LOL! I read one line and deleted it. I have no idea what the rest of it said.
Going back to my own "sent" box, that first line you deleted was as I wrote;
I guess I overestimated the depth & breadth of your own faith. I'll not make that same mistake twice.
Excuse me, but your post #16 addressed to myself and one other, was an attempt on your part to proselytize me to the RCC, was it not?
Your gleeful giggling here concerning my private reply to you, is extremely rude.
My answer to your spamology method of either;
As you wrote;
No brother, not me. For I’ve encountered the Lord more directly. He does indeed live.
I assume those people who went to the RCC, either “back” or from some non-Catholic church setting, went because they were not finding the Spirit, either in their church, their fellow members, their pastors, or in their own practices and life experiences?
I’m fortunate enough, to have not suffered any of those lacks, though I can think back on some pretty dry spaces or spells.
Christ lives, and His Spirit does move, outside of the narrowly defined confines of Papal authority, at least those confines as they are understood or defined by many. I bear witness, as do millions of others to that [that the Lord lives, and His Spirit moves among mankind].
I doubt He wants me to go there [to the RCC]. I could never preach or be at peace with, those few aspects, here and there in and amongst the various claims made by those of the RCC, that I KNOW even from first hand DIRECT EXPERIENCE with the Lord, just aint right.
In much that various voices from among the RCC proclaim the RCC to be God’s truth, and God’s only truth; There is far too much mixture of man’s doings, thinkings or understandings, bundled up with the Spirit, served up as “pure Lord”. It makes me sick. I can’t [spiritually] eat of it.
I’m not having to depend upon doctrine with this. Or Scripture. Or teachings. Or what any claiming “authority” told or spoke to me. For in some regards and aspects, I have the authority from having been in His presence directly. You know, sort of like the first apostles did?
Our Lord is a Spirit. Those whom worship Him must worship Him in Spirit, and in truth. I most certainly have the “authority” to bear witness of those things I have received and experienced of Him...outside, so to speak, the RCC.
The RCC would forbid me to worship, save but in the manner they are accustomed to, and demand I submit all to them, and their authority over all things relating to my own relationship with the Lord.
How could I do such a thing? I’ve already a relationship with Him, arising outside of their “Church”.
(yeah, I know, there are many among the RCC’s whom will claim that isn’t possible. They’ll say, “he has a devil” smugly, while smirking along with their fellows. hey, I saw that, just yesterday, on another FR thread ——don’t try to tell me it doesn’t happen.)
Well then, how many demons have the priesthood cast out recently? healed the sick? raised the dead? shoot, I’ve had a dead bird come to life, right in my hands! how many of ‘em have done all those things???.
Some of them may have. Yet they would forbid me to even speak of such things. And forbid me to in anyway challenge doctrines which even by the admission of the RCC are not scripturally based. If I persisted, they’d punish me with “excommunication”, and threats of damnation earned for having the temerity to openly question them, not buying or accepting their “story”.
Sorry, though I don’t know everything, I do know too much. So I couldn’t join the RCC, or stay very long. Not honestly.
For they’ve already forbidden my sort. I understand why, and forgive them. It’s too easy for one to misuse spiritual freedom, or authority. Many will, if given a taste of it. Seeing such things occur down through history, they decided it best to not allow the spirit to “move”, but under the strict confines of their own managerial authority. And so they built up doctrines to support the idea.
It’s not all bad, I guess. It works for them. I guess.
But not for me. I KNOW. Not “think” or believe, or imagine, but know, with this being born out also, by long personal experience. I am not alone in this, either.
Many others bear witness, experiencing much the same, as the Word supports also, shall occur among those the Lord makes and allows to be His own.
This three-fold cord [contained above] shall not be broken. Not easily, not quickly, nor of the Lord’s first level desire, as I understand it.
As Christ said to his disciples, when they encountered a man casting demons out of a person,
but that man would not follow the disciples, when they told him that he should follow them;
Christ told his disciples;
“forbid him not”
“he that is not against us is for us”
“I have sheep you know not of”
I do wish those in the RCC well. That they would be lead, and comforted by His Spirit.
That they be of help and real comfort to one another, as is one of the beautiful parts of the tradition.
Without the efforts of the [RC]Church to safeguard the Word, in it’s texts and meanings, then where would we be?
I honestly say this, even though I simply don’t buy into SOME things plainly arising from RCC “tradition”
which either lack or have only a gauze of actual scriptural textual basis.
But I do thank them, anyway. And I look forward to checking in upon such things as are not so much RCC-centric,
but may be of good teaching, doctrine, or practice in a more general Christian sense. If there be any.
For such things as may be disagreeable, looking towards the history of the RCC, it’s traditions and practices, and how those arose,
then one can always look to the how and why of what occurred, even if it is but to see what things to avoid (typical human nature, will come up with the same or similar problems, over and over...)
...for that Church, the RCC has gone through a lot!
Going through all that they have, is part of how they came up with so much goofy and weird practices.
I’m sorry if that part offends you, but there it is.
I know, I know, there will be folks come along and tell me that RCC “TRadition” is all pure Spirit of the Lord,
or derived COMPLETELY from and by the Spirit (or some similar tale)
but to those of us whom have otherwise drank
from the fountain of the pure goodness of His Spirit -— that assertion,
no matter how many times or ways it is repeated, will simply never convince.