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?
Is that your personal testimony?
NAILED IT!
Sure. Jesus and God are one.
John 10:30.
You people are so odd, trying on the names of Christianity and meaning so different.
Einstein indicates that it is all relative, lol, and entirely dependent upon frame of reference, that science can formulate laws in support of either one. A matter of opinion, essentially. There apparently is strong bias against even our solar system being special in any way, let alone this planet. Whether we’re sitting still with the planets swirling, the sun arcing and the universe ever so slowly spinning around us, or spinning in place, or the whole shooting match is in motion, is irrelevant. The one is no more “right” than the other and entirely dependent upon perspective. Again, this is according to Einstein and Special Relativity, so spare the freakout about geocentrism. I’m no more and no less of a geocentrist than he was.
That little "lol" thingie indicates an intent to be humorous. Einstein and Special Relativity should be self-explanatory, but it appears there is still some confusion.
Just let me know where you need help, here, and I'll certainly try. You deserve no less as a fellow FReeper and apparently a Christian as well. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.
Documetnation please or admit YOU are making stuff up.
James, the “Bishop of Jerusalem” was indeed the second son of Mary, who was no longer virgin after James was conceived.
Reading the gospels would be of great value to your edification.
Oh, hogwash! That is precisely the problem the Sola Scriptura crowd gets itself into when they attempt to make conclusions from fallible inferences based upon incomplete information. When reviewed in the context of the full Sacred Deposit of Faith the perpetual Virginity of Mary is obvious. If they would put as much energy and effort into seeking the truth as they do into disproving the Church their Salvation would not remain in such peril.
Peace be to you
Is your Salvation assured, Natural Law?
Nice to know that you consider the scriptures to be ‘fallible,’ while the fanciful story telling of the babblers of the distant past to be “complete information.”
“Christian Pharisees” are all that the RCC is.
Now it is you who have gone off the reservation and are dabbling in extra-scriptural speculations. Wishing it so does not make it so. You are going to have to prove this from Scripture, chapter and verse or abandon the SS argument forever.
Peace be with you
That was a rather clumsy attempt at a straw man, but I did not say Scripture was fallible, I said your inferences were.
I am assured that there is a plan for my Salvation.
So, to your understanding, the plan of Salvation is somewhat less imperiled in your particular instance than would be the case for, oh I don’t know, let’s just say for instance ... a repentant, faithful, believing, baptized Southern Baptist?
No. There is a unique plan for Salvation for each of us, not a one-size-fits-all proposition.
Peace be with you
They Hyperdulia Mary.
Glass Houses?
Reading the plain words of the scriptures is not ‘inference.’
Nor is framing your plain words a ‘strawman.’
No, it is your recall from vapor that demands proof!
The NT scriptures state plainly that Mary had children.
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