Posted on 05/26/2008 4:50:16 AM PDT by NYer
Any one who relies solely on individual interpretation of Biblical text is more likely to fall prey to heresy. Which is one reason St. Peter warns against it. Now many Protestants do not rely only on their personal reading of the text. They have the writings of the reformers, the articles of faith of their denomination, the creeds, the teachings of their pastors. So though there is not a teaching magesterium, there is a tradition of what certain passages of scripture mean. Protestant seminaries and governing bodies of various denominations also have procedures for dealing with heresy.
But the danger of heresy is that heretics can always find Biblical "proofs" for their teachings. Fortunately historical Christianity both Catholic and Protestant can counter these heresies with the creeds of the church and with access to the writings of early Christians. I often refer non Catholics to Christian Research Institute for apologetics for the Trinity and other core beliefs of Christianity.
But Joe Shmoe reading is Bible at home without any grounding in church teachings ( Protestant or Catholic) is much more vulnerable to being seduced by heresy. He reads a passage about Jesus and decides based on that one passage Jesus must not be God. Oh sure there are other verses that indicate Jesus is God, but this guy knows the Holy Spirit would not steer him wrong. So 2000 years of Christian teaching go PBFFT out the window in favor of his own interpretation of the text.
And lay Catholics are usually more proficient readers than your average non churched Protestant. Your average Calvinist is extremely well read and does not shy away from reading the fathers and other extra Biblical texts. They don't try to deny what these texts say. But when the texts do not support Reformed teaching they are viewed as historical anecdotes and not as having any binding authority. Which is consistent with the teaching of Sola Scriptura. I may not agree with this view but it is an honest one based on the teaching of their church.
The Catholic Church also does not view all the writings of the Church Fathers as part of Church teaching. But doctrines such as Baptismal Regeneration, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, Apostolic Succession are clearly taught by the fathers and are not to be jettisoned without a dang good defense for doing so. I don't believe Protestants have given such a defense.
But in a way they have no need to do this. All they have to do is say "my denomination believes the Scriptural passages on these issues means this." So Baptism does not cleanse us of our sins, the bread and wine are only a memorial of Christ's actions at the Last Supper, Mary had other children and the office of Apostle is no more. What was believed before does not matter because our church says the plain meaning of Scripture contradicts these beliefs.
And yeah a lot of non churched Protestants are daft if reading the typical anti Catholic posts on Free Republic are a true indication of their ability to understand doctrines taught and believed by Catholics and even other Protestants.
And no one should rely solely on some personal feeling to determine if they have the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit. They should rely on the promises of God and His grace.
Christianity is meant to be practiced in a community. This community of believers whether Catholic or Protestant help bolster and enliven the grace of individual believers. It also helps the believer defend against false doctrine and to discern whether one's reading of Scripture is correct. There is no basis in either Catholicism or historical Protestant ism for the idea of just reading the Scripture on your own and attending the Church of the Holy Living Room.
Without a diligent prayer life, the support of spiritual mentors, the coming together to worship and study Scripture with other Christians it becomes too easy for a person to become isolated and turn only to their own understanding. This is when heresy is most likely to find a foothold.
It is the place of the churches, Protestant and Catholic to protect the believer against heresy. To help them grow spiritually and to equip them for preaching the Gospel to all nations.
And Truth can never be relative so I have to ask how do Protestants reconcile the Holy Spirit telling them so many different things about the same Biblical passages? And I am not speaking about disagreements with Catholic doctrine but amongst various Protestant denominations. Is the Holy Spirit that flexible?
My take is that it is not the individual believer who is given the Charism of being guided in all Truth but the community of believers. Catholicism is given this Charism in full. Protestant denominations have it in a very wide extent. But anyone who relies solely on their own understanding is easy pickings for the wolves out there.
Wikipedia has an article on it:
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The miracle of Lanciano
In the city of Lanciano, Italy, around A.D. 700, a Basilian monk and priest was assigned to celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice in the Latin Rite in the small Church of St.Legontian. Usually celebrating in the Greek Rite and using leavened bread and having been taught that unleavened bread was invalid matter for the Holy Sacrifice he was disturbed to be constrained to use unleavened bread and had trouble believing that the miracle of transubtantiation would take place with unleavened bread. During the Mass, when he said the words of consecration (This is my Body...This is my Blood), he saw the bread change into live flesh and the wine change into live blood, which coagulated into five globules, irregular and differing in shape and size. He was frightened and confused by the miracle, and stood a while as if in divine ecstasy, but eventually he turned his face to the congregation, and said “Behold the Flesh and the blood of our Most Beloved Christ.” At those words, the congregation members ran to the altar and began to cry for mercy. This miracle proved to him that unleavened bread was acceptable matter for the Holy Sacrifice. Years later other Basilian monks stole the documentation that was in the archives of the parish church. The Byzantine rejection of unleavened bread eventuated in the schism of 1054 that started out as a disagreement concerning the “azymes” between Patriarch Michael Keroularios and Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida acting for the already deceased Pope Leo IX.
