Posted on 01/18/2012 3:19:15 PM PST by NYer
.- Pope Benedict XVI said today that achieving Christian unity requires more than “cordiality and cooperation” and that it must be accompanied by interior conversion.
“Faith in Christ and interior conversion, both individual and communal, must constantly accompany our prayer for Christian unity,” said the Pope to over 8,000 pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall on Jan. 18.
The Pope’s comments mark the start of the 2012 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that runs until Jan. 25. It will be observed by over 300 Christian churches and ecclesial communities around the globe.
The Pope asked for “the Lord in a particular way to strengthen the faith of all Christians, to change our hearts and to enable us to bear united witness to the Gospel.”
In this way, he said, they “will contribute to the new evangelization and respond ever more fully to the spiritual hunger of the men and women of our time.”
The Pope explained that the concept of a week of prayer for Christian unity was initiated in 1908 by Paul Wattson, an Episcopalian minister from Maryland. One year later, he became a Catholic and was subsequently ordained to the priesthood.
Pope Benedict recalled how the initiative was supported by his predecessors Pope St. Pius X and Pope Benedict XV. It was then “developed and perfected” in the 1930s by the Frenchman Abbé Paul Couturier, who promoted prayer “for the unity of the Church as Christ wishes and according to the means he wills.”
The mandate for the week of prayer, the Pope underscored, comes from the wish of Christ himself at the Last Supper “that they may all be one.” He observed that this mission was given a particular impetus by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) but added that “the unity we strive for cannot result merely from our own efforts.” Rather, “it is a gift we receive and must constantly invoke from on high.”
The theme for 2012 Week of Prayer – “All shall be changed by the victory of Jesus Christ our Lord” – was crafted by the Polish Ecumenical Council. Pope Benedict said it reflects “their own experience as a nation,” which stayed faithful to Christ “in the midst of trials and upheavals,” including years of occupation by the Nazis and later the Communists.
The Pope tied the victory the Polish people experienced over their oppressors to overcoming the disunity that marks Christians.
He said that the “unity for which we pray requires inner conversion, both shared and individual,” and it cannot be “limited to cordiality and cooperation.” Instead, Christians must accept “all the elements of unity which God has conserved for us.”
Ecumenism, the Pope stated, is not an optional extra for Catholics but is “the responsibility of the entire Church and of all the baptized.” Christians, he said, must make praying for unity an “integral part” of their prayer life, “especially when people from different traditions come together to work for victory in Christ over sin, evil, injustice and the violation of human dignity.”
Pope Benedict then touched on the lack of unity in the Christian community, which he said “hinders the effective announcement of the Gospel and endangers our credibility.” Evangelizing formerly Christian countries and spreading the Gospel to new places will be “more fruitful if all Christians together announce the truth of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, and give a joint response to the spiritual thirst of our times,” he explained.
The Pope concluded his comments with the hope that this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity will lead to “increased shared witness, solidarity and collaboration among Christians, in expectation of that glorious day when together we will all be able to celebrate the Sacraments and profess the faith transmitted by the Apostles.”
The general audience finished with Pope Benedict addressing pilgrims in various languages, including greeting a group of men and women from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, before leading the crowd in the Our Father and imparting his apostolic blessing.
Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard [this], said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?So, we see that once again, your quote turns the meaning of the passage on its head. Jesus is prophesying about people such as you: The Jews claimed to put their faith in signs, yet rejected seeing Christ raised from the dead. You put your faith in Sola Scriptura, yet refuse to words of scriptures. There is no proof to you. You see and hear what you will. But it all counts to nothing, because you separate yourself, apparently, from the Holy Spirit. You need faith, but there are things which are impossible to believe in, without the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Christ said, "no-one shall come to the father, but through me." Yet you deny His Real Presence in the world today, in His Church and in His Body, and therefore you also deny the plain truths found within His Word, substituting your own meanings for what he plainly stated. You set bible verse against bible verse, rejecting the interpretation through which they are all true.When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? If ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
And this same Jesus said *I am the bread of life*, *I am the door*, *I am the true vine*.
The Passover meal was a representation of the actual Passover, not the actual event itself recreated.
The bread and cup were foreshadowings of the lamb of God. the Jews were FORBIDDEN to eat blood, period. Consuming it made them unclean because they violated the Law.
