Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
I'm glad you mentioned this because so many are still attacking the practices of the 13th and 14th century Catholic Church without recognizing or acknowledging that the Church has dealt with its imperfections and continually strives to better reflect the perfection of God.
Yes..google..Luke icon Mary.. there are many there to see.
Why not confess our sins to God?
Why not indeed? Sacramental confession is confession to God. However, it pleased Jesus to put a man whom He sent to hear the confession, pray for the sinner and make the decision on the absolution. What oyu really seem to ask, why not confess sins to God in a private prayer and bypass the mediation of a priest? Well, the question then becomes, in doing so would you be avoiding the mechanism of confession that Christ has set up through His Church, or would you be acting out of necessity? If the former, then whatever happens to the sin you intended to privately confess, you likely have added another sin, that of knowingly disobeying the Church for convenience or out of shame. I cannot say for sure if direct confession to God ever works. It very well might. However, not once but many times does the Gospel encourage us to confess our sins TO someone, to one another (James 5:16) or to a priest (John 20:23, 2 Corinthians 5:18). As someone who did it many times, I can report that the apparatus of confession set up by the Church is indeed wonderful. First, unlike in a private prayer, you cannot be evasive about the nature and the manner of the sin, because while God sure knows it all, the priest does not know. He needs to be told, he is no clairvoyant. Second, you get the correct disposition of apologizing to someone whom you hurt, with the attendant to is natural humiliation, and any sin hurts the entire Church. Third, you get to educate yourself on what sin is. At times, you would confess something and the priest will ask questions and help you understand what exactly happened with your soul. He might determine that there has been no sin, or that the sin was in something else that escaped my examination of conscience; being himself a sinful man he will offer advice on how to combat a recurrence of that sin.
Regarding the Purgatory, we know that the sins cleansed there are our works of stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12) that have been generally done on the foundation of Christ, but were not fit to enter heaven. Hence, these are what the Church collectively terms "venial" sins. Rather than getting into legalism of what is venial and what is mortal, I gave a commeon sense description of what kind of sin might be unconfessed yet deserving of pardon.
Let me repeat that there is no impediment to confessing a venial sin; one should not try to bucketize his sins into venial and mortal during his examination of conscience, but simply get a clear picture of what exactly the sinful act was in violation of the law of God.
Magic!
We discussed it before. The dispute with Galatians was about circumcision, a distinctly Jewish ritual of no salvific value. It has nothing to do with Baptism, since we know, from scripture, that the Church considered basptism a necessary sacrament for the entry into the Church. Why the Church dispensed with the circumcision but converted the baptism of John into its own, is not for us to decide; I suppose as a non-Catholic you could invent a counterbaptist church (or Anabaptist, or Senior Citizen Baptist, or We Card for Baptism Baptist), but I as Catholic will stick with what the Apoostles taught and did. Baptism is explained as new birth in John 3; the baptismal rite is essentially simulated drowning and resurgence, a perfect expression of the work of grace that produces a new creation, a Christian man out of a natural man (1 Corinthians 15:44).
What do soldiers do in Afghanistan, when there are no priests in the firefights?
Anyone, for example a soldier dying in battle, should rely on the sanctifying grace of God to bring him to salvation. He should remember to apply his own suffering for a higher cause to the suffering of Christ (Col 1:24). He should try to reach his chaplain and obtain the last rites i fhe is in danger of death; if that is impossible he should pray for forgiveness of his sins and ask Jesus to save him. Hail Mary is the prayer that is best suited for this occasion, as it asks Our Lady to pray when we, wracked with fear and pain, cannot pray. If Our Blessed Mother Mary elicits too much negative connotation in the mind of the soldier, -- for which mindless anti-Catholic mariophobic bigotry will have much to answer -- then perhaps he could resort to this simple prayer:
"Lord Jesus Christ, our God, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner".
In less dire circumstance, when sacramental confession is not available yet the sin weighs, -- even if the intention is to confess next Saturday afternoon, -- there is the so-called Act of Contrition. Now, I have personally a problem with is how it is commonly known. It is not a dogmatic problem, but it does have several versions, and all are too ornate for my modern taste. So I will quote here a version that is to the point, exposes the logic of the Act well, and has never been corrected when I recited it at my own confessions (sometime, the priest would ask it to be said right in the confessional).
Lord,I am sorry for my sins because I fear the punishment of Hell.
But more than I fear the punishment, I detest [or hate] my sin because I offended Thee and I love Thee [here bring to mind the suffering of Christ Whom the Romans offended].
I pray with Mary ever virgin, all apostles and saints that Thee forgive me my sins, and with Thy help I will not sin again.
Well, I do think there are some who use idols and images as something to sort of hang onto...it’s a need somehow.
Though I cannot understand it, especially when some of these idols are disturbing and the way the church “decorates” them all over the place, giving it a look of a museum...well, I suspect for some it’s a matter of taste in decor. For others who are in the catholic faith..no choice the idols are all over, you can’t miss them.
