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To: metmom

Your comment: “The Catholic church is not living holy nor does it represent holiness when it hosts cocaine fueled homosexual orgies.”

1. The Church is not holy because of her members. She is holy because her founder, Jesus Christ, is holy.

When we say that the Church is holy, we do not mean that all of her members have ceased to be sinners and have themselves become perfectly holy. On the contrary, the Church from the beginning, in her human dimension, has been composed of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “all members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners” (CCC 299). Yet the Church, properly understood, is not comprised solely of sinful human beings. St. Paul reminds us that Jesus Christ is the head of his body, the Church (Col. 1:18), and that the Church’s holiness is derived from her mystical union with Him (1 Cor. 12:12-13).

2. The Church is holy because the Holy Spirit (the Sanctifier) lives and dwells in her.

On the Feast of Pentecost, Jesus poured out the promise of his Holy Spirit upon the Church and filled her with supernatural life (Acts 2:1-4). Just as the Holy Spirit dwelt in the human body of Christ, so He now dwells in Christ’s mystical body and makes her holy. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church.

“For just as the body is one has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12:-12-13).

3. The Church is holy because Christ has made of her an instrument of sanctification.

The Church was founded for no other reason than to continue Christ’s redemptive and sanctifying work in the world. By filling his Church with the Holy Spirit, Jesus has endowed her with supernatural life and the full means of salvation and sanctification. He has made the Church herald of his holy gospel, teacher of his holy doctrine, and minister of his holy sacraments (Mt. 28:19-20).

From the very beginning, the Church has been equipped with the means to help make holy the sinners who are found in her ranks. The Church has been entrusted with the holy sacraments along with the God’s holy word precisely in order to be able to help make sinners holy. It was in this sense that the Apostle Paul declared,

“Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27).

4. The Church on earth is endowed with a holiness that is real though imperfect.

There is an old latin axiom, “Ecclesia semper reformanda est” (The Church is always to be reformed). The Church, while possessing true sanctity from her divine source, is nevertheless always in need of reform and purification on account of the sinfulness of her members. She is therefore at the same time holy yet imperfect. The Catechism puts it this way:

“The Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect.”In her members perfect holiness is something yet to be acquired: “Strengthened by so many and such great means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state - though each in his own way - are called by the Lord to that perfection of sanctity by which the Father himself is perfect” (CCC 825).

The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity (CCC 827).

Therefore, when we speak of the Church’s mark of holiness, we always do so in reference to her divine source (The Holy Trinity) and to what the Church was established and empowered by God to do, and not the condition or status of her members.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/on-your-marks-the-church-is-holy


55 posted on 05/11/2018 6:27:43 PM PDT by ADSUM
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To: ADSUM; metmom
The fault with your reasoning is two fold:

1) Catholic does not mean Roman Catholic.

2) Church does not mean Roman Catholic.

56 posted on 05/11/2018 6:34:34 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: ADSUM
The church does not sanctify anyone.

It's not the job of the church to sanctify.

That is God's work through the word and the Holy Spirit.

John 17:17-19 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Acts 26:14-18 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Romans 15:15-16 But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Ephesians 5:26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,

1 Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Hebrews 10:29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

Hebrews 13:12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

57 posted on 05/11/2018 6:36:47 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
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