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Guest Op-Ed: 500th anniversary of the excommunication of arch-heretic, Martin Luther
Rorate Caeli ^ | December 30, 2020 | Mark Thomas

Posted on 01/02/2021 6:05:47 PM PST by ebb tide

Guest Op-Ed: 500th anniversary of the excommunication of arch-heretic, Martin Luther

This Sunday, January 3, 2021, is the 500th anniversary of the excommunication of Martin Luther as a heretic and schismatic – the greatest damage ever done to the Holy Catholic Church. He died unrepentant, without the sacraments and outside the One True Church.

Yes, Pope Leo X, who issued the excommunication decree and the previous Exsurge Domine warning (6/15/1520) to Luther, had a mixed record of papal righteousness – but in this event he is nearly unsurpassed and fairly vindicated. 

In this writer's view, these documents are two of the most formidable, necessary and courageous decrees emanating from the Chair of Peter, defending the Holy Roman Catholic Church from doctrinal attack. They were subsequently, fully upheld by the Council of Trent – also one of the greatest Councils in Church history – to which we owe very much, especially on the Eucharist!

We still face great danger. With Luther, there was no warning, just 95 absurd theses appearing out of thin air. 

Here today, we had a warning in 1917 at Fatima. “Russia will spread her errors throughout the world,” did Our Lady alert the three children and us Catholics. 

We feel these effects today – a far more serious warning than Luther. In full deference to Our Lady and the Most Holy Trinity – it is extremely doubtful (despite assertions to the contrary) that the full, correct Consecration to Russia was done; or that the decisive 3rd Secret text was totally revealed. 

The errors, it is said, will lead to “The Great Apostasy.” There seems no appetite in the Vatican, at any level, to humbly accept and remedy those grave errors. Rather, a desire to hurtle into the future with Pachamama; Amazon Culture; ecology; and global secular solutions – as moral virtue is completely ignored and vocations and faithful Catholics disappear at record speeds.

Will the Church (and our Country) continue its decline? Will we still continue to receive God’s Divine Mercy and Graces? Are we due for a severe Divine Chastisement? 

I am not going to advance an opinion here – only to charitably say, we would all do well to place our own souls in a state of grace, and urge our families, friends and others to do the same. 

And Pray. God is very good.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Theology
KEYWORDS: antichrists; burningsatthestake; excommunication; frankthehippiepope; heretic; hereticalromanchurch; indulgences; johanneshuss; luther; murder; pedophilia
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To: ADSUM
Perhaps you should locate the tools that will help you instead of your false assumption of already being saved.

I am a merely another thief on another cross next to Jesus, saying, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

I hope that He replies, "TODAY, you will be with me in Paradise."

521 posted on 03/02/2021 7:02:47 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Hi Elsie. God bless.


522 posted on 03/02/2021 7:07:29 PM PST by CJ Wolf (wwg1wga Godwins; what is scarier than offensive words? Not being able to say them.. )
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To: ADSUM
You mock Christ’s Body and Blood and His Word.

Nope; I mock your chosen denomination once again.


Matthew 24:24
For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.

Revelation 13:13
He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men.

523 posted on 03/02/2021 7:07:32 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ADSUM
Jesus told us to eat and drink His Body and Blood. John 6

Why didn't Doubting Thomas lick his fingers after placing them into Jesus' wounds?


John 20:27-29
 
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [it] into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.

524 posted on 03/02/2021 7:15:46 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Jesus told us to eat and drink His Body and Blood. John 6

Your comment: “Why didn’t Doubting Thomas lick his fingers after placing them into Jesus’ wounds?”

Your comment is profane and shows a complete lack of love toward Jesus Christ. Aren’t you just a renegade?

Jesus called us not only to Repent but to believe in the gospel. To believe in the Bible means to decide to accept the message as true and carry you forward on a new path. Not to believe in the gospel can mean to put an active resistance to the message - to close your eyes, stop up your ears, harden your heart... Mt 7;21-23


525 posted on 03/03/2021 9:46:16 AM PST by ADSUM ( )
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To: ADSUM
Your comment is profane and shows a complete lack of love toward Jesus Christ.

Profane?

Why?

How does your logic work to come up with a conclusion that you have?

526 posted on 03/04/2021 5:58:11 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ADSUM
Jesus told us to eat and drink His Body and Blood.

Just not from the Source: right?

527 posted on 03/04/2021 5:58:57 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
Perhaps you can explain why seven churches (Catholic?) in Asia went off the rails even before John the Revelator died?

