Posted on 09/03/2014 6:36:07 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
A little six-year-old Protestant boy had often heard his Catholic companions reciting the prayer “Hail Mary.” He liked it so much that he copied it, memorized it and would recite it every day. “Look, Mommy, what a beautiful prayer,” he said to his mother one day.
“Never again say it,” answered the mother. “It is a superstitious prayer of Catholics who adore idols and think Mary a goddess. After all, she is a woman like any other. Come on, take this Bible and read it. It contains everything that we are bound to do and have to do.” From that day on the little boy discontinued his daily “Hail Mary” and gave himself more time to reading the Bible instead. One day, while reading the Gospel, he came across the passage about the Annunciation of the Angel to Our Lady. Full of joy, the little boy ran to his mother and said: “Mommy, I have found the ‘Hail Mary’ in the Bible which says: ‘Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women.’ Why do you call it a superstitious prayer?”
On another occasion he found that beautiful Salutation of St. Elizabeth to the Virgin Mary and the wonderful canticle MAGNIFICAT in which Mary foretold that “the generations would call her blessed.” He said no more about it to his mother but started to recite the “Hail Mary” every day as before. He felt pleasure in addressing those charming words to the Mother of Jesus, our Savior.
When he was fourteen, he one day heard a discussion on Our Lady among the members of his family. Every one said that Mary was a common woman like any other woman. The boy, after listening to their erroneous reasoning could not bear it any longer, and full of indignation, he interrupted them, saying:
“Mary is not like any other children of Adam, stained with sin. No! The Angel called her FULL OF GRACE AND BLESSED AMONGST WOMEN. Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and consequently Mother of God. There is no higher dignity to which a creature can be raised. The Gospel says that the generations will proclaim her blessed and you are trying to despise her and look down on her. Your spirit is not the spirit of the Gospel or of the Bible which you proclaim to be the foundation of the Christian religion.”
So deep was the impression which the boy’s talk had made that his mother many times cried out sorrowfully: “Oh my God! I fear that this son of mine will one day join the Catholic religion, the religion of Popes!” And indeed, not very long afterwards, having made a serious study of both Protestantism and Catholicism, the boy found the latter to be the only true religion and embraced it and became one of its most ardent apostles.
Some time after his conversion, he met his married sister who rebuked him and said indignantly: “You little know how much I love my children. Should any one of them desire to become a Catholic, I would sooner pierce his heart with a dagger than allow him to embrace the religion of the Popes!”
Her anger and temper were as furious as those of St. Paul before his conversion. However, she would change her ways, just as St. Paul did on his way to Damascus. It so happened that one of her sons fell dangerously ill and the doctors gave up hope of recovery. Her brother then approached her and spoke to her affectionately, saying: “My dear sister, you naturally wish to have your child cured. Very well, then, do what I ask you to do. Follow me, let us pray one ‘Hail Mary’ and promise God that, if your son recovers his health, you would seriously study the Catholic doctrine, and should you come to the conclusion that Catholicism is the only true religion, you would embrace it no matter what the sacrifices may be.”
His sister was somewhat reluctant at the beginning, but as she wished for her son’s recovery, she accepted her brother’s proposal and recited the “Hail Mary” together with him. The next day her son was completely cured. The mother fulfilled her promise and she studied the Catholic doctrine. After long preparation she received Baptism together with her whole family, thanking her brother for being an apostle to her.
The story was related during a sermon given by the Rev. Fr. Tuckwell. “Brethren,” he went on and said, “the boy who became a Catholic and converted his sister to Catholicism dedicated his whole life to the service of God. He is the priest who is speaking to you now! What I am I owe to Our Lady. You, too, my dear brethren, be entirely dedicated also to Our Lady and never let a day pass without saying the beautiful prayer, ‘Hail Mary’, and your Rosary. Ask her to enlighten the minds of Protestants who are separated from the true Church of Christ founded on the Rock (Peter) and ‘against whom the gates of hell shall never prevail.’”
Of course, Mary's perpetual virginity is just another misconception of the RCC. Scripture tells us that Mary and Joseph had sexual relations: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (Matthew 1:24, 25)
There is absolutely nothing immoral, impure, sinful, or improper with Mary having sexual relations with her lawful husband. It shouldn't be at all surprising that Jesus would have brothers and sisters when his parents are having normal marital relations.
Acts 5...what Gamaliel said to the Jews regarding Christianity I think applies to this stand off between Protestants and Catholics. In 500 years the Protestants haven’t gone away and we’ve produced our own notable scholars, scientists, teachers, musicians...ect, ect. Protestants have evangelized the world for Christ in ways and with a speed that Catholics over 1500 years could only have dreamed of. Perhaps Catholics need to stop fighting a genuine move of God.
