Posted on 01/05/2010 9:46:47 PM PST by the_conscience
I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"?
I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?
LOL!
I saw Torvill and Dean in person after their gold in Ice Dancing.
EXCELLENT WISDOM AND TRUTH in your post.
Thanks.
I quite agree.
I do wonder . . . in all congregations of all flavors . . . how many of the leadership folks are any healthier than the dependent rank and file.
It can be chronically dreadful on all sides.
Braggart! LOL!!!!
Which I'm sure to some on this thread will mean I worship The Woman. Look, I can explain the shrine....honest....
ROBUST BELLY LAUGH.
One of your best retorts ever.
Congrats.
Cool! What was the occasion?
I gather reading comprehension on those posts is still a troubling work in progress.
I mean when you all read the conciliar anathemas, you don't see that they are chiefly aimed at people who are teaching. Sure, as an enquirer one might legitimately question, say, the nature of the Sacrament, the relationship between faith and works, the names of the books in the canon of Scripture. But if somebody gets up and proclaims, as if with authority, something the Church finds to be wrong, certainly the Church has the duty first to say the teaching is wrong and then, much much later, to say that teacher is no longer permitted to claim to represent the Church.
If some flamer somewhere puts up a web-site which recommends sacrificing chickens before an image of Our Lady of Fatima, what exactly do you think the Church SHOULD do, what CAN she do? Should there be a website maintained by the Vatican or the USCCB where we can report heterodox web sites? And then they send the Ninja Jesuits or try DNS server attacks?
If the Church acted like Ralph "Lauren" Lipschitz and sent nasty letters and threats of lawsuits to every one who messed with our stuff, if we COULD do what you seem to expect, then you all would say we were a bunch of paranoid fascists.
It's a little like global warming. When the Algores say that ANY data whatsoever just PROVES global warming, then you KNOW that they're BSing OR that they're a religion.
When everything we do is wrong, then we know that it is a matter of the religion of our antagonists, and that that whatever our response (short of renouncing the Church) it will be folded into the next attack.
Almost the definition of "playing into the pathology," and certainly not especially edifying.
"I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me." - Phil 2
From the ESV Study Bible:
I am filling up (Gk. antanapleroo) what is lacking (Gk. hysterema) in Christ's afflictions does not imply that there is a deficiency in Christ's atoning death and suffering on the cross, which would contradict the central message of this letter and all the rest of Scripture as well (cf. Heb. 9:12, 2426; 10:14). Christ's sufferings are in fact sufficient, and nothing of one's own can be added to secure salvation. What was lacking in Christ's afflictions was the future suffering of all who (like Paul) will experience great affliction for the sake of the gospel, as Paul described, e.g., in 2 Cor. 1:810. (Cf. Phil. 2:30, where Paul tells the Philippians that Epaphroditus risked his life to complete [Gk. anapleroo] what was lacking [Gk. hysterema] in your service to me.)"
I gather some consider that inadequate, since Paul says church instead of gospel. However, Paul's suffering were in preaching the Gospel to the benefit of the church (or assembled...;>).
In context:
"...if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. 24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christs afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me."
5750, well-spoken, Quix.
Of course all Believers and non believers of every label are imperfect.
There's tons of grace for that.
The issue is a tone, an attitude, a mind set, a culture, a habit set
which is wholesale encouraged and supported on the one hand
and dissembled, denied, rationalized, danced around on the other . . .
by folks purporting to be God's representatives and model Christians.
What a surprise!
/s
Neither did I.
I use Merriam-Webster mostly.
Most bigotry comes clad in such rationalizations.
Amen and thank the LORD!
All this Mary nonsense does is turn the lost away from whom they should be seeking, JESUS.
Mary was as clueless to the reality of what was going on as everyone else. Mary had no special status and she was just as dirty and sinful as the rest of us before Jesus Christ came to us, during His time among us and after the Crucifixion.
In all this silly elevation of Mary into something she is not and has never been the lost don't see why God choose to be born in a stable. God could have been born in the Holy of Holies if He choose, but instead He was born where animals defecate. God came to us in our fallen state to raise us up, just as the Holy Spirit indwells our fallen hearts and transforms us.
Don't pull Mary down into your gutter.
Mental health is almost a disqualification for a shaman. He walks the journey with you, ahead of you. He suffers your pain and his own as well. If he seems nuts, maybe he is, but maybe he is facing such challenges that it takes all he has to hold it all together.
On the other hand, the priest, the leader of the agricultural society is about order, measure, finding the TEMPLate in the heavens which he will mimic in the TEMPLes he builds on earth. We need to know when to plant, when to harvest. We need to know to hold back our seed corn.
And the risk, of course, for the priest is serious control issues.
In any event, when I was in the biz, I always had a couple of people "upstream," a Christian shrink and another pastor. I relied on them to yank my chain when I got too crazy.
WHen, as is my plan, I combine in my person the offices of Emperor and Pope, every clergyperson of whatever denomination will have to do something like that OR will have to sit through ten of my sermons. (No one has been known to survive that. They WILL comply.)
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