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Amen. Nothing says it as well as Isaiah 44...

"Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.
He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:
And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.
They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?
He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" -- Isaiah 44:15-20

Just follow this exchange back, and it should explain why I sometimes think there is no point to this at all.

You may be distressed that no Catholic made the kind of profession of faith in Christ that would suit you. I hope you get that, on our side, there's a certain sense of outrage in being essentially accused by the post at the head of this thread -- Here! Explain THIS, if you can -- and then criticized because we did not all leap to the task of finding words to suit our challengers.

The first temptation is to tell you all -- ALL -- to take a flying leap. And this is especially true because of the certainty that a few on either side use members of the other side as punching bags and because while the nature of almost any good conversation about difficult things requires patience and good will, one can be assured here that very little effort will be made to understand what we say.

The temptation to strut around disparaging the other side is just too great.

You ask:
IF you saw some hideous idolatry, blasphemy that you believed/perceived me or my congregation or Pentecostalism in general to be chronically caught up in . . .
Do you honestly believe I would resist with great hostility and self-righteous affrontedness your ministrations to alert me to such and persuade me away from such?

Maybe not you yourself, but I would bet all I have that there are plenty here who would respond with unwavering and intense hostility to any such suggestion.

I do recall that in this thread someone made some comment about the Holy Spirit guiding the Church and was called arrogant for his pains.

It's not so much the constant insult and derogation, combined with immensely sloppy arguing, as it is the sense of futility.

Were I to see some dreadful thing going on in your congregation -- and don't forget that my being a Catholic implies that I think you are inflicting a hardship on yourself by not being Catholic, I would try to establish some kind of trust and to get to a place where I thought real conversation would take place. If I had not taken the trouble to establish credibility, if I had not been prudent, but rather had just stood around and yelled at you, I would consider myself to have indulged myself at the expense of my hearers.

If the folks can walk away still caring for each other with Christ’s Love, and with increased understanding between them, that’s sufficient for me.
I think a lot of the thin-skinned sensitivity about intense emotions and other such stuff is a sign of chronic insecurity, self-righteous arrogance, !!!!

Well, you see? My retort to the suggestion that I am thin-skinned and arrogant (for such it is, whatever you meant it to be) is to say that I think it self-indulgent to abuse people with whom one disagrees and the excuse the ineffectiveness of the approach by calling them thin-skinned. Is the task before us to live together in charity or is it to find suitable names to call those with whom we disagree?

Serious questions: Why should I care what some people think of my religious beliefs? I am confident that the Catholic Church is "the true Church" pretty much in the sense that that was explained in Dominus Iesus. The very things that your side uses as arguments against that proposition seem to me to confirm it. The responses to arguments -- unimaginative, poorly argued, misdirected -- confirm me in my opinions and prompt me to prayer. Every time the non-Catholics start up another one of the endless cycles of disparagement I am assured that such persistent hostility is not a matter of flesh and blood, but of principalities, powers, world rulers (in the demonic sense) of this present darkness, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

So, 1000 silverlings asks why we disobey Christ? I'll be sure to answer as soon as he tells me when he stopped beating his wife. That little exchange is a fine example, (no offense, I'm increasingly persuaded that a lot of this is unintended) of what I mean.

There are PLENTY of interpretations of Mary's words to the servants who drew the water made wine. To seize upon one and to use it as a cheap attempt to score rhetorical points is maybe something that impresses lurkers. To me it's just jejune.

The repeated, stylized, almost kabuki-like observations that after years of careful study, deliberation, thought, and prayer, somebody has concluded -- surprise surprise! -- that the Catholic religion is an unmitigated disaster ... Fine. Whatever. One way or another we'll all know in 100 years.

I will certainly continue to intercede for you all and to ask the Mother of God to join me in my prayers. If anybody who has given careful study, deliberation, thought, and prayer to this thread thinks it is going anywhere useful, is building up rather than tearing down, I'd be interested in reading those thoughts.

My perception is that not one new argument has been made for or against devotion to the Mother of God. So I'm left wondering what the goals and objectives are here.