Posted on 04/17/2012 7:04:32 AM PDT by marshmallow
Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his 85th birthday today with guests who treated him to Bavarian “oompah” music and folk dancing in the apostolic palace.
Earlier in the day, in an impromptu homily, the Pope had said: “I find myself on the last stretch of my journey in life, and I don’t know what is awaiting me.”
“I know, however, that the light of God exists, that he is risen, that his light is stronger than any darkness and that God’s goodness is stronger than any evil in this world, and this helps me go forward with certainty,” he said.
Later Bavarian bishops, minister-president of Bavaria Horst Seehofer and a 150-person regional government delegation visited the Pope in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall.
They were accompanied by a small Bavarian band, three female singers and 10 children who danced the skirt-swirling, shoe-stomping, thigh-slapping “Schuhplattler” before the Pope.
The Pope’s 88-year-old brother, Msgr Georg Ratzinger, also attended the festivities as well as representatives from the Lutheran Church and the Jewish community in Bavaria.
The children, dressed in traditional costume, presented the Pope with white flowers and a maypole covered with colourful ribbons. They also recited a German birthday poem.
The delegation presented the Pope with gifts of a wooden crucifix sculpted by a well-known 18th-century Bavarian woodcarver, Ignaz Gunther, and a large Easter basket filled with traditional cakes, dark bread, ham and painted eggs.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
I have observed, over more than a decade participating in this forum, a strong tendency for protestants to misunderstand, misinterpret, and misrepresent comments made by Catholics. I’m not sure if it’s unconscious bigotry (”it’s from a papist, so it has to be bad”) or if it’s willful maliciousness ... but it’s unmistakable.
We all have our biases, its in our nature. Objectivity is a skill that must be practiced and self critiqued. Unobjectivity is a bad habit. I think that in too many cases the practice of parsing Scripture to validate a position can bleed over into reading the news.
There is no doubt that God calls us all to Salvation, yet all are not saved. Some in these threads contend that all one must do to be saved is believe.
Faith is our response to God's call and faith is an act of the will. Is it your contention that we can will our own Salvation or are we to be judged? And if we are to be judged, upon what are we to be judged?
The Holy Spirit. It's nothing I can believe on my own.
And who tells you that you can believe in an earthly institution? And if you want to call the Roman Catholic Church a Godly institution, who told you that?
I'd rather have faith in God than faith in man.
The various parts of the Bible have existed since the beginning of the church. Since the first letters were written, they were read in the various churches and passed around and shared. To think that the Bible was the creation of the Roman Catholic Church is a bit silly. It was written, copied, and collected by Godly men inspired by God.
This truth is not something I believe because a man told it to me, but because the Holy Spirit has opened my eyes and given me the faith I lack on my own.
There have been rumblings about him not being long for this life. Combine that with the state of the world and the St. Malachy prophecy and things don’t look too good.
Really?
Prove it.
I'd rather have faith in God
Oh, that's right. You can't prove it.
You do, however, have faith. You believe it.
To think that the Bible was the creation of the Roman Catholic Church is a bit silly.
Hmmm ... well, it is a bit silly to think that Christians of any sort wrote Genesis, or Isaiah, or the Psalms. I don't know anybody who claims that, though ... seems a bit of a strawman argument to me. OTOH, to claim that the Gospels, or Acts, or the letters of Paul, Peter, John, James were written by anybody other than members of the Catholic Church is just plain wrong.
I have come to expect that sort of wrongness from protestants.
This truth is not something I believe because a man told it to me, but because the Holy Spirit has opened my eyes and given me the faith I lack on my own.
Yep. Faith. Not certain knowledge.
That's OK ... blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed.
Or so it is recorded in the Bible.
Imagine the outrage if the article stated:
Earlier in the day, in an impromptu homily, the Pope had said: “I find myself on the last stretch of my journey in life, and I know I am guaranteed a spot in heaven. I don't know about all of you, but I have one foot past the Pearly Gates already.”
