Posted on 09/03/2014 6:36:07 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
A little six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his Catholic companions reciting the prayer “Hail Mary.” He liked it so much that he copied it, memorized it and would recite it every day. “Look, Mommy, what a beautiful prayer,” he said to his mother one day.
“Never again say it,” answered the mother. “It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary a goddess. After all, she is a woman like any other. Come on, take this Bible and read it. It contains everything that we are bound to do and have to do.” From that day on the little boy discontinued his daily “Hail Mary” and gave himself more time to reading the Bible instead. One day, while reading the Gospel, he came across the passage about the Annunciation of the Angel to Our Lady. Full of joy, the little boy ran to his mother and said: “Mommy, I have found the ‘Hail Mary’ in the Bible which says: ‘Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women.’ Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?”
On another occasion he found that beautiful Salutation of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary and the wonderful canticle MAGNIFICAT in which Mary foretold that “the generations would call her blessed.” He said no more about it to his mother but started to recite the “Hail Mary” every day as before. He felt pleasure in addressing those charming words to the Mother of Jesus, our Savior.
When he was fourteen, he one day heard a discussion on Our Lady among the members of his family. Every one said that Mary was a common woman like any other woman. The boy, after listening to their erroneous reasoning could not bear it any longer, and full of indignation, he interrupted them, saying:
“Mary is not like any other children of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONGST WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and consequently Mother of God. There is no higher dignity to which a creature can be raised. The Gospel says that the generations will proclaim her blessed and you are trying to despise her and look down on her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or of the Bible which you proclaim to be the foundation of the Christian religion.”
So deep was the impression which the boy’s talk had made that his mother many times cried out sorrowfully: “Oh my God! I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of Popes!” And indeed, not very long afterwards, having made a serious study of both Protestantism and Catholicism, the boy found the latter to be the only true religion and embraced it and became one of its most ardent apostles.
Some time after his conversion, he met his married sister who rebuked him and said indignantly: “You little know how much I love my children. Should any one of them desire to become a Catholic, I would sooner pierce his heart with a dagger than allow him to embrace the religion of the Popes!”
Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would change her ways, just as St. Paul did on his way to Damascus. It so happened that one of her sons fell dangerously ill and the doctors gave up hope of recovery. Her brother then approached her and spoke to her affectionately, saying: “My dear sister, you naturally wish to have your child cured. Very well, then, do what I ask you to do. Follow me, let us pray one ‘Hail Mary’ and promise God that, if your son recovers his health, you would seriously study the Catholic doctrine, and should you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you would embrace it no matter what the sacrifices may be.”
His sister was somewhat reluctant at the beginning, but as she wished for her son’s recovery, she accepted her brother’s proposal and recited the “Hail Mary” together with him. The next day her son was completely cured. The mother fulfilled her promise and she studied the Catholic doctrine. After long preparation she received Baptism together with her whole family, thanking her brother for being an apostle to her.
The story was related during a sermon given by the Rev. Fr. Tuckwell. “Brethren,” he went on and said, “the boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism dedicated his whole life to the service of God. He is the priest who is speaking to you now! What I am I owe to Our Lady. You, too, my dear brethren, be entirely dedicated also to Our Lady and never let a day pass without saying the beautiful prayer, ‘Hail Mary’, and your Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and ‘against whom the gates of hell shall never prevail.’”
Their pope, who they claim is the head of the one true church that God put on this earth comes to mind when he invites the muzlim Mufti who DOES NOT believe in Jesus/God into their main church to pray against Christians world-wide...
God says I shouldn't allow any muzlim or their pope into my house let alone my church...
I know who he was. Don’t call me by other people’s names. I am me.
Dear Sister in Christ
I apologize for not pinging you and for commenting in such uncouth fashion however I think we are both making light of something quite serious.
Please let us draw the more nearer to our brother, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and in so doing, closer to one another. Please also allow me to humbly beg your pardon as I point out that your error reveals something that is deeply written on your heart and it would do you great justice to endeavor to pursue it’s true meaning.
Jesus admonished his apostles when they brought before Him the men casting out demons in His name “who is not against us is with us” Please forgive me my dear sister and see that I am not against you in your valliant efforts to bring others closer to our dear brother Lord and Savior.
Enough with your sliver, I must now go back to work on my own plank.
May God Bless us both in our efforts and protect us from the demons that intend to divide us from our beloved brothers and sisters in Christ.
Amen. Christ’s resurrection tore the veil in the temple that previously separated man from God.
Hello...”me”!
PS: I still liked your posting!
“And the Ten Commandments and the Law, not to mention the Beatitudes. Heck, they’re all just chopped liver in comparison”.
