Posted on 06/26/2015 10:18:59 AM PDT by Morgana
My grandmother celebrates 100 years of being a Catholic. She will most likely be a Catholic till her last breath as all my other grandparents were. Me? I’m a mere forty-year cradle Catholic. I own that it hasn’t been easy to remain a faithful daughter of the Church, particularly during my turbulent twenties. There was a period I disagreed with, questioned, and criticized Holy Mother Church. There were times I watched people I love abandon their baptismal promises. Still, I remained true to my heritage.
Why? Why am I still Catholic? It’s for the same reasons why people disagree, question, criticize and leave the Church:
1. The Eucharist. A mystery or a symbol to some, but the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord in the host is clear as the Catechism 1376 puts it, “because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread.” I am more than happy to remain in the Church where Jesus is really and truly present, and where I can be united to Him in receiving Communion.
2. Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church exalts the Mother of God as the perfect apostle and bestows dignity to womanhood. Since Mary was “preserved free from all stain of original sin” (Catechism 966), she is the role model for every Christian. The scripture on the wedding feast at Cana illustrates that she is a powerful intercessor to our prayers and that devotion to her is the fastest, surest way to unity with Christ as she encourages us: “do whatever [Jesus] tells you.” Our Lady is, to me, all that and a mother who cares about my everyday concerns, with the end goal of the sanctifying my soul. “Don’t be afraid of loving Mary too much,” St. Maximilian Kolbe said. “You can’t possibly love her more than Jesus does.”
3. The saints. By the rigorous process of canonization, the Catholic Church venerates the saints as humans who blazed the path on how to live the Christian life and who “provide us with examples on holiness.” The saints also obtain favors for us as they “do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as the proffer the merits which they acquired on earth.” (Catechism 956). Just like any good friend, saints inspire and pray for me. The journey of my spiritual life is easier with their assistance.
4. Penance and Reconciliation. Undoubtedly, the Church houses both saints and sinners. Knowing our fallen nature, which tempts us to sin and often characterizes us as Pharisees, Christ established the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a means for contrite sinners to obtain absolution for our sins. Jesus told St. Faustina “When you approach the confessional…I myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden in the priest.” Never have I heard more powerful words than the merciful ones voiced at the Sacrament of Reconcilation: “I absolve you from your sins, may God give you pardon and peace.”
5. Purgatory. Purgatory is the place where all who die in God’s grace and friendship but are still imperfectly purified undergo purification after death so as the achieve holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. (Catechism 1030). Purgatory as a manifestation of God’s mercy gives me hope that even if I can’t overcome my faults during my life on earth, I still have an opportunity to be sanctified by God’s justice so that I can one day enjoy the beatific vision.
6. Suffering. Suffering is inevitable in our lives because of man’s free will. The Catholic Church makes sense of suffering when it teaches that suffering can be untied with Christ’s passion in atonement for sins. According to St. John Paul II, suffering also increases our capacity for selfless love and hones the virtue of humility. Since scripture says that carrying my cross is necessary to share in Christ’s redemption, the Church not only explains suffering’s purpose but also offers me graces from the Sacraments to endure sacrifice.
7. Magisterium. Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church as the “pillar and bulwark of the truth” to sift through the muddled moral issues that confounds our modern age (and every age) so that she can provide clear guidelines on right versus wrong. “To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles.” (Catechism 2032) In every moral issue it has addressed, the Church has illustrated wisdom that only comes from the Holy Spirit. I rely on this wisdom to guard my soul from evil and to direct me on the path to eternal life as much as I rely on the promise of Jesus that “the gates of hell shall never prevail against [the Church].”
I could go on and on. The truth in the Catechism and experience of millions of Catholics over two thousand years are inexhaustible. I don't know how far back my Catholic roots go. But I hope I am not the branch that withers and rots off a steadfast family tree and I pray that I leave Catholicism as a fruitful legacy to my children, and generations after them.
Catechism 2030: “It is in the Church, in communion with all the baptized that the Christian fulfills his vocation.”
I think that we have identified the fundamental and unbridgeable point of difference in our views. You adamantly reject any role for reason in matters of Christian faith, while the Catholic tradition that I follow embraces reason as a means for understanding Scripture and the Christian faith.
That would be a wrong assumption on your part. I heartily embrace reasoning from scripture. You're promoting man's reason.