YMMV.
We’ll be finding out soon enough.
From the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew
Chapter 6
24No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
25Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment?
26Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?
27And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit?
28And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin.
29But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.
30And if the grass of the field, which is to day, and to morrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith?
31Be not solicitous therefore, saying, What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?
32For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things.
33Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.
34Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
**I KNOW what awaits me in heaven with Jesus Christ**
How do you know this? Have you had some visions? Revelations from God?
No one knows for sure that they are going to heaven. We are all sinners. (Or are you saying that you are sinless like Jesus Christ?)
**My Bible TELLS me **
And your Bible also tells you that there is a hell and that people will be damned to it.
You cannot make and assertion that you are going to heaven of your own power.
That is the judgment of Jesus Christ at the moment you die.
So HOW can you know NOW?
“Not every one who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
You have deluded yourself into thinking you know with absolute certainty where you're headed. Scripture contradicts you.
"Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall." 1 Corinthians 10-11-12
"Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence,) with fear and trembling work out your salvation." Philippians 2:12
My Bible TELLS me if I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior, that if I believe in the Cross, the Work of the Cross, that I WILL be in Heaven with Him.
Would that be an abridged, heavily edited version of the original?
Agreed, "Many will say to me Lord, Lord ... depart from me ..."
Some in these threads contend that all one must do to be saved is believe.
And if by believe they mean mere acceptance of intellectual facts they would be wrong ... a casual reading of the NT shows that to believe involves both repentance and faith; they go hand in hand.
Mark 1:15 - The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.
Acts 20:18-21 18 You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through athe plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21 solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are many others ...
No doubt there are many who would declare that it is works in combination with faith that saves you. My conjecture is that if you are performing works in order to be saved, you are not saved. You see, when you perform works to ensure your own salvation, those works are done for a purely selfish motive ... to add to your collection pile of "good deeds" that you hope reaches high enough to get you into heaven. If you are required to do them to get there, then there is ALWAYS a sense in which the motives for them, of necessity, is selfish. "I have to do these to get me there ... so I am going to do them, for I must do them."
The true believer is one who has recognized his utter hopelessness before a holy and perfect God, that His judgment rests on him for his unbelief and for his refusal to repent, and for merely paying lip service to His Lordship, for continuing to live his life by his own rules. He repents, turns from his sin and places his trust soley in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to save him, nothing else. When a person does this he passes from death to life, becomes born again, is regerated, etc. Nothing can be added to the finished work of Jesus Christ. The RCC teaches that works are necessary for salvation, and/or that you must atone for your sins in purgatory. (Your own catechism teaches it). This is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, its another gospel.
After the impartation of eternal life, the believer wants to perform works in gratitude for the forgiveness that God has already imparted. The works are no longer selfish, as they are not required, but desired in reponse to what God has done for him. He will have a passionate desire to read the Bible for himself, to have intimacy with God in prayer, to earnestly desire his lost friends and family to come to Christ.
Whether you recognize it or not ... Catholics perform their works out of selfish motives, to build their pile of works hoping it reaches high enough to get them to heaven. A Christian who has been truly regenerated recognizes that no amount of works can get you there because our works before God are rubbish. The Christian performs his works out of grateful adoration for the eternal life that has already been granted.
1 John 5:13 I write these things to you, who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
There it is ... in black and white ... for all to read ... You can KNOW that you have eternal life ... you can HAVE it now (present tense verb) and have full assurance that you will be with Christ in heaven. Not hope for, not wait until you die to find out ... you ... can ... know. If you don't know if you are saved ... then most likely you are not.
The heart of the teachings of the RCC deny this simple truth, and have propogated another gospel since its inception.
Do I believe there are Christians in the RCC? Absolutely ... but they didn't get to be Christians by following the teachings of the RCC.
Amen
LOL! The Catholic Church gave you the Bible and you throw stones?
May God have mercy on you.
Really???
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