You really should start taking your faith more seriously. The CCC and the Holy Bible go hand in hand. The exact same way protestant study guides go hand in hand with the Bible. Buy one and you will told how to interpret the Bible from the person that wrote the guide.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Expositors-Study-Bible-Giant/dp/097695303X
http://www.magazines.com/bible-study-magazine/20114-MA,default,pd.html?affiliate_id=20337
http://www.allbibles.com/p-12448-kjv-ryrie-study-bible.aspx?affiliateID=9
Oh, so these pre-eminent theologians from both sides “don’t know the Bible” but you know it all. It’s now a familiar tactic of yours to go into your bank of disparate and out of context quotes, give it your “own” interpretation, and voila, there you have it. Al Sharpton; Joel Osteen, Billy Graham, Jeremiah Wright, Jim Jones and David Koresh and the rest of the street preachers did exactly that as well. Each believing they “knew” how to interpret the Bible.
So hard for lapsed Catholics to accept the truth. Got to constantly go around and try to take down the faith, instead of getting on with their lives and being happy. This little quote should help. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference”.
Yep, never post when sleep deprived.
Meanwhile, a Christians belief is based on the power of God.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
We are not Islamacists.
Not yet, but your church is heading there at breakneck speed.
Stop this puerile nonsense of going into your bucket of disparate quotes, pulling excerpts from random to prove your point and going against a whole constellation of the greatest theologians including Protestants who have taught at leading Protestant colleges and universities and have converted to Catholicism. What you do is exactly what street preachers do: The Billy Grahams, Joel Osteens; Rev. Schullers, Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Jeremiah Wright; Rev. Jim Jones; Rev. David Koresh; Tammy Faye Baker; Bishop T.D. Jakes, and the rest of the self-reverend televangelist nuts.
....”Should it be surprising that once the Bible was translated, printed, and distributed to the people, Believers began departing Rome? As more folks studied God’s Word for themselves, there were further splits from denominations that continued many of Rome’s errors, or had drifted away from the Truth of God’s Word”......
Even today some catholics want to go back to where only latin is used in the Mass....once again keeping people in the “dark” of what is actually being spoken.
right on
SF, how many notable Rabbic theologians did Jesus quote, with comprehensive citation etc etc etc, when making his points to the Pharisees, the Disciples, or even the Devil? Oh my! None? Well THERE’s a shock. Seems more like a list of “disparate quotes” approach. Or maybe not so “disparate,” as both Christ and the Apostles make liberal use of those specific, narrow Scriptural citations to make specific points on the basis that, hey, if GOD says this is the way it is, that ends the debate.
Which is why you can’t make good use of Scripture if you don’t believe in the power of it. For those who try to get God’s word from any number of other sources or filters, the plain and obvious meaning of Scripture will never be enough. So it must be discredited and taken out of the picture, displaced by some human authority, which is idolatry, probably the principal sin of the Jewish magisterium of Jesus’ day.
So it’s not too surprising that Jesus never reprimanded anybody for not listening to the Rabbinic lens on Scripture. Instead, He held them responsible for not listening to Scripture itself.
Remember the man in Hell begging Abraham to send someone to warn his family about that terrifying place? But Jesus says if they will not listen to the law and the prophets, the Scripture as it was in His day, they would not listen though one rose from the dead. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault, dear Steelfish, is not in our Bible but in ourselves.
You see, the Bible is perfectly comprehensible in it’s essentials to anyone who “has an ear” to hear it. But our sin makes us deaf, and only Christ can heal that deafness, much more a miracle than any physical healing, up to and including resurrection from the dead. Thank God the Holy Spirit has not left us at the mercy of a corrupt magisterium, but has given us both His word, and the ears to hear it.
Peace,
SR
Um, “Rabbic” should be “rabbinic.” Sorry.
I see it all the time even in Protestant churches. When the pastor or denomination drifts away from God’s Word, the life slips away, followed by any mature Believers.
“the plain and obvious meaning of Scripture will never be enough.”
So you will forgive only 70 x7=490?
Or when Jesus says:
“He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up at the last day” according to Protestants He actually did not mean it.
Besides aren’t there various versions of the Bible?
This is why we need one single authority empowered by Christ Himself and extended to Peter and his successors to make authoritative interpretations including the very selection of the books that constitute the Bible- the early Church Fathers, as well as to rule on heretical beliefs: The Council of Nicea etc. who exhaustively study and examine the sacred documents, the oral traditions and make such determination.
This is why every eminent theologian after whom colleges and universities have been named are either Catholic or converts to Catholicism.
.
Please show from your Bible where the assumption of Mary is taught. My Bible doesn't teach that.
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