Believing is Hard Work

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joshrp

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Hi,

I was thinking about Luther’s “saved by faith alone” idea, and I thought “Dammn! If we are saved by faith alone we are all going to Hell, because who among us has ever believed every Word that comes from the mouth of God?”

Having faith is a lot of hard work, I say.

What do others think of this thought?

Also, I have started a blog where I write reflections on each day’s Scripture readings for Mass. Hopefully I can do this consistently and actually say something useful.

The blog is here: catholicjoyofjesus.wordpress.com/

If you want to help me write things, or post prayers for you or others on it along with the reflections, I will love to talk about it. I mainly started this to make my campus parish more active in the liturgy and such, more active in prayer together etc and contemplating our role as Catholics. If you have any suggestions on how I can invigorate the Catholic culture on my university campus please let me know here or by PM.

God bless you
Joshua
 
Yes, believing is incredibly hard. I struggle daily with the Divinity of Christ to be honest. Fortunately, I know how to counter most of my doubts. But they’re there nonetheless.

As humans, we believe what we see, be it obvious (there are trees outside) or more complex (the universe is 14 billion years old). It’s harder for use to believe what we can’t see and what has been handed down to us. The evidence is there. It’s just harder to utilize it than evidence or other, physical things.
 
Yes - I’m afraid that far too often, “faith alone”, is lived as “belief alone”, by too many. This includes Catholics as well as protestants.

Faith is indeed hard work…BUT thankfully there is a shortcut…St Therese of Liseaux wrote of it.
If we are too small and weak to climb the stairs of Holiness, there is an elevator and it is Love.
True Agape Love is far easier to embrace, to understand (though not fully) and to live out than is perfect faith.

Peace
James
 
While I sympathisize with those who struggle with faith – and I’m glad they DO struggle with it instead of just walking away from Christianity – the opening comment made me think of this.

You can take your yellow marker and highlight everything in the Bible that you find fantastic and hard to believe.

I will (trust me on this) highlight everything in popular physics that while perhaps having some scientific basis is nonetheless equally hard to believe.

Just infinity itself. I focus on infinity in terms of a line that just goes on forever. I find that hard to believe, incomprehensible. It’s tempting to imagine ( no pun intended) the end of the line. but, then, there must be something beyond that line, almost by definition.

Likewise, infinity of time (backwards or forward) is incomprehensible.

so, if I ponder any of these things, they’re “insensible” i.e. beyonds the senses.

Intelligent life on other planets? Why should I believe in it? If they’re out there, why aren’t they trying to contact us? Why haven’t they?

I wouldn’t even ***want ***to believe in a God that was not larger than our universe.
 
It’s not the faith that is difficult for me.

It is reaching the fullness of faith… faithfullness.

That’s the hard part.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
It’s not the faith that is difficult for me.

It is reaching the fullness of faith… faithfullness.

That’s the hard part.

-Tim-
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It takes a lot of work to live the faith to the fullest, and if our works don’t reflect the faith we claim to have, then who are we trying to fool?

I worry that people like Luther are really in a lot of spiritual turmoil. I could never join another religion except the Catholic Church, because it is either the Catholic Church is completely right in what she officially teaches, or Jesus is not really the Son of God. The only other “religion” I could possibly accept would be a kind of theistic humanism.

I’m just wondering what I should think of Martin Luther and other Protestant Deformers. It should really have been called the Protestant Deformation. It deformed the faith that Jesus passed down to us. And I feel really bad for all who led it and participated in it, and I just hope and pray that God has given them mercy. I am certain that most of them loved Jesus more than any other who walked upon this earth. But they really distorted our image of who Jesus is and what He wants for us and from us. The Protestant Reformation was almost like a culmination in extreme religious psychosis and neurosis that people had about the way to salvation and life with God. I just don’t understand what happened to cause this paradigm shift. The Protestant Reformation distorted our understanding of the Scriptures more than any other paradigm in history. I just don’t know how to understand this epicenter of the destruction of the living meaning and spirit of the Word of God. All this “Reformation” did is tear people apart from the real Jesus Christ and give them a vapid hologram of Him.

We usually say today since Vatican II that non Catholics can get to Heaven. As far as I can tell, if you are not Catholic you can at least get to Purgatory. But until you accept the truth as Christ taught it through His one only Holy Apostolic Church, then you are not perfect enough for Heaven. Hopefully in Purgatory it will become clear to those who tried to follow God with a sincere heart but did not know the teachings of the Catholic Church enough to accept them, that those teachings are perfect, and that they come from Christ.

Ultimately, Luther and other reformers made themselves popes. Protestants essentially believe in the “papacy of myself”. Whenever there is a conflict, the authority ultimately rests in whatever me, myself, or I (the new Holy Trinity) thinks or feels or wants to be believe in, hope in, or love.
 
joshrp

You ask how you should think of Martin Luther and other Protestant reformers.

I view them as people who perhaps made wrong choices for the right reasons (in many cases).
There are so many facets to the Reformation. Faults that led to it, and non-religious complications that prevented it, and the resulting schism, from being resolved.
In some ways the reformers themselves became mere pawns in the Geo-political games among various kings and princes, including the popes who ruled over the Papal states.

Theologically the reformers in many cases were speaking out against abuses that were true abuses and corruption within the Church. I’m not saying that their alternatives were 100% correct, but at least starting out Luther wanted reformation within the Church and not schism.

While I cannot speak to all of the first and second generation reformers, it is my firm belief that Luther, who was indeed troubled with scruples and possibly other maladies, was welcomed by Christ into purgatory…Where we will all spend time.

I pray that eventually we will be able to heal many of the Schisms between Rome and other Christian communities.

Peace
James
 
We all strugle with faith. Many times I get the feeling that when we die we might find ourselves in a completly different world, much worst then this one, and everything we were told about God was a lie. In the end though it’s a betting game, you put all your money in on one or the other. My bet is what the Catholic Church teaches about God and the end.
 
Monte_RCMS said:
believing is easy

living your life is hard work
Click to expand...
LIke Monte RCMS, to me faith came easily. I do think living your life according to God’s plan is work, but it is joyous work filled with increasing wonders and happiness. Being Catholic is quite a blessing, imo.
 
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