Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
That would be a private interpretation which St. Peter instructs you not to engage in, wouldn't it?
“Is that what you were taught?”
I have read what Galileo wrote. And yes, this is exactly what he wrote and claimed and why he got in trouble in the first place.
“What gave your Church the right to imprison an old man in poor health??”
Does it matter his health and his condition?
“Who do they think they are?”
We believe we are responsible for the spiritual welfare of our charges.
“Heliocentrism is a FACT and it don’t take no Rocket Scientist to know that.”
Do you believe that empirical observations constrain spiritual considerations?
So you’re willing to recant your lie that the Catholic church teaches that Mary is God?
There you go again.
St. Peter does NOT warn about people privately interpreting the scripture!
Read the verse again until you understand it.
St. Peter is clear that Scripture is not for private interpretation which you and your comrades conveniently choose to ignore at your own peril.
"And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction." 2 Peter 3:15-16
In your opinion which you can elaborate on during your particular judgment.
Are you using your private interpretation to tell me what the verse means?
AND at your judgement, what will you tell God why you should be allowed into heaven?
The Church will survive the Harold Campings and the various other Paul Crouches that invest this forum (they object to the reference to “snake handlers”, so let’s call ‘em “Harold Campings” from now on, even though those tongue speakers and snake handlers plus the above mentioned, as well as the scandal ridden preacher cousins of Jerry Lee Lewis, are their true theological brethren, and the arguments are between all those semi-literate country bumpkin theologians, and not between them and the Church, which as I said, has survived generations of heretics, ignores them, and will survive them, you just wait and see. Or do you wanna bet?)
The mystery, as always, is how can anyone go on living defining himself or herself in opposition to something else, in this case, opposition to the Catholic Church, obsessing about it, and waging a war against it and its millions of believers the world over on Internet forums. Pathetic.
The apostle Peter is here speaking about the process by which the Scriptures came into being, namely, their origin, and not about the understanding of Scripture already given.
Peter says that no scripture came into being by 'private interpretation' - that is by one's own explanation. Whom does he have in mind? Is it the reader, or the men who penned the Scriptures? Since Peter is speaking about the origin of Scripture, it seems likely that he is talking about the prophets themselves. In other words, Peter is saying that the Scriptures did not originate in the prophets' own understanding. This could be confirmed if we read the following verse since the apostle Peter gives the reason why scripture did not come into being of the prophets' own understanding, "for" he continues, "prophecy never came by the will of man." The prophets did not invent the scriptures. Rather, they were God's instruments to write his Word: "...holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."
http://www.justforcatholics.org/a79.htm
“St. Peter is clear that Scripture is not for private interpretation which you and your comrades conveniently choose to ignore at your own peril.”
Peter does not say scripture is not for private interpretation. He says Prophecy in scripture is not up for private interpretation.
2Pe 1:20-21 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (21) For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
From Barnes commentary:
“The more correct interpretation, as it seems to me, is that which supposes that the apostle teaches that the truths which the prophets communicated were not originated by themselves; were not of their own suggestion or invention; were not their own opinions, but were of higher origin, and were imparted by God; and according to this the passage may be explained, “knowing this as a point of first importance when you approach the prophecies, or always bearing this in mind, that it is a great principle in regard to the prophets, that what they communicated “was not of their own disclosure;” that is, was not revealed or originated by them.”
This view is quite strong, since after the statement Peter says, as to explain, that all Prophecy is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Another view could simply be that no Prophecy should be taken in isolation, as all Prophecies make up a single fabric, or that a Prophecy is understood best by its fulfillment, since the previous verse uses metaphorical language that we understand refers to Christ.
Whatever the case, it has nothing to do with “no private interpretation of scripture.” Even in the worst Catholic sense, you’d be leaving only the Prophetic parts as left to the Papist professionals, who usually don’t have much to say that’s worthwhile anyway on the topic.
Wow, you make “coming back home” so compelling. :)
Shucks... I was raised protestant, studied my bible and prayed and that was how I eventually realized the Catholics were right and became one.
In general I hear far more scripture in the Catholic church each Sunday than I ever heard in a Baptist or other similar church growing up.
If the Bride does the saving ... what was Jesus for ?
Lippman:
Have we not heard these things before. No one remembers him, but they sure remember what he said!
“The unlovely quality of much modern religiosity is due to these doubts. So much of it’s belief is synthetic. It is forced, made, insisted upon, because it is no longer simple and inevitable. The angry absurdities which fundamentalists propound against ‘evolution’ are not often due to their confidence in the inspiration of the Bible. They are due to lack of confidence, to doubt resisted like an annoying tune which a man cannot shake out of his head. For if the militant fundamentalists were utterly sure they are right, they would exhibit some of that composure which the truly devout display. Did they really trust their God, they would trust laws, politicians, and policemen less. But because their whole field of consciousness is trembling with uncertainties they are in a state of fret and fuss; their preaching is frousy, like the seductions of an old coquette.”
If you can't tell the truth my best advice is to sit quietly and let the adults talk; you might find out the truth instead of hiding behind your latest incarnation.
“From Barnes commentary”
Who said that Barnes is authoritative?
Let’s take a look at Barnes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Barnes_(theologian)
“mostly due to the views he expressed in Notes on Romans (1835) of the imputation of the sin of Adam, original sin and the atonement;”
Presbyterian. So you’ve got a Presbyterian, someone from PC USA, an Anglican from the COE. Basically a grab bag of theologians. Who else have you got in your bag?
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