Posted on 04/17/2015 12:12:16 PM PDT by RnMomof7
I’ve mentioned that Roman Catholicism is so onerous because it puts its hooks in you at various times in your life – from baptism as a child, to “first confession” and “first holy communion”, then Confirmation as an early teen, then marriage, baptism of your own children, etc. It’s a programmatic cycle.
There is another point at which Rome is prominent, and that is at death. As the “Baby Boom” generation continues to age and die, people will continue to be focused on this phase of life, either as people focused on the end of their own lives, or that of their aging parents.
Paul Moses, a journalism professor at Brooklyn College/CUNY”, has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled “A Liberal Catholic and Staying Put”, which puts this in view.
Beginning the article with some comments from the atheistic “Freedom From Religion Foundation”, which urged discontented, liberal-minded Catholics to “Summon your fortitude, and just go”, he rejects this notion with the following comments:
To me, these invitations reflect a shallow view of the Catholic Church that reduces its complex journey to the points where it intersects with the liberal social agenda. Pope Francis’ pastoral approach has shown a more merciful, less judgmental face of the church—one that always existed but needed to be more prominent in the public arena.
After my father died last year, I realized that my instinctive resistance to these “just go” arguments—from the atheists, the secularists, the orthodox, the heterodox or anyone else—runs deep. It began when I observed how impressively the church was there for me in a moment of need (emphasis added).
Early on the morning after he died, I went to my father's parish, St. Peter's in lower Manhattan, to find out what to do to bury him. I found one of the priests in the sacristy after the early Mass. The Rev. Alex Joseph took my hands in his, spoke a beautiful prayer, told me of his own father's death years earlier and added, "Our fathers are always with us." I was much moved.
We decided to have my father's funeral in the Staten Island parish where he had worshiped for 25 years … Bernard L. Moses, who died at 88, had loved Father Madigan’s homilies, and to hear [Father Madigan] speak at the funeral Mass was to understand why. My father had advanced up the ranks of the New York City Housing Authority to director of management. Citing his concern for tenants, Father Madigan used the traditional Catholic term “corporal work of mercy” to describe what my father did. It explained for me, in those difficult moments, why my father, who was well-schooled in Catholic social teachings, had passed up the opportunity for a more pleasant career in academia, or a more lucrative one managing private housing, to work in housing projects instead.
Few of us, I think, live daily on the edge of eternity in the conscious way that the Puritans did, and we lose out as a result. For the extraordinary vivacity, even hilarity (yes, hilarity; you will find it in the sources), with which the Puritans lived stemmed directly, I believe, from the unflinching, matter-of-fact realism with which they prepared themselves for death, so as always to be found, as it were, packed up and ready to go (emphasis added). Reckoning with death brought appreciation of each day’s continued life, and the knowledge that God would eventually decide, without consulting them, when their work on earth was done brought energy for the work itself while they were still being given time to get on with it (pg 14).
Probably some KKK types on this board. I agree, I have not posted in months and after today, will do the same.
1 Corinthians 15:42 So also is the rising again of the dead: it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; 43 it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body;
>>Catholics Honor the deceased Person, and Persons to a Person have both a Soul and Body.<<
Isn't that what I said? They dig up and preserve the body that was sown in corruption. Not once in all of scripture are we taught to venerate a dead body.
>>and that person will have both a soul and body.<<
Not the corruptible body Catholics venerate.
There is a natural body and spiritual body, but it is the same person, one is pre resurrection, subject to pain and death, the other is transformed by Christ. Yet, same body. C
Not once are taught to not venerate dead bodies either. In fact, there is nothing of the sort. Clearly the Jews of Christ time revered Christ dead body as they anointed it and treated it with great care and dignity.
And as I noted in a post to eagleone, the early Church reading the same NT came to a different conclusion that you did with respect to your statement “Not once in all scripture are we taught to venerate a dead body”
Those links are clearly referenced to numerous different authoritative teachings, Scripture, Creeds, Church Fathers, Councils, etc.
And yes I read the passage, I just don’t think it refutes veneration of relics and honoring the dead.
You interprets it that way, I can find nobody before Luther, Calvin and Zwingli that shared your views save maybe the early Gnostics who rejected the Incarnation outright and thus did not believe in a resurrection of the body thus they would reject venerating or honoring the dead.
Courtesy ping.
