The Gospel at Mass today was the Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican. You know that one?
You guys worry a lot about our supposed sins of "idolatry". In fact, you worry a whole lot more about our supposed sins of idolatry than any Christian ought to worry about any one else's sins. I don't recall spending much of my life worrying about your sins. I worry about my own.
I would like some proof that any of you are at a sufficiently advanced state of spiritual development that you are in a position to instruct any of the Catholics on this thread. Please, each of you, detail for us a time when you committed the sin of idolatry in your own life, how you recognized it, how you repented of it, and how you lived that repentance. That way we'll know you know something of idolatry besides the fact that it gives you an excuse to point the finger. This sin of idolatry must not have any relationship to Catholicism; I want to see some capacity for self-criticism, not "Rome-criticism".
Failing that, why don't you just admit that you're all acting like Pharisees and shut up for a change.
While praying one night I got the idea that it might be helpfull for me to find something to fix my concentration on while doing so. The method I came up with was to conjure a mental image of Jesus in my mind, while praying, to keep myself focused.
After several nights of doing this the Holy Spirit spoke to me. Not in an audible voice as another person speaking and me hearing with my ears, but rather as your concience when you are about to steal that company pen, or walk out of a store when the checkout girl has given you too much change and you know it. The Spirit told me to stop. That I was praying to the image in my head and NOT to the Lord that is in heaven. Upon hearing that I realized that that indeed is what was happening and I stopped. I have never done it since.
You catholics sem to think we just get a kick out of bashing you. Maybee some do; I don't. I am trying to keep you out of hell which is where you are going if you continue to pray to idols, that are no different than the one I almost destroyed myself with. There is no instance in the Bible, either the new testament or the old, not one single verse, where a prophet or apostle has told anyone to pray to, address prayers through or otherwise give a prayer either to be heard or handled by anyone but God himself.
When you pray to Mary, or a "saint", can you even be certain that person is in heaven? Of course not. For all you know that person is in hell. God is the sole judge of man and his heart, yet the Vatican has you address prayers to them as if they are the judge. This is not only unsound it is evil. They are acting as if they are the judge. They are not. They have neither the power to forgive nor condemn, yet when you go to confession, you start the process by adressig your priest with " Forgive me father for I have sinned", then you confess, then he prescribes pennance and you are forgiven. Totally contrary to the Bible. Mathew 23:9 " And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your father, which is in heaven."
Your salvation is in Jesus Christ and him alone, the way to salvation is in the Bible, READ IT. In it you will find next to nothing of the Catholic Church, in fact most of it condemns Catholocism.
Take my word for nothing, I am not asking you to believe me. Believe the Word and Jesus Christ. They are all you need. The Catholic Church is nothing you need.