I recognize that for 1500 years...if one wanted to find out about Christ...you went to the Orthodox churches in the east or you went to the Catholics in the west. The churches preserved knowledge during the dark ages. Yet by the 1500’s, they had lost their spiritual vision and were so caught up in temporal intrigues, monarchical empire building, and materialistic corruption (that you sometimes couldn’t tell a cardinal from a common fornicator save by the robes they wore...)that the gospel of Christ was in danger of being snuffed out! The Reformation was a necessary step to begin to disentangle those things that belonged to God vs. those things that belonged to Earthly rulers!(in my opinion..such as it is). The invention of the printing press would help ensure the spreading of the word of God! Christianity had become an instrument of oppression and I believe God wanted to change that....hence the Reformation! Christ wants men to wear his yoke which is easy and to bear his burden which is lite...he doesn’t want men burdened with the additions of rituals or superstitious genuflections to statues; or to have a fear that God will not hear their voice without first approaching the “great bureaucracy” of the heavenly host and being told to “take a number”!
If you read Revelations chapter 2 and 3, the churches were off target and needing correction from the start...................
You are once again avoiding answering the questions by simply espousing more specious propaganda. For if the "we gave you the Bible" polemic is to have any real import,then your argument must be as described, so that the instruments and stewards of Scripture are the infallible interpreters of it. If not, then we need not follow Rome then the Scribes and Pharisees.
Through divine inspiration Catholics wrote the Bible
False. Most of Scripture was established as being so before a church of Rome would presume she was essential for this.
Moreover, Rome is based upon the fallacious foundation that an infallible magisterium is essential for determination of Truth. and on that basic alone it cannot be the one true (or a true) NT church./ Which:
1. Never had any pastors titled "priests" as they did not engage in any unique sacrificial function, that of turning bread into human flesh and dispensing it to the people.
2. Never differentiated between bishops and elders, and with grand titles ("Most Reverend Eminence," “Very Reverend,” “Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord,” “His Eminence Cardinal,” “The Most Reverend the Archbishop,” etc.) or made such distinct by their ostentatious pompous garb. (Matthew 23:5-7)
3. Never had apostles preaching receiving the Eucharist as the means by which one received spiritual life in themselves, so that without which eating one cannot have eternal life (as per RC literalism, of Jn. 6:53,54), versus believing the gospel, and the Lord's supper as focusing on the church being the body of Christ in showing the Lord sacrificial death by that communal meal.
4. Never required clerical celibacy as the norm, (1Tim. 3:17) which presumes all such have that gift.
5. Never promised a perpetual assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium, or taught this is necessary for preservation of truth, including writings to be established as Scripture, and for assurance of faith, and that historical descent and being the steward of Scripture assured they had assured infallibility.
6. Never manifested where Peter is confirmed to be the "rock" of Mt. 16:18 upon which the church is built, rather than upon the rock of the faith confessed by Peter, thus Christ Himself.
7. Never taught or exampled that all the churches were to look to Peter as the bishop of Rome, as the first of a line of supreme heads reigning over all the churches, and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church.
8. Never recorded or taught any apostolic successors (like for James: Acts 12:1,2) besides for Judas (who was to maintain the original 12: Rv. 21:14) and who was elected by voting, versus casting lots (no politics). (Acts 1:15ff)
9. Never recorded or manifested (not by conjecture) sprinkling or baptism without repentant personal faith, that being the stated requirement for baptism. (Acts 2:38; 8:36-38)
10. Never preached a gospel of salvation which begins with becoming good enough inside (formally justified due to infused interior charity), via sprinkling or baptism in recognition of proxy faith, and which usually ends with becoming good enough to enter glory via suffering in purgatory, commencing at death.
11. Never had a separate class of believers called “saints.”
12. Never prayed to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, or were instructed to (i.e. "our Mother who art in Heaven) who were able to hear and respond to virtually unlimited prayers addressed to them.
13. Never recorded a women who never sinned, and was a perpetual virgin despite being married (contrary to the normal description of marriage, as leave and cleave. ) and who would be bodily assumed to Heaven and exalted as a demigoddess. All of which conspicuous absence is not characteristic of Holy Spirit who reveals notable aspects of its significant subjects, from long life, to escaping death or being bodily assumed to God, to extra toes, to unique diets, to being sinless, etc.
14. Never supported or made laws that restricted personal reading of Scripture by laity (contrary to Chrysostom), if able and available, sometimes even outlawing it when it was.
