Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
Why is my opinion invalid why yours is valid?
Why would God want to deny us salvation?
Is He not love?
Is He not merciful and ready for forgive?
Did He not call us?
Did He not draw us?
Did He not enlighten us?
Did He not live the life we couldn't live ourselves and die the death we couldn't die for us, in our place?
Did He not determine the exact times and places that we should live so that we could seek Him and perhaps find Him even though He is not far from each of us?
Does He not command all men everywhere to repent?
Does He not work in us to will and to do according to His good pleasure? Does He not give us the Holy Spirit to lead and guide, strengthen and enlighten us?
Considering the lengths God has gone to to draw us to Himself and provide a means of salvation that anyone can have without cost, why on earth would we have any reason to NOT be sure of our salvation.
God WANTS to save us.
He's not looking for excuses to zap us as the *gotta work to earn our salvation* crowd would have us believe.
Rather everything Scripture teaches us that God is looking for excuses to SAVE us and not send us to hell.
Because Elsie's isn't an opinion, it's based on Scripture.
Something that has no Scriptural support is just an opinion.
The blasphemy of that statement is astounding. It was the Holy Spirit who inspired the writers and credit goes to Him alone.
And I asked you a couple previously which haven't been answered yet. You're backed up some.
So, where is the verse that you claim is in the Bible that states that sin entered the world through Mary?
You said you posted it and I checked your posting history and could not find it so I asked you to show us the post number and have got no answer yet.
So, go ahead. You first.
When you show me the Scripture you claim to have found stating that sin entered the world through Eve and give me the post number you claim it was in, I'll answer your question.
Yet not all are saved. Do you really believe that all one has to do is say the magic words and then put it on autopilot? If you presume your Salvation you reject the gift of Hope.
Ironically, that too is an opinion.
I can most certainly determine what was contained in scripture. The point was that Paul taught that we, like the Bereans, are not to take the word of man but to check with what was inspired by the Holy Spirit to be written as a benchmark for the voracity of what they taught. The RCC makes the claim that what they teach is not to be checked by scripture.
>>Asking the question, what was written raises the very next question - what exactly was written down that hes referring to.<<
The inspired words of the Holy Spirit is what he was referring to. Not some myth perpetuated by some self serving organization. The inspired record which Jesus so often quoted which was preserved by God to counter the lies of Satan. We confront that same situation when debating with followers of the RCC.
Nope, its not.
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
We check scripture because its what Paul taught to do. No opinion involved.
“So, where is the verse that you claim is in the Bible that states that sin entered the world through Mary?”
I never made any such claim.
So when I cite scripture which states that Mary was full of Grace and was considered ‘most blessed among woman’, that’s evidence that you have to accept?
Redemption and Salvation entered the world through Mary, not sin. Try not to get those confused.
Peace be with you
And why exactly should I care that you believe that the Catholic church is wrong, when you yourself don’t believe that Apostolicity has anything to do with the holy spirit?
You may believe whatever you like. It’s a free country, but your personal opinions have no bearing on me.
Mary is the second eve, sir. Surely you are aware of this.
It is by Eve's disobedience that Man fell, and it is by Mary's obedience that Man is saved.
JCB:I never made any such claim.
You most certainly did.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3025958/posts?page=1114#1114
JCB:Scripture is quite clear to acknowledge that Eve sinned and that therefore your theory that sin only passes from the men, is unscriptural.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3025958/posts?page=1022#1022
JCB:Thats actually contrary to what scripture says. Sin entered the world when Eve chose to disobey God and eat of the apple.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3025958/posts?page=1148#1148
mm:Now if you can provide some Scripture to show that sin entered the world through the woman
JCB:I already have. You stated that Eve sinned, and since Eve first ate of the Apple, she sinned before Adam.
Mary gets the credit for salvation?
Poor Jesus. Dying for nothing, constantly living in His mother's shadow.
What blasphemy.
Redemption is credited to Jesus.
Ephesians 1:3-10 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
It's all about Jesus.
Are you trying to be obtuse or just confrontational? Jesus entered the world through Mary. It's in the big thick book on your with the cross on it.
A very enlightening thread.
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