You wrote:
I posted a pic of terrorists because it is represents a long portion of your organizations history. I posted the pic of the Mormon Temple to illustrate there are others who claim exclusivity. I post pictures of an empty cross to reveal another aspect of your organizations hypocrisy and idolatry. You can justify them all you wish.
My response:
Specifically, what aspect of Terroism are you talking about. I am well aware that others claim exclusivity, you seem to be very confident of your “own personal interpretation”, which is consistently refuted the early CHurch Fathers. But, hey that is your business.
Your separation of the Incarnation, the life of Christ, the passion, death, from the resurrection is a theology that does not understand the totality of the person of Christ and is not in line with any of the Creeds of Church (Apostles and Nicene), which link all of these together, nor is it in conformity with the Sacred Scriptures.
With respect to Christ and the Crucifixion, as you seem to only take St. Paul as an authority. So I will St. Paul to make my point. He did not separate the Crucifixion from the other aspects of Christ life and fully incorporated into his theology. For example, in the opening chapter of Corinthians, St. Paul writes “For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified…”(c.f. 1 Cor 1:23). Later, Paul writes “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (c.f. 1 Cor 2:2). Later, St. Paul links the entire paschal mystery [passion, death and resurrection into one salvific act] as he writes “For I have delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). St. Paul also connected the celebration of the eucharist to Christ’s crucifixion. St. Paul describes the tradition of the eucharist in 1 Cor 11: 23-25, then he writes “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again”. He goes on to say, “whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord” (c.f 1 Cor 11:27).
In these passages, St. Paul is clearly not advocating a theology of the resurrection, that is totally separate from the incarnation, life of Christ, and his passion and death. In addition, St. Paul is clearly linking the celebration of the eucharist to the passion, death and resurrection of Christ.
You wrote:
Your organization has lots of explanations for lots of stuff, but that is it’s job, to obfuscate and confuse. If it can succeed in laying the law back on you, with some earthly help needed for your salvation, it can be in control. The use of Latin was so the priests of your organization could control God’s word. It was NOT the common language.
My response to this and the rest of your statement:
The use of Latin allows the Church to trace its worship, doctrine, the Scriptures themselves down to the 4th century, and thus it prevents the passage of time to allow for those with deconstructionist ideology to change the meaing of doctrines as they were believed back during the period of the Great defenders of the faith. And, Latin was in fact the common language of the Roman empire and was the languate of the political and educated classes throughout the first millenium of the Church [at least in the West, Greek was in the East]
As for Rome, you are correct, the Church is not in Rome only, it is Universal, i.e. Catholic consistent with Christ’s command to go all over the world and preach the Gospel (c.f. Mt 28:19). In addition, St. Ignatius of Antioch [a follower of ST. John the Apostle] refers to the Catholic CHurch when he writes “Wherever the Bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church” (Letter to the Church at Smyrnaeans 110AD). And with St. Ignatius, who again new St. John the Apostle, you will find the doctrines of 3-tiered ministry (Bishop, priest, deacon), you will find the primacy of the Church of Rome, you will find a strong doctrine of the real presence of the eucharist, as well and as I mentioned before, a clear reference that both ST. Peter and St. Paul built up the Church of Rome.
With respect to Mary, I welcome the opportunity to defend her.
The OT calls Eve the Mother of the Living (Gen 3:20). However, we also know that threw Adam and her sin, death came to all her descendants. In the second century, Church Fathers began to see that the Eve-Mary parallel which suggests that Mary and a role in salvation history in relation to Christ, just has Eve had a role in the fall of the human race in relation to Adam. St. Justin Martyr in his dialogue with Trypho is the first to actually propose the Doctrine of Mary as the New Eve. Fr. Luigi Lamberto in his work Mary and the Fathers of the Church, published by Ignatius Press notes that Justin wanted to show how the Lord had decided to accomplish the salvation of man by following the same procedure by which sin had been committed and caused the downfall of man (p. 47). He points out that the Eve-Mary parallel had its foundation in the Pauline doctrine of Christ as the second Adam (1 Cor 15: 21-22). St. Justin Martyr writes
“The Son of God became man through a Virgin, so that the disobedience caused by the serpent might be destroyed in the same way it begun. For Eve, who was virgin and undefiled, gave birth to disobedience and death after listening to the serpent’s words. But the Virgin Mary conceived faith and joy; for what the Angel Gabriel brought her the glad tidings that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, so that the Holy One born of her would be the Son of God, she answered, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’ (Lk 1:38). Thus was born of her the Child about whom so many Scriptures speak, as we have shown. Through him, God crushed the serpent along with those angels and men who had become like the serpent.” (Dialogue with Trypho 100)
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the great defender of orthodoxy against the Gnostic Heretics of the 2nd century, further develops the idea of Mary as the New Eve, which St. Justin Martyr began to develop in 155. Fr. Matero notes that St. Irenaeus first recapitulated salvation history in Christ by appealing back to St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 5: 12, where it states the whole human race fell into sin because of the man Adam, and then it was necessary that God’s son should become man and thus become the foundation of a new humanity. He then provides the following two quotes from Irenaeus, 1) that recapitulates Christ as the new Adam and 2) that recapitulates Mary as the new Eve.
