Posted on 11/23/2011 11:11:08 AM PST by marshmallow
A notoriously 'gay-friendly' parish in San Francisco has invited an openly homosexual Episcopalian cleric to lead an Advent Vespers service.
Most Holy Redeemer parish asked Bishop Otis Charles, a retired Episcopalian prelate, to lead the November 30 service. After serving as the Bishop of Utah from 1971 to 1993, he publicly announced that he is homosexual. Divorced from the mother of his 5 children, he solemnized a same-sex union in 2004.
So you are depending on the Church to save you?
Nope.
In order to know His LOVE, God SENT His one and only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him might have everlasting life. He determined the exact times and place for us to live to make it easiest for us to reach out for Him and find Him, He called us, He convicted us, He enlightens us, He did for us what we cannot do for ourselves, He empowers us to live a victorious Christian life by the power of the Holy Spirit which He gave us to reside in us and with whom He seals us until the day of redemption.
The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE (NOT anger), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control....
He shows us compassion as a father shows compassion to His children and does not treat us according to our sins nor repay us according to out iniquities.
This is the God the Christian serves. Not a God of anger and wrath.
Psalm 103:8-14 8The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. 13As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. 14For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
With my Son I have intervened so many times to appease the wrath of the Father. I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood, and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls.
It keeps getting back to what I've said earlier. Catholicism teaches a God of anger and wrath, ready to zap people the minute they make a mistake. Catholics are always living on the edge, never knowing when they're going to tick God off and too bad for them.
What a lopsided view of God to live with.
Romans 8:31-39 31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That’s it, mm. THAT’S the one for this discussion! God is SO good...
smvoice
“what’s the point of this mental excercise”?
great question.
for those who tuned in late, i challenged those that deny the Catholic Faith to name just one Christian from the 3rd century and one from the 6th century.
we know from Scripture, the Church is the Body of Christ, that Jesus said He would be with us always and that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church.
logically then, you must believe one of two things about the Church:
1. The Church went apostate before the 3rd century and therefore you can’t name one Christian because there weren’t any alive, or
2. There have been Christians alive continuously from 33ad to the present.
The Mormons hold to option one, if the so called Christians who couldn’t name even one Christian from the 3rd and 6th centuries agree with the Mormons, they should just say so.
But, if they agree with option 2, what does it say that they can’t or won’t even name 2 Christians from these 2 centuries?
What it says to me is:
a. if they name someone who was a Catholic, they would need to admit Catholics can be Christian and they risk losing all credibility with all those who have so much time invested in the Catholics as pagan bs, or
b. if they name a non-Catholic, the odds are pretty high the person would be such a heretic ( Arius, Nestorius, etc ), that they can’t bring themself to have to defend the heresy.
so, we get silence.
i think it was Jeff Foxworthy who made a living saying “ you might be a redneck if........”
i would turn that around and say “ you might not be a Christian if you can’t name a Christian from every century from Apostolic times to the present”
if no one believes what you feel makes one a Christian in the 3rd century, you probably aren’t a Christian.
following up on a previous “untruth” that the Council of Ephesus taught the worship of diana ( post #27 ), i am really puzzled how so many “christians” have no trouble delibrately telling “untruths” about 250 Catholic bishops, when the following Scripture came to mind:
2 Thessalonians 2:11-2
“Therefore God sends them a strong delusion , to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
fits these folks to a ‘T’ , even the part about taking pleasure in unrighteouness.
There have always been Christians.
The gates of hell and all, you know.
And it doesn’t follow that all those Christians could read and write, that they actually DID write if they could, and that if they did write, that what they wrote survived.
Lots of speculation.
BTW, ever figure out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin?
You get silence because your whole premise is whacked out and the whole line of questioning is such a stupid waste of time.
Don't quit your night job.
Of course, the Creeds did not invent Christianity, they only articulated and affirmed it.
BTW - These attempts at Socratean cross examination are tedious. If you want to make a point, make it.
Oh ya think? Finally catching on ey? Go back and look at the questions that Catholics have been asking the Protestants.
>> If you want to make a point, make it.<<
You got it! The point is that none of those creeds, rituals, and “official memberships” were required for salvation until long after the last Apostle died. There were no fancy hats or robes, no elaborate edifices, and all believers were referred to as saints. There were no formal alters or screened confessionals. Yet we are told that thousands were saved. The jailor was simply told “believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved-and your house”. You want apostolic succession? Then follow what the Apostles did and said.
