Posted on 10/22/2011 1:21:35 PM PDT by NYer
Catholics get a bad rap for thinking we somehow “merit” or “earn” our own sanctification (and salvation) through “works” that we do. But that’s a misunderstanding of what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Our sanctification (our being made holy) happens only by the Grace of God. But it does require a response on our part. We must cooperate with it. This submission to and cooperation with God’s Grace, Catholics call a “work” and it takes various forms.
Some identify this response to God’s grace as a kind of “saving” or “justifying” faith (a faith that produces or is accompanied by works of conversion, hope and charity) as opposed to a “work” – something we do. Such a position is reconcilable with Catholic teaching once we understand each side’s terminology. On the other hand, I think it’s confusing to refer to this cooperation with and submission to God’s Grace as simply “faith alone” – which is one reason Catholics don’t refer to it that way (and probably one reason the Bible says we are “not” saved by “faith alone” – James 2:24).
Anyway, here Fr. Barron speaks a little bit about some of these sanctifying practices of the Church and what we mean by “Purgatory” (an extension of that sanctification) in the super-natural sense.
What the Church means by purgatory? - Watch You Tube Video
This exclusive preview clip was from CATHOLICISM, Episode X: “WORLD WITHOUT END: THE LAST THINGS”.
Explore the Church’s conviction that life here and now is preparation for an extraordinary world that is yet to come – a supernatural destiny. Father Barron presents the Catholic vision of death, judgment, heaven, hell and purgatory as he journeys to Florence, Ireland and Rome.
The vision of the Church sees beyond this world and invites us to consider a world without end. Father Barron shows how this vision is supported by the mystery and truth of the Resurrection of Jesus.
View exclusive preview clips from all episodes of the CATHOLICISM series coming out in Fall 2011.
Why do people do this?
Please tell me EXACTLY, with URL and/or footnotes, where you find that that is our teaching. I deny it. I say we do not teach it. I say you speak falsehood.
PROVE me wrong or cut it out.
No gotchas here. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it.
That's attractively and misleadingly vague. The point made concomitantly was that we omitted the commandment about graven images and the like. Then, some family's catechetical business's page was adduced -- as proof, mind you, as proof, as an official site.
Then, when I said some private family catechetical business was a ludicrous piece of evidence for the Church's "official" stand, there ensued much conversation about how hard it is to find what we really teach. I attempted to address that in an answer which appears to have been ignored in favor of complaining.
I'm beginning to think that at least part of the problem is that people are not so much interested in the truth of what we teach as they are in finding something wrong with it. Sentence first, trial afterwards.
May God bless you and strengthen you for the defense of the faith.
Of course not. Jeeze! It means find another source and work with it. How hard is that?
Thank you.
Sometimes I think I haven’t even reached defending “the faith” yet. Apparently I haven’t successfully made the case for judicious and fair use of reason.
These things can be debated, and the gentleman who professes his love for us while he slanders us MIGHT consider that worshipping on the first day of the week could be done with the intention of obeying God, not trumping Him. He MIGHT admit that IHS's saying that he came to fulfill the Law is subject to more than one interpretation. (I wonder if he circumcizes in his group. After all, that is arguably an older commandment than observing the Sabbath or any of the Decalogue -- and early seems to mean authoritative to him.) He might mull over the idea that those he loves so much(you know the ones who mutilate scripture and defy God, but he DOES love them in spite of their despicably vicious and prideful lives) might disagree with him about what the gift of Spirit, Scripture, and Apostolic mission add up to.
But he chose the other way.
None of us has managed to get that across effectively. Either that, or it’s not welcome information.
“May God bless you and strengthen you for the defense of the faith.”
I join in this prayer.
I agree; they are compelled to defend their master and have great liberty to use the Bible to do so, as long as they do not contradict her (although engaging former RCs like me was once disallowed, and might even be compelled by physical force to recant*), in their goal of persuading you not to look to Scripture as the supreme authority, but to Rome.
As you may be familiar with,
“What Catholics do believe is that the church, not the individual, must interpret and explain Christ’s teaching, including those set forth in the Bible. Christians outside the Catholic fold do not of course accept this authority, but for Catholics it eliminates the doubts, confusion and misunderstanding which inevitably results from individual interpretations.”
“Once he does so (joins the Catholic church), he has no further use for his reason. He enters the Church, an edifice illumined by the superior light of revelation and faith. He can leave reason like a lantern at the door.”
“The intolerance of the Church toward error, the natural position of one who is the custodian of truth, her only reasonable attitude makes her forbid her children to read or to listen to heretical controversy, or to endeavor to discover religious truths by examining both sides of the question. This places the Catholic in a position whereby he must stand aloof from all manner of doctrinal teaching other than that delivered by his Church through her accredited ministers.”
“The reason of this stand of his is that, for him, there can be no two sides to a question which for him is settled; for him, there is no seeking after the truth: he possesses it in its fulness, as far as God and religion are concerned. His Church gives him all there is to be had; all else is counterfeit..
