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?
St. Thomas was pontificating about a biological condition that was not known very well in his day. They thought that the fetus was a tiny little person "seed" enclosed in sperm that got planted in the woman's womb and grew from there. They looked at the mother as only being the incubator for the baby. Because Jesus had no human father by whom the "seed" of him was planted, guys like Thomas came up with all kinds of explanations for what happened including that all that Jesus had in his human body came solely from his mother. Theologians in the thirteenth century were NOT biologists, obviously.
“You should respond to that post”
Post # please.
Why men's traditions have been taking place since the garden party. It is the WORD John 1:1 that keeps men's traditions separate from the WORD as inspired by the Creator. Why some refuse to count how long Jonah was in the belly of that whale or 'fish god', because that would mean that 'good Friday' is a tradition of man. That is just one particular example.
The OT reading cycle repeats every two years, and in those two years, the daily mass only covers 13.5% of the Old Testament (3378 verses). The NT reading cycle repeats every three years, and in three years' time the daily mass covers 71.5% of the New Testament (5689 verses). Combine the verses and this accounts for just 12.7% of the entire Bible in the weekly mass, and no more than 27.5% of the entire Bible in the daily mass. But you don't have to believe me, if you don't want to. Do the math for yourself.
“First, I have trouble with the glorification of the concepts of “majority rule” and “stare decisis” via replacing their names with the single term “Magisterium”.”
Well, then. Who do you believe has the authority to interpret scripture accurately?
“Since we do not accord any of them with the power of infallibility”
Which is why this debate is meaningless. You yourself do not regard the Fathers of the Church as authoritative, so why are you citing them in defense of your own beliefs?
It makes no sense to me. I was a Protestant. I was a sola scripturist. I encountered many folks like you who were willing to quote the Catholic church in everything.
Which raises the question. Why is St. Augustine authoritative? Why has he come down to us? Because the Catholic church appointed him to be a bishop. This is a historical fact. If you are acknowledging him to be an authority on God, you are in effect, arguing in favor of the Catholic church.
Third, when the citation is inaccurate, and doesn’t even actually say what is claimed, that just demonstrates to most people that you aren’t really interested in truth.
I’m having trouble with a couple of things:
First, I have trouble with the glorification of the concepts of “majority rule” and “stare decisis” via replacing their names with the single term “Magisterium”.
Second, I have trouble with claims that someone is “cherry picking” the Church Fathers. Since we do not accord any of them with the power of infallibility or with impeccability, it should be obvious that the Church Fathers may have been wrong about some things, and all of them were certainly wrong about something at some point in their writings. Who gets to decide which quotes “count” and which constitute “cherry picking”? Why is the Catholic practice of selective citation, arranged neatly so as to support the claim that “to read the Church Fathers is to become Catholic” or however the line goes. not a prime example of cherry picking”? What objective, external standard can be appealed to, to verify when a Church Father is “orthodox” and when he is “heretical”?
“You don’t have to tell me the answer, because I think we can all guess it by now: “The Magisterium”, or to use a better word, “by majority vote”. “
The magisterium as a whole.
“What objective, external standard can be appealed to, to verify when a Church Father is “orthodox” and when he is “heretical”?”
The catechism of the Catholic church.
Again, one bishop speaking on one topic doesn’t speak for the body, the 400.
Do your own work.
IT IS!! And get over it because you will be judged by the Written Word - not man-made doctrine! So keep up!
Not understanding what is written; yet claiming that's not all there is! LOL! A double-minded man...
Go to the back of the class and have our resident scholar, Daniel1212, teach you.
GOD'S WORD is The FINAL Authority! Hear and Obey IT, it's the only way to please The Father is to BELIEVE His Son, Jesus The Word.
“Why men’s traditions have been taking place since the garden party. It is the WORD John 1:1 that keeps men’s traditions separate from the WORD as inspired by the Creator. Why some refuse to count how long Jonah was in the belly of that whale or ‘fish god’, because that would mean that ‘good Friday’ is a tradition of man. That is just one particular example.”
Who said, ‘read the KJV with Strong’s concordance?’ Is there a particular theologian who actually says this somewhere?
“Do your own work.”
You said there was a post somewhere that quoted the entire letter, supposedly much larger than the quotes you said were out of context that I provided.
