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?
MB:The two Great Commandments.
Matthew 5:48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
John 3:7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
John 6:28-29 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Of course not all are saved. Not everyone wants to be saved. It's not granted automatically.
Do you really believe that all one has to do is say the magic words and then put it on autopilot?
As opposed to some priest saying some magic words and changing some wheat and wine into the body and blood of Jesus?
If you presume your Salvation you reject the gift of Hope.
Hope is a gift? Chapter and verse please...
Besides, we don't presume salvation. We trust God to keep his word when He promises us something. It's called *faith*.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hoping for salvation is a sure sign a person doesn't have it.
Our salvation doesn't start when we die. It starts when we repent and believe. Now. Here on earth.
It just reaches it's fulfillment when we die.
A person who does not have salvation before they die goes to hell when they do. Nobody gets it after.
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.
Of course not all are saved. Not everyone wants to be saved. It's not granted automatically.
Do you really believe that all one has to do is say the magic words and then put it on autopilot?
As opposed to some priest saying some magic words and changing some wheat and wine into the body and blood of Jesus?
If you presume your Salvation you reject the gift of Hope.
Hope is a gift? Chapter and verse please...
Besides, we don't presume salvation. We trust God to keep his word when He promises us something. It's called *faith*.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hoping for salvation is a sure sign a person doesn't have it.
Our salvation doesn't start when we die. It starts when we repent and believe. Now. Here on earth.
It just reaches it's fulfillment when we die.
A person who does not have salvation before they die goes to hell when they do. Nobody gets it after.
You should KNOW that I'll NEVER let an opportunity to make a wise crack - about ANYTHING - pass me by!!
If you have cable TV, there won’t be much on to watch.
If there isn’t much on to watch, you will answer your door whenever someone rings.
If you open your door, you will see mormons.
If you talk to mormons, they will trick you into “praying about whether something is true”.
If you rely on your feelings, you may become a mormon.
If you become a mormon, you will have to wear magic underwear!
If you wear magic underwear, people will immediately label you as a cultist.
DON’T be a cultist!
Get DirectTV.
But.. but... I thought that GOD LOVES us and wants us to be HAPPY???
--AverageManOnTheStreet(John 3:18)
The above has apparently been edited.
Many versions have after '...in him...' this phrase: "and does all the things the church requires".
I read this devotional today and thought it addressed some of the issues in the Catholic/non-Catholic debate pretty well, particularly the part about working out our salvation.
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Daily Reflections with Oswald Chambers [June 6, 2013]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3027919/posts
“Work Out” What God “Works in” You
“. . . work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you . . .”
—Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, “But I don’t know if my will is in agreement with God.” Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say “I will not obey” is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God’s creation of human beings— sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. “. . . for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” With focused attention and great care, you have to “work out” what God “works in” you— not work to accomplish or earn “your own salvation,” but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God’s will— God’s will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God’s will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with “dynamite,” and the “dynamite” is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
We have and will continue to have the opportunity to choose or reject Salvation many times every day until the moment of our deaths.
"Hope is a gift? Chapter and verse please..."
"This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." - Titus 3:6-7
Hope. infused in Grace, is a theological virtue because its immediate object is God, just like the other two infused theological virtues of faith and charity. Hope reminds us that we are not home on this earth, but rather, on a journey to God. Hope, which is also a grace that we receive by asking, both compels and leads us on, reminding us constantly that God is faithful and that His promises will be realized if we persevere in the faith. Hope is nourished by faith which leads to it.
When we succumb to presumption or despair we sin against hope.
Peace be with you.
ἐλπίς
elpis
el-pece'
From ἔλπω elpō which is a primary word (to anticipate, usually with pleasure); expectation (abstract or concrete) or confidence: - faith, hope.
Just a wee bit of 'serious' study will clear up your flawed Catholic education, every time...You just wasted a couple of paragraphs of bandwidth...
What religion is it that tells us they (and we) can not understand the scriptures and they need a pope to explain it to them??? Anyone know???
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Cor 2:14
If I couldn't understand the scriptures I'd be mighty nervous about my immediate future...
2 Thessalonians 2: 15So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.
It's encouraging to see you finally find some scripture that's not in John 6 or Mat. 16:18 but now you just have to figure out how to get the Spirit to lead you in your quest of comparing scripture with scripture...Those you put together don't match at all...
??
Who's rib is she from?
:)
I agree. The RCC insidiously convinces too many that only the “magesterium” have the Holy Spirit and can interpret scripture. The followers of that organization out and out deny the Holy Spirit that was promised to all believers and scoff at those who rely on that indwelling of the Holy Spirit for understanding.
What a freedom we have knowing that it’s God working in us and not we ourselves under our own power.
Providing definitions only reinforces my posting. However, were Scriptures the only source of Truth and the flawed translations within Strong's Concordance (G1680) of any concern to me I might have taken your input seriously.
"SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here? - Pope Benedict XVI Spe Salvi
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to convert your otherwise wasted bandwidth into a teaching moment.
Peace be with you
So, should we believe what Pope Benedict says or the Holy Spirit according St. Paul?
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) (Romans 8:18-25)
Verses 24, 25. - For by (or, in) hope we were saved; not are saved, as in the Authorized Version. The aorist ἐσώθημεν, like ἐλάβετε in ver. 15, points to the time of conversion. The dative ἐλπίδι, which has no preposition before it, seems here, to have a modal rather than medial sense; for faith, not hope, is that whereby we are ever said to be saved. The meaning is that when the state of salvation was entered upon, hope was an essential element in its appropriation. A condition, not of attainment, but of hope, is therefore the normal condition of the regenerate now; and so, after shortly pointing out the very meaning of hope, the apostle enforces his previous conclusion, that they must be content at present to wait with patience. (Pulpit Commentary)
Yup: I agree...
No, thanks. I have better things to do with my time.
There is no difference. Since it is the same Holy Spirit speaking through them both any perceived discontinuity must reside with you. I'll wager that you did not read the entire Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi before concluding.
Peace be with you
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