A Look at the Early Catholic Church from the Acts of the Apostles

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 04-26-16 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[Mark17]

I went to a Catholic high school. I could not say for certain what all the other 500 students believed. I can only say why I believed. I worshipped Mary, but I don't really know if anyone else did. I don't recall ever talking about it. This was a ton of years ago, so we may have talked about it, I just don't recall.
I do know, that I was SO ignorant, I didn't even know there was such a thing as the book of Revelation, let alone whatever else was in the scriptures.

[ealgeone]

First, we are not "redefining" prayer. We are using the older and historic meaning of the word. I made that point in my last post with an observation on the shifting of the semantic field of the word "pray" over the past couple hundred years --- can you please deal with that?

There in may be the problem. Let's turn to the word prayer in the New Testament.

proseuchomai is the greek verb for pray.

4336 proseúxomai (from 4314 /prós, "towards, exchange" and 2172/euxomai, "to wish, pray") – properly, to exchange wishes; pray – literally, to interact with the Lord by switching human wishes (ideas) for His wishes as He imparts faith ("divine persuasion"). Accordingly, praying (4336/proseuxomai) is closely inter-connected with 4102 /pístis ("faith") in the NT. HELPS Word studies

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oh, fer cryin' out loud, ealgeone!! Idols and statues don't say anything. Surely you know that!

First you refute things *I* didn't say, then you refute things "idols and statues" didn't say.

This is not the way to conduct a discussion. To do this, you have to engage with what the other person actually said.

AND both parties have to agree to defined terms. Please define and distinguish "adoration" and "veneration." Debater's courtesy: I'm giving you the first dibs on that.

[ealgeone]

Second, I NEVER said we don't pray *to* Mary, but quite the opposite: I said we do pray *to* Mary, and it's legit: we're not worshiping her as if she were a goddess or some such thing.

The idols and statues say otherwise.

Oh, fer cryin' out loud, ealgeone!! Idols and statues don't say anything. Surely you know that!

Yes, I know idols don't speak. You misunderstood the context of what I was saying. Allow me to clarify.

Roman catholicism has turned her into a goddess as evidenced by the statues/idols of Mary and the prayers to her and the reliance upon Mary for salvation.

[Ransomed]

I’ve given up on this issue. All anyone would have to do is ask a Catholic if they worship Mary if they wanted to find out if Catholics worship Mary. But that’s never enough somehow, as if Catholics would have some reason to lie about it or something. Why would a Christian disbelieve another Christian on this? It’s not that hard. So what does it say about the folks who don’t take Catholics word for it?

Freegards

[ealgeone]

What’s sad is that those outside the Church waste so much time worrying about what Catholics believe. I would think that Christ wants us to be more concerned with building our own faith rather than tearing down the beliefs of His other followers.

Would you say the same about Mormonism?

Christ wants us to build our faith in Him. If someone's beliefs are counter to His teachings we are to correct those.

Paul provides a pretty good example of this.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Source? And I'm not sure this really deals with what we mean in English. For instance, it clearly does not apply to historic English usage.

From etymology online

pray (v.) early 13c., "ask earnestly, beg," also (c. 1300) "pray to a god or saint," from Old French preier "to pray" (c.900, Modern French prier), from Vulgar Latin *precare (also source of Italian pregare), from Latin precari "ask earnestly, beg, entreat," from *prex (plural preces, genitive precis) "prayer, request, entreaty," from PIE root *prek- "to ask, request, entreat" (cognates: Sanskrit prasna-, Avestan frashna- "question;" Old Church Slavonic prositi, Lithuanian prasyti "to ask, beg;" Old High German frahen, German fragen, Old English fricgan "to ask" a question).

That encompasses the wider meaning more accurately. In Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors" (Act 2, Scene 2) when the character says to the man who struck him,

"I pray, sir, why am I beaten?"

he is not adoring the man, nor is he exchanging wishes with him. He is urgently asking him a question. That's all.

That illustrates a wider usage than your Greek lexicon suggests.

[ADSUM]

Your comment: “No. The Scriptures referring to the Church record the actions of bishops and elders and deacons and apostles. Not priests - except Jewish and pagan.”

In other passages it’s clear that although men called presbuteroi ruled over individual congregations (parishes), the apostles ordained certain men, giving them authority over multiple congregations (dioceses), each with its own presbyters. These were endowed with the power to ordain additional presbyters as needed to shepherd the flock and carry on the work of the gospel. Titus and Timothy were two of those early episcopoi and clearly were above the office of presbuteros. They had the authority to select, ordain, and govern other presbyters, as is evidenced by Paul’s instructions: “This is why I left you in Crete . . . that you might appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (Ti 1:5; cf. 1 Tm 5:17-22).

