Posted on 06/26/2015 10:18:59 AM PDT by Morgana
My grandmother celebrates 100 years of being a Catholic. She will most likely be a Catholic till her last breath as all my other grandparents were. Me? I’m a mere forty-year cradle Catholic. I own that it hasn’t been easy to remain a faithful daughter of the Church, particularly during my turbulent twenties. There was a period I disagreed with, questioned, and criticized Holy Mother Church. There were times I watched people I love abandon their baptismal promises. Still, I remained true to my heritage.
Why? Why am I still Catholic? It’s for the same reasons why people disagree, question, criticize and leave the Church:
1. The Eucharist. A mystery or a symbol to some, but the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord in the host is clear as the Catechism 1376 puts it, “because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread.” I am more than happy to remain in the Church where Jesus is really and truly present, and where I can be united to Him in receiving Communion.
2. Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church exalts the Mother of God as the perfect apostle and bestows dignity to womanhood. Since Mary was “preserved free from all stain of original sin” (Catechism 966), she is the role model for every Christian. The scripture on the wedding feast at Cana illustrates that she is a powerful intercessor to our prayers and that devotion to her is the fastest, surest way to unity with Christ as she encourages us: “do whatever [Jesus] tells you.” Our Lady is, to me, all that and a mother who cares about my everyday concerns, with the end goal of the sanctifying my soul. “Don’t be afraid of loving Mary too much,” St. Maximilian Kolbe said. “You can’t possibly love her more than Jesus does.”
3. The saints. By the rigorous process of canonization, the Catholic Church venerates the saints as humans who blazed the path on how to live the Christian life and who “provide us with examples on holiness.” The saints also obtain favors for us as they “do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as the proffer the merits which they acquired on earth.” (Catechism 956). Just like any good friend, saints inspire and pray for me. The journey of my spiritual life is easier with their assistance.
4. Penance and Reconciliation. Undoubtedly, the Church houses both saints and sinners. Knowing our fallen nature, which tempts us to sin and often characterizes us as Pharisees, Christ established the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a means for contrite sinners to obtain absolution for our sins. Jesus told St. Faustina “When you approach the confessional…I myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden in the priest.” Never have I heard more powerful words than the merciful ones voiced at the Sacrament of Reconcilation: “I absolve you from your sins, may God give you pardon and peace.”
5. Purgatory. Purgatory is the place where all who die in God’s grace and friendship but are still imperfectly purified undergo purification after death so as the achieve holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. (Catechism 1030). Purgatory as a manifestation of God’s mercy gives me hope that even if I can’t overcome my faults during my life on earth, I still have an opportunity to be sanctified by God’s justice so that I can one day enjoy the beatific vision.
6. Suffering. Suffering is inevitable in our lives because of man’s free will. The Catholic Church makes sense of suffering when it teaches that suffering can be untied with Christ’s passion in atonement for sins. According to St. John Paul II, suffering also increases our capacity for selfless love and hones the virtue of humility. Since scripture says that carrying my cross is necessary to share in Christ’s redemption, the Church not only explains suffering’s purpose but also offers me graces from the Sacraments to endure sacrifice.
7. Magisterium. Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church as the “pillar and bulwark of the truth” to sift through the muddled moral issues that confounds our modern age (and every age) so that she can provide clear guidelines on right versus wrong. “To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles.” (Catechism 2032) In every moral issue it has addressed, the Church has illustrated wisdom that only comes from the Holy Spirit. I rely on this wisdom to guard my soul from evil and to direct me on the path to eternal life as much as I rely on the promise of Jesus that “the gates of hell shall never prevail against [the Church].”
I could go on and on. The truth in the Catechism and experience of millions of Catholics over two thousand years are inexhaustible. I don't know how far back my Catholic roots go. But I hope I am not the branch that withers and rots off a steadfast family tree and I pray that I leave Catholicism as a fruitful legacy to my children, and generations after them.
Catechism 2030: “It is in the Church, in communion with all the baptized that the Christian fulfills his vocation.”
“Anyone that agrees with you is lost!”
In other words, hundreds of millions of Protestants - including many of the leaders of Protestantism, both modern and the original crew from the 16th century - are lost because they disagree with you and agree with historic, orthodox, and biblical Christianity. Think about what you’re saying there, chief. They’re all doomed - not because they agree with me - but because they disagree with you and you’re the one with the odd, novel view.
“A ‘once was a catholic priest’ brother in Christ mentioned recently that the fires of Hell cannot burn away sin. So sin is so unrighteous that even the burning of is will not erase it. But Catholicism still teaches folks that they can get right through the bringing of their venial sins in purgatory.”
It’s not “fire” that “burns away sin” in Purgatory, but grace.
“Guilt is not remitted by punishment, but venial sin as to its guilt is remitted in Purgatory by virtue of grace, not only as existing in the habit, but also as proceeding to the act of charity in detestation of venial sin.”
http://biblehub.com/library/aquinas/summa_theologica/whether_venial_sin_is_expiated.htm
“That purgatory notion was added much later than t he completion of the Bible, so we are to assume it was a tradition, eh?”
