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.’”
Well, right there is your first mistake.
They apostles weren't Peter's apostles. They were Jesus' apostles.
It’s not “my” argument. There is no argument as far as Catholics are concerned. Our faith and is the Credo and is not based on puerile and simpleton street-corner interpretations (think Jim Jones, David Koresh, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Joel Osteen)…) but rather through solid intellectual inquiry of Scripture, the sacred oral tradition and liturgy dating from the time of Christ who established the Petrine authority. This is why for example in Oxford’s famous Bodleian Library the great works of St. Thomas Aquinas is placed next to the Bible. And Oxford is no Catholic institution.
Dragging stuff from thread to thread again, eh?
Short memory much?
How many times does the RM has to correct you on this and you still continue to do it?
It smacks of deliberate defiance.
These kinds of fish-hunting quotes serve no purpose and are nothing but pure simplistic pieces of text taken from here and there. No wonder many of the pre-eminent Protestant scholars and theologians who used to teach in Lutheran colleges and universities decamped after realizing their errors. Go read Richard Neuhaus, America’s top Lutheran theologian who for many years having taught at leading Protestant institutions finally kicked Lutheranism to the curb and converted to Catholicism.
MM: Well, right there is your first mistake.
They apostles weren't Peter's apostles. They were Jesus' apostles.
Whoosh! That one slipped right by me. Nice catch! :)
It’s becoming more and more obvious that the subject brings out intense guilt feelings for that poster to be so obsessed with it.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 2:1-16 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.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
And your take on the liberal Catholic universities is....??
It sure beats going against a whole body of teaching right from Scripture.
I don't care whose name is on what and what *credentials* they have from what universities.
If their teachings contradict the clear teaching of the body of Scripture, they are wrong, period, no matter how esteemed they are in the eyes of the world or the Catholic church.
Might doesn't make right and wide is the road that leads to destruction and many are there who are on it.
I don't care if what I state and back up with Scripture goes against the Who's Who of Catholic thinking. If they don't line up with Scripture, they are wrong.
Rent free.....
24/7.....
But I’m not an Catholic. I am asking a simple question, and I am fascinated at your resistance in answering it. Do you expect me, the non-Catholic, to comprehend Scriptural arguments regarding Petrine authority? Or do you not?
Amen and Amen.
Stuff? This is about what we believe. Those who mock Christians while claiming to be - well, the fact that they hate being exposed says much.
“It sure beats going against a whole body of teaching right from Scripture”
You mean scripture that Catholics wrote?
Did I read the word liberal??
http://juicyecumenism.com/2014/09/02/distortion-in-the-church/
Finally, someone said it!
That’s what I’m hearing from concerned citizens and faithful Christians who spot liberal ideas sprouting from within the Evangelical community. Perhaps you too have noticed that something is a bit off with younger Evangelicals’ stance on same-sex marriage, religious liberty, big government, and even the sanctity of life.
Something has gone wrong. It is hard to admit, but for too long many conservatives and Christians have been so focused on the decay of our government that we let our guard down at the doors of our sanctuaries. So the Left soundlessly crept into the Church.
Liberalism is alive and well within our Evangelical churches. Taking cues from the political Left, what’s called the “Christian Left” is teaching an entire Millennial generation to compromise traditional Biblical values for the sake of tolerance and political correctness. So when the Christian Left couches their liberal theology in buzzwords like “compassion,” “equality” and “co-exist,” young Evangelicals are afraid to oppose. Sound familiar?
The goal of the Christian Left isto undermine the authority of the Bible by painting inconsistencies in Scripture, which they hope will breed confusion and, at times, doubt. Once the lines of truth are blurred, young Evangelicals start to reconcile their faith with liberal political platforms like same-sex marriage, taxpayer funded abortions and contraception, feminism, pacifism, and big government.
The danger is this distorted, liberal theology breaks down the moral values outlined in Scripture. It also encourages young Evangelicals to deny the Judeo-Christian principles our Founding Fathers used to establish a just, prosperous nation.
Confession: I have first-hand experience with the Left’s targeting of young Evangelicals. While attending a popular campus ministry in college I dabbled in the so-called “progressive” Christian movement. Peek under the curtain, and this progressive movement is really a political initiative driven by Leftists (and at times funded by George Soros) in the name of Jesus Christ. For this reason, I started to declare myself a faithful feminist. And I’ll never forget arguing with my parents over the Church’s acceptance of same-sex marriage.
Thank God my parents did not declare defeat and give up on me. Motivated by love, my parents constantly affirmed God’s absolute truths with me. They pointed to social science that confirmed Biblical principles and the important role they play in our lives and government. Best of all they fervently prayed for me. My parents’ words and sound reasoning (along with the Holy Spirit) tugged on my heart, until one day, I put down my Rob Bell book and picked up my Bible.
Right now America’s youth—in and outside of the church—need leadership. Goodness knows they will not get healthy guidance from America’s pop culture. It’s up to you. Once again, concerned citizens must take a passionate stand for the cultural wars, but this time in the churches.
To confront the Left in your church, you must be equipped with social science, an understanding of public policy as well as Scripture. Sadly, it isn’t enough to say “because the Bible says so.” This doesn’t mean that you pack up and move to D.C. to become a public policy expert. You can make a huge impact on the Millennials in your community. For example, start teaching Sunday school or leading youth group at your church. Then don’t be afraid to talk about what the Bible actually says about homosexuality and abortion. Don’t be afraid to tell the young Christians you know that just as Christ was deemed offensive for standing for truth, so too will his followers.
You must also learn how to identify the Christian Left. As I wrote in my book Distortion: How the Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel & Damaging the Faith, there are numerous books, bloggers, and Christian college and conference speakers who reflect liberal theology and are influencing a generation. Learn their names and their social and political stances.
Finally, you must share this message. Tell your friends, neighbors, and family that we must stand guard at the doors of our sanctuaries and take back America’s Christian culture.
This is no small matter. If the brakes aren’t applied immediately to the Christian Left, then the next generation will is on track to abandon the moral foundations and ethical principles that have made America great.
want to keep your post marked for later.
Why give haters and trolls any mind? Be assured that most Christians do not hold those views and just ignore the morons. They exist in every group.
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