No observant Jew would eat blood ever, much less at the Passover meal. That would be sin and make him ceremonially unclean. Jesus could not have partook of the bread and cup if it were His literal Body and blood because He would have sinned and made Himself unclean and disqualified Himself from being the perfect sacrifice for our sins, the spotless lamb of God.
The whole Passover meal and communion is a symbolic representation of spiritual realities. We are to observe communion as a reminder of Jesus' death for us and His promise to return again.
All the verses that Catholicism demand must be taken literally can easily be interpreted as representing spiritual truths with NO contradiction with other Scripture or other teachings of Jesus. That alone gives the interpretation validity over interpreting it literally.
Any physical act that one must perform to earn salvation is a work, plain and simple. Works don't save. Faith does. God wants a right heart, not perfect performance with an impure heart.
What an interesting mix of pagan symbolisms. The sun, the moon, and many of the images associated with the worship of Baal all wrapped up in Catholic rituals.
The blood on the doorpost was symbolic of the shed blood of Jesus just as the wine is symbolic of that same shed blood. The blood of the lamb on the doorpost was no more the real blood of Jesus then the wine is.
It is not I who worships a cracker as my God. I don’t kneel before the symbol of the sun.
>>>>You realize that both the gospels of Mark and Luke are second hand accounts. Neither was an eyewitness or original disciple of Jesus.<<<<
>>...Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, 2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;...<<
Do you really believe Luke happened to be there when the Spirit of God overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary at the conception of Christ? Do you think he was there when she broke the happy news to Elizabeth? Do you think he was there when had Jesus stayed behind at the Temple and his parents were frantic to find him? When he walked through the crowds at Nazareth? Did I miss something where Mary, the mother of James, Mary Magdeline, Joanna and LUKE went to the tomb?
Luke says, “us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses.” This means that among them were eyewitnesses to each event, not that he, personally, was an eyewitness. Jvette is entirely correct: Neither Mark were among the 12. They were not at the Last Supper; they were not at the Resurrection; they were not among the disciples when Jesus appeared to the 11 in the upper room.
(In fairness, though, Jvette, Mark was probably one of the 40, and he is believed to have written under the authority of Peter... not that I expect Cynical Bear to accept the implications of that fact.)
>> All the verses that Catholicism demand must be taken literally can easily be interpreted as representing spiritual truths... <<
IOW, we can believe what Jesus said as long as we understand that what he meant was something different than what he said. What’s sad is that you guys are the ones who insist on Sola Scriptura, and yet we’re the ones who refuse to throw out chunks of the bible. Even stranger, the parts of the bible you’d like to throw out are the ones that Jesus says, “Yea, verily, I say this to you,” and the Jews are weirded out, supposing he MUST mean something else, and he tells them, essentially, “yeah, I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
Were any of the apostles? What a nonsensical question. A strawdog perhaps?
>> This means that among them were eyewitnesses to each event, not that he, personally, was an eyewitness<<
Well that would have to be your story to maintain the façade. Truth however is a little more illusive isn’t it. Ever hear of the seventy disciples? I wonder why the Greek Orthodox church has a “Feast of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke” but Catholics claim he wasn’t a disciple of Christ? Luke spent an inordinate amount of time with Paul even to being the only one with him when Paul was in prison. He was Paul’s special companion.
>> Were any of the apostles? What a nonsensical question. A strawdog perhaps? <<
LOL! For starters, it’s called a “straw man.” And no, my questions aren’t straw men. If your position is that Luke is reporting what he’s seen, then he must have seen this. That’s obviously not true. Luke was with John at Ephesus at the same time the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary was. Presumably, she is part of “us.”
>> Well that would have to be your story to maintain the façade. Truth however is a little more illusive isn’t it. Ever hear of the seventy disciples? I wonder why the Greek Orthodox church has a “Feast of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke” but Catholics claim he wasn’t a disciple of Christ? Luke spent an inordinate amount of time with Paul even to being the only one with him when Paul was in prison. He was Paul’s special companion. <<
Absolutely true. But that doesn’t mean that Luke was witness to any of the things I said he couldn’t have been witness to. THAT’S the straw man, here. I never said Luke witnessed NOTHING. But he didn’t witness the most important parts: He didn’t witness the Nativity, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. He very well might have been one of the 70. But the Greeks don’t assert he was when they call him a “Holy Apostle.” They call loads of people apostles, including Ss. Cyril and Methodius.