>>while the Catholic tradition that I follow embraces reason as a means for understanding Scripture and the Christian faith.<<
Now that's funny! Catholics reasoning isn't "understanding" scripture. It's adding to scripture the reasoning of man. The "reasoning" of the assumption of Mary would be a prime example. It's actually preaching "another gospel".
Everyone was redeemed at the cross.
Ummm that sure sounds like universalism to me ...
.. Are buddhists saved?? Hindi? atheists?
There are choices we can not make ... Did you choose your parents? The place of your birth? Your hair and eye color? Your eye color? Your hight Your IQ?
If you were pushed off a building could you stop the fall half way down?? Fly??
Our choices are limited by our circumstances ...
An unsaved man has no choice ..everything he does.. even work the world calls good.. are sin to a Holy and Perfect God ...
Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
“Ummm that sure sounds like universalism to me ...”
1 Timothy 2:6; Colossians 1:20. Now, after reading those verses tell me how the truth sounds like “universalism” again. Christ redeemed everyone. Not everyone will be saved. Redemption and salvation are related but not the same.
Even Protestants know this:
http://holdingtotruth.com/2013/04/08/what-is-redemption-how-is-salvation-different/
http://www.christianity.com/theology/redemption-and-salvation-11541696.html
http://www.bugsinheaven.com/insidethebook/redempt.html
Catholics have always known this obvious truth and have never stop proclaiming it:
http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu600.htm
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-being-redeemed-and-being-saved
“.. Are buddhists saved?? Hindi? atheists?”
Are all who claim to be Christians saved?
“There are choices we can not make ... Did you choose your parents? The place of your birth? Your hair and eye color? Your eye color? Your hight Your IQ?”
None of which has anything to do - even by way of analogy - with what we are talking about.
“If you were pushed off a building could you stop the fall half way down?? Fly??”
Why would I be pushed off a building? Wouldn’t the correct analogy be I jumped off the building? Aren’t we responsible for our own sins?
“Our choices are limited by our circumstances ...An unsaved man has no choice ..everything he does.. even work the world calls good.. are sin to a Holy and Perfect God ...”
And yet God still gives him free will and forces no man into Heaven.
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Hey, da catholic way bes cool!
Iffin you don’t like what scripture says, jus reezin it to say sumpin diffrint.
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You are trying to vary Scripture in order to dismiss passages that conflict with your views. And of course you are appealing to reason in support of your interpretation.
it has EVERYTHING to do with it.. our choices are restricted by our nature Val .... Think about it... You said Christ saved everyone.. is a buddhist saved ?? Is a hindi saved by Christ on the cross ???
And yet God still gives him free will and forces no man into Heaven.
Does a Buddhist have the free will to get into nirvana ??
it has EVERYTHING to do with it.. our choices are restricted by our nature Val .... Think about it... You said Christ saved everyone.. is a buddhist saved ?? Is a hindi saved by Christ on the cross ???
And yet God still gives him free will and forces no man into Heaven.
Does a Buddhist have the free will to get into nirvana ??
Just what sort of reason do you suppose man is capable of except human reason?
Given such differences, it makes sense to consult learned authorities, from early Church fathers to modern experts. When pressed, most Protestants accept such an approach, but they decline to admit that the Catholic Church or any church should develop a body of consistent doctrine and teaching.
The result is a theological shallowness to American Protestantism and its reduction of Christianity to a set of lifestyle constraints and recommendations for better living. This leaves room for odd bits like the Prosperity Gospel and the Left Behind series to enjoy runs of popular enthusiasm among the Protestant faithful.
Meanwhile, Catholicism is experiencing its own crisis in the developed world due to clerical misconduct and widespread apostasy, with internal divisions between modernist thinking and traditional, Bible based Christian faith. And the entire developed world based on science and reason finds itself under assault by enemies ancient and modern, declining in population, and with a diminished and cramped view of the future and of the nature of humanity itself.
Call it a Catholic fantasy, but I think that the leading nations of the world need to be evangelized by Christians both Catholic and Protestant, putting their differences aside in Christian brotherhood. To accomplish that requires not just that Protestants and Catholics make peace, but that Protestants develop coherent theological doctrines and make peace with reason and science.
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Reason is not a way of understanding the scriptures.
The only way to understand a passage of scripture is to read the plain words under the Holy Spirit.
