Posted on 07/17/2013 8:05:06 AM PDT by Gamecock
When I take my kids to Mass on Sunday, I always give them the money to put in the collection basket. Did they "give" the money? Yes. But where did the money actually come from? Me.
A priest can absolutely give grace. But where does the grace actually always come from? God. The priest is a *conduit* of grace, not the *source* of grace.
Remember when the Apostles were wandering around doing miracles, breaking bread, healing people, offering sacraments, forgiving sins? Did anyone say to them they couldn't dispense God's Grace?
Splitting hairs for a moment: We are saved after we first exhibit faith. But are we saved before or after we begin working?
Do you want to talk about opinions, or facts? Opinions are all over the place. The facts don’t vary, and don’t support your accusation. Your first link doesn’t support it, either. Your second is flatly wrong.
Stubbornly clinging to a calumnious falsehood is not a Christian virtue.
Do you want to talk about opinions, or facts? Opinions are all over the place. The facts don’t vary, and don’t support your accusation. Your first link doesn’t support it, either. Your second is flatly wrong.
I’m not saying either one of us is right or wrong. However, just as with the martin/zimerman case, one can look at the history of both characters/sides and make a determination of veracity of testimony and probable truth based on that information.
“The report quotes a Catholic decree concerning World Youth Day that says the faithful “can obtain the plenary indulgence...by the new means of social communication.””
This cant be for real. Perhaps a loose cannon said this and doesn’t represent RCC ... Or some editor captured the quotes incorrectly? I am not buying it. RCC has enough problems without people like this opening it up to ridicule.
Stubbornly clinging to a calumnious falsehood is not a Christian virtue.
If I thought I needed it, I’d bite.
However, since I am the righteousness of God in Christ, having been born again by grace through faith in Christ, I’ll pass.
My place in heaven is secure.
Let me try to explain this to folks who may have only heard about indulgences in the context of Luther and the Reformation.
When you break someone's window, there are two things you need to do. 1) Apologize and seek forgiveness. 2) Fix the window.
The fact that you are forgiven does not change the fact that the window is still broken. In fact, if you just sit there and fold your hands and refuse to pay for the window--or at least make it up to the person somehow--I am forced to conclude that you may not have been very sorry in the first place. If you weren't sorry, then maybe you weren't really forgiven after all.
What an indulgence does is allow a person to make amends for the sin that is already forgiven. I commit a sin. The window is broken. The first thing I do is immediately seek God's forgiveness personally and sacramentally. He gives it because He always does.
Meanwhile *the window is still broken*. Now maybe I don't know how to fix the window. But I offer to God some little but sincere action to show that I am, indeed, truly sorry. That action can be a charitable work, a prayer, spiritual reading, a giving of alms (here's where money sometimes comes in), or participation in some holy action (like a pilgrimage, procession, etc.).
Indulgences acknowledge that Christ paid not only the debt for our sins, but also all the punishment we are due them. His atonement is an absolutely inexhaustible treasury that the faithful can draw upon whenever they need it.
How does that withdrawal work? Well, let's suppose that you are a kid and don't have any money to fix the window. I am your dad. I say "Don't worry, I know you are sorry, and I will pay all the $200 to fix the window". I let you completely off the hook.
BUT then you, of your own volition, go and empty the entire $13.26 that you were saving in your piggy bank and bring it to me. "Here dad, I know it isn't close, but I just wanted to thank you, and to make up for what I did in my own little way."
That, folks, is a little act of great love. And that is the doctrine of indulgences in a nutshell.
“
“Sharing, acting in unison, despite the obstacle of distance. But it will still be real participation and that is why you will obtain the indulgence. Above all because your click will have come from the heart.”
Most of my clicks come from my finger on a device called a mouse, no mouse in my heart to click.
Suffering doesn't *pay* for sins. The wages of sin is DEATH. Only Jesus, who committed no sin, was able to pay the penalty and could defeat death because it had no hold on Him.
When you break someone's window, there are two things you need to do. 1) Apologize and seek forgiveness. 2) Fix the window.
Actually, you don't NEED to fix the window. If the owner chooses to forgive you and say that it's already taken care of, then it's not your responsibility any more.
Being granted FORGIVENESS means that it is FORGIVEN. If you have to pay for it yet, it's not been forgiven.
“When you break someone’s window, there are two things you need to do. 1) Apologize and seek forgiveness. 2) Fix the window.”
Problem is I can’t fix the nor will I ever be able to do so.
“The fact that you are forgiven does not change the fact that the window is still broken. In fact, if you just sit there and fold your hands and refuse to pay for the window—or at least make it up to the person somehow—I am forced to conclude that you may not have been very sorry in the first place. If you weren’t sorry, then maybe you weren’t really forgiven after all.”
The fact that I am forgiven though unable to fix or pay for the broken window means Christ paid for it’s repair in full.
“Indulgences acknowledge that Christ paid not only the debt for our sins, but also all the punishment we are due them”
Then we have no debt and the payment due is removed.
So the world is perfect then, is it? Those aborted babies came back to life? The harsh words I spoke to my wife never hurt her feelings? Lust has disappeared?
The *effects* of sin are still in the world. We may be forgiven, but the window is still broken.
Mormons allowed blacks into the church, they just couldn’t be anything other than a pew sitter, and I assume that also limited them to the commoner buildings, not the really nice temple buildings for the more elite Mormons who pay a mandatory percentage of their income for access.
Ok but the window is still broken, and now it's the owner's responsibility to fix the window. He might have forgiven you. He might take upon himself to fix the window, and tell you you don't need to. I get that.
But which is the path of greater love? To say "Okey doke, I'm forgiven!" and skip on back home? Or to say to the owner, "I appreciate that, but I'd still like to do whatever I can. Here, let me help you take out that frame."
Which do you think Our Lord prefers?
Cue St. Paul: "Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church." 1 Col. 24.
>>Problem is I can’t fix the nor will I ever be able to do so.<<
That is 100% correct.
Jesus did however fix the window, and all windows for all who believe.
Really? Two words for you.
Total depravity.
Didn't get around to fixing that one, I guess?
Talking about snake handling Catholic hater threads here?
Are you kidding??? I am a Reformed Christian! We know all about Total Depravity! That is our starting point. Covers all sins, past, present and future.
I have one word for you: Sufficiency.
When he said "it is finished", He meant IT.IS.FINISHED.
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