Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
*Belief* in something does not cause it to happen.
Reality is reality whatever someone believes about it.
Essentially, IF the communion elements are actually changed into the literal, actual body and blood of Christ, it’s going to happen whether someone believes it or not, ceremony notwithstanding.
If the communion elements are strictly symbolic, no amount of prayers and masses are going to make it anything other than symbolic. The priest and communicants can believe all they want that it’s being transformed but if it isn’t, it isn’t.
Maybe you’re looking at an electric hot water heater because there really was a problem with the gas line to it and it had been disconnected.
It may have been a less that accurate way to warn you to not install a gas water heater again.
“When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment.”
I bless you, person-who-goes-by-the-screen-name-Quix.
Once again, I enter here where angels fear to tread.
There can be no doubt that life experiences and personal anecdotal experiences can color our perception of things. This can happen in the sphere of religious experiences in life, and of experiences in our familial history and in our professional life.
And we all know in just the living of ordinary lives that we have a “history” that has left footnotes in our memories.
I don’t need to give my personal history other than to say that I have memories of my childhood and adolescence in the Protestant (mixed Presbyterian and Methodist)milieu.
I have vivid memories of the “shunning” that was my lot with my two best friends in high school who were Baptist and pretty much went ballistic when I decided to become a Catholic.
My neighbor when I was raising my family was the principal of a Christian high school in my area. He had daughters the same age as my daughters, but told me that they could not spend any time together as they believed that they were to “come out and be separate” from Catholics, who were considered to be basically non-Christian.
I don’t choose to dwell on these incidents because the only person that is affected by any negativity about them is me. As my priest tells me: “Bearing grudges is like walking around with a dead fish in your pocket—you’re the only one who smells.”
As to bad or faulty catechesis: I was received into the Church as an adult in 1949. I think even then there was a need for a new look at catechesis and the catechumenate. But the one thing that made a difference for me (personally) was that I never wanted to stop learning about the faith that I had been baptized into. From the time I was baptized up to this moment, I made an effort to continually study and understand my faith.
Teaching in the catechetical programs I was working with I was required to take a lot of courses before I went into any classroom.
I also believe that the Dei Verbum of the VAT II Council documents was the catalyst for a very big up-take in Scriptural studies. It was the impetus for the sprouting of parish Biblical studies, which is now an on-going thing in parishes. I was very fortunate to have had two outstanding Scripture teachers.
It’s only right and good that each generation of those who profess belief in the Triune God and the Redemption of the Cross should always be improving the Message and the understanding and transmission of it.
I believe that this is happening now in the Catholic Church. Not only are we experiencing the uptake of Young Adult groups using the “Theology on Tap” program, but we are also seeing something new in the parishes; there are programs now in which whole families are engaged together in the catechesis of their children. They come together as FAMILIES to the catechism classes and these families and these children interact together on a weekly basis.
There are also small Catholic colleges springing up that are enjoying early accreditation and an enthusiastic student body—the latest one being a Catholic College in Utah.
There is always room for improvement in Catholic education and the on-going transmission of the Faith; and it’s not lacking now.
Meanwhile, the “lay” communities are growing so fast that sometimes there isn’t enough room to accomodate all those who wish to enter. In my Carmelite Lay Community alone there are already 10,000 members and the roster grows every year.
About that book about Mary posted by Quix:
I have a library of over 300 books, most of them the more or less “classics” of Catholicism. These books are some of the best we have in Catholicism, from Augustine and deSales and aKempis, etc., down to Sheen and von Hildebrand and Kreeft, to mention only a few.
None of these books place Mary in any other position than what is Scriptural and is perfectly presented in her “Magnificat” in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
That one small book (which easily could be perceived as in excess),should be used as an iconic demonstration of Marian devotion seems to me to be the same kind of lop-sided “expose” as any complaint about the “misrepresentation” of the UFO phenomena.
Isn’t there something quite wonderfully Scriptural about the Lord’s words from the Cross—the important words of the dying Savior: “Son, behold your mother”-—”and from that day he took her into his home.” This is what we Catholics do to this day—we take her into our homes. We understand the literal words of Jesus spoken to John as surely as we understand “this day you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
I will concede that there is always a need and a time to improve catechesis. The ever-evolving social milieu and culture always calls us to look anew at the absolutes of our Faith and find a way to improve the understanding and transmission of them.
It is the work of a lifetime and from one generation to the next.
Deo gratias.
6. That’s why I think of it as beneath you to cling to that rationalization.
Petitio principii. It is not a rationalization. and to say it is is a personal attack AND mind reading.
