Posted on 04/25/2007 6:54:31 AM PDT by NYer
I've got to run .. God Bless You, friend.
Thank you RevCori for your interesting and informative reply to my post. Because of the many shared traditions with Catholicism, I have always felt very comfortable with the Episcopal Church. Though both my husband and I were raised as Catholics, because he had been married once before, we couldn’t be married in the Catholic Church. A friend of mine who knew the then the Rector of St Bernard de Clairvaux Church (formerly The Ancient Spanish Monastery) in North Miami,suggested that we speak to him about being married there. His name was Father Bruce Bailey, and he couldn’t have been nicer to us. He spoke to us as though he had known us forever and helped us plan what turned out to be a wonderful day in every way. This was nearly thirty years ago and, though we have since been able to be remarried in the Catholic faith, my affection for the Episcopal Church of Miami and St. Bernard de Clairvaux remains strong.
There ARE protestants who know about the saints and their testimonies, just as we know about other martyrs. We appreciate their lives but we don’t ‘worship’ them as it seems that many Catholics do. All testimonies are helpful in our own growth as Christians.
Roman Catholics do not worship the saints, regardless of how it "appears" to you. Suggesting that they do is bearing false witness against them.
I said MANY (some) do, not all. Perhaps you are so close that you can’t see the forest for the trees. I don’t mean to be argumentative on this but venerating relics and saints is idolatry. Jesus is the ONLY one we should be venerating/worshipping/serving.
These repetitive, repetitive and repetitive points of debate are so repetitive that I have resolved not to repetitvely read them anymore.
“See—I am doing something new”-—(credit to Isaiah).
Falsely accusing other Christians of idolatry is the main problem here.
Is it false? I’m not so sure. All of us have idolatry in our lives to some extent. We put families, jobs, money, degrees, many other ‘innocent’ things before God. That is idolatry as well.
These new points that you raise are something quite different. If the charge is that Christians who ask the saints alive in Christ to pray for them are practicing idolatry, then that is a false witness.
I don’t mean to accuse anyone of anything wrong but I do think praying to saints IS heretical.
But if you make such judgments about other Christians, expect yourself to endure the same sort of judgment.
Look, you can pray with or to the saints if you want and if you think it’s going to do you any good. I’m through bandying this about.
Good.
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