(1) Irenaeus writes “When the Son of God took flesh and became man; he recapitulated in himself the long history of men, procuring for us the reward of salvation, so that in Christ Jesus we might recover what we had lost in Adam, namely, the image and likeness of God. For since it was not possible for man, once wounded and broken by disobedience, to be refashioned and to obtain the victor’s palm, and since it was equally impossible for him to receive salvation, as he had fallen under the power of sin, the Son of God accomplished both of those tasks. He God’s Word, came down from the Father and became flesh; he abased himself even unto death and brought the economy of our salvation to its completion.” (Against Heresies 3, 18)
(2) After recapitulating Christ as the new Adam, Irenaeus writes “Even though Eve had Adam for a husband, she was still a virgin….By disobeying, she became the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race. In the same way, Mary, though she also had a husband, was still a virgin, and by obeying, she became the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race…The knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience. What Eve bound through her unbelief, Mary loosened by faith.” (Against Heresies 3: 22)
St. Irenaeus further writes and points out that only the Gnostic Heretics ignore God’s economy of salvation, in which Mary had a unique role in playing since she gave birth to Christ, the word made flesh. Irenaeus writes:
“Eve was seduced by the word of the [fallen] angel and transgressed God’ s word, so that she fled from him. In the same way, [Mary] was evangelized by the word of an angel and obeyed God’s word, so that she carried him [within her]. And while the former was seduced into disobeying God, the latter was persuaded to obey God, so that the Virgin Mary became the advocate of the virgin Eve. And just has the human race was bound to death because of a virgin, so it was set free from death by a Virgin, since the disobedience of one virgin was counterbalanced by the Virgin’s obedience.
If then, the first-made man’s sin was mended by the right conduct of the firstborn Son [of God], and if the serpent’s cunning was bested by the simplicity of the dove [Mary], and if the chains that held us bound to death have been broken, then the heretics are fools; they are ignorant of God’s economy, and they are unaware of his economy for [the salvation of’ man.’ (Against Heresies 5: 19)
Finally, St. Irenaeus develops the recapitulation theme to its fulfillment when he writes:
“Adam had to be recapitulated in Christ, so that death might be swallowed up in immortality, and Eve [had to be recapitulated] in Mary, so that the Virgin, having become another virgin’s advocate, might destroy and abolish one virgin’s disobedience by the obedience of another virgin.” (Proof of Apostolic Preaching 33)
In summary, there was a well developed doctrine of Mary’s unique role in salvation history way before the New Testament Canon was settled in the 4th century Church Councils at Hippo and Carthage, 393 and 397, respectively. The second century testimony of two of the greatest orthodox Church Fathers, Justin and Irenaeus support the position that Mary was chosen by God to be the means through which the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (c.f. John 1:14).
Finally, the doctrine of the “Communion of Saints” is clearly stated in the Apostles Creed, which goes back to the 2nd century. Those in heaven are with Christ, thus if we on earth are with Christ, we are all united in Christ, Thus, the Saints in heaven can and do pray for us and have concern for us. For example, in Luke 15:7,10 we see that the angels and saints celebrate the repentance of sinners on earth, consistent with the doctrine of communion of saints. In Hebrews 12:1 we read that we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses”, which is reference to the saints surrounding us. The passages (Eph 2:19; Col 1:12; 2 Thes 1:10; Rev 5:8; Rev 8:3-4; Rev 13:10) all refer the saints in heaven. Numerous passages also refer to the saints on earth [c.f. Acts 9:13,32,41; 26:10; 1 Cor. 6:1-2; Rom. 8:27; 12:23;; Eph. 1:1,15,18; Rev 19:8] . So, the Church, as consists of all the baptized, both in heaven [saints there] and on earth, which refers back to the doctrine of the Communion of saints referred to in the Apostles Creed.
In the Sacred Scriptures, you will see many examples of the Church to pray for each other. As for intercessory prayer, In John’s Gospel 2:3-11, we see that Christ’s first miracle was performed at the request of his Mother Mary. ST. Paul asked the Church at Rome to pray for him to God on his behalf (Rom 15:30). So, clearly ST. Paul believed in the power of intercessory prayer. Are you going to call him a heretic? Again, St. Paul writes “as you help us with prayer, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift granted through the prayers of many” (c.f. 2 Cor 1:11). Numerous other passages in ST. Paul speak of praying for each other (2 Cor 13: 7-9; Eph 6:18-19; Phil 1:19; Cor 1:3; Cor 1:9; 1 Thess 5: 11; 5:17; 5:25; 2 Thess 1:11; 3:1, and 1 Tim 2:1-3].
So why pray for each other at all, if Christ is the only intercessor. Clearly, St. Paul argued that we should all pray for each other [intercessory prayer] which does not detract from Christ as the sole mediator for man before God.