You didn't notice that in 96AD when John wrote Revelation 85% of the churches already taught error? In fact Paul warned churches in his day that error was creeping in. And you want to trust people even later than that? Good luck with that. Paul said anyone who taught something they didn't should be considered accursed. Please show where the apostles taught veneration of dead bodies as a way to honour the dead.
Then you should have know my answer to your question rather than asking it again.
>>I can find nobody before Luther, Calvin and Zwingli that shared your views<<
Once again, show where the apostles taught the veneration of those who passed from this life. If you can't it has to be something the Catholic Church added doesn't it.
Cynical:
They did not teach against it, and there were relics that were used to heal even in the NT, such as a Handkerchief of Saint Paul, as recounted in Acts 19:11-12. That would be an indirect example from the NT as it was not directly a bone of Saint Paul, etc. the Most direct case is found in the OT in 2 Kings 13: 20-21 where the bones of the Prophet Elisha healed a dead Man. Of course, a literal reading of the text means that the bones of the prophet did it, but orthodox Catholic theology would say, and I would agree, that God in his providential wisdom and power used the bones of the Prophet Elisha to restore the dead man.
So the Bible taken as a whole, at least citing these 2 examples, does not forbid the veneration of relics or the use of them.
As Saint Jerome wrote [and he was among the greatest, if not greatest biblical translator of the early Church]
“We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are.”
He read and translated the entire NT into the Latin Vulgate. I would think he would have read the same scripture passage you cited and if it meant what you say it means, would not have written what he wrote above.
For the record, at least you are staying within the topic of the thread and not moving to tangential topics. While I don’t agree with you, I do respect and appreciate you staying to the point of the thread and posting in a solid manner. I have no problem with debate and disagreement, I don’t have much use for bait and switch and sniper posts and playing paste a scripture, etc.
Those links are clearly referenced to numerous different authoritative teachings, Scripture, Creeds, Church Fathers, Councils, etc.
You interprets it that way, I can find nobody before Luther, Calvin and Zwingli that shared your views save maybe the early Gnostics who rejected the Incarnation outright and thus did not believe in a resurrection of the body thus they would reject venerating or honoring the dead.
In the early third century, a Catholic/Orthodox theologian, Origen wrote: Christians and Jews have regard to this command, "You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve Him alone;" and this other, "You shall have no other gods before Me: you shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them;" and again, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve." It is in consideration of these and many other such commands, that they not only avoid temples, altars, and images, but are ready to suffer death when it is necessary, rather than debase by any such impiety the conception which they have of the Most High God (Origen. Contra Celsus, Book VII, Chapter 64, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04167.htm 01/23/07).
Why did you take away my post in which I tried to explain to someone that funeral Masses don’t encourage either secular music or eulogies? It was a well-meant post but you took it away as you did his response which was to use a four letter word? Again, it’s that double standard here on the religious forums that so disturb me and others.
ealgeone:
Yes, I agree with that command. You should only worship God, and as the quote from Saint Jerome that I noted earlier, Catholics and Orthodox don’t worship relics or icons, they are honored and venerated.
So nothing Origen wrote is a problem for me.
This would include making images of Mary and bowing down to her.
You’d probably bow to the Queen of England if you were presented to her but you wouldn’t bow to the Queen of Heaven?
And yet, here you are......
ealgeone:
No, it would not. Icons or images of Mary are not the same as Worshiping. Bowing down is only sign of reverence. Catholics bow their heads when they enter a Church, or they should, that does not mean they are worshiping the walls of the Church or sacred art, icons, statues, etc. in the Church it is only a sign of reverence.
2nd Nicea in 787 rejected iconoclasticism. The first challenges to relics, icons, etc. did not occur until the 8th century in the Eastern Church as it responded to Muslim charges of idolatry, some in the Eastern Church took the view you are positing, but as I stated, it was formally and without hesitation rejected at 2nd Council of Nicea. It was not until Calvin and Zwingli, more so than Luther and the Anglican’s such as Crammer, who argued for the position against Icons {Iconoclastic] that brought the issue back into debate in the 16th century. The Council of Trent reaffirmed 2nd Nicea, not that it could reject it, but it did correct some of the abuses of popular practice at that time.
Idolatry is much broader than even you definition, not only does it refer to false pagan worship, it also refers to things that Man places or reveres to a level that it challenges his love of God, this could be Money, race, the State [politics or say political party], power, etc.
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