Posted on 08/08/2007 1:31:31 PM PDT by NYer
One of the altar boys serving was the star of our high school basketball team (in a town of 300). He was gangly and well over 6' tall. When he went to stand up after kneeling at the side of the altar, the back of his cassock caught on the heel of his shoe and he stumbled backwards across the sactuary with his arms flailing until he landed on the bench against the wall where Father and the servers sat.
When I looked up to see what our very ancient and stern priest was going to do, he was just standing there behind the altar looking straight ahead with his arms still raised, tears in his eyes, and his face screwed down as tight as he could get it to maintain his composure. And he stayed like that for a minute or two until he could continue.
You'd have to have been there to appreciate it, but that is still one of the funniest moments I can ever remember from Mass. It still makes me laugh when I think about it.
That's the (gnosticism alert!) "special knowledge" that's hidden from the "unsaved" who don't have the magic Protestant glasses to see that Jesus says one thing and means another.
Unfortunately for you, nobody else had those Protestant glasses for the first 800 years of Christian history, including men who learned their Christianity at the feet of the apostles. Was Ignatius of Antioch, who learned the Gospel from Peter and Paul, and who wrote, as he traveled to his martyrdom, that we ought not to even speak of heretics who deny that the Eucharist is the flesh of Christ which was crucified for us ... was he among the "unsaved"?
That’s what happens when your cassock is too long. You kneel, and it drapes over your heels. You stand, and step on the thing ... then you’re in trouble. For a growing boy, consistently having a properly sized cassock can be a challenge.
So what difference does it make?
I don't believe you ever answered me before when I asked you if a "once saved always saved" Christian who became a believing Catholic is still saved. Are they?
He said "No baptismal record was ever found." That doesn't mean he wasn't baptized.
There was no formal record of mine, though I remember it. I was 7, possibly 8, full immersion Southern Baptist. I had my Dad contact the church secretary from the time, who also remembered it, and as a non-relative, the letter she was kind enough to write was accepted at the parish where I was received.
The issue of nonexistence of my baptismal certificate was what brought out the disaster of my RCIA class - after 4 1/2 months of what I had thought was instruction (and I thought it was pretty lame - I remember writing at least one essay on my "faith journey") when we were preparing to be received at the Easter Vigil, I was told that my lack of a certificate didn't matter, because I wouldn't be received for another year anyway. The (thankfully former) director of RCIA there had decided that everyone had to go through a year of "seeking" before the real "instruction" started. I switched to another parish the next week, the pastor worked with me extra, and I was received that Easter after all, Easter of 2000. Deo Gratias.
Nice polemic. ;)
False. I am not a liar. :)
Matt Enloe
Maybe if you had actually read my story and not taken things out of context, you would have actually had something interesting to comment on.
My parents were NOT Baptist.
Moreover, they disagreed with baptism; this is why I was not baptised.
Next time, please read the entire story, and resist the urge to yank things out of context.
-Matt Enloe
Say those Hail Marys and a Rosary or two anyway --- just in case :) UC
Sure. :)
For your return to the Church. ;)
In that case you better double or triple it ---- with a novena :)
I’ll help him.
The Calvinists around her don't like this verse because it supports "free will", and they can have that. It would screw up the whole predestination/double predestination thing.
I remember the day I got baptized, I was 5. I don't remember the actual rite but I can tell you exactly what I was wearing.
It's also quite maddening to read these Protestant converts boasting of the "unity" of the Catholic Church. Never mind that the spectrum of beliefs within the "one true unchanging church" is as great as that among Protestant denominations. As long as everyone belongs to the same organization and recites the same words (which each interprets differently) then everything is just hunky-dory.
The Catholic Church, if it is hated by the "world," is not hated nearly as much as Fundamentalist Protestants are. In fact, the intellectualism of the Catholic Church means it actually enjoys much respect from the world.
And finally, if you can't think of a better reason to believe in the "perpetual virginity" of Mary other than that sex is dirty, you'd do better not to engage in any apologetics at all.
So . . . do you believe in evolution now? That seems to be the dominant belief within the “unchanged since antiquity” church.
Gals seem to remember events more by what was worn than what was happening. :)
Gotta be a trick question since I can't imagine anyone getting saved and then joining the Catholic church...
But anyway, not even your church can take a child of God out of Jesus' hands...
Might I recomend a book?
It clears up most confusion regarding that particular “issue”.
Isaiah. :)
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