Posted on 09/30/2013 11:30:08 AM PDT by NYer
How do you read the Bible? Today is the feast day of Saint Jerome, who once quipped, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”
It’s a running joke that if you want to find a Bible verse, you ought to ask a Protestant and not a Catholic. Protestants read the Bible. Catholics not so much.
This raises the question:
I think the answer lies in the fact that we Catholics go to Mass. The Holy Mass has at least two Bible readings every time. If you pray the Breviary or Liturgy of Hours, multiply that several times.
Joe Catholic says to himself, “Why should I study the Bible? I go to Mass. I hear it there. Check and check.”
There is something beautiful in this. For Catholics, Bible reading is liturgical. Hence, Bible reading remains chiefly a community experience.
It’s good to listen to the readings from the Bible at Holy Mass. However, we also need a personal (even private) encounter with God in the pages of Sacred Scripture. All of the saints breathed Sacred Scripture. Scripture served as the grammar for their souls. They couldn’t communicate without it.
Here are some basic spiritual needs that you have every single day of your life:
So when you wake up tomorrow, do the following:
What? You’re too busy. Sorry, you just got served a yellow card:
Doing these three readings will take you only 3-5 minutes. That’s the time of a commercial break. It will change your life for good. I promise. It takes 21 days to make a habit, so give it 21 days and see if you aren’t hooked. Put the Bible on your night stand and read it in the mornings. Start fresh.
“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” – Saint Jerome, Doctor of the Church
When you sin, what do you do?
Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
Nice. Can you take a picture of any evidence?
We only count active followers of Christ. What does your count include?
Belgians who don’t attend any services?
In what way do you believe counting more spiritually dead bodies proves something? And what do you believe it proves?
I’ve heard about Breatharians before, but I did not know how big they are in the art world.
...and yet the Bible says that during this time, there will be APOSTACY, not REVIVAL. How do you square those opposing statements?
How do your Protestant friends feel about these bigoted views?
No; not THIS one; the OTHER one!!
I copied it from the Douay-Rheims Bible. Maybe you should be the one to tell them they translated it wrong.
Your easily seen record of 'proof' in the last few replies are, shall we say, a bit lacking.
First, he had maintained that faith alone justifies.
Second, he maintained that to believe in the forgiveness of sins, and to embrace the mercy offered in the gospel, was enough for salvation.
Third, he averred that human traditions cannot bind the conscience, except where their neglect might occasion scandal.
Fourth, he denied the freedom of the will.
Fifth, he denied that there is any purgatory.
Sixth, he affirmed that neither the Virgin nor the Saints pray for us in their own person.
Seventh, he asserted that neither the Virgin nor the Saints should be invoked by us . And so the list continued.
Early in August of 1536, the reformer was condemned as a heretic. A few days later the pageant of casting him out of the Church took place. In the town square a crowd gathered. The great doctors and dignitaries assembled in due pomp and array, and took their seats on the high platform. Tyndale was led out, wearing his priests robes. He was made to kneel and his hands were scraped with a knife or a piece of glass as a symbol of having lost the benefits of the anointing oil with which he was consecrated to the priesthood.
The bread and wine of the mass were placed in his hands, and at once withdrawn. This done, he was ceremoniously stripped of his priests vestments, reclothed as a layman, and handed over to the attorney for secular punishment. The Church would condemn, but always left it to the secular officers to stain their hands with the murder. But for Tyndale the end was not yet. He was taken back to Vilvoorde Castle and for some unexplained reason remained a prisoner for two more months.
Then, early in the month of October 1536, William Tyndale was led out of the castle toward the southern gate of the town. The sun had barely risen above the horizon when he arrived at the open space, and looked out over the crowd of onlookers eagerly jostling for a good view. A circle of stakes enclosed the place of execution, and in the center was a large pillar of wood in the form of a cross and as tall as a man.
A strong chain hung from the top, and a noose of hemp was threaded through a hole in the upright. The attorney and the great doctors arrived first, and seated themselves in state nearby. The prisoner was brought in and a final appeal was made that he should recant.
Tyndale stood immovable, his keen eyes gazing toward the common people. A silence fell over the crowd as they watched the prisoners lean form and thin, tired face; his lips moved with a final impassioned prayer that echoed around the place of execution: Lord, open the king of Englands eyes.
His feet were bound to the stake, the iron chain fastened around his neck, and the hemp noose was placed at his throat. Only the Anabaptists and lapsed heretics were burnt alive. Tyndale was spared that ordeal.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1987/issue16/1612.html?start=5
Then it's time for Ask the Expert!
Ah so you mock Scripture?
Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
OK, that picture is freakin’ me out, man.!. Seriesly. I’m stuned.
I do not believe this supports Breatharianism - no matter how many times you post it, or post a picture of it.
“In what way do you believe counting more spiritually dead bodies proves something? And what do you believe it proves?”
Save that question for the liberal media who loves to call someone that never attends Mass a Catholic and puts them in the same class as devout, Mass attending Catholics.
What I said was take the cafeteria catholics out of the numbers and Church attending Catholics STILL make up the biggest faith denomination in the United States. It’s not even close.
But, according to some FRoman Catholics, the Inquisition "let" Michael Servetus escape execution because of their Christian love - notwithstanding Servetus denied the Trinity among other heresies. Tyndale's crimes were much more worthy of death, apparently.
So Scripture doesn’t mean anything in your odd cult? What does? Your opinion?
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