1 Peter 2:9-10 9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
No rituals, no long term indoctrination, and no co-redeemer or stand in for Christ on earth. Just a heartfelt belief and trust in the complete and finished price Jesus paid for our salvation.
Or the true believers were quietly going about there business with no flamboyant rituals or public displays. Some even within the organization simply gave their heart to Jesus trusting in Him only not making waves for fear of being tagged a heretic and being burned at the stake.
i don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
this is what a strong delusion looks like.
Christians believe we are filled with the Holy Spirit, that we are the light of the world, a city on a hill that can’t be hidden, that we are to go into all the world plundering the kingdom of satan and bring souls into the kingdom of God, that we are to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, teaching and baptizing.
Christians have the promise that Jesus will always be with us and that the gates of hell can’t prevail against the Church, because Jesus is more powerful than Satan and bound him at the cross.
and yet, we have those claiming to be Christian, claiming they are saved by their faith in Jesus Christ who can’t even name one Christian from the 3rd century and one from the 6th century!!
the excuses are laughable, “maybe they couldn’t read or write”, “they were silent”, etc. etc.
the real reason they can’t name a Christian from these centuries, is they believe in another gospel than historical Christianity and another Jesus.
for example, Christians have be believed for 2,000 years that baptism is for the remission of sins and receiving the Holy Spirit ( Acts 2:38 ). those that reject this Catholic, historical, Biblical and orthodox Faith teach another way, a “sinners prayer” followed by a meaningless and useless baptism for obedience.
they realize they have another gospel, another Jesus than the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. this is the reason so many “untruths” are told and spread on what the Faith teaches. these false teachers say we worship the queen of heaven, or the Council of Ephesus taught to worship diana, or we worship ancestors ( saints ) or we worship statues, etc. etc.
Satan, though bound and unable to stop the Church from taking the Gospel to the world, has thrown everything he can at the Church in 2,000 years. from the Gnostics, to the Arians, Nestorians, Protestantism, Mormonism, SDA, JW, Muslims, Communism, Nazism, etc.
yet, the Church is still here.
unbelieving Jews, who don’t have the Holy Spirit given to them, can name Jews from the 3rd and 6th century.
Muslims, who also don’t have the Holy Spirit can name Muslims in every century from the 7th to the present.
Hindus can do the same.
yet, so called Christians can’t name just ONE fellow Christian from either the 3rd or 6th century.
so they will continue to do the will of their father, who is the father of lies, the persecution of the Church will continue, the “untruths” and smears will continue, the taking pleasure in unrighteouness will continue and the strong delusion will continue.
how should Christians respond to these false teachers?
first, pray for them. pray that the Holy Spirit will give them the gift of faith and they will see the truth.
next, we who are “in Christ”, in His Body, need to love them and proclaim the truth to them. we must proclaim the truth about Jesus Christ and His Church and allow the Holy Spirit to use us for His good purposes.
Satan said:
Genesis 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
The Catholic Church says:
CCC 460 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."
The Creeds (from the Latin Credo meaning I believe) are not a memberships or rituals, they are professions of faith. We have seen you blather on in these threads about what you don't believe, why don't you profess your faith and tell us where it differs from the Apostles Creed. Then tell us if or why you consider yourself in "communion" with other Christians.
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
SECOND EDITION
PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION TWO
THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
CHAPTER TWO
I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY SON OF GOD
ARTICLE 3
“HE WAS CONCEIVED BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY”
Paragraph 1. The Son of God Became Man
I. WHY DID THE WORD BECOME FLESH?
456 With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”
457 The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who “loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins”: “the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world”, and “he was revealed to take away sins”:70
Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?71
458 The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God’s love: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”72 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”73
459 The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”74 On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: “Listen to him!”75 Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: “Love one another as I have loved you.”76 This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example.77
460 The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:78 “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”79 “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”80 “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”81
II. THE INCARNATION
461 Taking up St. John’s expression, “The Word became flesh”,82 the Church calls “Incarnation” the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul, the Church sings the mystery of the Incarnation:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.83
462 The Letter to the Hebrews refers to the same mystery:
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.”84
463 Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.”85 Such is the joyous conviction of the Church from her beginning whenever she sings “the mystery of our religion”: “He was manifested in the flesh.”86
III. TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN
464 The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.
During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.