Various ecclesiastical investigations have been conducted upon the miracle since 1574, and the evidence of the miracle remains in Lanciano to this day. In 1970-71, Professor Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy, and Professor Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena, conducted a scientific investigation into the miracle. The report was published in Quaderni Sclavo di Diagnostica Clinica e di Laboratori in 1971, and reaffirmed by a scientific commission appointed by the Higher Council of the World Health Organization in 1973.[1] The following conclusions were drawn:[2]
* The Flesh of the miracle is real Flesh and the Blood is real Blood.
* The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.
* The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart, which would be highly unlikely to “fake”, given that only an expert hand could have done it, and not without serious difficulties.
* In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium. The Flesh is a heart complete in its essential structure.
* The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood type, AB, which is also the same blood type found on the Shroud of Turin and all other Eucharistic Miracles.
* In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of the fresh normal blood.
* In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.
* There is no trace whatsoever of any materials or agents used to preserve the Flesh or Blood.
The Flesh and Blood of the miracle can still be seen today. The Host-Flesh, which is the same size as the large Host used today in the Latin Church, is fibrous and light brown in colour, and becomes rose-coloured when lighted from the back. The Blood consists of five coagulated globules and has an earthly colour resembling the yellow of ochre.
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The entire wiki article can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_miracle
Terrific posts!
Thank you!
??? Why that response to my post?
It doesn’t shake me, because I know that there have always been Christians who intimate with the Lord Jesus Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, and yes, know it, since the time of the Apsotles who were never Catholic (by the Vatican’s definition), nor Protestant (by the Geneva definition). The idea that one must be one or the other if one is a Christian is a falacy and a fantasy.
Jesus established one Church(John 17:22-23). We are all as a Church to be of one mind and to think the same (Philippians 2:2; Romans 15:5). There is only to be one "faith" (Ephesians 4:3-6), not many. Christ also stated that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18). The Canon of Scripture had not yet been written when heresies began. We know from Scripture ( Acts 8:9-11) that there were others who claimed to be christian. Simon Magus was one of the first to mislead others into heresy.
You would do well to read the Early Church Fathers to gain a better understanding of life in the first and second century. The film Quo Vadis provides a decent rendering. Keep in mind that these early christians were persecuted for their Catholic faith; because that was the only christian church. They were covered with pitch and turned into human torches to light the Colloseum. Husbands, wives and children were fed to animals as sport for the entertainment of the Roman pagan citizenry. Yet they went to their deaths, singing hymns. Why? Because they believed in what the Apostles taught them.
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." - John 6:51-56
No one gives up their life for a lie!
That is why our Lord entrusted His Church to Peter. No conflict.
Thanks from me also. I hadn’t been following the thread but saw your name and thought I’d check it out. Well worth the little sidetrip to read about the miracle!
" Hey, teach'! Wanna know what a mad dawg bite feels like? NO? Okay, how 'bout a 'C' then, whaddya say?"
Back in college I was accused of cheating on my metaphysics exam. The professor said I looked into the soul of the student next to me.
Those of us with ADHD dyslexia and presbyopia would like to put in a good word for paragraph breaks. You may not believe this but merely to see, much less to try to read, such a Mass makes my stomach hurt. No, really.
... reaffirmed by a scientific commission appointed by the Higher Council of the World Health Organization in 1973.
Amazing, yet even without it, we can be sure that Christ meant what He said.
I thought you were Catholic!
The jokes just write themselves, don't they?
Evidently my corneas (corniae?) are Protestant, even Calvinist. All they see is "evil all around". But fortunately they don't see it too clearly when it gets up close.
When I lived in Columbus MS a friend taped a morning raido announcer guy who CLEARLY got the job because of some debt owed by the station owner to his parents. They guy was reading the new one day about a Prebysterian who was hit by a car ... and then 40 seconds into the story corrected himself to "pedestrian".
Since then he has found employment as proof-reader and fact-checker for the NYT. Okay, I made that last part up.
Way back before I was a Catholic, or even a Christian, I was reading about the Shroud of Turin, the most up to date information I could find, and reading the entire Bible several times. Many times.
It seemed to me that I gained the conviction that if this were all a work of fiction (Christ’s life, death, and resurrection) that it would read smoother, would have no apparent contradictions, would leave nothing to conjecture. Instead, these were real people writing about real events, and just what you’d expect: telling it the very most honest best that they could, inspired by God Himself.
I believed those witnesses.
When I looked for a church, since I no longer had a choice about being a believer, I went with the one which had formed at the beginning, the one that had been wrestling with the great questions since Christ Himself had lived. The Church that had room for Mystery, which is what had led me on my questioning since the beginning.
Never have I been disappointed.
Thanks again. I read the whole wiki article.
I will proceed to try and obtain Holy Communion after a lengthy absence. Been somewhat difficult to locate a traditional priest for confession. Also, had some issues concerning my marriage but am cleared to proceed based on what an EWTN priest and the local priest stated. :)
God bless you, God bless you! That is wonderful news, FRiend.
Which is why I corrected it, cause I totally agree with you.
My eyes and my tummy thank you. As do I.
Through the gift of faith, we may be certain Christ meant what He said.
WHO has never been a friend of the Catholic church as far as I am aware.
Yet, it seems they confirmed Church teaching.
God uses all kinds of evidence and all kinds of instruments.
We merely need to be willing to hear Him and accept Him on His Word.
Celestial choirs will sing joyfully on your return.
The one lost sheep found is a treasure.
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