NOT AT ALL. For a given sequence of language followed by another typical sequence of language THAT = RATIONALIZATION--to more than psychologists, actually. As Skinner would likely say--one doesn't have to care about what's in the black box; or infer goings on therein. That sequence thing by definition = RATIONALIZATION.
NOW, it is arguable in virtually every case, as to whether the EVIDENT OBVIOUS IS TRULY FACT. However, on the face of it--A RATIONALIZATION is in play. And, yes, of course, this cuts both ways . . . in Proddy land as well.
Besides, given our complex minds, I don't think either one of us wants to put on hip waders and muck about in the other's mind, trying to 'mind-read' therein.
I think what speaks to Proddys that RATIONALIZATION is going on is the knee-jerk application of that phrase "poorly catechised" IN EVERY CASE--100% OF THOSE I've read for 10+ years on FR.
I realize this is going to result in tons more Latin, however, I HATE THE LATIN. I find it arrogant, condescending, obscuring, obsfucating, haughty, cheeky and elitist. English has the largest vocabulary in all of history and plenty words to use to get the most complex or nuanced idea across.
I have given two examples when someone both claimed superior knowledge and went on to say things demonstrably false. Actually, with the false accusation that we withhold the chalice, that's three matters of fact. They do not depend on agreement with the Church or anything of that kind. They are statements about the Church which are simply false.
I UNDERSTAND THAT.
What even you seem to either NOT UNDERSTAND or dismiss overly glibly are the following:
1. As my Dissertation Chairman said--LIFE IS SO COMPLEX, JUST ABOUT ANY COCKA-MAY-MEE EXPLANATION WILL DO.
2. Which, being interpreted in this case means . . . THE CATECHISM IS INCREDIBLY COMPLEX. Y'all keep minimizing that--but it is an inescapable fact.
3. The PRACTICES REGARDLESS OF and often contrary to THE CATECHISM ARE INCREDIBLY VARIED AND COMPLEX AS WELL AS PERVASIVE ACROSS THE GLOBE. This is often denied. However, the cat is out of the bag.
4. Not only are the EXPERIENCES of former RC FREEPERS GREATLY VARIED ACCORDING TO ANY SINGLE CLAIM OF WHAT THE CATECISM REALLY TEACHES, the experiences of virtually all us PRODDYS WHEN WE TALK TO RC'S IN OUR NETWORK=ARE ALSO GREATLY VARIED --PARTICULARLY compared to ANYONE'S SINGULAR INSISTENCE of what the CATECHISM REALLY says.
5. You or anyone has plenty of opportunity to say VIRTUALLY any combination of things are true or untrue and in some significant corner of Roman Catholicism, such would likely be true.
THE SAME IS TRUE FOR FORMER RC'S AND EVEN FOR PRODDYS OBSERVING RC'S IN THEIR SOCIAL NETWORKS!
The Church does permit married priests. I know of several.
The Church does offer the chalice, usually.
.
The Church does not teach anything that would lead anyone who knew the teaching to expect that the failure of the Sacred Body to look like flesh or the failure of the Precious Blood to behave like blood serves to contradict the teaching.
6. However, we have had repeatedly on FR claims of flesh appearing . . . 'bread' and blood appearing 'wine' . . . which, IIRC, was claimed to have even been blood typed.
7. Some of those sorts of things sound like exceptions. Some of them seem to be regional things. Some of them seem to be particular Parish's reflecting their leader's perspectives, sensibilities etc. as is normal for effective, powerful and/or controlling leaders.
8. Certainly it is clear to Proddys and to our minds and observations, ANY FAIR-MINDED OBJECTIVE OBSERVERS, that IN SPITE OF a standard liturgy etc. etc. etc. THERE'S A LOT OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED, OFFICIALLY PROPAGATED, OFFICIALLY MANAGED VARIABILITY (HOWEVER INFORMALLY OR 'with a wink and a nod' or ostensibly under the table or in spite of the Catechism) under the Vatican Umbrella. YOU'VE EVEN ARGUED SUCH WHEN IT WAS CONVENIENT FOR YOU TO DO SO.
These are ascertainable things, and in all of them false assertions were made. Shall I then say the teaching was good?
