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.”
As I pointed out, not just the Catholic church but the Adventists — and no doubt others — have the same view of the passage from Isaiah. What sect or church supports your view?
Yes, I am familiar with the Catholic Catechism.
Are you familiar with Leviticus 3:17?
“With you, I already have.”
Yes, you did fail to make an argument.
Not until you have referred to it. To my Catholic sensibility, it is an obsolete Old Testament admonition embedded in a larger passage about ritual sacrifices.
This is not presented as a mere wafer, rather the RCC claim according to the Catechism paragraph 1374 'the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained' in the wafer, of course by the magical power the RCC priest is embued with by the system of RCC Tradition, specious reference to scripture, and the magicsteeringthem.
But there's more in that Catechism paragraph 1374: "In the (RCC) Eucharist the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ" is contained in the wafer for the altar! So, roman Catholicism tells their followers that Jesus is once again the real present victim for sacrifice in the RCC Mass.
Of course, Jesus said no man takes His life, He lays it down willingly for us, so this imagined victim ritual is specious at the very heart of it. However, the implications of this religion trying to claim they can ingest the life of God is also astonishing since it would mean through their magic mystery rite they can force God to repeat what He has declared Finished.
The poor follower of this false religion then believes they have renewed their salvation by consuming the real and substantial Jesus Christ. That is prime paganism at its best and the RCC peddles it as sacred.
And what has been left out of the ritual which Jesus said to partake of in remembrance of His sacrifice --not repeating it over and over and over again? well of course the ONLY thing that can actually wash away the sins of the believer, the blood of Jesus. Perhaps even the RCC secretly realize that they re violating a commandent from God begun in Genesis 9 and codified into the laws in Levitixus 3:17, to never, ever drink the blood of the creatur or human because the life is in the blood.
The Life, human Life of Jesus was in His blood. That blood is not some gimmick to be nicolaitanized in repetitive rites of empowerment for the RCC. It was the precious blood spread upon the Mercy Seat in Heaven for we sinners. Jesus does not get sacrificed over and over and over again as the RCC claims with every Mass. He is not called down from Heaven to earth at the magic command of the RCC priest. Jesus is coming back to Earth, as we can read in Revelation, at the end of the Great Tribulation period. So RCC priests cannot yoyo Him up and down from the Throne of God for their Mass ritual.
One only has to look at the same scene as recorded in Luke 22 to see that Jesus was fulfilling the Passover cups of wine not blood (there are 4, and Jesus did not drink the last but will in the Kingdom). To insist that the words recorded in John and Matthew somehow have Jesus telling these Jewish men to drink His blood would mean the sentence by Jesus in Luke's telling, 'This cup is the new covenant' would fit an Indiana Jones movie, not the introduction of a sacrament to be repeated in REMEMBRANCE of His sacrifice for us. RCC insists each Mass is a repeat of the sacrifice with the 'real and substantial body and blood and soul and divinity of The Son of God Who is in Haven at the right hand of the throne of God Almighty.
Luke 22: 14And when the hour come, he reclined (at meat), and the twelve apostles with him, 15and he said unto them, ‘With desire I did desire to eat this passover with you before my suffering, 16for I say to you, that no more may I eat of it till it may be fulfilled in the reign of God.’ 17And having taken a cup, having given thanks, he said, ‘Take this and divide to yourselves, 18for I say to you that I may not drink of the produce of the vine till the reign of God may come.’ 19And having taken bread, having given thanks, he brake and gave to them, saying, ‘This is my body, that for you is being given, this do ye — to remembrance of me.’ 20In like manner, also, the cup after the supping, saying, ‘This cup [is] the new covenant in my blood, that for you is being poured forth.
In the World English Bible that last sentence has Jesus pouring the contents out not passing it for drinking, signifying His blood was about to be shed, poured out for them and us.
Luke 22: 17And having taken a cup, having given thanks, he said, ‘Take this and divide to yourselves, 18for I say to you that I may not drink of the produce of the vine till the reign of God may come.’ 19And having taken bread, having given thanks, he brake and gave to them, saying, ‘This is my body, that for you is being given, this do ye — to remembrance of me.’ 20In like manner, also, the cup after the supping, saying, ‘This cup [is] the new covenant in my blood, that for you is being poured forth.