There is no such post.
I can’t find something that is just a hallucination on your part.
Ok, and cite some percentages in your church. :)
“You said there was a post”
Indeed there is. Which you conspicuously ignored, because it concisely showed your argument that St. Augustine did support the real Presence, and that your citation actually chopped a sentence in half.
“I can’t find something”
You should look it up. It’s not my job to do your work for you. :)
So we learn something new today.
Not only do Catholics assert that arguments are disproved without actually proving it. They assert that assertions they didn’t even make disprove arguments without actually proving it.
Ok, well I don’t really see the point in responding to you when you ignore posts you don’t like.
Are you saying that if Mary had rejected the "choice" to bear the Messiah, she would have remained sinless? Would she then have gone to heaven anyway because she didn't need a savior? If so, would Christ's redemption not be needed for her since she never sinned because of the graces she had already been given of God? If that is the case, as you are sounding like it is, then why couldn't/wouldn't God have just done that for ALL mankind and EVERYONE would go to heaven and Jesus wouldn't have needed to die?
“Ok, well I don’t really see the point in responding”
Well, then don’t. It saves me the trouble of dealing with your usual trolling.
Theologian? I read a sneer regarding the KJV. It does seem rather odd that a protestant King would commission a translation for the commoners to have and hold, and the adherents to Rome continually have ugly reactions. I do not read Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, but, with the KJV and a Strong's concordance, I can find that the word 'easter' was never uttered by any prophet or disciple/apostle as something to be celebrated. God gave each of us a brain, and HE took the time to send HIS instructions as to what path leads to life eternal. The so called old testament has a whole lot of Balaams recorded. Why there were so many more rebel hard-heads recorded in the so called old, that the House of Israel was divorced and sent into captivity. Then around 200 years later the House of Judah was sent packing to Babylon because of the same practices.
As it is Written there is nothing new under the sun, that which has been will be again.... Ecclesiastes 1 Paul must have been well versed in Ecclesiastes because he repeats the same warning in ICorinthians 10:11.
Wow, Clintonian response. You coumpletely changed what I said. I said the percentage of the Mass which is from the Bible. Then you cherry pick one part of the Mass, and leave all the parts of the Mass that contain the Bible out. I know the government officially recognizes Catholics as not full citizens of the United States, but c’mon, think for yourself.
The authority, or the ability?
You yourself do not regard the Fathers of the Church as authoritative, so why are you citing them in defense of your own beliefs?
Where and when precisely did I post that "I do not regard the Fathers of the Church as authoritative"? When exactly did I cite any Church Fathers? Please do not put words in my mouth, especially if you're not going to tell me where they've been. Eeew.
But if we're going to continue with that argument, when did the Magisterium conclude that the Church Fathers were more authoritative than the apostles' inspired writings?
It makes no sense to me. I was a Protestant. I was a sola scripturist. I encountered many folks like you who were willing to quote the Catholic church in everything.
I would take issue with your use of the phrase "sola scripturist", as well as <"Protestant", as both phrases are associated with the churches that came out of the Reformation. Earlier on this thread, you claimed to have formerly been a Mennonite. When you were Mennonite, did you consider Mennonites to be a product of the Reformation, or for Mennonites(as anabapists) to have preexisted the Reformation? I'm guessing that you believed the latter, hence my taking issue with the choice of words.
“Are you saying that if Mary had rejected the “choice” to bear the Messiah, she would have remained sinless?”
Yes. God asked. He did not demand.
“Would she then have gone to heaven anyway because she didn’t need a savior?”
She was already saved, by Christ himself.
“If so, would Christ’s redemption not be needed for her since she never sinned because of the graces she had already been given of God?”
Her redemption was already in Christ prior to the atonement. What you mean is that Christ’s atonement on the Cross was unnecessary for her. The two are not quite the same thing. Christ redeemed sinners on the Cross, but not her because she had never sinned.
“If that is the case, as you are sounding like it is, then why couldn’t/wouldn’t God have just done that for ALL mankind and EVERYONE would go to heaven and Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die?”
God *did* in fact do this.
“Theologian? I read a sneer regarding the KJV.”
The sneer was just a diversion. It’s one of their primary tactics. It’s best not to let them draw you into their multitude of rabbit holes. You’ll just be wasting your time.
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