465 The first heresies denied not so much Christ’s divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God’s Son “come in the flesh”.87 But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is “begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father”, and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God “came to be from things that were not” and that he was “from another substance” than that of the Father.88
466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed “that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.”89 Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: “Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”90
467 The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:
Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin”. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.91
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.92
468 After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that “there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.”93 Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: “He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity.”94
469 The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:
“What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed”, sings the Roman Liturgy.95 And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: “O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!”96
IV. HOW IS THE SON OF GOD MAN?
470 Because “human nature was assumed, not absorbed”,97 in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ’s human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ’s human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from “one of the Trinity”. The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:98
The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.99
Christ’s soul and his human knowledge
471 Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul.100
472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, “increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man”,101 and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience.102 This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking “the form of a slave”.103
473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God’s Son expressed the divine life of his person.104 “The human nature of God’s Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God.”105 Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father.106 The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts.107
474 By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal.108 What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal.109
Christ’s human will
475 Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but cooperate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation.110 Christ’s human will “does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will.”111
Christ’s true body
476 Since the Word became flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ’s body was finite.112 Therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the seventh ecumenical council (Nicaea II in 787) the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate.113
477 At the same time the Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus “we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see.”114 The individual characteristics of Christ’s body express the divine person of God’s Son. He has made the features of his human body his own, to the point that they can be venerated when portrayed in a holy image, for the believer “who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one depicted”.115
The heart of the Incarnate Word
478 Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: “The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me.”116 He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation,117 “is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings” without exception.118
IN BRIEF
479 At the time appointed by God, the only Son of the Father, the eternal Word, that is, the Word and substantial Image of the Father, became incarnate; without losing his divine nature he has assumed human nature.
480 Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.
481 Jesus Christ possesses two natures, one divine and the other human, not confused, but united in the one person of God’s Son.
482 Christ, being true God and true man, has a human intellect and will, perfectly attuned and subject to his divine intellect and divine will, which he has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
483 The Incarnation is therefore the mystery of the wonderful union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Word.
70 1 Jn 4:10; 4:14; 3:5.
71 St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. catech 15: PG 45, 48B.
72 1 Jn 4:9.
73 Jn 3:16.
74 Mt 11:29; Jn 14:6.
75 Mk 9:7; cf. Dt 6:4-5.
76 Jn 15:12.
77 Cf. Mk 8:34.
78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.
81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4.
82 Jn 1:14.
83 Phil 2:5-8; cf. LH, Saturday, Canticle at Evening Prayer.
84 Heb 10:5-7, citing Ps 40:6-8 ([7-9] LXX).
85 1 Jn 4:2.
86 1 Tim 3:16.
87 Cf. 1 Jn 4:2-3; 2 Jn 7.
88 Council of Nicaea I (325): DS 130, 126.
89 Council of Ephesus (431): DS 250.
90 Council of Ephesus: DS 251.
91 Council of Chalcedon (451): DS 301; cf. Heb 4:15.
92 Council of Chalcedon: DS 302.
93 Council of Constantinople II (553): DS 424.
94 Council of Constantinople II (553): DS 432; cf. DS 424; Council of Ephesus, DS 255.
95 LH, 1 January, Antiphon for Morning Prayer; cf. St. Leo the Great, Sermo in nat. Dom. 1, 2; PL 54, 191-192.
96 Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Troparion “O monogenes.”
97 GS 22 § 2.
98 Cf. Jn 14:9-10.
99 GS 22 § 2.
100 Cf. Damasus 1: DS 149.
101 Lk 2:52.
102 Cf. Mk 6 38; 8 27; Jn 11:34; etc.
103 Phil 2:7.
104 Cf. St. Gregory the Great, “Sicut aqua” ad Eulogium, Epist. Lib. 10, 39 PL 77, 1097A ff.; DS 475.
105 St. Maximus the Confessor, Qu. et dub. 66: PG 90, 840A.
106 Cf. Mk 14:36; Mt 11:27; Jn 1:18; 8:55; etc.
107 Cf. Mk 2:8; Jn 2 25; 6:61; etc.
108 Cf. Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:18-20, 26-30.
109 Cf. Mk 13:32, Acts 1:7.
110 Cf. Council of Constantinople III (681): DS 556-559.
111 Council of Constantinople III: DS 556.
112 Cf. Council of the Lateran (649): DS 504.
113 Cf. Gal 3:1; cf. Council of Nicaea II (787): DS 600-603.
114 Roman Missal, Preface of Christmas I.
115 Council of Nicaea II: DS 601.
116 Gal 2:20.
117 Cf. Jn 19:34.
118 Pius XII, encyclical, Haurietis aquas (1956): DS 3924; cf. DS 3812.
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