It is and always will be the elevation of these over Christ I so object to...and even if the people can’t see this, it doesn’t change the fact it affects the free flow of communication between Christ and the individual.
For you.. you say it enhances..that then is between you and God to sort out MadDawg.
In the English language, that I used in 3623, "Redeeming God" means "God Who redeems".
Well, I am with you on this. We don’t bow to just any statue, but to a statue of a saint we do bow. “Do” as in “have the custom of”, and “are encouraged to”, that it, without obligation but at will.
Next time a Catholic tries to minimize that practice, flag me, and I’ll shame him for your enjoyment.
Some Scot-Irish lines can be difficult. I have a few, they married Moravian, Baptist, Lutheran or even Quakers and so were not the typical Presbyterian much beyond the mid-late 1700’s.
One thing to remember is, they migrated in groups of friendly or even related families, and married amongst their own for decades after removing, more often than not. My direct paternal English line came to St. Mary’s City in Maryland in the mid-1600’s, and the same ten or twenty family names pop up when they left St. Mary’s for Fairfax County, VA, and also when they left there for where I’m sitting right now, a couple of decades before the Revolution.
Early Maryland history is a fascinating study, too. Established as a haven for Catholics, by Catholics, the only such colony of the 13, who were otherwise overwhelmingly Protestant. There were upheavals, wars of which we’re no longer aware, because the history is just not taught. The English Civil War had it’s counterpart on this continent, in The Puritan Wars between Maryland and Rhode Island.
I love history, genealogy was the impetus for most of it, and religion played a huge role in everything. You should give it a try, it’s not so difficult as it once was, what with so many census records, church records, etcetera, being transcribed and available online.
I found my way to that earliest known mention of my paternal surname through early Church Rolls in England, transcribed from Latin. I learned German to be able to read the Daily Diaries of the Brethern (Bretheren) of the Moravian Church, otherwise known as Unitas Fratrum. Found a Scots-Irish ancestor in those meticulous daily diaries in German, of my fourth great grandfather being kidnapped, along with his mother, by Cherokee and carried off to the Cherokee town on the Dan River. He was orphaned during the final rescue attempt that was mounted, and his mother disappeared. We assume she was herself Cherokee, otherwise they’d have been killed like everybody else was.
This is getting badly off track for the religion forum and the topic of the thread, so I’ll wrap it up by saying that this fourth great grandfather was bound out to a man, Benjamin Merrell, who became a captain in the pre-Revolutionary “Regulator War” of NC. Benjamin Merrell was captured, hung, drawn and quartered by the British at the Battle of Alamance, more or less orphaning him again. He found a home until the age of majority with the aforementioned Brethern, who had mercy upon him and took him in. Needless to say, his desendants, just as Scots-Irish as he was, were Moravian. Gratitude, you know.
So, that wraps the historical/genealogical back into the religious. For those who found my ramblings tedious or not pertinent, my apologies.
When a non-Catholic has a finger-pointing contest around a Catholic praying to a saint in front of a statue, that non-Catholic has a problem, which I might have time to address. When a non-Catholic due to limited cognitive skills invents a situation that involved a Catholic but was not as she describes, I would expect that Catholic and not myself to pick the issue up. But when a Catholic says “I was just looking for a hairpin I dropped, never mind that” then I have a problem I very much want to address, because it concerns me directly. Hopefully, the issue is moot.
You do not think Christ would exalt in an image portraying the sacrifice He made to redeem us.
Odd.
Of course not. To worship an idol is a great sin. The discussion was about venerating Holy images of Jesus and saints. Any quotes on that?
Jesus is not an image...Jesus is real...'
So are the Holy Images. But all I did was quote the Bible.
That is fine. I ejoy illogical posts misinformed posts. No trouble at all.
Hello Mr. Rogers...I’ve just spent considerable time on this piece you linked. Some great information there though I have to get past the Latin Vulgate’s beginnings. Very interesting, and I look forward to the rest. Thank you for posting this.
Yes, RnMomof7, you are correct. Baptism is remitting the Original Sin, no quesiton about it. It also makes a new creation and brings the child into the Church. If I sounded like I minimized one part at the expense of others, I stand corrected.
PERHAPS
this thought experiment will pry loose a few extra synapses . . . toward increased understanding of my perspective.
PRETEND . . .
since some seem to think that I’m the chief torturer anyway . . .
JUST IMAGINE, PRETEND, that I was the fellow who’d put YOU on such a cross and tortured you to death.
Would YOU then TREASURE a brass reminder of Quix’s treatment of you?
############
I realize that given various givens, I may never live down this THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ILLUSTRATION . . .
however, in the interest of theological understanding, I’ll yet again put myself on the line even with some of the hostile cliques.
Hmmm ... Thanks for the ping!
OK. THX.
However, one interested in the entirety of the teaching of the Church would do very well to read and understand the Catechism. If our detractors did, we'd all go home early.
If I took example from Christ, I would. He did.
But if I was supernaturally happy being in the presence of God, I wouldn't be for long if I started looking down here to see what was going on. :) I would definitely have tears.
Yup. So you answered your own question.
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