Matthew 6:7
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
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.’”
Matthew 6:7
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
I'd call it school yard tactics...
No.
Dig 'em up.
They are STILL here!
What did they teach that I don't trust?
You made a BROAD accusation that contains NO data.
Why; that His earthly mother is DEAD and has turned to dust just like others who have 'died in Christ'?
This is how you Catholics try to get people to waste time defending themselves from something that is not defined.
You see things that are wrong?
Then show them, and correct the error I have passed on to the unsuspecting.
Al Sharpton: now THAT's cute!
The Luther albatross not staying around this poor, deluded PROTESTant's neck?
http://assets.amuniversal.com/a4b6a0f0120801329937005056a9545d
I know other christian groups and they may not accept Catholic ways but I’ve never heard them post such nonsense about our Catholic faith...stuns me actually...are they Christian?
No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3201466/posts?page=1
“You appear to have been well taught; underling!”
Yes, well, if a person is unaware that there are people smarter and holier than himself, that is not a good sign.
If he is aware of that, then he can learn to distinguish between people who are more and less intelligent, and more and less holy.
It already is. The internet was more or less invented to facilitate communication between high level scientists and academics. Even now, if you have serious questions about Koine Greek, or perhaps Masoretic Hebrew, there are academic listservs for that. Theological debates go on there, too, but of a much more reserved tone than what you find on FR. So there's nothing new about exegetical discourse online.
But because you won't answer my simple question, I cannot determine what your real objection is to discussing the word of God. Of course it is possible to distort the Scriptures. Satan even did it in tempting Christ. That did not stop Jesus from firing right back with correction based on Scripture, and He is our model, the one all believers should want to be like. His words are our spiritual food. They are more important to us than our physical food. Without them we starve. When His word dwells in us, we cannot help but to speak from the abundance of what is in our heart. It is who we are. To abandon the gift of Scripture we have been given would draw us into being unfaithful to Christ, and we cannot accommodate you or anyone else in that regard.
Peace,
SR
No, I do think I had a conversation with cynical bear a while back that included a discussion of church hierarchy. I’m not going to spend a week looking for it, but generally those discussions eventually get to the book of Acts and the letters of Paul.
So far as islam goes, I consider it a political movement and not a religion. It is a political movement advocating a dictator (caliph) and a subjection of common people (sharia), and it rides an occult, syncretism of religions it created to confuse people it sought to conquer.
I don’t know how recent is this current Catholic comment on Islam in the Catholic Catechism, but I’m thinking they will rewrite that one. It really doesn’t comport with the historic view of the Catholicism that confronted and overcame Islamic armies and conquests.
Again, I am a Methodist and not a Roman Catholic, but I’d love to see past versions of that catechism and compare their wording of that passage on islam. I’m betting it came about in our era of ‘inclusiveness’.
This debate is long over. It has been debated over hundreds of years. As Benedict XVI writes simply because we have found the truth based on reason, logic, experience, tradition, and revelation, doesn’t mean we can be tempted into an indefinite search. This is precisely why leading Protestant theologians who have instructed and written extensively on the subject have now admitted to the errors of their research and have had the honesty and courage to convert to Catholicism. But then the street pastors keep clinging on their isolated quotes and like the Sharptons and Jeremiah Wrights and Osteens are simply impervious to the truth and authority to preach His one message (not 35,000 different sects and sub-sects) handed down by Christ to His apostles and their successors through an unbroken chain of teaching.
Yes we hear of online instruction but this is never a substitute for solid intellectual grounding using the Socratic technique. This is what all the major colleges and universities do around the world in their theological departments. Apparently you have no intention of joining such a college or willing to read the multiple books from Augustine to Aquinas to Benedict or the treatises written by leading Protestant converts on the truth of Catholicism.
Protestants want “Christianity Lite” where they think they could simply pick up a Bible, quote from Scripture and that’s enough. No need to understand the meaning of the Eucharist, the centrality of all worship, the Mass, the sacraments, or anything of the kind. This is easy. No need to engage in hard reading. All one has to do is get a self appointed “reverend” before your name and without any formal theological training like the Billy Grahams and Robert Schuller, thump out scriptural passages and soon attract a following of low IQ Christians just like that clown “Bishop” TD Jakes does on television. Before long, this becomes a joke with a Four Square Church or a First Baptist or First Lutheran or a First AME, or first this or that in every street corner and peddle this nonsense to low information people.
When you destroy all dissenting opinion, and ignore God's Word, debate does end quickly.
I am well familiar with the Socratic technique. It was used on me many times in law school. And I did study Aquinas and other such luminaries as part of my foundation training in principles of Christian law. It was required at Liberty University to study the history and development of legal and moral philosophy as it relates to Scripture and the great thinkers. I was very much at home in that material. I also served on law review and am a published author.
But I wouldn’t trade my Bible or the freedom to share it with others here or anywhere for ten thousand worthless credentials doled out by sinful humans. There’s only one credential I really crave, and that is to hear my Savior say, at the end of days, well done, thou good and faithful servant. That’s it, my friend, and unless you’ve got some credential in mind better than that, I’m just not interested.
Peace,
SR
It's strange that you would trot out two psychotic, cult leaders that NOBODY here would claim to follow nor profess the tenets they taught as they sunk lower and lower into their messianic delusions. I think you probably know that. Is tying these two extremists to non-Catholic Christians on this forum a desperate reach for something? Would the likes of "renown" Catholics such as Tomás de Torquemada or Rodrigo Borgia be who you would want everyone to associate with the religion you follow??? No, I don't think you would.
...”Mary whose holiness excelled that of the Holy of Holies”....
The resurrection is the very event we need to become sinless.... Mary’s body rests in the ground with the rest of the saints waiting for the resurrection....If Mary ascended to heaven like Jesus, this incredible act of someone raised in a resurrection or never dying would certainly be recorded in Scripture. ...yet it is not.
Mary was a sinner ....that gives her “0” degree of Holiness...rather a need for salvation from sin...which she acknowledged.
Catholic dogma that she was was ‘taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven’ is strictly more catholic lies to sustain mary worship and exultation above Jesus Christ.
The catholic mary is NOT the Mary of the Bible.
The problem is not that Christians don't understand catholic dogma, rites, rituals and practices.....it's that we don't agree with that which opposes the God of the Scriptures.... Rather, we reprove and correct false and misleading instruction and teachings of the catholic church based on God's Word.... just as God said to do.....
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