea that I was missing the Eucharist, the true presence of Christ. I didn’t realize what Catholics believe about the Eucharist, and I was raised IN THE CHURCH.
It wasn’t until I was reading an article in a free copy of Catholic Answers magazine that I came across the fact that the Church teaches that Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. It was an “aha” moment for me. Next I listened to Scott Hahn’s testimony about his conversion to the faith. I read Rome Sweet Home. I listened to more talks by Scott Hahn about reading the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. It was really only through the testimony of this Biblical scholar that I returned to the Church.
I am divorced and remarried. My first marriage was annulled, but my current husband’s first marriage was not. I am outside the fullness of Grace. This tears at my heart. I long for Christ in the Eucharist and for the graces of the Sacraments in which I cannot participate. I pray for my husband’s heart to change and I wait. Everything in God’s time, though.
My heart breaks for friends who have left the church because they, like I, were poorly catechized. They do not have the understanding of the truths the Church teaches to return. They have been changed by the time they have spent listening to protestant friends and protestant preachers who twist what the church is and does. Perhaps they have read a few too many Jack Chick tracts.
I try to direct them back to the Church, but I am not a very good apologist, despite knowing which scripture verses support what the Church teaches. I am afraid I am even less of an evangelist, so I pray. I pray that they will turn their hearts towards Christ’s words in the gospels and that they will listen with their hearts to His call. I know when I turned my heart toward Him, I came home. I try to live the Corporal Works of Mercy in my life.
I have been in both Catholic and protestant churches when there was no one there. The protestant churches were empty and FELT empty. While no other human person was in the Catholic Church with me, it never felt empty. I always felt and feel His presence there. I came home despite my exclusion from the sacraments because He is there. I offer to Him my imperfection and brokenness and pray that He will use me despite my flaws. I thank Him for His love and mercy. I continue to teach my children and attend Mass and to be an imperfect party of the Body of Christ.
The article above is an excellent example of RCC error as pointed out in the below link.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3026316/posts?page=25#25
Wrong! If the Catholic church really believes in transubstantiation, then it is actually a re-sacrificing of Christ at every mass and not just a "rememberance".
I was thinking the same thing, and you have said it well. There is an eternity of difference between a re-presentation and a remembrance---between the idolatry of the Mass and true worship of a Savior who once offered Himself, once He died, and once He was resurrected to live forevermore.
Do then it's not a real and true sacrifice, just a memorial?
One act of disobedience brought sin into the world and one act of obedience provided a way out. The acts of Adam's sin and Christ's crucifixion were singular events with eternal results. Wouldn't it be better to celebrate the fact that we can now approach the Throne of Grace boldly without anyone between us and God, having been clothed in the righteousness of Christ?
Jesus is currently and eternally seated at the right hand of the Father. Why does the Catholic church keep Him perpetually nailed to the cross?
No it is not continuation. I am saying what I, and Ua Ruairc of Bréifne, said to you already: it is the same sacrifice that we become part of across time.
Why does the church require you to continually be part of the act of sacrifice since the scriptures say Christ died once for all?
Because of the COMMAND of Christ that says “do this in rememberence of me.”
Since He died once for all, that includes me today. That is why.
Read your Old Testament! The death of the sacrificial victim at the hands of the priest *begins* the sacrificial liturgy, it doesn't conclude it. The victim still has to be offered to God at the altar, and then parts are consumed by the priest and the layperson making the offering.
Hebrews makes it clear that the "offering" part of Christ's sacrifice is taking place (and has taken place, and will take place tomorrow) in heaven, which is eternal and therefore outside of time. The Mass makes this sacrificial offering present to us on earth, in time.
The Catholic Church does not teach, and has never taught, that Jesus is "re-sacrificed" or "sacrificed again" in the Mass. That's a calumny invented by John Calvin. It's a lie, pure and simple. Who does Jesus identify in Scripture as the "father of lies"?
One more time: your fundamental error is confusing the death of the sacrificial victim with the offering of the sacrifice. If a priest in the Jerusalem Temple had just slaughtered a Lamb or a bull & walked away, he would have just made a bloody mess, not offered a sacrifice to God according to the regulations set forth in the Law.
Thanks, pretty much confirms what I thought.
Your Welcome.
How many times does the blood of a sacrifice have to be offered up be before it's atoning work is done?
I'm going to trust that Jesus, as my High Priest, offering his own blood was sufficient to cover all my sins, past, present, and future and that His promise of the gift of His righteous for my sin would allow me to stand in His presence today perfect in Him, spotless and clean.