The Bible was completed - in terms of when the last book was written - in the 90s according to most scripture scholars. Prayers for the dead, however, for which Purgatory alone is a satisfactory example were known to exist BEFORE the Bible was completed. See 2 Maccabees 12 for instance. And the prayer requested in the famous Inscription of Abericus shows Christians were praying for the dead no later than 167. That’s only 70-75 years after the New Testament was written. It certainly is not “much later than t he completion of the Bible”. You probably knew nothing about the Inscription of Abericus, right? There’s no reason to pray for the dead unless there’s a Purgatory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscription_of_Abercius
And don’t forget that some scholars see Paul as praying for Onesiphorus, and not just his household, as if he were deceased. 2 Timothy 1:16-18
Purgatory is a fantasy fabricated from 1438, for further empowerment of a nicolaitanized religion. The Christian, as a member of The Bride, will have a 'review' in Heaven, which will purify. This is related to the 'cleansing bath' the Jewish maiden has before the wedding ceremony. You can get as much purging from catholic purgatory as Luke Skywalker got from the force, and at about the same level of fantasy.
The heresy of catholic purgatory stems from the denial that Christ's blood cleanses from all unrighteousness and then God immediately sends His Holy Spirit Life into the cleansed believer. This is a subtle way to deny the power in the perfect blood of Christ Jesus. It is also a way the system of catholic church empowers their bureaucracy, not a furtherance of salvation ministry.
The word of God is the standard, and you are clearly in direct denial of it.
Phl 2:12 ¶ Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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The easy believers, of course, will assure us that saying the magic words will unconditionally guarantee our redemption. (YMMV)
We were told that by going to mass for 9 first Fridays, or 5 first Saturdays, we could get a soul out of purgatory and into Heaven. I felt rather proud of myself. Here was a conundrum for me, however. I always felt like I was a lost sinner, on my way to Hell. Newsflash: that is exact where I was headed, so I felt a little jealous, and less than enthusiastic, that I was getting someone else out of purgatory, but I was going to Hell. What kind of a bummer deal was that, I wondered? 😂 Now that the scales of spiritual blindness have been removed from my eyes, I see things differently. I know you can relate. Maranatha bro. 😇
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>> “It’s not “fire” that “burns away sin” in Purgatory, but grace.” <<
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Grace allows our innocence before Yeshua, and the innocent are never punished.
It is a wicked ‘grace’ to which you subscribe.
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*Applauding*
“Purgatory is a fantasy fabricated from 1438...”
Nope. As I just posted to you there is no reason to pray for the dead if there is no Purgatory.
Also, off the top of my head, why are you making up this date of 1438 when I have read documents from the 11th and 12th century about Purgatory? Even the skeptic Jacques Le Goff insisted that Purgatory was discussed widely in the 12th century.
And, of course, you’ve never even seen this book, right?
https://books.google.com/books?id=Fw1cAAAAQAAJ&pg=PAPP5#v=onepage&q&f=false
And, still, prayers from the dead show that people believed in Purgatory long, long, long before the Middle Ages.
“There are few that might agree with you, and certainly not even thousands.”
Actually, hundreds of millions. Take Lutherans, for instance, they see the difference: http://www.lcms.org/doctrine/doctrinalposition#redemption There are about 74,000,000 Lutherans in the world apparently: http://www.lca.org.au/lutherans-worldwide.html
And that’s just Lutherans.
“Grace allows our innocence before Yeshua, and the innocent are never punished.”
Are you saying the good never suffer?
Philippians 3:8-11:
“Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his suffering, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
Romans 8:18
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
“It is a wicked ‘grace’ to which you subscribe.”
God’s grace is never wicked and He’s the only one to give it.
Exactly, which is why there's no point in praying for the dead.
Hebrews 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Time wasted praying for the dead would be better spent praying for the living, that they get saved BEFORE they die. Then nobody has to worry about them after they die.
Are you so dense that you do not know there is a difference between persecution and punishment? The catholic notion of purgatory is heretical at its core because it is adding onto what Jesus said was finished on the cross, namely God in His Son atoning far All sin.
v998: Are you saying the good never suffer?
Did you take lessons on red herrings or how to twist words?
Or do Catholics actually believe that all suffering is punishment by God?
You do know, don't you, that God does not treat us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities?
Psalm 103:8-14 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
Then again, that doesn't sound like the Catholic God.
Except for Mary, according to many Catholics.
“Exactly, which is why there’s no point in praying for the dead.”
Once again we apparently see how anti-Catholicism makes a person unable to think logically. Whether or not YOU believe Purgatory exists is immaterial. People, before and after, the time of Jesus’ time on Earth believed that Purgatory, even if they did not use that name, existed.
