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A Christian without the Church is purely idealistic, Pope says
cna ^
| May 15, 2014
| Elise Harris
Posted on 05/15/2014 2:15:20 PM PDT by NYer
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To: metmom
"Most Catholics talk as if grace is given only through the sacraments and yet, if grace can be given without them, then theres no need for them." You and Naaman! ;o)
181
posted on
05/17/2014 4:37:42 PM PDT
by
Mrs. Don-o
(Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, / Praise Him all people here below.)
To: metmom
"Grace is for the moment, not something that can be stored up for a rainy day." Grace has many aspects. It is the life of the soul. We should be increasing in grace every day. That is what I pray for.
182
posted on
05/17/2014 4:38:40 PM PDT
by
Mrs. Don-o
(Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, / Praise Him all people here below.)
To: TXnMA
Excellent! Thank you, dear brother in Christ!
To: metmom; Mrs. Don-o; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
"Grace is for the moment, not something that can be stored up for a rainy day." That, my Sister in Christ, is a keeper!!
Unlike my dear Sisters in Christ, betty boop and Alamo-girl, I tend to get pretty "UN-gracious" -- and that fairly often. And, like you, that is precisely when I need grace-filled behavior the most!
Sorry, Mrs. Don-o: but... if i I had to go to a "filling station" for grace, I would be in a heap o' trouble...
184
posted on
05/18/2014 3:45:21 PM PDT
by
TXnMA
("Allah": Satan's current alias... "Barack": Allah's current ally...)
To: TXnMA; metmom; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
Me, I need all I can get, and through the many many ways God sends it!
185
posted on
05/18/2014 4:08:15 PM PDT
by
Mrs. Don-o
("How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be" said the Cat,"or you wouldn't have come here.")
To: Mrs. Don-o; metmom; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
"Me, I need all I can get, and through the many many ways God sends it!" ~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for your clarification!!
I expect that all in your "reply list" (TXnMA included, of course) would agree that being frequent recipients of the Grace of Christ is what enables us to "keep on goin'" in today's world!
186
posted on
05/18/2014 4:22:02 PM PDT
by
TXnMA
("Allah": Satan's current alias... "Barack": Allah's current ally...)
To: TXnMA
Amen.
To: Mrs. Don-o; metmom
“There’s a false dichotomy here. Nobody ever said God doesn’t bestow grace lavishly, as if He had some limitation and could only “parcel it out” to a “select few.”
Spirited: Agreed. According to Church Father Athanasius, certain elements precede apostasy: a haughty spirit and a will given to rebellion and negation of the Authority and Word of our Lord.
Given this propensity, it makes sense that our Lord would provide sacraments in memory of Himself and everything He has done from the beginning rather than in celebration of ‘human self’ and what ‘self’ believes it has a right to. Therefore, “remember Me when you do this,” said Jesus.
From the beginning, men have been forgetting that everything belongs to God. His Grace therefore is not a ‘human right’ but His to give or not.
To: TXnMA; Elsie; Wyrd bið ful aræd; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
TXnMA's cosmic narrative rests on 3 pillar assumptions: 1.That either God did not speak or we cannot know what He said. 2. Pragmatic reasoning which assumes that if something appears to work it is okay. 3. Evolutionary transformism of one kind of lower thing into another higher kind of thing over vast ages. Beginning with #3, evolutionary transformism is an ancient magic doctrine originating in Jewish Kabbalah and Hermetic magic. Jewish Kabbalah teaches the gradual condensation or evolutionary progression of a primal substance into visible matter. This is a fundamental, "... doctrine of the Cabala (and) is the ancient Semitic conception of the primal ocean, known to the Babylonians as Apsu and called by the Gnostics βύθος = (Anz, Die Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus, p. 98). Chaldean occult science and pagan Mystery Religion was embraced by apostate Jews during their captivity in Babylon and delivered to subsequent generations of initiates by word of mouth. According to Helena Blavatsky, these initiates of the Chaldean tradition in the centuries before Christ were known as Tanaim: "The kabalist is a student of secret science, one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala
The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era
This secret doctrine is identical with the Persian wisdom, or magic. (Ibid. p.167) Hermeticism is an ancient Egyptian secret magic tradition based on a set of fourteen books known collectively as the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to a mysterious figure known as Hermes Trismegistus. Implied in Hermeticism is an evolutionary process of magical transformism moving from one kind of lower thing to another kind of higher thing: "Human beings are themselves the product of a long spiritual evolutionary process that moves from 'creeping things' to fish, mammals, birds and then people. Humans can---through occult knowledge and extraordinary ability---continue this evolutionary process and become daemons, then gods, and finally planets or stars." (The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, James A. Herrick, p. 40) This is affirmed by G.H. Pember in his classic work, "Earth's Earliest Ages." In his book Pember thoroughly examines the explosion of spiritism, astrology, Mysteries, Buddhism, evolution/reincarnation and other occult traditions sweeping over Christendom. Pember writes that the Mysteries are no longer veiled in mystery but boldly presented by the powerful occult brotherhood that emerged out of the Renaissance as the fruit of modern science, especially evolutionary philosophy, which the brotherhood assert was included in the instructions given, "...to the initiates of the Hermetic, Orphic, Eleusinian, and Cabbalistic mysteries, and