The age of anointed apostles has been over for 1900 years.
Its not so difficult unless you want the word to support something humanistic, as the catholic church intrinsically demands, which the word of God cannot do.
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>> “Does a Buddhist have the free will to get into nirvana ??” <<
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Since nirvana is purely in the mind of the one seeking it, of course they do!
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The fundamentalist Protestant view though has every person read Scripture and interpret and apply it for themselves. This makes for dozens of Protestant sects with an endless variety of teachings and a susceptibility to odd doctrines and enthusiasms.
Moreover, fundamentalist hostility to reason and science leads to the discredit of Christianity and its estrangement from large areas of modern life, especially from the educated elites who apply reason and science on a routine basis.
In contrast, Catholic teaching sees natural law as engraved by God on every human soul. That natural law enables human reason to discern good from evil, truth from lies. This natural law is complemented and made whole by divine law as known to us through revelation, Scripture, and Christ's life and teachings.
From this perspective, human reason can draw upon natural law to amplify what Scripture teaches. Thus reason, when properly employed, bolsters Christian faith and practice. Indeed, natural law and the capacity to discern good and evil helps open pagan hearts to Christian teaching.
I find it an extraordinary and distressing contradiction that a fundamentalist Protestant missionary would appeal to reason and natural law to convert pagans in loincloths in a jungle, but Protestant fundamentalists at home in the developed world harshly scorn human reason as having anything worthwhile for Christian faith.
Is it any wonder that Christianity is failing in the West when it today rejects reason and science, which are the basis for some of the highest accomplishments of Christian civilization?
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>> “Surely there is benefit to deep learning in Scripture and in the culture and history of the era, and that being so, it is worth consulting those who are knowledgeable.” <<
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If you want to worship humanity.
There is no one in the catholic church that trusts the word of God over the nicolaitan that feeds them the Sun god cookie.
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Would you read or give any credit to the works of Protestant leaders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards? Or would you reject them too as peddlers of non-apostolic works that attempt to supplement Scripture?
“it has EVERYTHING to do with it..”
Nope. It has nothing to do with it.
“our choices are restricted by our nature Val ....”
And?
“Think about it... You said Christ saved everyone..”
I never once said that. I said He redeemed everyone. This is the second time now I have told you that those are two different things. So apparently you read none of the articles from Protestants or Catholics that I posted. Ignorance is a choice then.
“is a buddhist saved ??”
He is redeemed. Redeemed is not the same as saved.
“Is a hindi saved by Christ on the cross ???”:
He is redeemed. Redeemed is not the same as saved.
“Does a Buddhist have the free will to get into nirvana ??”
Since nirvana does not exist it is a meaningless question. A meaningful question would be: Do men, even Buddhists, have free will? And the answer, of course, is yes.
Redemption is not salvation. Everyone is redeemed. Not everyone is saved. All orthodox Christians know this.
I ask again was anyone saved at the cross? Might jesus had died in vein ?
“I ask again was anyone saved at the cross?”
And I tell you again: Everyone was redeemed at the cross.
“Might jesus had died in vein ?”
No, he did not die in a tube forming part of the blood circulation system of the body nor did He die in vain.
Redeemed and saved are related but not the same. Again, this should dispel any ignorance about this point (unless someone chooses to be ignorant):
Even Protestants know this:
http://holdingtotruth.com/2013/04/08/what-is-redemption-how-is-salvation-different/
http://www.christianity.com/theology/redemption-and-salvation-11541696.html
http://www.bugsinheaven.com/insidethebook/redempt.html
Catholics have always known this obvious truth and have never stop proclaiming it:
http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu600.htm
http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-difference-between-being-redeemed-and-being-saved
The entire corporate church is in opposition to God's word.
That is why Yeshua called us out of it.
Yeshua described the path to his narrow gate in the way he lived his life.
No part of the corporate “church” follows any part of the things that Yeshua did each and every day.
John's first epistle calls them all out:
1John 2:
[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
[4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
[5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
[6] He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
[7] Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.
No part of the corporate churches keeps any of the commandments. Instead they replace them with false man made garbage like the, eucharist, christmas, easter, lent, and even sometimes Halloween, but never the Sabbath and appointed times that he and his apostles lived by.
Do you mean that Christians should have Saturday as the Sabbath, like the Seventh-day Adventists?
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