Posted on 04/01/2016 12:41:08 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
I am letting you be among the first to know. It is true. I am leaving the Catholic Church. I want you to know that this has not been a decision made in haste or without serious and intense research and consideration. But I can no longer remain in a church that I no longer believe in.
Let me explain.
I will be writing more about this soon, but for now let me just say there are five main reasons why I am leaving the Catholic Church:
1. I believe the sole rule of faith for Christians has to be Scripture. The Holy Bible is the only unchanging and definitive word of God that a Christian can build his or her life upon. Everything else, including the Catholic claims to authority, in the end, amount to ever-changing and ultimately sinking sand.
2. I believe works or any sense of salvific cooperation with God’s grace as constitutive to a Christian’s eternal life is unbiblical. “… not of works” (cf. Eph. 2:8-9) means not of works.
3. The idea of Mary and the saints being involved in the salvation of a Christian is tantamount to a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s redeeming work on Calvary’s cross.
4. #3 can also be said of Purgatory, the “sacrifice” of the Mass, the Catholic view of salvation/justification, and more. These and more of the elements of Catholic teaching result in a denial of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. More to follow in a more detailed post.
5. What Catholics call the “veneration” of Mary and the saints is actually idolatry.
These are just for starters here. Many of you know that for the last 28 years I have defended the above teachings and more from the Catholic Church. I can no longer do so in clear conscience.
And by the way, just so you know…
April fools!
The Mass, as currently practiced by Roman Catholicism, is not Biblical in that it's re-sacrificing Christ over and over again. The Mass contradicts Hebrews in so many places.
From O'Brien's book....the priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man – not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest’s command.
There is nothing in the NT which supports this false teaching. And it's a whopper of a false one at that.
You previously said you don't believe this...that Christ is re-sacrificed over and over again. Yet, a catholic priest, who is supposed to be able to trace his authority back to Peter per catholicism, is saying this is exactly what happens.
One of you is mistaken.
If there's any method to this madness I don't believe that's what it is.
Christ is not REsacrificed during the Mass. The Mass is the same sacrifice as Calvary. Father O'Brien isn't saying what you think he's saying either. Christ is the ETERNAL Victim. All the Masses said by all the priests in history are one and the same with Calvary. Time and Space are ripped apart. Christ's sacrifice changes everything, literally.
Msgr. Ronald Knox wrote a book called "The Mass in Slow Motion" back in the 1940s. it's available online.
We have already reminded ourselves that the Mass is all one, and that all Christians hearing Mass in all parts of the world are present in chapel when we have Mass here. But now we see that the thing goes wider than that; the Saints in heaven, too, from our Lady downwards are part of it all; you, as a faithful Christian, are holding hands with the next person, so to speak, and she with the next person, and so on and on and back and back and up and up till you get to our Blessed Lady herself.
A little later he writes:What I am trying to explain to you is that the priest does, here, act a part, and the part of our Blessed Lord himself. Isn't that, perhaps, rather an irreverent idea? Why, no; because this isn't ordinary acting, like the plays you act here. When you act, you pretend that somebody is there who isn't there, King Henry the Eighth or Macbeth or some- body. But the priest, in this interval of drama, doesn't pretend that somebody is there who isn't there. Jesus Christ is really there; there's no pretending about it. He is really there, not merely in the sacred Host, but also in the person of the priest. We mustn't say that the priest is Jesus Christ; that would be blasphemy and nonsense. No, but the priest has become a kind of dummy through which, here and now, Jesus Christ is consecrating the Sacrament, just as he did, but in his own person, nineteen hundred years ago.
And then he adds: Then relax the effort of your mind, and let yourself be carried away on the stream of intercession which is going on all round you when Jesus Christ is there. Don't get worked up about whether you are praying well or not, just stand down and let our Lord do the praying for you. He has taken over our sacrifice, and he is going to offer it for us.
It was written for wartime schoolgirls in the UK so it has a certain style to it that is difficult for us, but if you actually want to understand what you condemn then I'd recommend you take a look at least at the introduction.
Catholic priests btw, don't trace their authority back to Peter. The bishops trace their authority back to the apostles.
The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here.http://www.catholic.com/tracts/apostolic-succession
From the text of your citation: Apostolic succession is the line of bishops stretching back to the apostles. All over the world, all Catholic bishops are part of a lineage that goes back to the time of the apostles And had I any idea that you were only going to take that away from my post I wouldn't have included it.
It cannot be the same sacrifice as that has already happened and it happened once.
From O'Brien again:
When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our alter to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man...... the priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man – not once but a thousand times!
What O'Brien is saying: The priest tells the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to come down from Heaven and He obeys so that He can be re-sacrificed again. And again. And again. And Again. What O'Brien is saying in clear contradiction of what the Word says.
11Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; 12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, 13waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET.
14For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Hebrews 10:11-14 NASB
For Roman Catholics to continue to say otherwise is denying the crystal clear teaching of the Scripture and what happened on the cross.
In Paul's great letter to the Romans he never mentioned anything about the roman catholic mass.
He noted it was by faith. Going back to Abraham it's always been about faith.
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the Scripture say?
“ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
4Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, 6just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED.
8“BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.” Romans 4:1-8 NASB.
Ok, is not the bishop giving the priest his ordination? If so, the priest, by default of the bishop is tracing his “authority” back to Peter.
