Give Your All To . . . ? . . . . [A Rel Forum Research thread--Open]

Bible, Vultus Christi, Quix's noggin ^ | 28 APR 2010; 30 APR 2010 | Jesus, Mark Kirby & Quix

[Quix]

GIVE IT ALL TO . . . ? . . . .

--A Research Thread--

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7 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. 8 Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! 9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. 10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today the food we need,[a] 12 and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. 13 And don’t let us yield to temptation,[b] but rescue us from the evil one.[c] --New Living Translation 7And when you pray, do not heap up phrases (multiply words, repeating the same ones over and over) as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their much speaking. [I Kings 18:25-29.] 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 9Pray, therefore, like this: Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your name. 10Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven ([e]left, remitted, and let go of the debts, and have [f]given up resentment against) our debtors. 13And lead (bring) us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. 14For if you forgive people their trespasses [their [g]reckless and willful sins, [h]leaving them, letting them go, and [i]giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their [j]reckless and willful sins, [k]leaving them, letting them go, and [l]giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. --Amplified Pray with Simplicity 5"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? 6"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. 7-13"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what's best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You're in charge! You can do anything you want! You're ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes. 14-15"In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can't get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God's part. 16-18"When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well. --THE MESSAGE

Mark Kirby: O Mother of Good Counsel, Mother of Perpetual Help, I turn with confidence to thy maternal Heart, and I renew my total and irrevocable consecration to thee. I am all thine, Most Holy Mary, and all that I have is thine. I give thee my past with its burdens. I give thee this present moment with its anxieties and fears. I give thee my future and all that it holds. There is no part of my life that is not open to thee, no place so secret, or so darkened by sin that thy presence and thy influence are not wholly and ardently desired there. I want to be completely transparent with thee, utterly simple, guileless, and childlike. Thou knowest, O Mother, all my preoccupations, all my intentions, and all those recommended to my prayer. Take them, I beseech thee, to thy Immaculate Heart and, as my Advocate, my all-powerful intercessor, and my Mediatrix, present them to thy Son. Seeing them presented by thee and held in thy maternal Heart, there is nothing that He will not do to give to each intention the one response worthy of the infinite mercy and love of His Sacred Heart. Praying in this way, I can be at rest, for thou art my Mother, and all that I entrust to thee will be, I am sure, received, and considered, and cared for with a Mother's love. Amen.

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[MarkBsnr]

In 1 Cor. 1:10-17, Paul laments that some were looking to himself and others as their leaders and how improper this was since it produced divisions. Paul declares he is glad he baptized only a few.

That is the gist of Chapter 1. Paul spends most of this letter railing against many of their practices including Gnosticism and quite possibly things such as religious prostitution. Your point is well taken.

Did any besides the apostles have the same authority? Which of them wrote Scripture besides Luke?

What sets Luke apart? Why do you make an exception for Luke? And where is the evidence that Mark is an Apostle? The evidence is against Jude as well.

Or raised a dead person?

Only Peter and then Paul.

In fact, as Paul said, these miraculous gifts were to pass away. (1Cor.13:8)

Does not mean that they ended with the 12.

In Matt. 10:5-9, Jesus sends out the twelve telling them to “..go only to the lost sheep of Israel and..... Heal the sick cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received freely give”. Jesus also commissioned the seventy disciples to “And heal the sick that are therein , and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” (Luke 10:9) That was quite a bit different from the instructions and authority given the twelve.

Correct. But you must also look at the time frame - what the Apostles and disciples were instructed on the first journey, versus the Great Commission.

By the time John died most of those who had been witnesses of Jesus would have been gone. Who would be left that he could lay hand on as a witness of Christ?

We still have not established Scripturally that the laying on of hands was only of those who witnessed Christ. Did Timothy? Did Titus? What about all those in Acts who were brought into the Church? How many of them were?

[Mad Dawg]

I think an important distinction is that between Apostle's and "successors of the Apostles". And it would not appear explicitly in the NT because they other things on their minds.

As for raising the dead, St Dominic did it twice.

So there.

[MarkBsnr]

I suspect that unless St. Paul specifically wrote that St. Dominic raised anyone from the dead, that it will not be believed by our separated friends. Perhaps it might be helpful of the Dominicans to bring, for example, the CofE, back to Christian life.