(Evidently not...)

528 posted on 03/04/2021 6:01:34 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie; ADSUM

Elsie, you disrespect His words — Jesus said

John 6: 35 [q]Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.
John 6:50 this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

52 The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?” 53 Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. 54 Whoever eats[s] my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

You disrespect Jesus’s own words - repeatedly said and then you act like those in John 6:66 As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him


529 posted on 03/04/2021 6:02:51 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Elsie; ADSUM
Elsie Perhaps you can explain why seven churches (Catholic?) in Asia went off the rails even before John the Revelator died?

They didn't go off the rails. Have you ever read the book of the Apocalypse?

Ephesus: 2 “I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are impostors.[d] 3 Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. 5 Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first. -- they were slipping and they got back on their feet

Smyrna - no admonition

Pergamum - "some fell"

Thyatira - they tolerate a woman

Sardis - they still have a chance

Philly - no admonition

Laocidea - lukewarm

Your own chuch of one, Elsie, would be rising if it reached any of those early Christian churches level

they faced persecution by the Jewish authorities (Sadducees), by the Jewish elite (Pharisees) by the Roman Authorities.

You face none of those yet you can't compare to them.

Don't disrespect the Christians who went through the great tribulation - would you be able to have withstood it?

530 posted on 03/04/2021 6:08:01 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Elsie
this is not ritual -- if you read in the Bible, starting from John 6:30, we read
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.’
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.
They asked Him for a sign, saying that Moses gave them manna in the desert. If Jesus (according to them) was aspiring to the level of Moses, He should do something as big as that.

and Jesus says something strange to them -- He says Moses didn't give you bread, My father did, and bread that comes down from heaven. Then He says that HE is the bread of life, HE is the manna -- and manna was to be eaten.

The people around Him made the same mistake you did, which is to think he was speaking as a metaphor.

Yet Jesus REPEATED the same thing, saying
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.
50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
And now the crowd is openly rebellious saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
And
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
Note -- Jesus doesn't clear up the Metaphor, like he did in Matt. 16:5–12
5 When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread.
6 “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
7 They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”
8 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread?
9 Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
11 How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
So, Jesus DOES indicate when it is a metaphor and when it isn't.
In this case, look at the reaction of his DISCIPLES, people who had heard his teachings for so long and followed him
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”...

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
You cannot say that this was just bread and wine of that this is a metphor for coming and having faith in the Lord or some kind of metphor for believing in Christ because of the reaction of the Jews and the very language -- to eat one's flesh and drink the blood means to do violence on some one. You see it even in Hindi where a threat is "Mein tera Khoon pie jaongaa" or "I will drink your blood" -- and this is among vegetarians! To drink a persons blood means a serious threat of injury.So, if you believe that this was just a metphor, you mean to say that Christ is rewarding people for crucifying Him?!! That's nonsensical, sorry.

You cannot even say it was a metaphor by incorreclty comparing it to John 10:9 (I am the gate/doorway) or John 15:1 (I am the true vine) is because this is not referenced in the entire verse in the same way as John 6 which shows the entire incident from start to finish of Jesus saying His body is to be eaten, repeating it and seeing his disciples go and not correcting them (as he did in Matthew 16).

Even in the literal sense -- Christ says he is the gateway to heaven and the vine such that we get nourishment with him as the connecting path. But John 6 is much much more than mere symbolism as He categorically states that "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:55).

Even at the end of John 6, Jesus rebukes those who think of what He has said as a metaphor by emphasising that

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?
62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life.
64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
Jesus repeats the rebuke against just thinking in terms of human logic (Calvin's main problem) by saying
John 8:15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.
16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.
Just using human logic as Calvinist thought does, without God's blessings behind it fails in grace.John 6:63 does not refer to Jesus's statement of his own flesh, if you read in context but refers to using human logic instead of dwelling on God's words.

And, all of this is confirmed in Paul's writings to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 10:16)
6 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?
and also 1 Cor 11:27-29
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.
29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.
How clear can Paul get? "The bread IS a participation in the body of Christ" and "who eats the bread... will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord" This is not just mere bread and wine anymore. This is the body and blood of Christ.

