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Doreen
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You are only recognizing, and confirming for me, that CHRIST is truly “the air I breathe!” Thanks for the sentiment.
D.
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Mickey
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The gift of tears has been a constant understanding of the Catholic and Orthodox Church.
Greater than baptism itself is the fountain of tears after baptism, even though it is somewhat audacious to say so. For baptism is the washing away of evils that were in us before, but sins committed after baptism are washed away by tears. As baptism is received in infancy, we have all defiled it, but we cleanse it anew with tears. And if God in His love for mankind had not given us tears, those being saved would be few indeed and hard to find.
St. John Climacus
Thus should we weep for the forgiveness of our sins. The words of the bearer of the purple should convince us of this: ‘Going they went and wept, casting their seed; but coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves (Ps. 125:6);’ as well as the words of St. Isaac the Syrian: ‘Moisten your cheeks with the tears of your eyes, that the Holy Spirit may abide in you, and cleanse the filth of your malice. Move your lord with your tears, that He may help you’.
St. Seraphim of Sarov
God is visiting you when tears come during prayer.
Elder Amphilochios Makris
What rain is for seeds, tears are for those who are afflicted. REF:Saint John Chrysostom
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mercygate
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That is Catholic teaching.
I specifically meant to say ‘Catholic’ because, for a Catholic, a true follower of Christ (as distinguished from a sincere follower of Christ) is one who believes the Jesus builds his Church upon Peter and the Apostles and who embraces the teaching of that Church whole-heartedly.
Ah. But that sidesteps the point that for a Catholic the “elders in the church” are those who bear legitimate authority in the Apostolic Tradition and succession via the laying on of hands: a visible as well as a mystical transmission of the evangelical mandate.
I know you are not Catholic bashing.
Of course Catholic experience is dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Faith itself is a gift of the Spirit. But to our own individual and personal experience we add the essential belief that the Holy Spirit teaches via the Church in a privileged way.
The gift of tears, as technically understood, is not all that common, although it is not uncommon either. Tears of repentance, of compassion for the suffering of Christ or over the apprehension of some great mystical truth, such as the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist are extremely common. Almost every Catholic has experienced these things. But they are not, technically speaking, “the gift of tears.” 'Nother thread.
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Doreen
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Thanks for the challenge, Mickey.
I was challenged to read the entire Bible a while back, and by doing so, I learned a lot about the character, and unchanging nature of the LORD (all-caps = creator God/Yahweh) and the Lord, (no-caps = my King). It was an edifying experience.
I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive to dive into books like Numbers…Leviticus. Fearing they’d be rather over my head, boring, mundane, trudgery…but I committed to 3-4 pages a day for a year, and I frequently found myself pouring over 8-10 and then going back and digesting them all over again!
And I found grains of truth like:
Number 14:17-18 "Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’"
(This word, by the way, encouraged me to get the truth for myself, as I did not want to have my great-great-great grandchildren suffer because of my continuous rebellion!)
Leviticus 26:13 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high."
(This word, came as a gift to my spirit, confirming for me that I had been freed from the bondage of sin (slavery)…my “Egypt” was the World that I once walked in…materialism, lust, covetousness, and debauchery prevailed. I, at times, like the Israelites, balked and cried out to God…“Send me back to Egypt, where I had all kinds of food to eat!” … but I have come to realize His way is the better way, and His food satisfies my soul.)
Anyway, a long-winded way of saying…don’t discourage Joe from reading His word. It is mighty to save and food for the soul!
And to answer your question…as a result of reading the OT and NT, I have come to see God’s ways as higher than my ways. I do accept His ways…and all His works as you listed above. I simply have not yet been convinced that the Eucharist is the way of Salvation.
So, I’m agreeing that there are some interpretational debates/controversies…and this is why we are commanded to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”
And you can argue, that’s what the magisterium is for…and we can run around in circles. The truth is evident in the fruit.
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Lazerlike42
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I think it was Scott Hahn who said that when you look at what the Catholic Church teaches compared to all the Christian denominations, you realize that the Catholic Church either is telling the truth or is a purely evil work of Satan; there is no in between. He is absolutely right. Look at some of the things we believe. Look at what everyone else believes and says about these things. We are either right or we truly are a completely evil abomination.