Don’t try to wrap your definitions around what Catholics do at Mass, it’ll only give you a headache. Catholics do not believe that Our Lord is re-sacrificed at Mass, suggesting that we do is only muddying the waters.
I suppose in a certain loose sense it could be said that way, but priests do not enjoy the fullness of Holy Orders. Priests can’t ordain priests or consecrate bishops and must have “faculties” from a bishop to do almost everything else that is priestly. I think this is angels on a pinhead territory though.
O'Brien is clearly stating He is re-sacrificed. Again and again and again. Further that a priest orders the King of Kings around is...well....I'm not sure what to call that.
It's a clear contradiction of Hebrews. The catholic cannot argue otherwise.
I know that disturbs catholics.
I encourage all catholics to come to Christ through faith just as He tells us to.
I know I don't worship Mary... because I don't offer a sacrifice to her... and she's not God.
O'Brien is clearly stating He is re-sacrificed
No he isn't. It seems preposterous to me that someone looking from the outside can tell what's going on in the hearts and minds of others especially when the mind reader has been explicitly told that he's incorrect in his assumption.
And Catholics do have faith in Christ... what do you think all the fuss has been about, a holy cheese grater?
They would come to Him and not through Mary to get to Him.
In either case, the catholic Mass goes against what is written in the Word. No re-sacrifice, or whatever you want to call it, is needed per the Word.
The one time sacrifice on the Cross took care of the need for any additional sacrifices or re-sacrifices.
Jesus asks us to come to Him through faith.
It is my sincere hope that anyone reading this read comes to Christ.
24“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. JOhn 5:24 NASB
40“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:40 NASB
But ya know, that's just false in a way, since the Bible tells us that GOD in Jesus limited Himself to a little lower than the Angels to come as our Savior. Now if you argue 'but Jesus rose from the dead a new creation and ascended unto The Father' then you cannot claim the Mass is a continuation of the Sacrifice He made ONCE then arose from the dead and ascended back into Heaven. But the catholic mind is unable to follow such reasoning because it is so steeped in magic thinking, like the wheat wafer is changed into the body, blood, soul, AND DIVINITY of GOD the SON, but it remains a wheat wafer in appearance ...
The heresies which magic thinking minds can endorse are staggering in their blasphemy! Mormonism generates similar magic thinking ... oh wait! Since catholiciism --like Mormonism-- is not Christianity, it is not heretical to insist a pagan priest can bring Jesus down from heaven when He is never allowed to go back because Mass is going on 24/7 world-wide! So, if there is no chance for Jesus to get off the pagan altars around the world, how is it that a catholic priest brings Jesus from Heaven at each Mass, in His Physical body for eating His Divinity into the catholic adherents? well of course, magic thinking has an answer doesn't it!
A sincere Catholic's eternal destiny is riding on these heresies and blasphemies. It is sad indeed that to swallow the poison of catholiciism, the sincere adherent has to accept the magicsteeringthem command that 'Jesus said to eat His real flesh' (which Jesus says profits nothing) and 'ingest His real blood' (which violates the Passover Seder by violating the Levitical laws, on the night BEFORE He went to the Cross as The Lamb of God). Catholiciism rests upon taking Jesus Literally/physically, even as He illustrated that He want to be taken spiritually, so that any, anywhere can break bread (not even the matzo!) and take a sip of wine in Remembering and illustrating in the spiritual symbolism what JESUS did for us all, ONCE for ALL, forever.
The actual Passover Jesus celebrated happens on Nisan 14 (April 22nd this year). For a hundred years the gatherings of believers in Asia Minor the, born from above as the REAL Church Jesus established (not Rome of course), well they ate bread and drank wine in Remembrance. They kept to the Levitical laws as best they could, but not for salvation --because that happened the moment they believed Whom GOD had sent for their deliverance was The Jesus Christ sacrificed ONCE for all eternity on the Cross-- but to stay as close to Their Lord spiritually as they could.
When you are done with the TarBaby; I’d like to play...
I've heard of him!
By all means! Let’s have an Elsiethon!
How can they NOT!?!?!?
You eat His BODY!!!
And drink his bLoOd!
You are one-in-million.
Darned near a Saint already!
That would bring out the Skippers!
No way it's the same sacrifice. Christ died on a Roman cross of wood, not a marble or whatever altar in a Catholic church. Christ is the ETERNAL Victim.
The Romans did not offer Him as an atonement for their sins, nor for the sins of Israel.
Christ went to the cross to take the penalty for our sins, not as a sacrifice for us to offer to God to appease Him as the lamb was offered by the Jews in their sacrificial system.
Christ never was the victim in the first place, much less the eternal one.
Nobody took His life, He gave it of His own accord.
If he is eternally the victim, as you say, then He NEVER rose from the dead, and if Christ is not raised your faith is useless.
He is not forever suffering for us. He is not forever dying for us.
He DIED - PAST TENSE, and He rose again - PAST TENSE, and is NOW in heaven, seated at the right hand of God.
All the Masses said by all the priests in history are one and the same with Calvary. Time and Space are ripped apart.
And you get this just where out of Scripture?
It is NOT the same sacrifice as Calvary as Calvary was not about us giving Jesus to God as a sacrifice on our behalf.
If it is, then you all are bringing condemnation on yourselves for crucifying Christ. You all are taking on yourself the condemnation that comes with putting Jesus on the cross.
I for one sure would not want to stand before God and take credit for putting Jesus on the cross to kill Him, to admit to being one of the participants who crucified Him.
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