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?
You’re the ones who decided to harass us.
“The sin nature comes through the father.”
Where does scripture say this?
Would Matthew 23:9 be admissible in your court? I mean, the fact that Pope means father or papa. "Do not call anyone on earth your father; for one is your Father, He who is in heaven". In fact most of what Jesus denounced the Pharisees over could be applicable to Catholics today, with their legalistic and overly complicated explanation of everything they do that does not correspond to the simple teachings of Christ.
I believe the draw is first to those who know the Lord after the flesh, not truly having the new birth, and the draw is to a female motherly figure who is more readily accessible and can sympathize with them better, and has unique powers of positive intercession.
However, not only is there zero examples amidst the multitudinous prayers in Scripture of anyone praying to anyone else in Heaven but the Lord, but there is none in the instructions on who to pray to ("our Father who art in Heaven," not "our mothers").
And rather than any insufficiency in accessibility or compassion, or power, Christ is who is supremely declared to be able to have compassion on them that are in need or out of the way, and who ever lives to make intercession for us. "For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted, " "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. " (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15-16) [now to make better use of it!]
And in Him believers have immediate and direct access to the throne of God, having "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," (Hebrews 10:19) where they meet with God, not a saint secretary.
Having no examples of praying to the departed , attempts to defend this tradition rely on extrapolations and specious reasoning.
I beg to differ.
I see it has having been given away to the government by the church members.
So, yes, in a sense, the government took it away, but there wasn't much of a fight to keep them from doing it. It amounts to that they were asked to do it.
You've been harassed? Oh noes! I've tried really hard not to bring up Foxs Book of Martyrs. The Galileo imprisonment thing. The Mary worship thing. But when I read the Bible and see the Truth . . . I was just hoping it would set some people free.
Peace be to you
“Mary was sinless because God preserved her from sin. It wasn’t by her own power that she was conceived without original sin. Therefore she has a savior.”
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Ecc 7:20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Isa 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Mar_10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
Sure about that?
What is the Catholic position on the age of the universe? The OFFICIAL Catholic position?
Do all Catholics adhere to it?
Are all Catholics required to adhere to it?
What are the consequences of not adhering to it?
It does NOTHING to show any problems with personal interpretation of Scripture. God did not specify the age of the universe therefore it is not of any significance in terms of ones salvation.
Salvation is determined by faith in Christ not one's opinion of the age of the universe.
Scripture is silent.
1 Corinthians 4:15.
Because in a small, well connected enough town, it is not hard to track people down given enough information.
It is simply a matter of not revealing information which would compromise my screen name.
Same answer that I've given everyone who's asked and to date, I've basically been accused of lying about my reason and called a coward by those loving Catholics who have asked me in the past.
There are many good Catholic Bible scholars also.
Plus also it does go against Christian charity to attack other Christian believers because of the church they belong too.
By now i would have thought FR RCs would have known better. Luther was not a maverick in doubting some books, but RC scholarship did so even in Trent, which issued the first indisputable canon of all books Rome holds as Scripture (the EO list differs slightly ) while the Prot. canon also has ancient support.
See here .
And
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2661829/posts?page=217#217
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2637924/posts?page=1224#1224
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2637924/posts?page=2066#2066
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2637924/posts?page=2181#2181
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2637924/posts?page=2802#2802
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3003863/posts?page=226#226
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3003863/posts?page=447#447
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3003863/posts?page=226#226
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3003863/posts?page=239#239
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3003863/posts?page=260#260
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3003863/posts?page=286#286
Yeah, we’ve been going back and forth about this ad nauseam. Mary is the exemption. Gabriel said she was “full of grace”.
That would be the only court of competency and relevance. I chose not to comment on the balance of your opinions because they don't merit a response.
That of course is a perverse conclusion except under the Roman model, as in fact the means by which the church was established as being of God, and likewise a true man of God is, enabled further writings to be established as being of God. But which were not established under the premise of a perpetually infallible magisterium, which defines the NT etc. as teaching it is perpetually infallible, thus it is.
It is true, Rome was not alone, except in some degrees and scope. Prots had much to unlearn.
Actually, it's positively Catholic.
Only when Catholics teach two opposing views on something, they call it a *mystery* and say that it needs to be accepted by *faith*, because they know that nobody in their right minds can rationalize tow diametrically opposed teachings.
Salvation is the same for everyone.
The one size fits all proposition is Jesus.
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