The Greek Orthodox of Diocese of America simply leaves the issue of whether he was one of the 70 at this: “There is a tradition that Luke was one of the Seventy Disciples that the Lord Jesus Christ sent before Him.” (You’ll note that they do NOT say ‘Tradition holds that...’ That indicates that they’re not insisting that this tradition consists of sacred Tradition.)
I believe Jesus Christ.
Others are free to play games, babble like children about crackers, wafers, or whatever sort of hokum they prefer to His Word. Such folks often try that sort of thing to divert attention away from their own admission that they do not believe Jesus Christ and, in fact, think Jesus Christ is a liar. Such folks are free to proclaim that they will not "bend a knee", as some say, to anyone or anything other than their own Most High and Holy Self if that's what they prefer to worship rather than Jesus Christ the Son of God, God from God, incarnate in the flesh. Such folks can even burble allusions to the well known lies they routinely repeat, the fables they prefer to Truth, and whatever else they think will hide the fact that they are not Christian since they believe Jesus Christ is a liar. And as everyone knows, if someone believes Jesus Christ is a liar then they cannot be a Christian who believes Jesus Christ is God incarnate. Maybe they believe Christ was just like their fellow voodoo pratitioners and allowed a spirit to ride Him from time to time, maybe like the Watchtower and LDS crowd they believe Christ is one of many gods. They may even believe they are personally god since they do worship their own, Most High and Holy Self. However, if they believe that Jesus Christ lied they do not believe in Jesus Christ as God.
Whatever such repeaters of fables and worshipers of their own Most High and Holy Self believe, I believe Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ said His flesh and His blood are present in our remembrance of Him. Anyone who denies that His flesh and His blood are present in the Eucharist is calling Christ a liar. It makes no difference whether or not someone can understand how God Almighty, the Son of God Jesus Christ incarnate, makes His flesh and His blood present in the Eucharist. Jesus Christ said His flesh and His blood are present in the Eucharist and each person has to decide for themselves whether they believe Jesus Christ or they do not believe Jesus Christ. If they do not believe Jesus Christ and deny that His flesh and His blood are present in the Eucharist, they are calling Jesus Christ the Son of God a liar.
There is no other question. Not whether a communion Host is God or not, whether a recliner becomes a human when someone sits in that recliner, or whether someone likes the idea of His flesh and His blood really being present in the Eucharist. There is only the question of whether someone believes what Jesus Christ Himself said or they do not believe what Jesus Christ Himself said. If they do not believe what Christ said and by not believing call Christ a liar, they are by definition denying the deity of Jesus Christ the Son of God, God from God, incarnate in the flesh as our Savior. A person can accept what Christ says by faith and believe Christ is God, they can accept what Christ says because it's clear and understandable to them and believe Christ is God, or they can deny what Christ says thereby calling Christ a liar who therefore cannot be God. Whether someone accepts or denies what Jesus Christ said is is a question they have to answer for them self.
Understandably, those who worship their own Most High and Holy Self do not have faith in Christ because they have no room for Christ. Sharing Scriptures with such folks is just like throwing pearls before swine. In those cases :
Titus 3:9 but avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law. For they are unprofitable and vain.
Titus 3:10 A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid:
Titus 3:11 Knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment.
Those who continue to deny the deity of Christ can fool themselves however they like, but they should get used to the idea of hearing, "I never knew you" from the very Jesus Christ they deny is God.
Wrong...Jesus meant every word of it...But he meant it spiritually, not physically...
Your religion worships physically...You eat a wafer...You call that worship...
Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Joh 14:17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
What kind of a relationship would/could you have with Jesus if you no longer had a Eucharist celebration or he was no longer perched in your monstrance???
Joh 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
Joh 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
It's all spiritual...
If only you knew how serious and grown up those words really are. Catholics like to focus on the physical. The physical works for salvation. The physical bread and wine. They tell us the physical bread and wine is what will “give us life” when Jesus says:
Matthew 15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
Catholics tell us that it’s the bread and wine we eat but scripture says:
Ezek 3:1 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this scroll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. 2 So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that scroll. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.
Jer 15:16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.
Catholics tell us it’s the physical that bread and wine but scripture says:
1 Corinthians 10:3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Catholics of today ignore the words of even those who they claim to be “church fathers”.