Priests (presbuteroi) are also known as “presbyters” or “elders.” In fact, the English term “priest” is simply a contraction of the Greek word presbuteros. They have the responsibility of teaching, governing, and providing the sacraments in a given congregation (1 Tim. 5:17; Jas. 5:14–15

As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church.

Ignatius of Antioch

“Now, therefore, it has been my privilege to see you in the person of your God-inspired bishop, Damas; and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius; and my fellow-servant, the deacon, Zotion. What a delight is his company! For he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ” (Letter to the Magnesians 2 [A.D. 110]).

[MHGinTN]

In your catholic religion version of scripture, the elders are called priests. No wonder you people are do lost! The leadership of your religion have altered the wording in so many passages that only the catholic religion shows up in the DR Bible BUT ... Here's the Standard English version:

James 5: Prayer of faith

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

You cannot help yourself, can you! Deception is at the heart of the religion called catholiciism. It must gave deception in order to squelch The Scriptural Truths and allow for the heresies that have inveigled over the centuries. The above citation of James, WITH THE FALSE CHANGE TO SUPPORT A PRISTHOOD is an average example of how deception reigns in that 'other religion'.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I know what you're saying. The antic assumption is either that one could adore someone inadvertently ("Oops, sorry, I accidentally adored a fellow on the street yesterday" -- which is impossible) or that one would adore and then lie about it (which makes no sense.)

I assure you, if I adored someone, I would not dither and dissimulate about it. Good God, I would sound the bagpipes, thump the bodhran and lead the parade! Come, fellow creatures! Let us all worship the One God, the Most Blessed Trinity!

To l large extent, I write for the lurkers. A fellow FReeper told my husband that she had been received into the Catholic Church last year (Easter 2015) partly under my small influence. I knew nothing about at at the time, but it gave me reason to be rather wonderingly happy heartwise, all the same.

[MHGinTN]

How utterly deadsoul brainwhshed, to support the false priesthood ... but I forgot, catholiciism is not Christianity so any change is warranted by the religion called Catholicism, even repeated deceptions like you just made, asserting that Jesus instituting The Lord’s Table is Jesus installing a priesthood! Amazing deadsoul twist that.

[MHGinTN]

I will not call you disingenuous. When you pray to someone who is dead your are exhibiting a form of worship if you attribute to that departed being such god-like powers as hearing millions and millions of prayers simultaneously. You know that and it is precisely how catholics worship Mary. So you are far more than merely disingenuous. Your religion is polytheistic at its heart, not Christianity.

[Ransomed]

Christians worship the Trinity. They can’t worship anything else and be Christians, right? So when Christians say Catholics worship Mary, they are saying Catholics aren’t really Christians. Like right here on this thread.

I mean come on, Catholics aren’t Christians? Mouth breathing stuff. Maybe it does the lurkers good. I don’t know.

Freegards

[MHGinTN]

Those prayers rise to GOD, not the catholic Mary or the catholic appointed ‘saints’. But we understand why you don’t know such a simple thing yet try to use a passage out of context.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Roman catholicism has turned her into a goddess."

You know this isn't true. This misidentification of Mary as a goddess is consistently refused by Catholics, and is explicitly forbidden by the prophets of Israel, the Gospels, the Fathers of the Church, the Catechism --- by all Catholic doctrine.

I must again invite you to distinguish between adoration and veneration. Define your terms. If you won't do that --- a precondition to productive discussion --- then this will just be wasted effort on both of our parts, wheel-spinning, fishtailing on the ice. Without definitions, it's impossible for words to get traction.

[rwa265]

Would you say the same about Mormonism?

---

I know very little about Mormonism, and really don’t have a desire to learn more. I wish them peace in the Lord as much as I wish it for anyone else.

[MHGinTN]

Being a Catholic does not equate one-to-one with being a Christian. I’m sure there are Christians in the catholic institution, but there are even Christians in Mormonism. And as with catholiciism, these drifting in the institution of catholiciism did not become Christians via Mormonism, or a particular baptism, or a particular fealty to sacraments.

[ADSUM]

At least you know about the Anointing of the Sick.

Yes Jesus commanded the Catholic church to Preach and Baptize all nations. As the Church grew it would be natural to provide help to the Bishops for individual parishes and the practice was followed from early Catholic times and mentioned by early Church Fathers.

So exact wording is important to you, but you still do not accept the words of Our Lord in the Eucharist.

[Ransomed]

“... but I forgot, catholiciism is not Christianity”

Whatever pal. Good luck with this.

Freegards

[MHGinTN]

You spittled out, “Yes Jesus commanded the Catholic church to Preach and Baptize all nations.” That is the standard catholic deception conflating your religion’s institutional structure with The body of Christ made up of all believers born from above. Jesus did not give ANY instructions to your religion. Your magicsteeringthem has fabricated that lie from conflation.