Posted on 06/16/2019 4:55:18 AM PDT by CharlesOConnell
In Captains Courageous, with Spencer Tracey, Freddy Batholomew is a blowhard millionaire's son who is socially, poorly adjusted. He uses his father's incredible wealth, to bully his classmates and even his teacher, but he's roundly disliked, and ostracized. While on an ocean liner, he unsuccessfully tries to impress some other boys by eating 5 ice cream sodas. When he has to throw up, to escape the mocking boys, he runs into a lifeboat area to evade their ridicule while purging his overindulgence, and manages to fall overboard into the ocean.
Instances of people falling overboard into the open ocean are rather commonly reported in the news. Usually they are lost, but if by chance their accidents are observed and a life-preserver is thrown to them, is that the end of the story, do we just say, "oh, well, you have a floatation device, you're okay now"?
No, we have to pull them in. The life-preserver, the lifesaver, is only part of the formula for saving their lives. There is also a rope, which must be attached to the life-preserver, and must be used to finally accomplish their salvation.
Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man. But on the man side of the equation, unlike the radical individuality most typified by J.J. Rousseau, we who life the life of Christians do so in communities. But even then, we do not abide as atomistic individualists. We live our Jesus-oriented life in relation to our fellows. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." Hebrews 10:25.
Jesus' first disciple was his mother, who gave us the total account of his early life and who "treasured these things up in her heart". "A sword will pierce your own soul too, so that the secret thoughts of many hearts might be revealed". On the cross, he gave his mother to John to take in his home, but when you take your master's mother, she takes care of you.
Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.
And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. - Rev 11:19 -- 12:17
She forms the body of Christ. She schools her son's disciples. Those who won't attend her school, remain ignorant.
We are in a time when any merely human institution would be washed away. Our churches are going under the shadow of a new Heresy of Ba'al of Peor, as when the Hebrew people were successfully attacked and overwhelmed through human sexuality. Our churches are now pro-gay and as soon as the civil authority authorizes child sex, they will be indistinguishable from the denizens of the town of Sodom: "Bring them out that we may know them".
Jesus' mother forms the few of the elect who will resist being fooled by the great apostasy. Those who will not avail themselves of the lifeline of Mary, will be lost.
So you claim.
Because I know when I dont, at least regularly, Im not the same person. I dont have as much patience throughout the day, dont have as much desire to avoid sin throughout the day, dont care as much about other people throughout the day, Im just not, generally speaking, a nice person throughout the day if I neglect my time with Mary and God. Thats experience talking. If yours is different great for you. More power to you.
All I know is what I know from my own experience. And it shows me there isnt any downside to praying the Rosary every day. In other words, given what I wrote above, if the Rosary is some demonic devotion disguised and designed by Satan himself, he sure did screw it up.
This is so tedious.
The Claude Paradigm
You Catholics are wrong because you believe X.
We dont believe X.
Wrong again. Yes you do.
The leaders got together and wrote a letter that laid down the Rules For Worship.
Does Rome still go by those today??
I can't help what you get or don't get.
You know something?
I. DON'T. CARE.
I consider MomMD and Luircin to be a sister and brother in Christ, saved by the grace of God.
I can worship with them, pray with them, fellowship with them, and serve and minister with them.
And I expect to see them in heaven some day.
"I don't quite follow.", said Alice.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.' |
No, I just posted what they said.
Catholics are the most divisive group of Christianity going.
Sounds like you're driving a wedge.
I've challenged Catholics to focus on and pray only to Jesus and ignore Mary for one month and see what happens, and I did not get one taker.
The reactions I got were more like horror, like I had just asked them to sacrifice their firstborn to Baal.
Is sure does; if the FOLLOWING is still in effect...
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
"We are compelled in virtue of our faith to believe and maintain that there is only one holy Catholic Church, and that one is apostolic. This we firmly believe and profess without qualification. Outside this Church there is no salvation and no remission of sins, the Spouse in the Canticle proclaiming: 'One is my dove, my perfect one. One is she of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her' (Canticle of Canticles 6:8); which represents the one mystical body whose head is Christ, of Christ indeed, as God. And in this, 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism' (Ephesians 4:5). Certainly Noah had one ark at the time of the flood, prefiguring one Church which perfect to one cubit having one ruler and guide, namely Noah, outside of which we read all living things were destroyed We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."
--Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam sanctam (A.D. 1302)
That's perfectly fine. Just stop saying you're in communion with them even though there are doctrinal differences. It's not true.
If a person on their deathbed calls on the name of the Lord, like the thief on the cross did, then they are saved, lack of works or baptism notwithstanding.
Because those things don't save anyways, even though Catholicism tells us that they do.
The Claude Paradigm
“You Catholics are wrong because you believe X.”
“We don’t believe X.”
“Wrong again. Yes you do.”
.................................................
The MDO Paradigm
"The Scriptures don't say that."
"They say lots of things that aren't in words. Only we know what the hidden meanings are."
"What you claim never appears before 100 ad."
"There was a secret passing of these things, mouth to mouth, that only the church knows about."
"The Church Fathers say, The catechism says, The Pope says, etc."
"Don't tell me what I believe"
😂😄🤣
So; we have a DIRECT question. If it were asked of Jesus; I wonder what HIS response would be??
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, Rabbi, when did you get here?
26 Jesus answered, Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.
28 Then they asked him, What must we do to do the works God requires?
29 Jesus answered, The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.
30 So they asked him, What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.[c]
32 Jesus said to them, Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
34 Sir, they said, always give us this bread.
35 Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Fathers will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
I hope these words of JESUS; found in the book Rome assembled SO long ago; will provide clarity on the answer to the original question.
What are the rules of worship?
What I find exceptionally amusing is how you take offense when I say that we’re saved through faith, and then you take offense when I note that you Roman Catholics teach that you’re saved through works; even if you decide that you have to add faith to it, it’s still through works.
So which is it? How are you saved, Al? Through faith or through works?
Since Rome seems to KNOW these things; perhaps a link to the facts of this knowledge can be shown.
Why are you working so hard to cause division and pit non-Catholics against each other?
You know what? If someone tells me they are saved and confesses that it's through faith in Christ and not of works so that no one can boast, I'm going to believe them. I am not going to call them a liar nor am I going to undermine someone else's faith.
It's going to hurt no one if I accept at face value what is told me, and it's especially going to hurt no one if someone makes a deathbed confession and I tell their relatives that because they professed faith in Christ, they are in heaven.
That's too bad.
I hope these words of JESUS; found in the book Rome assembled SO long ago; will provide clarity on the answer to the original question.
Please feel free to forward them onto the Eastern Orthodox website where the question you noted was originally posted.
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