Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
Now logic and reason are the span of the Whore of Babylon?
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. That’s why I take his word over any YOPIOS rendering of multi-nulti-multi divisionary sects.
They just seem to keep dividing and dividing.
First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (New Revised standard version - Catholic Edition)
First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition)
Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost. (Douay-Rheims)
Notice...PROPHECY OF SCRIPTURE...it DIDN'T come from the PROPHETS' own will or mind. Definitely NOT talking about some reader thousands of years in the future being able to understand the meaning of God's word without a clergyman hanging over his shoulder explaining what it means to him. I think many Catholics have been made to feel they are sinning if they read the Bible and they notice Catholic teaching doesn't match what the Bible is saying.
I don’t think you have much room to nit pick others typos hunting for the slightest goofs that might help you avoid actually having to answer a question. You’re lucky others demonstrate a little more grace than you are willing to give. At least I quoted the same verses you did and it doesn’t change the truth that your “interpretation” doesn’t match what the rest of the passage is saying.
No more than implying the 50 former Roman Catholics were. :o)
Were they ordained ministers? Hahn was a Presbyterian minister and theologian and Staples was an Assemblies of God youth pastor. Their "violation" is okay with you because they became Roman Catholics?
I'm rather amused by those who claim that the Bible is too hard to understand, therefore needs an interpreter so that it's not misunderstood.
Problem is, then, who is going to interpret the interpretation to make sure the interpretation is not misunderstood?
And so it goes, turtles all the way down........
I think God can speak for Himself.
Amen, and do it in such a way as to make Himself clearly understood. There is so much of the Bible that is easy enough for a child to understand, that if one even ignored all the *hard* parts, one could spend a lifetime getting to know God better just from what they DO understand.
Their faith is strengthened as they see what a great and awesome God we have who created a universe of such magnitude and complexity, One whose fingerprint is all over creation from the tiniest nanoparticles to the furthest reaches of space and time.
For the record, this family of a meteorologist, physicists, and engineers, have NO problem at all with reconciling their faith in a Creator God, what is written in Scripture, and "science". Science only further validates Scripture, as if the Word of God needed it.
It's bondage.
ping to post 449
Show us where it says anywhere in the Bible that the earth is only 6,000 years old.
So now we know where the Church got its "burn the heretics at the stake" authority.So you are saying that Mat 16:19 is Jesus giving the Catholic Church the authority to "burn the heretics at the stake?"Yes that would be Jesus that gave His Church that authority:
Mat 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
That is a major enlightening point.
You do know that many of those that the Catholic Church claimed to be heretics were right in what they tried to tell the Catholic Church?
One such "heretic" had the audacity to teach that the earth revolved around the sun, while the Church taught that the sun revolved around the earth. He was burned to death tied to a stake for knowing (and talking about) the truth.
One was burned at the stake for endeavoring to get the Word of God out to the masses. (John [Jan] Hus)
Thank you very much verga for bringing this understanding of that scripture to our attention!
Jesus commanded His followers to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, etc. It's not a responsibility that is to be foisted off on to the government.
And yet too many Catholics vote democratic because the dems are *for the poor* (their words, not mine), which is them abdicating their own responsibility as believers.
If the Church is concerned about social welfare, then they need to do it themselves because it's THEIR job, not the government's.
But that's not what you said.
And besides, they weren't Catholics, they were Jews.
"Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost." 2 Peter 1:20-21
"And account the longsuffering of our Lord, salvation; as also our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction." 2 Peter 3:15-16
What you've never read or freely choose to ignore.....
1 Corinthians 2:6-15 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Doesn’t look like any Catholics can refute what you posted.
All they’re left with is mocking and ridiculing you.
Good job......
“Doesn’t look like any Catholics can refute what you posted.
All they’re left with is mocking and ridiculing you.
Good job......”
That’s usually how it goes. I’ve gotten used to it, so I let most of it slide. Thanks for the compliment!
Catholics are so good at confusing things.
They blame contraception for all the ills of this world, that support for it automatically leads to all kinds of other problems.
What they fail to consider is that support for contraception is a symptom of a breakdown of faith, not the cause of it.
As usual, they are putting the cart before the horse.
And you know this how?
What do you know about how much Scripture the average Protestant church reads on Sunday?
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