“Holding to Catholic principles how can he do otherwise? How can he consistently seek after truth when he is convinced that he holds it? Who else can teach him religious truth when he believes that an infallible Church gives him God’s word and interprets it in the true and only sense?” - John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals, Chapter XIX, XXIII. the consistent believer (1904); Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York. [This was back in the days when the stamp meant something]
“Your private judgment has led you into the Palace of Truth, and it leaves you there, for its task is done; the mind is at rest, the soul is satisfied, the whole being reposes in the enjoyment of Truth itself, who can neither deceive nor be deceived....
“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.”
“...outside the pale of Rome there is not a scrap of additional truth of Revelation to be found.”
“He willingly submits his judgment on questions the most momentous that can occupy the mind of man-——questions of religion-——to an authority located in Rome.”
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God’s Church on matters of faith and morals-——this is what all must give..”
“The Vicar of Christ is the Vicar of God; to us the voice of the Pope is the voice of God. This, too, is why Catholics would never dream of calling in question the utterance of a priest in expounding Christian doctrine according to the teaching of the Church;”
“He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” —“Henry G. Graham, “What Faith Really Means”, (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )]
*”We furthermore forbid any lay person to engage in dispute, either private or public, concerning the Catholic Faith. Whosoever shall act contrary to this decree, let him be bound in the fetters of excommunication.” — Pope Alexander IV (1254-1261) in “Sextus Decretalium”, Lib. V, c. ii:
“That a layman must not publicly make a speech or teach, thus investing himself with the dignity of a teacher, but, instead, must submit to the ordinance handed down by the Lord, and to open his ear wide to them who have received the grace of teaching ability, and to be taught by them the divine facts thoroughly.
If anyone be caught disobeying the present Canon, let him be excommunicated for forty days.” - Quinisext Ecumenical Council, Canon 64
“Do not converse with heretics even for the sake of defending the faith, for fear lest their words instil their poison in your mind.” Bl. Isaias Boner of Krakow (Polish, Augustinian priest, theologian, professor of Scripture, d. 1471)
“Thus, the Church forbids the faithful to communicate with those unbelievers who have forsaken the faith by corrupting it, such as heretics, or by renouncing it, such as apostates.”
“the Church forbids the faithful to communicate with those unbelievers who have forsaken the faith they once received, either by corrupting the faith, as heretics, or by entirely renouncing the faith, as apostates, because the Church pronounces sentence of excommunication on both.” - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica; Article 9, “Whether it is lawful to communicate with unbelievers?”http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3010.htm
On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Article 8. “Whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to the faith?”
Captured heretics, being “murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith,...are to be coerced – as are thieves and bandits – into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.” — Bull Ad Extirpanda (Bullarium Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 3 [Turin: Franco, Fory & Dalmazzo, 1858], Lex 25, p. 556a.)
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html
Some of us took these masters because they agreed with us on things like this passage-- you have the sequence wrong. I don't agree with them because I took them, I took them because I agree with them.
This should keep you busy for days. Or better yet, maybe you should stop being Scooby Doo and trying to solve mysteries. Sometimes mysteries don't exist, they ARE as they appear..
So wanting to rush to the forum with PROOF of somekind that she stumbled on her own petard..:>FOCUS, Judith Anne.
(Thanks for mentioning shachach. Those of us who us Ps 95 as the Invitatory every day (and who know a little Hebrew) mention ritual prostrations daily. So that word is always rattling around my alleged brain.)
(for your amusement: a petard was a small bomb. To be hoist on one’s own petard was to be sent flaying by one’s own explosive. Ow! The suicide bombers took all the fun out of the expression ....)
Read much about Luther and you'll see that was exactly what he intended when he spread propaganda and lies about the Church. He even admits to his lies and laughs about them in one of his books or papers, "Table Talks" I believe it was.
Those who follow in the footsteps of Luther arrive at the same destination. Like Luther they say, "my word is the word of Christ and my mouth is the mouth of Christ". Once people decide that they are in fact speaking for Christ they're pretty much inoculated against ever receiving the Truth or even recognizing when they're lying or deliberately misleading others. That's why such folks don't care whether what they're repeating about the Church is true or not. They've become Luther and as such are dedicated to repeating and spreading whatever lies and propaganda they think will keep others from hearing the Truth.
Of curse they do. When the object is not the truth the means is rarely the truth.
In Christianity we find three elements that have been conjoined into a single Truth; Scripture, Tradition; and Church. These have been disassociated in much of Protestantism. In it's drive to assume the authority over the content and interpretation of Scripture Protestantism has to destroy the authority of the Church. This could only be done by destroying Tradition. But then, what did you expect from a theology cobbled together not by God, but by a self absorbed German theology professor and a failed French lawyer?
"If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given TO ME TO YOU-WARD: How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery..." Eph. 3:1-3
"For I have received OF THE LORD THAT which also I DELIVERED UNTO YOU..." 1 Cor. 11:23.
"For THIS we say unto you BY THE WORD OF THE LORD..." 1 Thess. 4:15.
"Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that IN ME FIRST Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, FOR A PATTERN TO THEM WHICH SHOULD HEREAFTER BELIEVE on Him to life everlasting." 1 Tim 1:16.
I don't know..you tell me. What do you think he thought in that regard? He states plainly that he received everything by the word of the Lord, direct revelations from Christ, for a pattern for those who would believe on Him. He received God's Word, and that is what Scripture is, God's Word.
I love that saying..:)
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