were familiar to Chaldean Magi, Egyptian Priests, Hindu Occultists, Essenes, Therapeutae Gnostics, and Theurgic Neo-Platonists." (Pember, pp.243-244) With respect to #1, Kabbalist pagan Jews rejected the Authority and Revealed Word of God, especially the literal and historic aspects of the first three books of the Genesis account in favor of their own traditions. One of the primary tactics they employed is the same one employed by their modern evolutionary counterparts. It involves the reduction of the Genesis account, particularly the first three books, to allegory and myth, a ploy that eliminates the physical Adam from which all people descended and the sin that he transferred to the rest of the human race. This strikes directly at the heart of the Gospel: the need for the last Adam to provide for us an escape from the wrath of God against sin incurred by the first Adam. In this way, not only is the work of Christ on the cross rendered superfluous, meaning the heart of the faith is ripped out, but God is made responsible for sin and evil. (1 Peter 3:18-22; 1 John 2:22) Long ago, the teachings of some of the early Church Fathers regarding the apostasy toward the end of the church age predicted the reappearance of this tactic. The fathers categorized it a Gnostic pagan heresy. In "Heresies 6.10" Hippolytus writes that the Gnostic pagan Simon Magus feigned faith and allegorized much of Scripture, especially Genesis, to support his evolutionary Hermetic and Gnostic occult pantheist teachings. Church Fathers Ireneaus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria reveal that Gnostic cult leader Marcion rejected the Old Testament, taught that the God of the Old Testament and his prophets are evil, made God the author of sin and removed all references that Christ was Creator (John 1:1) (Ireneaus, "Against Heresies 1.26, 5.1,"Tertullian "Against Marcion 2.17," Clement of Alexandria, "Against Heresies 4.29) More than 600 times the Bible says of itself that it is the VERY WORDS of God Himself (i.e., 2 Tim. 3:16) The Bible also says of itself that it cannot be changed or tampered with, see Mt. 5:18, 1 Pet. 1:25, Is. 40:8, Ps. 119:89; 12:6-7; 19:7-8; 11:7, Lk. 16:17. Two choices lie before us: our own way, which leads us farther and farther away from Him, or His Way.
To: spirited irish; Mrs. Don-o
Given this propensity, it makes sense that our Lord would provide sacraments in memory of Himself and everything He has done from the beginning rather than in celebration of human self and what self believes it has a right to. Therefore, remember Me when you do this, said Jesus. Then perhaps someone could provide some Scriptural support for the claim that that sacraments are a conduit through which grace is dispensed.
Otherwise, it's just a speculation by men.
190
posted on
05/19/2014 4:21:30 AM PDT
by
metmom
(...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
To: TXnMA; Elsie; Wyrd bið ful aræd; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
TXnMA's cosmic narrative rests on 3 pillar assumptions:
1.That either God did not speak or we cannot know what He said. 2. Pragmatic reasoning which assumes that if something appears to work it is okay. 3. Evolutionary transformism of one kind of lower thing into another higher kind of thing over vast ages.
Beginning with #3, evolutionary transformism is an ancient magic doctrine originating in Jewish Kabbalah and Hermetic magic. Jewish Kabbalah teaches the gradual condensation or evolutionary progression of a primal substance into visible matter. This is a fundamental,
"... doctrine of the Cabala (and) is the ancient Semitic conception of the primal ocean, known to the Babylonians as Apsu and called by the Gnostics βύθος = (Anz, Die Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus, p. 98).
Chaldean occult science and pagan Mystery Religion was embraced by apostate Jews during their captivity in Babylon and delivered to subsequent generations of initiates by word of mouth. According to Helena Blavatsky, these initiates of the Chaldean tradition in the centuries before Christ were known as Tanaim:
"The kabalist is a student of secret science, one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala
The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era
This secret doctrine is identical with the Persian wisdom, or magic. (Ibid. p.167)
Hermeticism is an ancient Egyptian secret magic tradition based on a set of fourteen books known collectively as the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to a mysterious figure known as Hermes Trismegistus. Implied in Hermeticism is an evolutionary process of magical transformism moving from one kind of lower thing to another kind of higher thing:
"Human beings are themselves the product of a long spiritual evolutionary process that moves from 'creeping things' to fish, mammals, birds and then people. Humans can---through occult knowledge and extraordinary ability---continue this evolutionary process and become daemons, then gods, and finally planets or stars." (The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, James A. Herrick, p. 40)
This is affirmed by G.H. Pember in his classic work, "Earth's Earliest Ages." In his book Pember thoroughly examines the explosion of spiritism, astrology, Mysteries, Buddhism, evolution/reincarnation and other occult traditions sweeping over Christendom. Pember writes that the Mysteries are no longer veiled in mystery but boldly presented by the powerful occult brotherhood that emerged out of the Renaissance as the fruit of modern science, especially evolutionary philosophy, which the brotherhood assert was included in the instructions given,
"...to the initiates of the Hermetic, Orphic, Eleusinian, and Cabbalistic mysteries, and were familiar to Chaldean Magi, Egyptian Priests, Hindu Occultists, Essenes, Therapeutae Gnostics, and Theurgic Neo-Platonists." (Pember, pp.243-244)
With respect to #1, Kabbalist pagan Jews rejected the Authority and Revealed Word of God, especially the literal and historic aspects of the first three books of the Genesis account in favor of their own Mystery traditions.
