Posted on 06/20/2013 3:06:19 AM PDT by markomalley
I'm totally good with being proven wrong on this. Being a Jewish convert, however, I have never heard of the Jews praying in this way.
I know the Sh'ma is the great prayer to God the Father.
I have wonder whether we really know one way or the other.
As far as I know, we have not been given this information either in the Bible or in contemporaneous non-Scriptural sources. A case can be made for either contention, as well as for a variety of other factual assertions about Jesus’s life, using Scripture, information about Jewish belief and practice, and archaeological information.
However, “making a case” and “proving” are two very different things.
Pope Francis is speaking in God’s language, not Catholic language
as "good remarks".
I thought you and I were more on the same page, but definitely not here.
There has long been seen a relationship between the Lord’s Prayer and the Amidah, or Shmoneh Esreh in that they are petitionary and always in the collective “we” mode.
Whoever said poetry is boring?
It does depend a lot on the diocese. I grew up in WHY and found this interesting comment about WNY Catholics on FR some time back.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2901874/posts?page=159#159
I’m sorry to hear it, metmom, though truthfully, it doesn’t surprise me. Central/Western NY is governed by the appalling bishops of Albany (Hubbard) and Rochester (Clark). I don’t know which one is worse; it’s a close call.
Both bishops allow and preach things in direct opposition to Vatican policy so it doesn’t surprise me that your family think they’re in the clear.
Combine poor catechesis with the extremely liberal political outlook of many in those areas, I can certainly see why your family have turned out the way they have. It isn’t easy being a conservative in ANY part of NY, trust me.
For all the accusations I've had lobbed at me about lying and leaving the church for reasons of morality, someone, at least, does recognize that not all Catholic churches are the same.
I rarely heard about Christ in the Catholic church outside of the mass and never heard of them being equated.
When people first started talking to me about Christ as in a personal relationship kind of way, it was like they were speaking a foreign language. It was almost inconceivable that Jesus would take a personal interest in me. Our parish was enormous and you hardly ever saw the same priest twice and none of them knew who you were.
Sure everyone heard the *God is love* mantra, but it had little bearing on anyone's personal life.
I only met a handful of Catholics in that area in my 30 years there that demonstrated any Christlikeness of any kind.
I'm glad to hear you had a different experience.
I had in mind my appreciation that Linda Frances was writing with good will, based on her own experience, and in her own "voice" --- e.g. not cut-and-pasting off of some internet apologetic site. I always value "good remarks" whether I agree entirely or not.
The rest of my comments, in the paragraphs that followed, outlined my reasons for thinking that "God's language" and "Catholic language" are not in opposition or contrast to each other. I summed it up by saying, "My experience has been that "Church" and "Christ" fare for better or for worse, together."
In other words, "Church" and "Christ" tend to go up or go down in tandem. They don't compete: they coincide.
I hope I have not been too obscure. What say ye, Piusv? Linda Frances?
My apologies as I did not see that you did equate the two. They are, indeed, the same.
And I pray that Linda Frances considers a return to Christ’s Church.
For all the accusations I've had lobbed at me about lying and leaving the church for reasons of morality, someone, at least, does recognize that not all Catholic churches are the same.
I also recognize that not all Catholic churches are the same; however, the teachings are "officially" the same. Do certain priests take liberties in their homilies? Yes. Are certain bishops allowing pro-abort politicians to receive communion? Yes. Both examples are ridiculous IMO.
If this is partly why you left, I completely get it. Where you and I differ is that I believe that despite the issues within the Church, the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded. As a result, I can leave a parish, but I can not leave the Church.
This was one of the homilies at my ELCA church that they got right, which is that forgiving and forgetting are two different animals.
As to your last observation - that the Spirit can change people. That’s certainly true, however, then the entire subject turns on timetables and cost/benefit analysis. God doesn’t call for us to be pinatas, just forgiving.
You couldn't do much but hope they'd die repentantly. And (sigh) promptly.
I have a hunch that churches always need to be reformed in some way ("Ecclesia semper reformanda") but that different churches attempt to accomplish this in different ways.
Protestants have a greater leeway to either (1) leave one denominational subgroup and settle in with another, or (2) just start a new non-denom church. That's how you get the lengthy phone-book sections under "Churches" listing many named subsets: for instance, SBC, ABC, NBC, NBCA, and BBFI --- all Baptists --- plus pages and pages of phone-book columns called "Unaffiliated or Other".)
Catholics facing the same need of reform, tend to either (1)look for another parish (feasible in a big metropolitan area that has many dozen parishes; not so feasible in a place like Upper East TN, which has less than one Catholic parish per every 3 counties); or (2)take refuge in Ministries, Movements and Religious Orders.
For instance, say your parish ain't so hot; you may hang in there because your little parish Bible Study group is good (Ministry); or the Prolife group is vibrant (Movement); or your spiritual needs are pretty much addressed by the local Dominicans or Franciscans (Religious Orders.)
The other option for Catholics is to just stop going to church. These are the ex-Catholics, post-Catholics, quasi-Catholics and crypto-Catholics. But they'll all still call themselves "Catholics,", come hell or high water, no matter how far adrift they go --- which bugs me, but hey --- unless actually get motivated to sign up with other church. .
Roughly, Catholic movements and religious orders express the "reforming" impetus that amongst non-Catholics is more often expressed by forming a new denomination (or non-denomination.)
Mind you I'm not putting anybody down here: I'm just saying what I'm seeing.
I (me, myself) need to take more personal responsibility for "Ecclesia semper reformanda."
Prayers requested!!
That's true, and I was not suggesting that there is a single process for every situation.
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