“Hebrews 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”
Once again we see that the anti-Catholic apparently doesn’t know the very doctrine she is supposedly attacking. Purgatory does not in any way impede judgment. Purgatory, in fact, is only for those who were ALREADY JUDGED and who will enter Heaven but need grace for cleansing. The very existence of Purgatory is COMPLETELY DEPENDENT ON THE EXISTENCE OF JUDGMENT.
“Time wasted praying for the dead would be better spent praying for the living, that they get saved BEFORE they die.”
Those who go to Purgatory were in a state of grace when they died.
“Then nobody has to worry about them after they die.”
It’s not a matter of worry. It’s a matter of love and desire. We want our loved ones to have the best and we want them to have it as soon as possible. Hence, we pray for them.
“Are you so dense that you do not know there is a difference between persecution and punishment?”
Are you do dense that you do not know there is a difference between suffering and punishment? Punishment is suffering but not all suffering is punishment. Every parent I know would suffer in the place of their sick children. None of them would consider it punishment from anyone.
“The catholic notion of purgatory is heretical at its core because it is adding onto what Jesus said was finished on the cross, namely God in His Son atoning far All sin.”
To use your sort of words: “Are you so dense that you don’t know the doctrine you’re attacking DOES NOT in any way violate the idea that Jesus’ atoning sacrifice was finished on the cross and works for ALL sin?” Purgatory ONLY WORKS because of Christ’s atonement. It is powered by his grace.
I believe you have already been told that the grace you are touting is not God’s Grace, for God’s Grace is the source of justification, making those justified innocent then before the Lord. The Bible clearly illustrates this is an instantaneous event (Pentecost and the house of Cornelius) followed by God’s Life indwelling the justified, so purgatory is not a place the innocent/justified would be. The grace you are peddling in purgatory is a wickedness whose source would be the wicked one.
You might want to study up on the Bema Seat of Christ IN HEAVEN.
e-s said:“Grace allows our innocence before Yeshua, and the innocent are never punished.”
I said: “v998: Are you saying the good never suffer?
You said: “Did you take lessons on red herrings or how to twist words?”
That is the sort of comment that really makes me think anti-Catholicism is debilitating to the human mind. Please note editor surveyor CREATED THE RED HERRING by using the word “punished” even though Catholics do not believe Purgatory is a place/state of being of suffering NOT PUNISHMENT. I corrected his ERROR. You then accuse me - for using the CORRECT TERM - for creating a red herring. Did you even notice he used the wrong term, a theologically wrong term? Did you? Anti-Catholics repeatedly attack things they apparently don’t understand enough to even state correctly!
“Or do Catholics actually believe that all suffering is punishment by God?”
No. God allows whatever suffering exists, but it is not all from Him by any means.
“You do know, don’t you, that God does not treat us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities?”
You do know that we suffer from sin in two temporal ways?: 1) Sin entering the world disrupted that which God established and suffering and death came with it, 2) our own sins cause temporal suffering - our own and others.
“Then again, that doesn’t sound like the Catholic God.”
Yes, it does. But clearly the anti-Catholics don’t understand Him or worse don’t know Him much at all.
“Except for Mary, according to many Catholics.”
God gives graces through Mary. Grace would only pass through Mary from God to us.
In Octobri Mense Adventante, Pope Leo XIII wrote:
Nothing at all of that very great treasury of all grace that the Lord brought us—for “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [John 1:17]—nothing is imparted to us except through Mary, since God so wills.
Pope Pius XI in Ingravescentibus Malis:
We know that all things are imparted to us from God the greatest and best through the hands of the Mother of God. https://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachings/marya4a.htm
Lumen Gentium, from Vatican II:
The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ but rather shows its power. For all the saving influences of the Blessed Virgin on men originate not from some inner necessity but from the divine pleasure. They flow from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rest on his mediation, depend entirely on it, and draw all their power from it. In no way do they impede the immediate union of the faithful with Christ. Rather, they foster this union. (LG 60)
St. Ephraem (373) said: “With the Mediator, you are the Mediatrix of the entire world” (S. Ephraem, Syri opera graeca et latine, ed., Assemani, v. 3, Romae, pp. 525, 528-9, 532).
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in one of the greatest Marian sermons of antiquity, said: “Hail Mary Theotokos, venerable treasure of the whole world...it is you through whom the Holy Trinity is glorified and adored,...through whom the tempter, the devil is cast down from heaven, through whom the fallen creature is raised up to heaven, through whom all creation, once imprisoned by idolatry, has reached knowledge of the truth, through whom holy baptism has come to believers...through whom nations are brought to repentance....” (Hom. in Deiparam, PG 65, p.681).
Antipater of Bostra, another Father of the Council of Ephesus (AD 431), wrote: “Hail you who acceptably intercede as a Mediatrix for mankind.”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux stated: “God has willed that we should have nothing which would not pass through the hands of Mary” (Hom. III in vig. nativit., n. 10, PL 183, 100).
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