Born Again Christian Catholic

[Cathryn]

I agree with what you are saying, but to be saved, a person must cooperate with God’s saving act.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, gave a good analogy of what it is to be saved.

He said its like a person who falls over board, off of a ship. In the water, he struggles to stay afloat and yells for help. A person on the ship, throws him a life preserver. Now, for the person in the water to be saved, he must reach out and grab hold of the life preserver. If he doesn’t, he can’t be saved.

So it is with saving grace. We must reach out and be open to receive it. God doesn’t force himself on us.

Reconciliation with God is the first step for receiving the gift of faith. Faith is what brings a person closer to Christ. Religion is the response to faith.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation, reconciles us with the Church, and gives us the grace to live a life in full communion with the Church. It allows us to receive the Eucharist and receive the spiritual food of Jesus body and blood, which for Catholics, is the highest level of worship we can give God on earth.

However, a person could die and go to heaven without having gone to confession. But he can’t if he has not truly repented and asked God for forgiveness. Only God forgives sins.

Jim

Jim:

I agree that any one over the age of reason must cooperate with God’s grace to be saved. We are saved by Grace. We are saved by Faith which is a gift from God, but it is also Faith working through Love as St. Paul says. These are theological gifts as is Hope. We have to respond to God’s gift of faith. Baptism puts us in Christ. Once we are in Christ we need to be conformed to Christ which is an ongoing process. Are hearts, minds, and souls are to be transformed into Christ’s heart, mind, and soul. Grace, with faith working through love makes this possible. We die with Christ and live in Christ as a new creation.

 

[KingAlfred]

Tell me, please…do you born-again Catholics believe the Pope needs to be ‘born-again’? Would you recommend that to him, if you could? Just curious.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Jim:

I agree that any one over the age of reason must cooperate with God’s grace to be saved. We are saved by Grace. We are saved by Faith which is a gift from God, but it is also Faith working through Love as St. Paul says. These are theological gifts as is Hope. We have to respond to God’s gift of faith. Baptism puts us in Christ. Once we are in Christ we need to be conformed to Christ which is an ongoing process. Are hearts, minds, and souls are to be transformed into Christ’s heart, mind, and soul. Grace, with faith working through love makes this possible. We die with Christ and live in Christ as a new creation.

I think we’re saying the same thing. The difference is, when the person actually accepts that faith, which he received at Baptism.

For many of us, it doesn’t happen, before we’ve rejected the faith, as I did. But it wasn’t really a rejection of faith so much as a rejection of religion, and it was rejection of bad examples of religion.

When I accepted faith, it was from the source of faith, Jesus Christ, not from religion. Religion became the means by which I would respond to the faith I had received.

Was this the result of my being Baptized as an infant? Perhaps, but I know others, including close relatives, who were also Baptized and raised in the Catholic Church as I was, but have no use for it, nor do they accept Christianity.

Unless they reach out and grab that life preserver, Jesus Christ, they will never grow spiritually.

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Tell me, please…do you born-again Catholics believe the Pope needs to be ‘born-again’? Would you recommend that to him, if you could? Just curious.

Of course not, he was born again(in the sense I’m describing it) at a much younger age, which led him into the priesthood.

Every Catholic who was Baptized as an infant, will have to come to a point in their life, where they either accept or reject the faith that their parents tried to raise them in. Some do it earlier life than others. Most unfortunately, reject the faith and never look back.

Jim

 

[rolandjames]

The Pope born again? Yes. I believe every Pope who ever lived and reached the pinnacle in his religious life to be allowed by God to sit on the throne of Peter should be born again. From the point of view of “private vs. public revelation” I’m sure every Pope received a private and personal revelation from God that gave him the faith to continue his Christian journey culminating in the Papacy. From the point of view of “Protestant vs. Catholic” jargon I would say “NO” the Popes were not born again Christians, in the modern sense of the term.

 

[Ceil-1]

If a baptized Catholic fell away from his faith enough to fall into mortal sin, then wake up and seek reconciliation and penance; would that not qualify as a born-again experience? Wouldn’t any significant conversion experience qualify? I think born-again is a Protestant term. We define the same experience by different terms.

 

[KingAlfred]

Of course not, he was born again(in the sense I’m describing it) at a much younger age, which led him into the priesthood.

Every Catholic who was Baptized as an infant, will have to come to a point in their life, where they either accept or reject the faith that their parents tried to raise them in. Some do it earlier life than others. Most unfortunately, reject the faith and never look back.

Jim

Jim, that’s what Confirmation is for. Did you know that?

 

[KingAlfred]

The Pope born again? Yes. I believe every Pope who ever lived and reached the pinnacle in his religious life to be allowed by God to sit on the throne of Peter should be born again. From the point of view of “private vs. public revelation” I’m sure every Pope received a private and personal revelation from God that gave him the faith to continue his Christian journey culminating in the Papacy. From the point of view of “Protestant vs. Catholic” jargon I would say “NO” the Popes were not born again Christians, in the modern sense of the term.

