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?
1401.
The righteousness of Christ credited to our account.
Colossians 3:3-4 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Philippians 3:8-11 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Yet the "accident", or as more formally written in official RCC emanation, the "species" remains unchanged. Let us not forget...
I saw what you did there.
Good one.
Let us not forget that by Faith the soul accepts Him as the source of Truth and does so not by its own power. In return He gives us a power not of our own reasoning. This power to believe in Faith is in the soul, like the power to see is in the eye. When we see with Faith we see far more clearly that can ever be discerned by human eyes and reason without Faith.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." - Hebrews 11:1
Peace be with you
I don't know why so many Catholics are far more comfortable with the idea of Mary being a valuable helper in the salvation process than being a mere Jewish mother.
He knows that - merely trying to misdirect once again.
Yup...
"What must we do..."
OR that it would be the corruption found at the HEART of the 'church' that would elevate him.
He knows.
It's just his attempt to steer the conversation away from yetr another toubling area.
Disturbing projection. Speaks volumes.
Smug Saducee's screaming “AUTHORITY!” in the biggest fonts to persuade themselves of their church's importance. Can it get any worse?!
King James Version (KJV)
11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
I have 'faith' that the Magisterium's pronouncements are correct.
"I believe it; I believe it."
(Old Stalag 17 reference)
Triz’ Trzcinski quote...
I think likening the potential for humans to err - and still blindly trusting them - to the possibility of an accident happening on a trip, but still going, shows a deficiency in English and logic skills. I can see why you are so often wrong in telling others what's wrong with them.
As a woman who has Rh negative blood, I was told that if my baby's father had Rh positive blood, then I would need a special shot at the birth of the baby to prevent my body from producing antibodies to the Rh differential that could happen if any of the baby's blood came in contact with my body while being born and which would cause my body to react against any future pregnancy. The mother and baby's blood coming in contact only happens incidentally - they are not "mixed" and the baby does not "get" its blood from the mother. It is entirely its own.
According to the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/rh-factor/MY01163/DSECTION=why-its-done):
Typically, the antibodies aren't a problem during the first pregnancy. The concern is with a subsequent pregnancy with an Rh positive baby. In this case, your existing Rh antibodies might cross the placenta and fight the baby's red blood cells. This could lead to life-threatening anemia — a lack of healthy red blood cells — for the Rh positive baby.
If you're Rh negative, you might need to have another blood test — an antibody screen — during your first trimester and again during week 28 of pregnancy. The antibody screen is used to detect antibodies to Rh positive blood.
If you haven't started to produce Rh antibodies, you'll need an injection of a blood product called Rh immune globulin. The immune globulin prevents your body from producing Rh antibodies during your pregnancy.
If your baby is born Rh negative, no additional treatment is needed.
Dang! And I got hollered at for coming to bed so late last night!!
Faith in faith means nothing. Faith in Jesus is what counts.
If you want to equate becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit with sexual promiscuity, the it's not the Protestants who are more comfortable with the idea that Mary was a slut.
She was betrothed to Joseph. HE was her husband. By claiming that the Holy Spirit was her husband, that makes Mary an adulterous by having two husbands.
If the Holy Spirit was her husband as Catholic like to claim, then her marriage to Joseph made her an adulteress.
Problem is, she was betrothed to Joseph at the time the angel visited her.
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