Posted on 07/03/2014 4:10:21 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "We are not isolated and we are not Christians individually, each on his or her own". Instead, we are all part of the Church, "a large family, where one is welcomed," where "one learns to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus," Pope Francis said.
Speaking in the last general audience before the July break, the Holy Father devoted his catechesis to the Church before a crowd of 35,000 in St Peter's Square. Despite a few drops of rain, he walked extensively among the assembled faithful.
In his address, he warned against those who "think they can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and the mediation of the Church."
In the Church, he noted, there is no "do it yourself", no "free agents." For him, "Our Christian identity is belonging! We are Christians because we belong to the Church. It is like a surname. If the name is 'I am a Christian', the surname is 'I belong to the Church'." Such sense of belonging was born from the alliance between God and Abraham, to whom he donated a great people for his loyalty.
"God's relationship to his people comes before all of us, it comes from that time," and thus, "in this sense, our thoughts go first, with gratitude, to those who have gone before us and who welcomed us into the Church. No one becomes a Christian by himself! Is this clear? Nobody becomes a Christian by himself. Christians are not made in a lab.
(Excerpt) Read more at asianews.it ...
Watch the potty mouthed haters screech!
“God says don’t incorporate pagan practices in worship of Him.”
Of course, in your odd world such very Christian practices as the celebration of Easter, Christmas and Sunday services are “pagan”, right?
There must be someway we can do a better job. God sure warned us it wouldn’t be easy. But we must try.
Amen to that.
We are.
We simply need to use scripture. God’s word will not return void.
And so? At least you now openly admit that you condemn celebrating Christmas and Easter. That you still claim to be Christian is odd though.
“It is, therefore, the Catholic Church alone which retains true worship. This is the fountain of truth; this, the domicile of faith; this, the temple of God. Whoever does not enter there or whoever does not go out from there, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. . . . Because, however, all the various groups of heretics are confident that they are the Christians and think that theirs is the Catholic Church, let it be known that this is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject” (Divine Institutes 4:30:11–13 [A.D. 307]). ~ Lactantius
I have no doubt that to you it does.
And your church is a ?
Lactantius wasn’t very familiar with scripture evidently.
2 Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
I can't recall the details, but Christmas is on the wrong date and Easter (a pagan fertility holiday) was propagated by the Catholics instead of Passover. I stand to be corrected on this.
“he warned against those who think they can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and the mediation of the Church.”
This dogma is one of the reasons why I am not a Roman Catholic.
There must be someway we can do a better job. God sure warned us it wouldn’t be easy. But we must try.The reason you're not doing a better job is because you're leaving the Blessed Sacrament out of the picture.
There is no “church” in scripture. I am part of an assembly of believers as described in the New Testament. Part of the body of Christ having become a member when I accepted Christ as my savior.
You are actually entirely correct and need not be corrected.
Please explain.
1 - Are you Christian?
2 - What denomination teaches these things you seem to recall?
3 - Do you celebrate Easter and Christmas?
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