Roland, the question is this:* if you could, would you tell the Pope he needs to be ‘born-again’? *

 

[KingAlfred]

If a baptized Catholic fell away from his faith enough to fall into mortal sin, then wake up and seek reconciliation and penance; would that not qualify as a born-again experience? Wouldn’t any significant conversion experience qualify? I think born-again is a Protestant term. We define the same experience by different terms.

If, after confessing prior to Mass, I felt especially relieved and renewed, would that qualify as my being ‘born-again’? Could I henceforth tell people I was a ‘born-again Catholic?’

 

[estesbob]

Of course not, he was born again(in the sense I’m describing it) at a much younger age, which led him into the priesthood.

Every Catholic who was Baptized as an infant, will have to come to a point in their life, where they either accept or reject the faith that their parents tried to raise them in. Some do it earlier life than others. Most unfortunately, reject the faith and never look back.

Jim

It can be several points in ones life that one makes this decision.

 

[rolandjames]

KingAlfred, “NO”. I would not tell the Pope he needs to be born again. I am a Catholic and that would be a brazen act on my part to so disrespect the Holy Father with such a statement or question. I can tell you what I will do when I meet him. I will bow down and kiss the ring of His Holiness.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Jim, that’s what Confirmation is for. Did you know that?

Thats what its used for today, but theologically, its not what Confirmation is about.

Confirmation is part of Baptism, and in the Eastern Church, infants are Baptized and Confirmed at the same time.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

1285 Baptism, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the “sacraments of Christian initiation,” whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. For “by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.”

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

If, after confessing prior to Mass, I felt especially relieved and renewed, would that qualify as my being ‘born-again’? Could I henceforth tell people I was a ‘born-again Catholic?’

Not necessarily and thats not what the “born again experience” was for me.

The experience for me was Christ’s revelation of Himself to me, in a profound way, where I had no doubt about who He is, and that through Him, I would be saved. He in an instant, became my God.

It was a life transforming experience.

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

It can be several points in ones life that one makes this decision.

I suppose it can, but for a Pope, if you read about their lives, its usually a one time experience that transform them and leads them into the priesthood.

They have no idea that they would ever be called to become Pope.

Jim

 

[KingAlfred]

Not necessarily and thats not what the “born again experience” was for me.

The experience for me was Christ’s revelation of Himself to me, in a profound way, where I had no doubt about who He is, and that through Him, I would be saved. He in an instant, became my God.

It was a life transforming experience.

Jim

I’ll take that as a ‘no’. Catholic redemption doesn’t count as being born-again.

 

[KingAlfred]

Thats what its used for today, but theologically, its not what Confirmation is about.

Confirmation is part of Baptism, and in the Eastern Church, infants are Baptized and Confirmed at the same time.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Jim

You quote the Catechism, when it provides no provision for your own born-again experience? And yeah…they are both inter-related, because for Catholics, they ARE the occasions upon which young people receive the Holy Spirit. There is no born-again option for Catholics outside the sacraments. You’re on a nebulous axis, Jim. You can’t have it both ways. You’re either Catholic, or a born-again evangelical. By laying claim to this ‘born-again’ status as a Catholic, you’ve established a parallel authority to which you answer, as a Catholic, which isn’t allowed. I read that somewhere in the Catechism long ago – “no parallel authorities in the Church.”

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I’ll take that as a ‘no’. Catholic redemption doesn’t count as being born-again.

Catholic redemption?

Not sure what you mean, but salvation comes from Jesus Christ, not the Roman Catholic Church.

Jim

 

[estesbob]

Catholic redemption?

Not sure what you mean, but salvation comes from Jesus Christ, not the Roman Catholic Church.

Jim

You can not seperate Christ from his Church.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

You quote the Catechism, when it provides no provision for your own born-again experience? And yeah…they are both inter-related, because for Catholics, they ARE the occasions upon which young people receive the Holy Spirit. There is no born-again option for Catholics outside the sacraments. You’re on a nebulous axis, Jim. You can’t have it both ways. You’re either Catholic, or a born-again evangelical. By laying claim to this ‘born-again’ status as a Catholic, you’ve established a parallel authority to which you answer, as a Catholic, which isn’t allowed. I read that somewhere in the Catechism long ago – “no parallel authorities in the Church.”

OK, let me try it this way.

CCC
166 Faith is a personal act - the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself.

Although we receive new life through the sacrament of Baptism, that new life isn’t realized until the person receives the gift of faith and a person must be open to receive faith, before he can receive it.

also;

162 Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: “Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; it must be “working through charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.

For many Catholics who were Baptized as infants, we did not receive faith, “which is the new life that the Catechism speaks about.” We were Baptized through the faith of our parents(how ever strong that was) but not our own, and for many generations of Catholics, Baptism was treated as a social event, more than a sacarament. Until we opened ourselves up to receive faith, we will not have it. Once received, our lives are transformed and we see the death of the old self, and a birth of the new self in Christ.

I don’t think I can make it any more elementary that this and I don’t really see a need to debate over it.

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

You can not seperate Christ from his Church.

But you can be a Roman Catholic and still not have faith in Christ, still end up in hell.

Without faith in Christ, religion, even the Catholic Religion, will not save you, in fact, you’d be receiving the sacraments sacrilegiously.

Jim