Posted on 03/26/2015 11:36:04 AM PDT by RnMomof7
ping
“Why Anti-Catholic-Church Protestants Can Only Appreciate, Rather than Prove, Sola Scriptura”
:) Just saying. And don’t forget the Oxford comma, in the title.
It is all about faith in something much bigger than yourself.
That’s logically provable, though, the same as proving one God.
There has to be ONE authority, or there is no authority.
Note that this works for Global Warming as well...
Catholicism is simply a man made religion incorporating only a few truths from scripture to delude the gullible. They then included pagan practices and beliefs to draw in the pagans.
I am a loyal and faithful Catholic who practices my faith. And you pointed to an issue which is irritating and true. The Church’s tendency to make up things which are not based on fact. The circumstances surrounding the birth of Mary are not mentioned in the Bible. So why make up things we don’t know? This perpetual virgin stuff is equally annoying. The Bible mentions that Mary was a virgin at the time of her conception of Jesus (Luke), but it stops there. It doesn’t go any further than that. I don’t know why others do. The Bible does say Mary was married to Joseph and that Jesus had brothers and sisters. It is therefore safe to assume that Mary and Joseph consummated their marriage. The Lord commands us to be fruitful and multiply and Mary and Joseph did just that. Physical intimacy between a husband and a wife is a gift from God to be denied to no one, certainly not Mary and Joseph.
You are correct on all points sir.
Here’s a nice apologetic on this subject:
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/immaculate-conception-and-assumption
Protestantism is simply a man made religion (created by Luther, Calvin, etc.) incorporating only a few truths from scripture to delude the gullible. They then included unbiblical practices and beliefs (e.g. sola Scriptura) and anti-Biblical beliefs (e.g. sola fide) to draw in the easily duped and biblically illiterate.
See? We can play this game, too! :)
I believe Jesus was Mary’s only child. Jesus went to Jerusalem and stayed there until Mary and Joseph returned and hear him speaking. Jesus returned with them and was subject to them. No one else is mentioned. Mary is at the Cross. No other family mentioned. It is a fiction to now read into the life of Jesus that he had sibling. That is what I believe. Others won’t convince me otherwise.
You need to speak with your parish priest. Also, check out “Behold Your Mother,” by Tim Staples. It covers the Marian doctrines, and is easy to read.
Please also read from the Catechism (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a3p2.htm): “The Immaculate Conception
490 To become the mother of the Savior, Mary “was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role.”132 The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as “full of grace”.133 In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God’s grace.
491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God,134 was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:
The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.135
492 The “splendor of an entirely unique holiness” by which Mary is “enriched from the first instant of her conception” comes wholly from Christ: she is “redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son”.136 The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” and chose her “in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love”.137
493 The Fathers of the Eastern tradition call the Mother of God “the All-Holy” (Panagia), and celebrate her as “free from any stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit and formed as a new creature”.138 By the grace of God Mary remained free of every personal sin her whole life long. “
And
“Mary’s virginity
496 From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event: Jesus was conceived “by the Holy Spirit without human seed”.146 The Fathers see in the virginal conception the sign that it truly was the Son of God who came in a humanity like our own. Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch at the beginning of the second century says:
You are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin,. . . he was truly nailed to a tree for us in his flesh under Pontius Pilate. . . he truly suffered, as he is also truly risen.147
497 The Gospel accounts understand the virginal conception of Jesus as a divine work that surpasses all human understanding and possibility:148 “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit”, said the angel to Joseph about Mary his fiancee.149 The Church sees here the fulfillment of the divine promise given through the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.”150
498 People are sometimes troubled by the silence of St. Mark’s Gospel and the New Testament Epistles about Jesus’ virginal conception. Some might wonder if we were merely dealing with legends or theological constructs not claiming to be history. To this we must respond: Faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with the lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension of non-believers, Jews and pagans alike;151 so it could hardly have been motivated by pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age. The meaning of this event is accessible only to faith, which understands in it the “connection of these mysteries with one another”152 in the totality of Christ’s mysteries, from his Incarnation to his Passover. St. Ignatius of Antioch already bears witness to this connection: “Mary’s virginity and giving birth, and even the Lord’s death escaped the notice of the prince of this world: these three mysteries worthy of proclamation were accomplished in God’s silence.”153
Mary - “ever-virgin”
499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man.154 In fact, Christ’s birth “did not diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.”155 And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the “Ever-virgin”.156
500 Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus.157 The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, “brothers of Jesus”, are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary”.158 They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.159
501 Jesus is Mary’s only son, but her spiritual motherhood extends to all men whom indeed he came to save: “The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, that is, the faithful in whose generation and formation she co-operates with a mother’s love.”160
132 LG 56.
133 Lk 1:28.
134 Lk 1:28.
135 Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854): DS 2803.
136 LG 53, 56.
137 Cf. Eph 1:3-4.
138 LG 56.
146 Council of the Lateran (649): DS 503; cf. DS 10-64.
147 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Smyrn 1-2: Apostolic Fathers, ed. J. B. Lightfoot (London: Macmillan, 1889), II/2, 289-293; SCh 10, 154-156; cf. Rom 1:3; Jn 1:13.
148 Mt 1 18-25; Lk 1:26-38.
149 Mt 1:20.
150 Isa 7:14 in the LXX, quoted in Mt 1:23 (Gk.).
151 Cf. St. Justin, Dial., 99, 7: PG 6, 708-709; Origen, Contra Celsum 1, 32, 69: PG 11, 720-721; et al.
152 Dei Filius 4: DS 3016.
153 St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Eph. 19, 1: AF II/2 76-80; SCh 10,88; cf. 1 Cor 2:8.
154 Cf. DS 291; 294; 427; 442; 503; 571; 1880.
155 LG 57.
156 Cf. LG 52.
157 Cf. Mk 3:31-35; 6:3; 1 Cor 9:5; Gal 1:19.
158 Mt 13:55; 28:1; cf. Mt 27:56.
159 Cf. Gen 13:8; 14:16; 29:15; etc.
160 LG 63; cf. Jn 19:26-27; Rom 8:29; Rev 12:17.
Catholicism on the other hand makes no attempt to stay with what Jesus and the apostles taught.
I first learned that Jesus had brothers and sisters in a Bible study class taught by a Catholic priest in a Catholic church. When we were covering the passages mentioning Jesus’s brothers and sisters, the priest did not say something like ahem....an error there...they really meant to say cousins-—or better yet another whopper I’ve heard over the years-—those brothers and sisters were actually Joseph’s children from a previous marriage. Nope. None of that. The Catholic priest presented the Bible exactly as it is written, without any spin on it. That’s what all Christians should do IMHO.
On the order of David Karesh or Jim Jones I suppose? Snicker.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.