9. I think that's also a straw dog unbecoming of what I construe to be your above average integrity.
10. YOU SEEM TO TRY AND CONVINCE PRODDYS THAT 100% OF ALL the 10,000's of data points of the Catechism are all LOCK STEP BELIEVED *AND* ACTED OUT 100% THE SAME WAYS IN 100% OF THE PARISHES ALL AROUND THE GLOBE. Laying aside the nonsensicalness of that inferred stance . . . that we PRODDYS FEEL SLAPPED WITH 24/7 . . . AND IT JUST AIN'T SO. CAN'T BE SO IN SUCH A LARGE COMPLEX ORGANIZATION--AS YOU HAVE ALSO NOTED--WHEN IT WAS CONVENIENT TO DO SO.
11. OF COURSE, in ANY organization that large and that spread out and that old, there are going to be SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES from congregation to congregation; county to county; State to State etc. etc. etc. AND ALL THOSE EXPERIENCES ARE GOING TO BE GENUINE, TRUE, ROMAN CATHOLIC EXPERIENCES; AUTHENTIC ROMAN CATHOLIC EXPERIENCES. And it is a very CHEEKY pile of nonsense to pretend, much less INSIST otherwise.
11.1 I can hear some screaming that they can't be authentic Roman Catholic experiences if they are contrary to some tiny corner of the Catechism and THEIR personal interpretation thereof. etc. etc. yada yada yada.
That's not my definition. My definition of authentic Roman Catholic experience is a given typical mind set and more or less accepted body of belief and practice in a particular congregation or subgroup of a particular congregation that endures over time without strict hierarchical discipine to root it out--and usually with abundant hierarchical aiding and abetting said beliefs and practices if not actually propagating them, instructing them and modeling and leading them.
Heck, I was told when I was in protestant seminary that one reason transubstantiation was first put forth was to assure people precisely that it would look, taste, smell, or feel or anything like flesh and blood. So it is even more amazing. As a Protestant I knew the doctrine better than that! Would someone well catechized make these gross errors of fact? And we're not talking about errors of
That's just another illustration of what I've said above. YES! SOMEONE WELL CATECHIZED might well make such gross errors. NO ONE--NOT EVEN THE POPE RUNS AROUND LOOSE WITH EVEN THE READER'S DIGEST PURIFIED CONDENSED VERSION OF THE CATECHISM ON THE TIP OF HIS ACTIVE MEMORY. SHEESH! It's tooooo huge a body of pontifications.
AND, AS I'VE ILLUSTRATED ABOVE, NO TWO CONGREGATIONS, much less different regions are going to provide EXACTLY THE SAME RC EXPERIENCE OR EDUCATION. Sigh.
ABSOLUTELY INDEED.
I believe he can grasp it.
I think in the heat of some discussions, he loses sight of it.
No doubt many/most parish schools are bad.
However, to say that all RC education K-Masters or PhD degrees are all uniformly horrible . . . is a stretch.
To say that all bright students of K-BA/BS/Masters/or PhD degrees are tooooo gullibly clueless than to suck up only the wrong stuff without any intelligent thought about the content is also a stretch.
WELL PUT.
THX.
How about it, Proddys,
Should we give a point and a half (1.5pts) for a very slight increase in creativity and wit
with the snide slams?
I certainly wouldn’t go over 2-3 points.
Thanks for a clear and wonderful and graciously toned post that I don’t have a lot of quibble about.
I like the part about families and children taking their religious/spiritual education together.
You’re welcome.
Interestingly, I never encountered the *us against them* mentality that existed between Protestants and Catholics.
I do recall being taught (and all the Catholics I grew up with believing), that Protestants were not saved and that there was no salvation outside the Catholic church, HOWEVER, there was more pity and compassion about that than condemnation and competition.
Neither was I ever exposed to the Protestant side of the issue with the *evil papists* and *Romanist* mentality. I never felt that I was on the receiving end of that kind of mentality either.
There just wasn’t the bigotry there that I ever encountered that many others have experienced. There were doctrinal differences, but I simply do not recall it causing hard feelings. Each side thought the other was wrong and on it’s way to hell, but just didn’t treat each other disrespectfully for it. It was just a fact of life.
There was no shunning going on because there were just too many other people of other faiths to be able to engage in it successfully.
My reasons for leaving the Catholic church are not my reasons for choosing to stay out of it after I left.
WELL PUT.
THX.
Very good post.
Very good post.
Bless you ,dear broter
Need new keys
I agree...but I also know that when some use the idea that “belief” makes it so it caan get very hairy convincing them otherwise....and I will say this again...the “experience” they have, regardless of the truth of it or not....will get in the way of reality.
We can tear apart wording and what we think an “expereince” might be or not...if one “senses “ anything or not etc.....the idea is they “Believe” it and therefore it is real to them regardless if it is somethign obviously bogus to others.
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