[count-your-change]

“What sets Luke apart? Why do you make an exception for Luke? And where is the evidence that Mark is an Apostle? The evidence is against Jude as well.”
Luke was simply the example that came to mind. He, not being an apostle, did not have the authority given the apostles at Matt. 10::8 and that would apply to Jude and Mark also.
Even if only Peter and Paul exercised that ability to raise dead persons all the apostles of Christ had that gift.
“Does not mean that they [the gifts] ended with the 12.”
Paul being the exception, I know of no account from the Scriptures that tells of gifts of raising the dead extending after the apostles but as Paul said in 1 Cor. 12:27-31 various gifts were present in congregations..And as 1 Cor. chapter 14 shows the various gifts were for the building up of the congregations.
And these gifts were to end. If they did not who exercised these gifts? Where is the evidence?.

If the 12 had successors who might they be?

By great commission I take you mean Matt. 28:20 where Jesus instructed his disciples to teach and baptize..
In the first case the disciples were to restrict themselves to Israel, the “lost sheep of Israel”, giving them first opportunity. (Matt. 10:5,6)
Acts 1:20-22 shows the the qualifications needed to be counted among the 12 and as time went on fewer disciples would meet those qualifications.

[count-your-change]

I don’t have the ability to read what is in others minds.

What evidence for, “As for raising the dead, St Dominic did it twice.” do you have?

[MarkBsnr]

Since the NT effectively ends before John's death, Scripture is silent as a chronicler after that point. Mad Dawg is a convert and a devout Dominican. I'm sure that he has evidence aplenty. I googled up http://americaneedsfatima.blogspot.com/2010/04/he-raised-30-people-from-dead-converted.html about St. Vincent Ferrer, for instance.

If these and the other saints could raise people from the dead, and you were convinced of the evidence, would you reconsider your position on the succession of the apostles? Rhetorically, anyway?

[count-your-change]

That's the problem with such questions, the “If’. For a question of possibility to make sense it must be a real possibility from the get go.
Secondly would be the need to accept that the evidence was really evidence and not simply fraud and trickery.
Thirdly that the evidence if accepted as such would must lead to the conclusion asserted.
Lastly it would have to fit within some overall pattern of understanding of the Scriptures.

So rhetorically? Perhaps so. The situation doesn't exist so “perhaps” is the only accurate answer I can give.

St. Dominic's legend has him raising the dead, increasing the wine, the bread and curing a woman of seven devils, Satan appears to him as an ape AND a lizard.
Nuns and various others are cured, orders founded..............and he still found time to look sharp. Yes, ahem.

PART III

THE LEGEND OF ST DOMINIC
by Blessed Cecilia Cesarine, O.S.B
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[Mad Dawg]

LOL! That WOULD be a Prodigy!

[Mad Dawg]

Well, the "They had other things on their minds" (which evidently I mis-typed) was a glib reference to the whole "If it's so important why isn't it in the Bible," argument.,which seems to me to assume one answer to one of the critical questions on which we disagree."

I blush to say I haven't done the serious research on (brace yourself) "Our Holy Father Dominic. We have some stuff by a Dominican sister who knew him, and I think Blessed Jordan of Saxony wrote some stuff, and then there are some of the documents from the "process" of his canonization. It's just not high on my list of things to do.

Seriously, I think what Dominic (and Francis) did was quite remarkable --creative and bold. The incredibly humane and sort of task oriented approach to the "rule" is wonderful. Dominic said that if anyone thought that failing in the rule was a sin, he'd go through all the places where the rule was and cut it up with his knife.

I also personally love that as death approached he admitted that he preferred the company of younger women to that of older women.

The stories of his miracles are fun, and they might even be true. But the REAL miracle of Dominic was that he presented an ideal of evangelism informed and supported by prayer and study and community. Being "religious" was no longer just about leading a life of prayer, but was about reaching out, then retreating to study and pray, and then reaching out again.

