Replies

Thank you so very much for sharing your testimony, insights and concerns, dear brother in Christ! You are a wonderful wordsmith and I greatly appreciate your good humor and wit.

Coming at it from another POV, since Alamo-Girl says that when she speaks as the Spirit leads her she does not necessarily abide by the strictures of logic, then the conversation with her must be of a particular kind, or, at least, cannot be of a particular kind.

Very true. I believe God and trust Him alone. And I do not question His words but receive them all as Truth because He says them.

For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:8-9

Therefore I am in direct opposition to any correspondent who values as equal or superior certain knowledge that which derives from reason or sensory perception.

My mantra is that faith and reason are complementary but reason cannot substitute for faith.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Corinthians 1:18-25

Thus, I also aver that man is not the “measure” of God. And therefore, I shun the doctrines and traditions of men.

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [ought] from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. – Deuteronomy 4:2

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. – Jeremiah 2:13

You also said:

A-G, this may seem unbearably condescending of me. I don't know what to do about that except to ask God to amend what can be amended and to redeem what cannot. But I think if you were ever to become a Catholic or to join an Orthodox body, you would shine like the sun and know a joy that would almost eclipse the joy you already show so clearly.

The irony here is that half of my family is Catholic – and the entire family is Christian. Stranger still that I attend most every church in town – and more often than the others, the Catholic church as some of my relatives are elderly and in poor health. Indeed, our cousin who has suffered a stroke is Catholic and I have wheeled her forward to partake of the Eucharist even though by the doctrine of the Catholic Church (in their pamphlets provided in the pews) I am specifically forbidden. At the request of the family, I led them all in their "Hail Mary"s and "Our Father"s at the funeral services for her sister before the priest arrived.

If I thought the Catholic Church was hazardous to their Spiritual health, I certainly would have said so.

But the Catholic Church is an exclusive “club” as hosepipe is wont to say. The subtext is “our way or the highway.” Nevertheless, if the Spirit led me to join that club, I would. But He hasn’t. And for that, the local priest ought to be thanking God – because I would surely be a disruption since if I were a member, I would challenge every dogma, every doctrine, every sacrament, every tradition that serves as a wedge or even a veil between God and man.

Of a Truth, there is only one Way, Jesus Christ. And the Catholic Church is not God.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. – John 14:6

To God be the glory!

“And for that, the local priest ought to be thanking God – because I would surely be a disruption since if I were a member, I would challenge every dogma, every doctrine, every sacrament, every tradition that serves as a wedge or even a veil between God and man.”

If he knows of you, I am sure he is giving thanks, A-G. Of course its likely if you started disrupting a Roman Catholic parish with your challenges, you’d be asked to leave and that would be as appropriate as it would be were I to claim to become a Roman Catholic and then attacked the various dogmas of that particular church. I am, therefore, curious as to your point.

Two issues, only to be touched on. But first thanks for the font which coddles my presbyopia (but Dawg, I thought you said you were Catholic!)

The first is the question of reason generally, and it touches on what it means to be in the image of God, what choice and freedom are, and a bunch o' stuff. And, of course, it touches on what reason is. The modern view seems to be that reason is "the meat computer", while the older view is it is a faculty whereby we perceive truth. (The lower case 't' is important here.)

Then the other is the issue of closed communion. It's not really an analogy but my first response to your complaint was "We don't believe in premarital sex, either." It's not that you're not good enough or we're too good. It's that we take Communion - Koinonia -- "discerning the body" seriously and we take YOU seriously.

(At least this is how I understood it, when, a gazillion years ago I was a seminarian/chaplain at a hospital where some RCs said Mass daily and I asked if I could communicate and they said only under very special circumstances - like I was dying or somesuch. Really I didn't think THEY were jerks, I thought, "We have GOT to work harder to end our divisions."

As long as you thought/think the doctrines and such were wedges and veils, I can't see the Holy Spirit (or the local holy-dude) letting you join us. I guess what is a fence to some is a gate to others.

As to questioning, as long as you have a priest with time and brains, your questioning would be welcome, I'd guess. As to your leading the Rosary and such, that's what I'd say we mean by being a member but not a member in full communion.

You don't believe what we teach, you don't believe what we say we are, and you disagree with us about God's promise to His Church. These are not unimportant disagreements. What seems to me to be a gift of God, the charism of the Church as a whole, seems to others to be nothing but control and power and mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus and veils and wedges. What seems to me to be a bridge is to you a chasm. While that is true, it would be a cheap and unsatisfactory pretense to admit you to full sacramental communion.

And the Catholic Church is not God. Um, duh? But it IS the body of Christ, we think.

As to the "our way or the highway", well, I have a joke, but it will have to wait ...

Not proofing. in haste, scuse typos.

PRAISE GOD FOR YOUR FAITHFULNESS

TO

HIM!