15. Never used the sword of men to deal with its theological dissenters.
16. Never taught that the deity Muslims worship (who is not as an unknown god) is the same as theirs.
then compiled the Bible, then canonized the Bible.
It did not write or compile Scripture as a project of the infallible magisterium, while the latter only could ratify what became the consensus of people discerning writings of individuals. Yet even the words of her claimed infallible magisterium are not inspired as Scripture is, which is the supreme authority, as is abundantly evidenced .
then canonized the Bible
Not indisputable until over 1400 years after the last book was written, while doubts and disagreements continued down thru the centuries and right into Trent .
Not sects who broke away from the Catholic Church
They broke away from a break away, though this deformation was progressive, as briefly shown in this post , and enabled the body of Christ to continue.
and for over 500 years have been spreading and teaching errors about the gospel of Jesus Christ, found in the Catholic document known as the Bible.
Actually, as shown above, for over 1500 years the church of Rome has been teaching nd spreading errors contrary to the document known as the Bible. And as God often raised up men from without the magisterium to reprove it and provide and preserve faith, so the church began contrary to the RC model, in dissent from those who sat in seat of Moses.
But a progressive deformation of the church too place, with a pope even by the 4th c. employing a murderous mob to secure his seat from his rival, and the era Ratzinger describes,
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.
It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196).
Deal with it brother Daniel, because it’s fact and you know it’s fact and that’s why you try so hard to put down anything to do with Catholicism.
I have indeed dealt with it and have refuted your parroted propaganda before, but which delusion RCs seem compelled to post in order to comfort themselves with such, as for others such exposed sophistry has ended up being an argument against being an RC. You yourself have much facilitated this.
Going strong now for 2,000 years.
Another fallacy, not only that longevity must mean validity, but that historical descent equals authenticity, and that Rome today is essentially the same church as the NT one, while in fact it is based upon a foundationally contrary premise.
But RCs believe her, as Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
And if the world stands 2,000 more years it will still be around,
So would the devil and likely Hinduism. But she will not be reigning with Christ during His 1,000 kingdom on earth, which she even denies.
safeguarding the truth and teaching the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Actually, she manifestly holds to an admixture of truth and error, and due to the latter has become as the gates of Hell for multitudes.
Whatever faith you follow will be lost in the dust bins of history and the Catholic Church will be be standing.
Rather, the glory of man which Rome examples withereth, "and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever." (1 Peter 1:24-25) And as he that exalted himself shall be abased, so will pompous presumptuous papal Rome, along with proud elsewhere, and only those who are a poor and contrite and lay hold on Christ as Lord and Savior, seeing past the trappings of institutionalized religion, will be saved. May all be of such, and thus exalted Christ, not a church.
Its the Roman mind meld so many need deliverance from.
It appears you were.
Too bad it's a faulty strawman.
Cousins.
Cousins!!
COUSINS!!!
--Catholic_Wannbe_Dude(I was taught this in religion class. Hail Mary!!!)
True.
It takes a GROUP of them; and HighRanking at that; voting in the majority to use Silence.
And a few snippets; of course, as well.
Centurian Cornelius...is that you?
now THAT's a Chr(65) + 'itch' slap if I've EVER seen one!
Good attempt to try obfuscate the voluminous blatherings of this, that and the other, that comes from Rome.
Like Sherlocks says...
Satan can appear as an angel of light!(2Corinthians 11:14)
What of the 35,000 sects of Protestantism are you referring to? Many have withered and died as did their followers in Jim Jones and David Koresh.
Oh; I am WELL aware of what it takes to create Catholic DOCTRINE.
Protestantism merely uses the latter of the three.
We leave VISIONS of peasent girls in Portugal to the Fiction department of the Christian bookstores.
Oh my! Just goes to show how much the “peasants’ know to say nothing of Nobel laureate Luis Pastuer!
Not to say it isn't GOOD fiction; as it does tend to keep those, who need a little bit more encouragement to stay on the reservation, satisfied.
I've still not gotten over the fascination of Luther converting to...
Oh...
Wait...
Sure do!
Just open up ANY bible printed by the Catholic religious organization and read the front pages and just SEE all the letters and abbreviations of the Learned and Intellectuals that have APPROVED that edition of the Word.
I looks like an explosion in a Scrabble tile factory!
And you guys did NOT include the Book of Enoch... WHY?
How DARE you say something bad about those Catholic Churches!!
It's the PROTESTANTs that have more Child Molesters!!
--Wannabe_Catholic_Dude(Hail Mary!!!)
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