And after reading some St. Bernard (who writes beautifully but doesn't approve of merriment), I'm happy to find a group where laughter is encouraged, and where staying up late to talk is considered okay:

I think it was when Blessed Jordan was master of the order, some novices got the giggles during Compline (night prayers). Some of the older, stuffier friars were scandalized, but Jordan rebuked them, not the novices. And when younger friars were staying up later, drinking wine and talking theology, Jordan said that that was okay, but they had to pray Compline again before they went to bed.

I'm babbling. I DO think that miracles are far more common than we are led to believe and that our lives are filled with miracles and answered prayers, but we often (usually?)do not notice.

God casts the pearls. We play the role of the swine. Yet He loves us still, "for His mercy endureth for ever."

[Mad Dawg]

Dominic, evidently, was Elvis.

I mean that both he and Francis were quite remarkable. Legends, whether embroidered or not, don't grow up about non-entities as a rule.

But whenever one hears miracle stories, I think it's important to remember that Francis or Dominic -- or Peter! -- would have been horrified if they thought that people thought THEY did the miracles.

It was angels that brought the loaves, not any mojo of Dominic's. And he would never, as I imagine from the little I DO know, let anyone say (as I did) that HE raised the dead. If they were raised, God raised them. Dominic prayed.

But more than 100 years after his death, Dante is covering him with praise. I think both he and Francis were like "judges" whom God raised up when the Church was floundering. And their sacrificial, bold, and innovative response to the stagnation of their era and the encroachments of heresy and apathy was so striking that in an age before PR flaks, they rapidly got reputations which live on to this day. Franciscans may be dull academics, and Dominicans may have sold indulgences (Tetzel was one of ours), but the ideal persists, though more Protestants know about Francis than they do about my guy.

[Quix]

I STRONGLY AGREE.

And earnestly try and live my life that way.

Perhaps that’s been a help to us becoming friends and bros in heart across such a wide theological gulf.

[Forest Keeper]

Wow. And all this time I thought that you were male.

What can I say? Yellow is my color.

[Mad Dawg]

I think that’s right. Jesus isn’t who we think He is. He is who he knows himself to be. We must love Him more than we love our ideas of Him.

BTW, I think this thread is dying.

[Quix]

I think that’s right. Jesus isn’t who we think He is. He is who he knows himself to be. We must love Him more than we love our ideas of Him.

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INDEED. QUITE SO.

on the 2nd, if so, que sera sera LOL.

Pottery calls.

[Ditter]

QUIX Do you have a website where I can see your pottery? I think there are not many things that we can have and use everyday nicer than handmade pottery.

[Mad Dawg]

Here’s one of my favorite early Dominican stories.

The friars were on a preaching mission and they came to a town. They went begging for food and got nothing. So they were sitting around the town well and laughing at their predicament.

A lady of the town saw them laughing and upbraided them for conduct not befitting religious in habits. Between laughs they explained what they were laughing at. She went home and sent a very nice lunch to them.

[Mad Dawg]

Somewhere in Dante there’s the story of a theologian who got to heaven and found out his pet theory was completely wrong.

He laughed himself silly.

[Mad Dawg]

This thread is dying. I’m gonna give it the rhetorical equivalent of an epinephrine heart stick:

Quix,Forest Keeper, and boatbums are all,theological booger-brains! Nyah!

[MarkBsnr]

What can I say? Yellow is my color.

It sure is.

[Quix]

WELLLLLL, DEAR HEART,

I don’t have a website.

I sell a little at the Christmas sale at the Univ.

I give far too much away. Working on stuff for Pastor’s daughter’s wedding 5 June, currently.

I have some on a webshots.com file that I can give private invites to see via an email addy, if you wish to FREEPMAIL me one. It’s a hodge podge of what was around when I was taking pics of some mugs and the process I was making for a FREEPER and his wife.

A lot of my better pieces have not been photographed and have been sold or given away. Some were given away to FREEPERS who were kind & generous to me on the AZ trip around Sedona and the Grand Canyon a few years ago.

I’ll never forget, one of the globular large pots was held by one FREEPER I’d given it to, or who was ferrying it for someone else—about 1.25-2 feet off a carpeted floor—and accidently dropped. It bounced almost like a ball. What a riot.

Anyway—thanks for the honor of your asking. If you wish to share an email, will try and get the webshots invite to see the private file to you within 24 hours.