Finally, the Earliest Christians also said any consideration of this as just a metaphor was false -- Ignature of Antioch (disciple of Apotle John) wrote in AD 110 wrote about heretics who abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (Letter to the SMyrnaens). The earliest Christians beleived this to be the ACTUAL body of Christ. Why, they were also accused by pagans of being cannibals and Justin MArtyr had to write a defence to the Emperor saying "Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"

in view of this overwhelming evidence from scripture and supplemented by the practise and belief of the earliest Christians, we can only say that there IS a real presence in the Eucharist. Martin Luther too believed it -- he said that Who, but the devil, has granted such license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? or, that is is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposes upon us by these fanatical men. --> only Calvin/Zwingli turned around what Christ had said

as our Protestant Lutheran brethren say From the Lutheran LCMS.org website

All three accounts of the institution of the Lord's Supper in the Gospels (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-23) explicitly state that Jesus took BREAD, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, "Take, eat; this [i.e., this BREAD, which I have just blessed and broken and am now giving to you] is my body." Jesus uses similar language in referring to "the cup" (of wine) as "his blood."...
Perhaps the most explicit expression of this truth, however, is found in 1 Cor. 10:16-17, where Paul writes: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread."
Paul clearly says here that we all "partake" of "BREAD" when we receive the Lord's Supper--even as we also partake of and "participate in" the true body of Christ. And he says that we all "partake" of the wine (the cup), even as we also partake of the true blood of Christ.
Similarly, in 1 Cor. 11:26, Paul says: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Paul expressly states here ........................that those who eat this bread and drink this cup are also partaking of the true body and blood of Christ.
So "real" is this participation in Christ's body and blood, in fact, that (according to Paul) those who partake of the bread and wine "in an unworthy manner" are actually guilty of "profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11:27). (Partaking of the Lord's Supper "in a worthy manner," of course, is not something that we "do" or "accomplish" on the basis of our "personal holiness" or "good works." It means receiving God's free and gracious gifts of life and forgiveness offered in the Lord's Supper in true repentance produced by the work of the Spirit through God's Law and in true faith in Christ and his promises produced by God's Spirit through the Gospel).

531 posted on 03/04/2021 6:08:55 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Cronos

Deuteronomy 8:3

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

*************

Communion is one of those mysteries of God that I am willing to keep as a mystery. BUT - the focus on the physical eating of the bread (or the physical eating of Jesus’s body) is not the main point IMHO.

Just as in the Lord’s Prayer - “Give us this day our daily bread” is not about eating bread at all. It is the presence and word of Jesus in our lives.


532 posted on 03/04/2021 6:13:26 AM PST by 21twelve (Ever Vigilant. Never Fearful!)
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To: ADSUM; Elsie
Elsie's pals on another thread told me the reasoning why they think they can ignore Jesus' words

They just go "it wasn't me -- just my body or my soul that sinned, not me, no sir"

It wasn't me - just my body/soul that done sinned

533 posted on 03/04/2021 6:40:54 AM PST by Cronos
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To: 21twelve

And if you wish to keep it as a mystery that Jesus ordained as necessary for us, so be it.

It’s not about the eating of bread - as Jesus clearly repeatedly said, it’s about the eating of His body - a mystery no doubt. He calls it spiritual sustenance analogous to how manna was sustenance


534 posted on 03/04/2021 6:42:38 AM PST by Cronos
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To: Cronos
Don't disrespect the Christians who went through the great tribulation - would you be able to have withstood it?

HMMMmmm...

My history book missed it; too.

535 posted on 03/04/2021 3:24:25 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Cronos
For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Tom! Do NOT lick your fingers!


536 posted on 03/04/2021 3:27:07 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Cronos

Well; as long as you are cross threading...

1 John 2:1

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.


537 posted on 03/04/2021 3:29:05 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie; ADSUM

Yes, as the apostle johen wrote.
As jesus said, you need to eat of His body. Why don’t you listen to Him?


538 posted on 03/04/2021 11:01:46 PM PST by Cronos
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To: Elsie

You don’t have a history book.
Read about the persecution of jesus movement Jews in the period 64 to 67 ad.

That was the great tribulation that john wrote about. John wrote the book of Revelation during that time period,


539 posted on 03/04/2021 11:03:05 PM PST by Cronos
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To: Elsie

Actually you can just use the book of the Revelation

Rev 1:9 I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation and kingdom and [a]perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

The signs that Jesus referred to in Matthew 24 refer to the Great Tribulation of His Church under Nero from 64 to 67 AD

The Church was the Jesus-movement sect of Judaism and was persecuted by Jewish authorities (Sanhedrin/Sadducees), Jewish elite (pharisees) as well as roman authorities.

The Neronian persecution of the Church had begun after the burning of Rome in July 64 AD and was abated with the Jewish-Roman war


540 posted on 03/05/2021 12:03:22 AM PST by Cronos
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