Why are we spending a MINUTE defending ourselves and the Faith from people whose principle line of attack is to charge that we believe something we do not believe.
If they want to go whisper among themselves about the horrible things it amuses them to pretend we do, we won't be able to stop them.
It must be a major tenet of some theological systems that when Jesus said "take up [your] cross daily" he meant his hearers to understand that THEY would never experience anything like crucifixion, and that if they ever did, it would be a sinful idolatrous act of pride, or somesuch."Take up your cross daily" just means to "Lug it here and there as kind of a nuisance, but don't worry about that pesky self-denial thing. I don't know what I was thinking when I said you'd have to do that too ..."
They accuse us, repeatedly, falsely, and ignorantly, of not reading or studying the Scriptures which we preserved for their perversion and editing. And then when our art shows that we have not only heard, read, and marked but also inwardly digested them they get their knickers in a major twist and insist that we defend ourselves against the charges arising more from their thoughtlessness and arm's-length relationship with the Gospel than from anything else.
Paul was SO prideful!
Galations 2:20 -- "I have been crucified with Christ."
He was even worse than prideful. He encouraged and tempted us to pride as well:
Romans 8:17: -- "and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him... "
How dare, how DARE anyone think that it would be okay to portray that in art! IT's an OUTRAGE. It's InconCEIVable! After all, no one but Jesus was ever crucified. The Romans used lethal injection for all their other executions.
Brother and sister Catholics: They suckered us again. Our religious art merely portrays what our Lord and "the Apostle" said, and yet they try to use our cleaving to Scripture against us, while at the same time charging us with NOT reading Scripture enough!
It's bizarre, bizarre but harmless.
I just finished the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. It’s a beautiful new day that God has given us. (That’s why they call this, ‘the present’)
;-D
Thanks for clarifying the meaning of Paul’s words:”..making up what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ”.
Sometimes the literal sense of Scripture is all that is accepted, leaving behind the moral, analogical and anagogical sense of it.
I disagree with one thing you wrote: “bizarre but harmless”.
Yes, it’s bizarre and also, it reveals the hearts and even the agenda of many. But it isn’t exactly harmless. It becomes a nest of untruths that told often enough masquerades as truth. It becomes what St. Teresa of Avila called the “noiseless file of the devil”. It is a trigger point for sarcasm, bitterness, wrangling and accusations rather than the kind of honest debate one would expect of people who call themselves Christians.
It all reminds me of the Screwtape Letters.