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?
For what Jesus requires of us. The Bible, remember?
How right you are. Then the wonder comes in...How could I have been so deceived? But if that's all I knew and was taught - I was in bondage. But a WORD released me. Thank You, Jesus!
You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse!
Paul is direct and very convincing. You believe the Church and the Church will direct your beliefs. If you do not believe the Gospel as preached by the church, Paul wishes you to be under God's curse. Not God's salvation.
And then the blood mixes no more.
God is beyond Time. He knows all and sees all. My point is that the Apostles were not beyond Time here on Earth, and did not know all and see all.
Negatory. Required to follow the directives of Christ.
The Bible is clear. I only criticize and belittle faux Christians. I think the world of real ones.
What makes you think that God's Word is limited to the written Word? It isn't!
I'm not saved because I say so. I'm saved because God says so.
Today is the day of salvation. It starts here on earth as soon as someone repents and turns to God.
Therefore, if Jesus = God, then Mary = God.
LOL!! And heeeere's Pope Natural Law!
Protestantism denies Mary's role in Salvation only by ignoring that Jesus became human only through
God's Own denies Rome teachings - and the 'Mary's role in salvation' teaching is straight from their worldly pit.
GOD'S Own doesn't IGNORE JESUS in any way for HE IS THE WORD! We are FAITHFUL and COMMITTED to JESUS ALONE.
Catholics are committed to Rome/man and their teachings.
What makes you think God’s written word can be contradicted by any other communication purportedly from God? It’s very odd to me, for Catholics to claim authorship, even ownership of the Bible but to so casually dismiss it when inconvenient.
Either it’s scripture or it isn’t. Either your church was in error then, or it’s in error now, when in contradiction. That is avoided by adhering to the written word and testing all things against scripture. We’re even told to do this, by scripture. By scripture you and I both accept as divinely inspired.
Are you a Constitutionalist? Do you see what has happened over the course of less than 250 years as a result of allowing learned men to interpret and make pronouncements that violate the intent and the spirit of the written document? Is what we have now even recognizably Constitutional in many instances? No, it’s not.
That is the danger in veering from the written word.
If you think that Sacred Tradition contradicts Sacred Scripture you are misinterpreting one or both of them. Everything Protestantism prattles on about in regards to their fidelity to the written Word falls apart when the differences in interpretation result in many thousands of conflicting doctrines that are not only unique to whom ever is doing the interpreting, but are heretical and often so bizarre as to not be recognizable as Christian doctrines. The danger, my FRiend, is in the self interpretation of the written Word.
Peace and blessing be with you.
Please put together a coherent and cogent though and try again or seek medical help (not intended to be a snarky response). I would like to have this conversation, but your post reads like you are having a stroke.
My prayers are with you
I’ll concede your point regarding individual interpretation if you can find your way to realizing that your magesterium is comprised of individuals. Neither Protestant nor Catholic doctrine in contradiction to scripture is of God. Just because individuals are admired, learned or even exalted does not mean that any interpretation of theirs in contradiction with the written word has any truth in it. It’s another gospel. Shun it.
It’s what happens when you exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.
Satan has gotten more mileage out of *Did God REALLY say....* than any other tactic he’s tried. Doubt the veracity and integrity of the Word and look what happens; deception all the way around. People just haven’t learned from Eve yet.
Jesus said It is Written many many times. Although that's not good enough for those of the 'JESUS isn't enough' crowd.
Now what Christianity ISN'T - is man made teachings/doctrines.
“As H. M. Carson remarks, “The development of Mariology has been accompanied by an ever-increasing tendency to accord Mary a worship that, in much popular devotion, is indistinguishable from that offered to God alone. H. M. Carson, Dawn or Twilight? A Study of Contemporary Roman Catholicism (Leicester, England: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 128.”
A very valuable post. I forgot to reply to this ping when I saw it earlier. Thank you for it.
True. There’s not a Christian church or group that is immune, either. That’s why pointing out the errors of this or that “Protestant” church is really no defense. Error is error, we’re provided with the standard against which it is to be tested. That’s true of any church of any kind and true of individuals as well. Will there be differing emphases? Sure. There’s room for that. There’s also room for disagreement upon meaning, outside the core, foundational message of salvation. There are many traditions and doctrines of many churches with which I might disagree, from mildly to strongly. Mild disagreements center around interpretation, not contradiction. Contradiction merits strong disagreement. That it sometimes comes from learned, even exalted men who wrap themselves in the cloak of infallibility makes it even more dangerous.
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