Posted on 12/06/2007 7:03:33 AM PST by Alex Murphy
According to the centuries-old rules of the Roman Catholic Church, sin-reduction is a two-step process. Guilt is absolved through confession and prayer, but punishment — on earth or in purgatory — can be avoided through indulgences, an ancient form of church-granted amnesty that critics deride as a shortcut to salvation.
The door for indulgences is not always open, though, and for years after the Vatican Council reforms of the 1960s, they were rarely offered — until 2000, when Pope John Paul II started using them to attract pilgrims to World Youth Day.
Today, Pope Benedict XVI put out the latest offer of indulgences, with two highly-detailed options. The harder way to get one, at least if you don’t live in southwestern France, involves making a pilgrimage to Lourdes, where the faithful believe that the Virgin Mary appeared to a teenage girl 18 times over a five-month span in 1858. The pilgrimage, which must be made in the next year, can be accomplished using Vatican charter flights that began over the summer.
The easier way involves a tighter window of time — just nine days in February — but what will probably be a much shorter trip, to “any church, grotto or decorous place” that displays “the blessed image” of the apparition. (Would a front yard in Staten Island qualify?) In the presence of the image, one must “participate in a pious exercise” to show devotion to the Virgin Mary, the announcement says.
“Or at least pause for an appropriate space of time in prayer and with pious meditations,” it continues.
(The instructions do not specify whether you can bring your own blessed image, or B.Y.O.B.I. A handy “divine sound-activated desk fountain” featuring the holy scene is available
(Excerpt) Read more at thelede.blogs.nytimes.com ...
So does the verse that says "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Unless a man is born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. John 3:5
or
The word is near thee, [even] in thy mouth and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:8-9
Their useage does not make them any less true. What's your point? Do you deny that God gave men authority over members of the Church in His "absence"?
Regards
You think he was objecting to public prayer in general?
(Context is everything!)
Easy or hard, they are all expensive.
The idea of making restitution for wrongs done isn't Biblical?
Interesting ...
They're all free.
Purgatory isn’t temporal.
Is it time for a primer on Purgatory?
Quix, over on another thread was waxing lyrical about rubber Bibles and rubber verses that can be twisted into any shape.
I wonder if they’re in use on this thread.
True. I am not aware of any person who claims any such authority besides Christ in the next life...
Regards
OF COURSE RESTITUTION IS BIBLICAL, Campion!
But at Holy Spirit’s direction, not man’s.
Thanks MB, for your kind words.
There are various kinds of Rubber Bibles floating around the forum . . .
You'd never know it from reading this thread.
But at Holy Spirit's direction, not man's.
I have no idea what you mean by that. You mean one Christian cannot counsel another to make restitution for a sin?
OF COURSE ONE AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN IS TASKED, ENCOURAGED, OBLIGATED TO EXHORT, ENCOURAGE, CHALLENGE, LIFT UP, PRAY FOR, ASSIST ANOTHER AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN TOWARD THE MARK OF THE HIGH CALLING--WHO IS CHRIST JESUS.
HOWEVER,
REGARDLESS of WHO says what to a Believer,
IS STILL TO BE CONSULTED AND OBEYED ABOVE AND BEYOND ALL OTHERS--regarding the particulars, the application, everything.
Christ did not die for Believers to kowtow to nor even detour through some RELIGIOUS BUREAUCRACY, HIERARCHY to reach The Father as was so deadly for so many generations of the Children of Jacob.
Christ died that we might boldly approach the throne of Grace and cry DADDY, DADDY, HELP--PLEASE GIVE ME DIRECTION IN THIS NEED FOR RESTITUTION. DADDY, DADDY, HELP . . . help me choose my way aright and follow through accordingly . . .
ALL even earest, even wise, even anointed authentic Christian Believers, even seasoned top leaders will sooner or later lead someone askew however unwittingly, however significantly.
HOLY SPIRIT IS THE ONLY UTTERLY FAITHFUL LEADER INTO ALL TRUTH.
ALL other Believers are merely consultants of varying value.
Many learn this very hard ways.
Some seem not to learn it at all.
Scripture teaches that we are TESTED BY PRAISE.
This seems to be particularly destructive of RELIGIOUS leaders. It's not long before they begin to believe their press reports however quietly or smugly. Then the pride is off and running. And too often stubbornness with it.