Then, having taken the bread and given it to His disciples, He made it His own body, by saying, “This is my body,” that is, the figure of my body. A figure, however, there could not have been, unless there were first a veritable body…Thus did He now consecrate His blood in wine, who then (by the patriarch) used the figure of wine to describe His blood.” -Tertullian, Against Marcion 4. 40
“And in the history of the New Testament by that so great and so wonderful forbearance of our Lord; in that He bore so long with him as if good, when He was not ignorant of his thoughts; in that He admitted him to the Supper in which He committed and delivered to His disciples the figure of His Body and Blood; finally, in that He received the kiss of peace at the very time of His betrayal; it is easily understood how Christ showed peace to.” -Augustine, On the Psalms, Psalm 3:1
“But most of those who were present, by not understanding Him, were offended; for in hearing these things, they thought only of flesh, that which themselves were. But the apostle says, and says what is true, “To be carnally-minded is death.” The Lord gives us His flesh to eat, and yet to understand it according to the flesh is death; while yet He says of His flesh, that therein is eternal life. Therefore we ought not to understand the flesh carnally.” -Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John, Tractate XXVII.1
“Now, if ‘everything that entereth into the mouth goes into the belly and is cast out into the drought,’ even the meat which has been sanctified through the word of God and prayer, in accordance with the fact that it is material, goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught, but in respect of the prayer which comes upon it, according to the proportion of the faith, becomes a benefit and is a means of clear vision to the mind which looks to that which is beneficial, and it is not the material of the bread but the word which is said over it which is of advantage to him who eats it not unworthily of the Lord. And these things indeed are said of the typical and symbolical body. But many things might be said about the Word Himself who became flesh, and true meat of which he that eateth shall assuredly live for ever, no worthless person being able to eat it; for if it were possible for one who continues worthless to eat of Him who became flesh, who was the Word and the living bread, it would not have been written, that 'every one who eats of this bread shall live for ever.’” -Origen, Commentary on Matthew, On Matthew 11:14
Sure it is, it points you in the right direction instead of polytheism, where you apparently need to go to support rejecting the Church.
If you only see what you wish, that's all you can see. And there's not anything anyone can do about it.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2C.HTM 966 "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death."506
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:
In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.507
. . . she is our Mother in the order of grace
The Catholic church OFFICIALLY teaches that the prayers of Mary can deliver our souls from death. I find it telling indeed that not one Catholic has yet addressed this part of the CCC. They either agree with it or not.
If they agree with it, it's blasphemy as only God can save souls. If they don't agree with it, they find themselves at odds with the official teaching of the Roman Church and where does that leave them?
That's official church teaching. Catholics are obligated to believe it, are they not? Or is the CCC optional?
If you want to build your own religion around chips, go ahead. Christians like Catholics, Orthodox, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Lutherans, etc. will worship Christ.
Lutherans DO believe in the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist
And so do many traditional, conservative Anglicans
I respectfully submit that these Lutherans, Anglicans etc. should not be clubbed with those who form their own cult of personality....
Check, check, check -- all in a days work for those who belong to the religion of sola mio... they make it all about themselves alone -- they'll even go so far as to say that only THEY get the burning in the bosom that enables them to interpret correctly and thereby they can negate all 2000 years of Christianity before them.... sad, sad puppies...
Not if you bow down to a cracker.
Yes, let’s look at Luke.
The they, are those who were eyewitness from the beginning.
The us, would be those to whom THEY had delivered those things which are most assuredly believed among us.
Luke does not claim here to be an eyewitness, he claims to have learned what they believe from eyewitnesses.
As for Mark, you do what is so often done by protestants in these discussions. I said that Mark was a companion of Peter and not an eyewitness.
An eyewitness as in one who walked with Jesus.
We don’t hear of Mark until Acts, where we learn of his mother. When Peter refers to him as my son, one possibility is that Peter baptized him and the reference was one of affection and not actual “parentage” of any sort.
We don’t know for certain that this same Mark is the one who wrote the gospel bearing his name.
What you have written regarding any familial relationship between Peter and Mark is not from the NT, but early church writers. And among them there is some disagreement about Mark, the companion of Peter and Mark the Evangelist who wrote the gospel.
Either way, I said in my post this all assumes that the authors of the those gospels are indeed who it is claimed they are.
To some, the authors are unknown and the attribution to them is an early church tradition.
Yo Cronos, you understand the other strains of religion better then me - what’s the deal with someone calling themselves a Christian, then deciding Christ doesn’t have the power in Him to take whatever form He wants to share His presence with His believers? What type of Christian is it that limits God’s might? Do they also mock Moses as some type of original green tree hugger type for praying to a small, localized forest fire?
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