One of the primary tactics they employed is the same one employed by their modern evolutionary counterparts. It involves the reduction of the Genesis account, particularly the first three books, to allegory and myth, a ploy that eliminates the physical Adam from which all people descended and the sin that he transferred to the rest of the human race. This strikes directly at the heart of the Gospel: the need for the last Adam to provide for us an escape from the wrath of God against sin incurred by the first Adam. In this way, not only is the work of Christ on the cross rendered superfluous, meaning the heart of the faith is ripped out, but God is made responsible for sin and evil. (1 Peter 3:18-22; 1 John 2:22)
Long ago, the teachings of some of the early Church Fathers regarding the apostasy toward the end of the church age predicted the reappearance of this tactic. The fathers categorized it a Gnostic pagan heresy.
In "Heresies 6.10" Hippolytus writes that the Gnostic pagan Simon Magus feigned faith and allegorized much of Scripture, especially Genesis, to support his evolutionary Hermetic and Gnostic occult pantheist teachings.
Church Fathers Ireneaus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria reveal that Gnostic cult leader Marcion rejected the Old Testament, taught that the God of the Old Testament and his prophets are evil, made God the author of sin and removed all references that Christ was Creator (John 1:1)
(Ireneaus, "Against Heresies 1.26, 5.1,"Tertullian "Against Marcion 2.17," Clement of Alexandria, "Against Heresies 4.29)
More than 600 times the Bible says of itself that it is the VERY WORDS of God Himself (i.e., 2 Tim. 3:16) The Bible also says of itself that it cannot be changed or tampered with, see Mt. 5:18, 1 Pet. 1:25, Is. 40:8, Ps. 119:89; 12:6-7; 19:7-8; 11:7, Lk. 16:17.
Two choices lie before us, each of them requiring an act of will: our own way, which leads us farther and farther away from Him, or His Way that takes us to Him.
To: metmom; spirited irish
The entirety of the Eucharistic Discourse from John 6:25-70 speaks of the necessity of having "his life" within us, and that is the very definition of sanctifying grace. especially verses like "Unless you ear my Flesh and drink my Blood, you cannot have life within you."
See especially 53-56:
"Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them." An outward sign, instituted by Christ to give grace. This is the definition of a Sacrament.
192
posted on
05/19/2014 4:39:26 AM PDT
by
Mrs. Don-o
(Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All.)
To: spirited irish
That you consider Madame Blavatsky a reliable source says far more about you than it does about the subject at hand.
193
posted on
05/19/2014 5:29:09 AM PDT
by
jjotto
("Ya could look it up!")
To: TXnMA
Pay more attention...
Elsie is a contented cow!
Philippians 4:11
For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content therewith...P>
194
posted on
05/19/2014 6:35:55 AM PDT
by
Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: Mrs. Don-o
But since God acts "sacramentally," we have no authority to minimize or abolish what He gives us. Possibly; but Catholicism seems to EXPAND on what HE has given to someone else, to try to say that it applies to everyone.
Acts 15
195
posted on
05/19/2014 6:38:07 AM PDT
by
Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: spirited irish
196
posted on
05/19/2014 6:38:54 AM PDT
by
Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: spirited irish
197
posted on
05/19/2014 6:40:15 AM PDT
by
Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: spirited irish
That either God did not speak or we cannot know what He said.
"We know also that the Son of God has come,
and has given us understanding
so that we may know him who is true."
1 John 5:20
198
posted on
05/19/2014 6:43:23 AM PDT
by
Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: Mrs. Don-o
... especially verses like "Unless you ear my Flesh and ...WHY have I suddenly thought of Mike Tyson???
199
posted on
05/19/2014 6:44:45 AM PDT
by
Elsie
(Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: Elsie
The root of almost all these controversies is notion that some non-Catholics have, that everything which is not explicitly in Scripture is the "words of man." As if there were just two categories: Scripture, and words of man. There's no provision for Christ teaching us through His Church.
My impression is that such people don't actually believe that Christ founded a Church.
This other Free Republic post The Apostles Speak for Jesus. A Refutation of those who Dismiss the Teaching of the Epistles...(LINK) touches upon that, because it deals with the beginnings of the NT Church, with the words of the Apostles received as truly "God's words," and the beginnings of Apostolic succession as Matthias is chosen to replace Judas, and as Paul ordains Titus and Timothy with real power and authority by the laying on of hands.
This is evidently a succession of power and authority in the Name of the Lord, which did not "peter out" at some point, as some assume.
200
posted on
05/19/2014 6:50:49 AM PDT
by
Mrs. Don-o
(Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All.)
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