Yes, God has mercifully allowed me to give fitting useful counsel on occasion to other believers about RESTITUTION and other matters. But I persistently counsel folks to SEEK GOD FIRST, FOREMOST, LAST, ALWAYS and do only and precisely what HE tells them on whatever the issue, situation, relationship involves.
i MUST NOT become a Jr god in their life, however innocently motivated or even "righteously" motivated.
And, in my observations and experience . . . in the life of every earnest Believer seriously intent on going on with God beyond the average and/or the shallow . . .
God will force them to choose between a valued even kosher and wonderful leader's advice and GOD'S OWN COUNSEL. And woe to the Believer that mistakenly chooses the leader's advice over God's. Discipline will follow like night the day.
In many degrees and levels . . . at some point . . . usually sooner than later . . .
Sooner or later, the arm of the flesh, however well intentioned and however earthly wise . . . will fail.
And, I have yet to meet anyone who walks flawlessly in the authentic anointing of Holy Spirit . . . LEAST OF ALL smug self-congratulating spiritual leaders OF ANY denomination or sect.
And even the authentically humble and anointed still miss it on more than an occasion or 3.
Certainly many spiritual leaders are wise and anointed; humble and loving . . . and the wise give prayerful heed to their words and counsel. But not slavishly nor blindly. And not without Holy Spirit's affirming OK.
But only fools compulsively bent for loving Fatherly whacks slavishly follow any earthly leader whether he be Benny Hinn or Pope umpty-ump.
Sounds like more flesh oriented, works oriented
“salvation” effort under the banner of the Magicsterical, to me.
Amen.
Whatever that is bound on earth will be "approved" of by the powers of heaven, God. It doesn't say that the Church will bind things in heaven, only on earth. You go beyond what the Catholic Church states, so what is your point?
Regards
Campion: I have no idea what you mean by that. You mean one Christian cannot counsel another to make restitution for a sin?
Quix' is a classic case of the Protestant mind's inability to understand the "Mystical Body of Christ" and its full implications. As part of the Body, we PARTICIPATE in Christ's continuing work. Priests do not usurp Christ's priestly role, they PARTICIPATE in it, as THEY are part of the Body, as Paul so eloquently states in 1 Cor 12. Once the Protestant can wrap his mind around the fact that we are like cells of the Body, an actual mystical construct as opposed to a metaphor, it becomes clear that it is NOT an "either Jesus or the priest"...
We don't usurp the role of Christ, we participate in it actively. When the Church ministers, it is CHRIST who ministers.
An example of this is James 5 and the prayers of the elders for the sick. Christ ministers to this person through the priests; the priests certainly do not "bypass" the Spirit, nor do they "replace" Christ. IT IS CHRIST, working through His Body, the Church!
Regards
NOT AT ALL!
Seems to me, at least and RC or 3 needs to understand and accept that PROTTIES don't leave half their brains in the womb.
Nor do we hang them on some plastic figuine and walk off and forget them. They work quite well, thank you very much.
1. Being protestant doesn't do anything but enhance my physical brain's capacity to apprehend the Love, Truth, Wisdom and knowledge of God better than if it were all mangled by all the doctrines of men the Magicsterical may be foisting off on the serfs.
2. My mind may well understand the "MysticalBody of Christ" better than you do; than your priest does or even than the Pope does. Christ seemed to believe that prostitutes et al had many up on the religious PhD's of His earthly days. I don't know that I'm as understanding of the "Mystical Body of Christ" as the nearest prostitute but I'm working at it, By God's Grace and help.
SOME priests/pastors et al PARTICIPATE.
SOME priests/pastors et al PONTIFICATE FROM THEIR FLESH and Christ may well call them white-washed tombs, as He did others of similar ilk.
Many priests/pastors et al do both to varying degrees at varying times depending on a list of varying issues in their lives--amongst them how much REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDER occurred in their childhood.
Of course we are similar to cells in a Bod. St Paul makes that clear. Doesn't take any great Protty mental exercise or mental effort to leap tall Magicsterical edifi with a single bound. We can do it sleep-walking.
I don't know that I'd say it's JESUS AND THE PRIEST/PASTOR/BELIEVER as much as I'd say
It IS CHRIST IN & THROUGH the believer/pastor/priest. Otherwise, whatever is wood, hay and stubble.
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