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?
If I bowed down to it and prayed to it, and ask it to provide grace and salvation for me, absolutely yes...
What if it sits on my shelf? Is that okay then?
It is my observation from my experiences with family members, acquaintances and my work with converting and former Protestants, that we see Protestantism played out at a micro level in the church shoppers and the store front and house church congregations. The inability to accept an authority other than themselves always leads to doctrinal disputes and animus and personal enmity when others refuse to accept their interpretations and doctrinal theories. Of course there are exceptions, but too often for these, the purpose of "Sunday go to meetin'" is not about God, community and worship, but about ego.
Jesus chose Mary to see if Mary would chose Jesus...Likely then that Jesus chose someone else before Mary and that girl said no...Maybe lotsa times...
And then you guys criticize Mormons for making stuff up???
Can’t say I would agree with that assessment. I used to go to a Mennonite Church for about 4 years, from 2001 to about 2003. After that I shared time with the Catholic church for a year, and then went exclusively Catholic in my last year in RCIA from 2004 in the summer onwards.
I’ve attended non Catholic services three times in the 8 years since then.
... and Mary was born of her own mother in turn.
Jesus Christ was born not subject to original sin. He was fully God. He was also fully human and therefore subjected to temptation, of this scripture amply informs us. He did not, however, sin. Therefore he was sinless in human form, without blemish, within all the Old Testament strictures pertaining to sacrifice.
His mother, Mary, found favor with God, of this scripture also informs us. All else is elaborate medieval speculation centering upon the mechanics of physical conception, but ultimately concluding that God can protect a child from a mother’s sin nature in the womb.
Jesus was protected frpm Mary’s sin nature in the womb.
So if the Catholic church is wrong, what’s the alternative and correct explanation?
Wow! That is all I can respond to this. So Mary didn't die a bodily death? The farther one goes down the Catholic rabbit hole, the more surreal.
The lifeguard who prevents me from swimming where there is a dangerous rip tide save my life every bit as much as the lifeguard who paddles out on a surf board to rescue me from that rip tide. Mary was saved by Jesus when she was preserved from sin. Mary was saved because of Her complete and unconditional faith and cooperation, not by it.
Peace be with you
She was a normal person. She was born into sin. She sinned. God chose her for a special task. And she died a bodily death.
That belongs in the same book as Little Miss Muffet and Tom Thumb...
Jesus had to have been born to a sinful human so he could bear the temptations humans go thru...
Only surreal to Southern Baptards.
That belongs in the same book as Little Miss Muffet and Tom Thumb...
Jesus had to have been born to a sinful human so he could bear the temptations humans go thru...
"Build a man a fire you warm him for a day. Set a man on fire you warm him for the rest of his life" - Jean Calvin
If she was compelled from without it wasn’t faith and cooperation, Natural Law. It was predestination on an individual level.
Where is that in the Bible?
The problem is far more fundamental than you not understanding Catholic teaching, you don't appear to understand worship.
I’m sure there was some purpose for this posting but it escapes me. So somebody else burned martyrs too. What does that prove exactly? Does that excuse it? Yes I read “Matthew 7:5 - for the benefit of those who enjoy pointing fingers of blame”. I don’t enjoy pointing fingers of blame but I don’t shirk from it either. The Catholic Church did many terrible things in the name of God. Jesus did not authorize it. They (the manmade institutions) did it on their own.
“Jesus was protected frpm Mary’s sin nature in the womb.”
This is contrary to what is taught about Christ’s human nature. Christ inherited a pristine human nature that was free from sin. From Mary.
Mary was not compelled, She freely consented. Foreknowledge of Her choice is not predestination.
Peace be with you
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