Posted on 04/22/2007 8:37:13 PM PDT by Salvation
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Being Catholic: Sacred Things, [Holy] Water
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, [New] Fire, Paschal Candle
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Holy Oils
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Crucifixes and Crosses
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Sacred Images: Statues and Other Icons
Being Catholic: Sacred Things, Incense
Golly! With your laundry list of “things holy to catholics” you’re just asking for someone to raise the Idol Worship discussion!
Sacred
pertaining to or connected with religion
devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religious purpose; consecrated
These are devotional tools, not things we worship.
I like the “memento mori” theme. It gives me perspective.
Seems to me, the witch doctors of Haiti also have their "devotional tools". There seems to be an awful lot non-Scriptural mumbo-jumbo superstition going on here.
BTW, maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any mention of the "devotional tools" used on St. Blaise's day. Care to explain how placing two candles (in the shape of a cross, of course) against my throat and then speaking an incantation (er, prayer) will keep those nasty winter sore throats away?
Can you produce Biblical references showing where any of this "white magic" is authorized!
no doubt you would take exception to someone suggesting you look at a bronze serpent to heal snake bites
In this Age? Yes.
**With your laundry list of “things holy to catholics”**
I don’t think so. These things are to be added to a celebration to give meaning to it. Or more meaning to it.
For example, on Ash Wednesday — “Remember, man, thou art dust and into dust thou shall return.”
Just the truth. Thanks for your input.
By this logic one could construct a golden lamb and call it sacred. After all, Jesus was the Lamb of God. Similarly, one could erect an image of Jesus as a shepherd and worship it; after all, He was "the good shepherd. In the extreme, one could even erect a figure of Christ on a cross call it sacred; after all, He hung there to pay for our sins.
Let's review Exodus 20:4-5
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
Continue reading in the Old Testament.
Many people, as an act of repentance, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes and fasted.
Please do not concentrate on just one verse when there are many others that contradict—I don’t have an online concordance that I like so I can’t quote chapter and verse to you — but the acts of these people in the Old Testament are there. So what is so terrivle about the act of repentance in getting a cross marked on one’s forehead with askes?
Look at the facts as presented in the Bible, please. ALL the facts, not just one verse.
You don't really know your Bible very well, do you?
Try people being healed by touching Elijah's bones, and people being healed by having the shadow of an Apostle fall on them.
Seems to me, the witch doctors of Haiti also have their "devotional tools".
Muslims say prayers and have a sacred book which they consider to be divinely inspired and directly dictated by God. You don't think that invalidates what you believe, do you? And you would be offended if someone insisted otherwise, wouldn't you?
Then try practicing the Golden Rule (that's in the Bible, BTW) and grant us the same kindness.
It's not white magic; it's not magic at all. It's Our Lord Jesus Christ choosing to use material things of this world to effect a miracle. And it's very Biblical. When Christ healed the blind man in John 9, he used mud and spittle and the pool of Siloam. Why the mud, why the spittle? Couldn't Christ have healed him instantly as the centurion's servant? "Only say the word, and my servant shall be healed". Was Christ using magic?
And then there's Acts 19:11-12:
And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.Handkerchiefs touched to Paul's body were healing people and casting out evil spirits. Was Paul using magic?
A) Elijah was a prophet of God;
B) Muslim’s aren’t Christians;
C) Christian’s are under the New (and final) Covenant;
There is no Biblical support of these macabre practices.
Jesus is not walking on the earth, and Paul died years ago. Justification by men does not constitute approval by God.
Does it say somewhere in the Bible that these Godly practices will come to an end with the death of the Apostles? I never read that.
And besides, Campion already showed that the Jews were doing the same thing in the OT. So if a prophet of God can do it when Christ was not even walking the earth yet, why can't one do it after He came? Do you have any Scripture to back you up on this claim?
Third, your point about the final covenant doesn't hold water, as Paul was doing it with impunity under the very same new covenant that we are under.
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