Yes. Of course.
You also confess that this election is done without regard to works, at least initially
No I don't. How does that follow?
Yes, we are told to “work out our salvation,” but we are also told that our good works are wrought by God.
True that, but it does not follow that we must not make our own chioices for good -- choose our good works. This is why all these encouragements to good works are in the gospels.
Eph 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.
That is an incomplete quote without verse 10 that again urges good works, and again notes that God will work within you as you work them. It is also universally misunderstood by Protestant to say that salvation is by faith alone when it says what the Catholic teaching is, that salvation is by grace alone.
Pharaoh being hardened has nothing whatever to do with Israel being true or not
God hardened the heart of the enemies of the Catholic Church all the time. This is how Protestantism happened. This does not mean that God decided to slaughter the Jews or made you leave the one true Church of Christ.
Timothy is not just speaking of himself
Timothy is not speaking at all, but rather reading the letter written by St. Paul. However, indeed, while not all of us are bishops like Timothy, many of us Catholics are elected and therefore have the responsibility to "labor with the gospel".
if you hope to be saved by this, you will be in trouble. It says “that we should be Holy.” In other words, for the purpose of making us Holy, not that we make ourselves holy or must be holy to receive unmerited grace.
I know that God will make me holy if I ask Him to make me holy. That is the only way to salvation, for God "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4)
Since baptism is applied to infants by man on the basis of its alleged saving power and ability to transfer the Holy Spirit, it is basically claiming that man can make the choice on behalf of God. But we know this fails, since not every Catholic child is “called, justified, and glorified,” at least if we understand this on a strictly scriptural basis.
The parents (typically) of the infant ask God prayerfully to call and justify the infant. I have no reason to think that God, who can save anyone and wants to save all, would decline the request,-- in due course the child will die a good death and be glorified with Christ and His saints in heaven. What this child does with himself when he grows up is up to him, -- he has free will. He may lose the benefit of his Baptism. Most of Protestants did, and many Catholics. What you need to do, therefore, is come back to the Catholic Church, reach your own salvation and be a witness to others. It is a matter of life and death.
“True that, but it does not follow that we must not make our own chioices for good — choose our good works. This is why all these encouragements to good works are in the gospels.”
It certainly does follow, since if our works our wrought by God, they are not our own works. How can we go to heaven based on our own merits when it is God who is making us work? There’s another problem as well. While we are told to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” we are not capable of being perfect. If we cannot be perfect, and if even God does not work in us that complete perfection, how then do we abide in the commandment of Jesus Christ? It is impossible to do so by our own working. Salvation, then (unless we are all to be damned), must be by grace without the working of the law as the scripture testify, and our true righteousness is not our own, but the righteousness that is imputed by faith (a living faith, which naturally produces fruit, which God works), which itself is the gift of God.
“That is an incomplete quote without verse 10 that again urges good works,”
We’ve already established where good works come from, and nowhere does Paul teach that salvation is determined by works.
Rom 3:23-28 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (24) Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (25) Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (26) To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (27) Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. (28) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
“God hardened the heart of the enemies of the Catholic Church all the time. This is how Protestantism happened. This does not mean that God decided to slaughter the Jews or made you leave the one true Church of Christ.”
The reformation was based largely from Augustine’s works, which are simply an honest teaching of what the scripture says about the true nature of salvation, which the Catholic Church denies. How then am I hardened when Rome asserts that salvation must be through Rome, through a mechanical salvation of ritual and works?
I’ll add that the great commandments in scripture are only two: Believe on Jesus Christ, Love your neighbor as yourself. James calls this the “Royal law,” for by it all the commandments are fulfilled. Why, then, does Rome redefine “works” as obedience to the Pope? Which, by the way, has no unanimous agreement amongst the Early church, or even later.
“Timothy is not speaking at all, but rather reading the letter written by St. Paul. “
Oops, a brain fart.
“many of us Catholics are elected”
You seem to be suggesting there is a partial election of those who are justified. Is this true? Do you believe that there is a partial election, but that there are others who are capable of coming to God who are not elected?
“I know that God will make me holy if I ask Him to make me holy.”
Ask him. Let’s see it done. You’ll be even greater than Paul the Apostle, or any man on Earth that ever lived:
Rom 7:14-25 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. (15) For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. (16) If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. (17) Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (18) For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (19) For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. (20) Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (21) I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. (22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
“The parents (typically) of the infant ask God prayerfully to call and justify the infant. I have no reason to think that God, who can save anyone and wants to save all, would decline the request,— in due course the child will die a good death and be glorified with Christ and His saints in heaven. What this child does with himself when he grows up is up to him, — he has free will. He may lose the benefit of his Baptism.”
If the Holy Spirit dwelling within the Child does not regenerate him nor provide him any benefit, it is more likely that the Spirit isn’t there at all. Everywhere that Baptism is commanded in the scriptures, it is conjoined with either belief or repentance. Baptism, itself, implies belief, since to be Baptized in the name of someone is to agree to their teachings as a Lawgiver, at least in the Jewish sense. John’s Baptism itself for the “remission of sins” was followed by an actual confession of sins and a commitment to conversion. The Child can do none of this, since baptism in and of itself has no supernatural or magical power to provide any benefit, as if the hand of God can be moved by the command of a priest. Rather, it is God who moves, and when He does move, the power of it is self-evident, because it involves a conversion in the heart that, though invisible, is visible through a changed life that is always present.