You put on the table perhaps the most disputed theological issue between Catholics and Protestants. I decline to get drawn into a bottomless swamp of disputation over the nature of the Catholic Eucharist.
Yes, it is possibly the deepest question, after the proposition that we are saved by faith not by works, lest any man boast of earned merit. The Jailer asked ‘What must I do to be saved?’ What did Paul answer? It is that simple, yet so hard for some to let God be God in them.
Pax vobiscum
By Grace are we saved through Faithe in Jesus, not of works lest any man boast. That is the Way to be born from Above.
The transubstantiation notion/teaching began in 831, though it was Innocent III who declared it as dogma of the RCC in 1215. Pope Innocent was anything but what his name implies.
Come to grips with it; you know nothing about the word, but the nonsense that is purveyed by the pagan Roman catholic cult.
The salvation that is delivered to Yeshua’s few elect at the Last Trump is redemption. Without it one has only the second death to look forward to.
Trying to divide it is a foolish game, unsupported by scripture.
(it is conspicuous that you've made not even a feeble attempt to post a scripture that divides the event)
Ephesians 4:
[30] And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption
Get that?
The DAY of Redemption!
.
The following video is very dry, but VERY important to understand the heresy of transubstantiation and Henry Newman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-23dgg1Xi8
‘A single ping, Vassily.’ One ping to the video link.
“Get that? The DAY of Redemption!”
Yes, I get that you’re still wrong. I already knew that “redemption” and “salvation” are sometimes discussed in scripture as overlapping. I already pointed that out. The simple fact is everyone was already redeemed and not everyone will be saved. Nothing will change that and nothing in scripture - despite the two sometimes being said to overlap - actually goes against it.
Sad doesn’t even come close to it!
You are correct MHG. The word "sad" is only a drop in the ocean, compared to the stark reality of just how sad many folks will be. My guess is that Hell is a million times worse than the worst thing anyone could ever imagine in a million lifetimes. Why do so many people seem to be so unconcerned about it? The issue is too important to screw it up. 😇
Nobody is redeemed yet!
Our redemption comes on the same day for everyone, The Day of Redemption, at the Last Trump.
No room in there for purgatory, either.
The word of God is plain and simple on every issue, no room for catholic manipulation.
Yehova knew that the catholics would come along about 350 years after his son had arisen, and he made his word bullet proof against their pagan nonsense.
.
“Nobody is redeemed yet!”
Everyone was redeemed because the ransom was already paid.
“Our redemption comes on the same day for everyone, The Day of Redemption, at the Last Trump.”
Everyone was redeemed when Christ died.
“No room in there for purgatory, either.”
There’s plenty of room for it because God made it.
“The word of God is plain and simple on every issue, no room for catholic manipulation.”
There is no “catholic manipulation” - as shown by the fact that Protestants generally believe this too. Wackjobs on the fringes of Protestantism might not but when you look at the other silly things they believe that have nothing to do with orthodox Christianity it’s not surprising.
“Yehova knew that the catholics would come along about 350 years after his son had arisen, and he made his word bullet proof against their pagan nonsense.”
No, God sent Catholics out on Pentecost to preach the gospel and we’ve been getting right ever since. Protestantism came about 1500 years later - in a place and way no one is allowed to state here on FR.
1 Peter 1:18-19:
“Knowing that it was not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ.”
WERE REDEEMED. Past tense. I have no problem with people saying the final part of our redemption is on judgment day. Fine. But we were redeemed at Golgotha.
A ‘once was a catholic priest’ brother in Christ mentioned recently that the fires of Hell cannot burn away sin. So sin is so unrighteous that even the burning of is will not erase it. But Catholicism still teaches folks that they can get right through the bringing of their venial sins in purgatory. That purgatory notion was added much later than t he completion of the Bible, so we are to assume it was a tradition, eh?
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