Posted on 12/25/2024 5:52:14 PM PST by blueplum
The Vatican is set to open five sacred portals starting on Christmas Eve for the first time in 25 years.
The opening of the Holy Doors marks the beginning of the 2025 Jubilee which is a year of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewed focus on the spiritual life....
At the start of Christmas Eve Mass, Pope Francis will push open the Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica, which will stay open throughout the year to allow the estimated 32 million pilgrims projected to visit Rome to pass through....
The process of opening the four basilica doors involves removing the brick wall that covers each door from the inside of the basilica, followed by the Pope pushing the doors open to signal the beginning of the Holy Year.
When Jubilee finishes on January 6, 2026, the Pope will be the last person to walk through each of the four doors before closing them, which will then be bricked up and sealed....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
CT, you discredit yourself by repeating the debunked "thousands available" argument.
I’m curious if you wear one of the scapulars and/or miraculous medal.
ealgeone:
Yes Christ died for our sins. But lets take this further. God moves to save us first, there has to be first grace [prevenient grace in Catholic theology] as while man is not born in a sinful nature, he is due to original sin fallen and deprived of original holiness. Thus man through his own will and intellect can not on his own come to true faith. God’s grace is needed even to come to true faith.
For Catholics, the “normative means” of Gods Grace [first grace] is Trinitarian baptism. At that point, original sin is removed [if adult all personal sin] and one is now infused with God’s Grace and restored to communion with God.
It is becausse of God’s Grace that we now have faith with is not just knowledge of God or belief, but trust and as true faith it is formed by Love whereby we are to Love God which means follow Him, carry our cross and obey him [do what is good and holy, avoid sin].
So what happens after baptism when we sin, well we humbly repent and confess our sins and God’s grace restores us back.
Confession is throughout the Bible. Lets take John 20:21-23 where Christ as the Father sends me I send you and he breaths on them [”enephusēsen”, which literally means into them] and this gives the Apostles the authority to forgive sins “If you forgive sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sins of any the are retained.
Saint Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 speaks of a ministry of reconciliation and Saint Paul says was entrusted the message of reconciliation and they [Apostles} were ambassadors for Christ and God making his appeal through us.
James 5:13-16 speaks of calling the presbyters if one is sick and then have the presbyters anoint the sick and it also commands one to confess their sins.
1 John 1:9 clearly again tells the members of the Churches [these are people who are already baptized and part of the Church] to confess their sins if they commit them.
ealgeone:
Dogmatically yes, not a new Canon. It was Dogmatically defined because of what the protestant rebels were pushing
Prove it? who has debunked it? You telling me there are not thousands of protestant groups. Lets understand what I am saying, a Church in terms of ecclesiology is united in communion with each other. For Catholics, that is a Bishop or Patriarch [Eastern Catholic Churches] that are in union with the Bishop of Rome.
So all these independent dispensationalist groups are not 100% aligned at the Confessional level. The Lutheran Missouri Synod and all their local churches are 1 Church. The ELCA Lutheran Confession is 1 church. The PCUSA Presbyterians are 1 church. The Orthodox Presbyterians are different church. I can go on, and on, and on, and on, but I have made my point.
So no I did not discredit myself.
ealgeone: I don’t wear one but have no issue with Catholics who do.
Agree.
.But lets take this further. God moves to save us first,Agree...it is God Who always moves to save us....there is nothing on our part
....there has to be first grace [prevenient grace in Catholic theology] as while man is not born in a sinful nature,...
Disagree based on Romans 3.
... he is due to original sin fallen and deprived of original holiness. Thus man through his own will and intellect can not on his own come to true faith. God’s grace is needed even to come to true faith.
It is God Who moves to save us.
You do realize you're advancing a Calvinist argument here....right?
So what happens after baptism when we sin, well we humbly repent and confess our sins and God’s grace restores us back.
Presumes the person has lost their salvation which would contradict Scripture which tells us we're sealed by the Holy Spirit. As it is God Who does the sealing we are unable to unseal ourselves.
The same John you cites in both his Gospel and 1 John makes it clear we can know we are saved...and he writes this indicating our salvation is a state of permanence.
This is where the aforementioned Col 2:13-14 I have cited is relevant.
Christ has rubbed out our sins....cancelled the certificate of debt against us...we're made clean.
You don't have a problem with idolatry?? Which is what the scapular is.
Show me in the 4 Gospels where Jesus defined a Canon? Lets see it. I know where you are going to, Luke 16:16 and Luke 24:44.