Wouldn’t it be better to celebrate the fact that we can now approach the Throne of Grace boldly without anyone between us and God, having been clothed in the righteousness of Christ?
_________
Would be great?!? It IS great! You should try it! Because that’s exactly what happens at Holy Mass every day — and six times on Sunday.
Not only that, but we “consume” God — “the Bread come down from Heaven” — in Holy Communion — “without anyone between us and God”. (How much closer can you get? I mean, He’s physically inside of you.)
_______
Jesus is currently and eternally seated at the right hand of the Father. Why does the Catholic church keep Him perpetually nailed to the cross?
____
I think Christ said to do that at the Last Supper, didn’t He? It is an act of obedience to God to “Do this in remembrance of Me.”
He didn’t want the most epic event in all of history — the Redemption of Man by the Crucifixion of the God-Man — to EVER be forgotten or neglected.
Nor did He want the absolute horror of sin to be forgotten.
Nor the humbling reality that the race of men would kill God, given half a chance, AND IT DID!
We adore Christ on the Cross because His grace pours through those five wounds every moment of our lives.
To borrow a phrase: “Never forget, never forget, never forget.”
A Blessed Feast of Corpus Christi to you and yours.
"YE SHALL KEEP IT a FEAST to the LORD Throughout Your Generations; ye shall keep it a FEAST by An ORDINANCE FOREVER. "
Yes and no. It is complicated. I do not know how to maybe fully explain but hopefully I will get the gist of it across.
Remember God's reply to Moses. "I Am" He is in the Eternal present. We are not. We were not there at the Cross. We are in the time space continuum of creation. Time is created from the movement of Planets. The earth moves around a full day(24 hours) then 365 days are a year. A decade is 10 years. Then 100 years is past. 1000 years are past too. So on and so forth.
While all this is happening God is still not bound by time like we are. He is outside of his creation. So when he declares "I Am" he is constant there is no beginning, middle or end. He is the Alpha and Omega as in the Book of revelation.
The bloody sacrifice has been done.
"Christ is not recrucified; the Sacrifice of the Mass is unbloody -- after the order of Melchizedek. Christ died once at a FINITE POINT IN HISTORY; but God is Outside of Time and His offering of Himself is eternal. The Grace Christ offers in the Divine Liturgy and what He offered on the Cross are of the same sacrifice; therefore, in no way can the liturgical Sacrifice be a "repetition" of the Crucifixion. His sacrifice is re-presented ("made present again in some way"). As the Council of Trent put it, "The fruits of that bloody sacrifice, it is well understood, are received most abundantly through this unbloody one, so far is the latter from derogating in any way from the former."
Also remember Moses reminded the Israelites that the passover which contains eating the lamb forever decreed by God. Exodus 12
Exodus 12:1-14 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall EAT THE FLESH in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. ............... it is the LORD's PASSOVER................................................And this Day Shall Be Unto You for a Memorial; and YE SHALL KEEP IT a FEAST to the LORD Throughout Your Generations; ye shall keep it a FEAST by An ORDINANCE FOREVER.
"YE SHALL KEEP IT a FEAST to the LORD Throughout Your Generations; ye shall keep it a FEAST by An ORDINANCE FOREVER. "
Gee How is it still going on as promised. Never ending.
Christ introduced on the FEAST OF PASSOVER the everlasting body and everlasting blood. He just by chanced put this at Passover where it is promised by Moses that we will eat the Lamb forever? HMMM....
Moses is not a liar. The Jewish today do not have sacrifices so what in the world is going on with this promise by MOSES. HMMM.....
Could it be that CHRIST REPLACED IT with THE TRUE LAMB WITHOUT Taking away the Eating the BODY the LAMB by BENIGN PRESENCE. HMMMM.....
Otherwise we make Moses a LIAR. HE is not a Liar.
There is no more evidence of this promised continuum except for the Mass.
http://www.fisheaters.com/mass.html
If this is a sincere prayer, then some will have to admit that God HAS turned hearts to Christ's words in the Gospel and His call and it was NOT back to the Roman Catholic Church. It's a real shame that this person is being used like a tool to try and pry souls away from the Gospel and she doesn't even realize it yet she is doing so while excluded from the one thing she thinks can give her salvation!
Because that is what He directed His disciples to do, and those who have been following in their footsteps have continued to do so.
There is no more need for any sacrifice for sin. If you’re doing the mass as a memorial, fine. If you’re doing it for the remision of sin then you’ve missed the point of the crucifixion. “The fruits of that bloody sacrifice” are received by faith alone. Otherwise you put God in the position of owing you fogiveness because you did a religious work.
Nonsense. But don’t worry God is in control.
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