That does not define a Canon. There are books in the OT that do not even mention God by name [Esther and Song of Songs] but that does not mean they are not Sacred Scripture. But they don’t contain direct prophecies of Christ, yet they are inspired by God and part of the canon.
There are books of the OT never directly quoted or even alluded to in the NTJ which would include: Judges, Ruth, 2 Kings, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Obadiah, Jonah, and Zephaniah.
Yet Christ is celebrating the festival of Lights [John 10:22] during the winter in Jerusalem which we read in both 1 Macc 4:36-59; 2 Macc 10: 1-8]. So 2 explanations, 1] Christ is affirming the canonicity of these books or 2] He is following Jewish Sacred Tradition.
Either way it doesn’t work for you protestants. As a Catholic, as well as Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Assyrian Church of the East, it is canonical for all of us. It was also Canon for the largest number of Jews in the periods a few hundred years before Christ per the LXX [Septuagint]. The Pharisees [Palestinian canon] was the 38/39 book canon [Esthe?] the Sadducces only the Torah, same as Samaritans and the Qumran Jews had a canon similar to the Pharisees but seemed to also include Enoch and Jubilees which might be why the Epistle of Jude cites Enoch.
So to say there was 1 Jewish OT canon at the time of Christ is historically note true. There were at least 4 different OT canons.
ealgeone:
No, by defining it as Dogma, that means elevating a Doctrine to a Solemn Definition that means it is by the power of the Holy Spirit directly revealed to the Church. So those 73 books are Dogmatically defined.
The Council of Florence in 1442 defined the same canon, but without the anathema because in that council, which was an attempt to establish communion with the Eastern Churches, there was not the total rejection of the Deuterocanonical books, the debate was on books like 3 Maccabees. So while the Catholic Church would have allowed the East to perhaps use it in their own Liturgy, for the Church Universal it would not be a book used to define Dogma and Doctrine at an Ecumenical Council.
Some Orthodox and Eastern Churches today still use 3 Macabees in thier Eucharistic Liturgies.
Then you either accept that definition or you don't....and based on the remainder of your post you don't.
I'm going to stick with what He said.
Some theologians might use the term “open” in the context that it was still debated, but as I said earlier Councils had already laid the foundation for what the Canon was for the Catholic Church. But as I said, the Solemn Definition language was not used at the Council of Florence in 1442 because the level of debate was not the same as what happened in the 16th century.
So my take, the level of Definition directly corresponds to the level of attack or questioning on Doctrinal point.
And lets be honest, many of the original protestants were wanting to throw out some of the 27 NT books as well.
ealgeone:
But there is no definition of who are the prophets. He clearly seems to have cited or in practice celebrated what was in 1 and 2 Maccabees, would you agree? Festival of Lights
Read the Bible.
King James Romans 3:23
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”
God could have created Mary without sin, but he didn’t according to His word the Bible. All includes Mary and she sinned.
God cannot lie and therefore he would not contradict His word.
Hebrews 6:17-18
“His purpose is unchangeable, confirmed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to hold firmly to the hope set before us.”
If the Bible is not true, that makes God a liar and you might as well be an unbeliever.
When He noted the three fold division of the Hebrew canon the prophets would have been known.
And would not have included Maccabees.
You like to lean on prior councils as the final word on issues.....but to you adhere to everything they advanced?
ealgeone:
I don’t think you can say that. The Jews in Diaspora viewed Maccabees as a prophet as Baruch. He says the prophets, not who Christ considered as Prophets and Christ celebrated the Festival of Lights recorded in 1 and 2 Maccabees.
I feel very confident of what I've said.
To extend your argument one could argue Christ approved of the sacrifices happening at the Temple or that Paul would have approved of the various gods/goddesses of the Roman Empire.
ealgeone:
Well are free to hold what you hold. I don’t agree. You don’t want to address John 10:22 because you can’t reconcile it with your protestant 39 book canon. Again it is either 1] Scripture or 2] Christ is affirming Oral Tradition. Either way doesn’t work for you.
I am going to cite some NT passages and ask if you can find the passage that the NT is drawing from and quoting/referencing.
Rev 8:2 speaks of 7 angels. Do you find that in any of the 39 books in your OT, which are also in mine?
Luke 6:31 has the golden rule. Do you find something similar to the Golden rule in the 39 books in your OT, which are also in mine.
Hebrews 11:35 has the passage “some were tortured refusing to accept release that they might rise again to a better life. Do you find that reference/teaching in the 39 books in your OT, which are also mined?
I am just curios how Protestant Bibles tie those back to the OT.
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