Now look at someone like Mother Teresa. Her entire life was formed by the Catholic Church. She based all she did and believed off of what the Catholic Church taught her. Does she seem like a person who was taught by Satan? Was she a person who, following the teachings of the Catholic Church, gave her life to doing the work of evil? If you have ever seen anything on her… this woman was amazing. I can’t even explain it. It’s just unimaginable how amazing she was. If you tried as hard as you could to imagine the best person in the world and then studied her life, I guarantee that you would find she did stuff that you had never even come close to thinking of. This woman was just… there’s really not even a word for it.
Was she a person of evil? Remember: Mat 7:18 " A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."
To me, Mother Teresa is far and away one of the best proofs for the Catholic Church there is.
Now consider how many other people give their lives to religious orders and do the sorts of things Mother Teresa did. Think of the lifestyles brothers and nuns lead for Christ. Can you find this outside of the Catholic Church? Maybe a little, but if anything just barely. How could such a wrong, untrue faith bear the fruit that exists in so many religious communites, and was exemplified in Mother Teresa?
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Doreen
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LazerLike,
One of your counterparts in the CA community pointed just the opposite out to me the other day…they said that it should not be looked at as an “all or nothing” question…that there are some Catholics who have the fullness of Christ, and some Protestants who do and vice versa. To be exclusive is to err on the side of Hitler! Yikes!
I believe Mother Theresa had a personal relationship with Christ. It was expressed in her humility…she said: she is like a pencil in the hand of God…that nothing she did (just as nothing a pencil does) comes from her (the pencil) … but it is the Lord who works through her. THIS IS FRUIT! I agree with you. But you cannot say that there are not people doing the same work with the same humility who are not Catholic.
Let me just give you a taste:
Check out the link:
calledandsent.net
For just ONE example (this site, by the way, is the inspired creation of a young man in my local church who has a heart for missions and getting the word out about what people are doing, and how Christ’s message is being spread through even short-term missions projects.)
If you google “missions” or “missionaries”…I can imagine you’ll find as many non-denominational, protestant, evangelical links as you would Catholic programs. So it’s really not accurate for you to assume there isn’t a single protestant with the heart of Mother Theresa (in fact, to think this is to not see Christ in Mother Theresa, but to worship the woman herself…and that would not be good, would it?)
I am grateful for the testimony of such a faithful life as hers, and it DOES give me respect for the Catholic church…but mostly, I credit her righteousness to Christ and none other.
D.
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Unfinished
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Well, not to degrade your observation any, but we could say this of all things.
While I do agree Mother Teresa was an amazing person, lemme play devil’s advocate for a moment.
I, in my personal experience, have never met a mean Mormon. In fact, most of the Mormons I know have a family structure that we could really take a lesson from.
Does that mean Mormons are correct? No. But my point is this - It is funny how you can be drawn away from truth when you start putting your feelings above the truth. I can walk into many churches and feel great. I could cry at how beautiful the sermon was, and how I felt it, or how I felt like the pastor was truely a man of God. But does that make his theology correct? Not at all.
90% of us read Scripture with our faith tradition blinders on. And traditions run deep. You have to read the Scriptures without blinders, and for what they were intended to be! They were never intended to be the “end all be all” for theology. They are a supplement, not the entire thing. Or, one definition of supplement from dictionary.com - “A section added to a book or document to give further information or to correct errors.”
What are most of the letters doing? Correcting errors. Not laying down the theology of how to practice your faith - that is why they taught them in person! That is why the Catholic Church has maintained this teaching through succession.
Adam
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Richard_Hurtz
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I’m sorry, this is not a very convincing argument.
So you’re willing to claim that Mother Teresa is proof of the Catholic Church’s ‘rightness’? You want to claim the saints but disregard the sinners? At best the history of the Catholic Church is a mixed bag, as I would expect of any Christian denomination.
All will have their share of saints and sinners, the RCC is no different. There may have been “more saints” in Catholicism, but as post after post attests you’ve got a billion plus members - you’re going to have more of everything.
Peace to you,
Richard
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Mickey
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But you see my dear friend, that is the point. You have come to see God’s ways as higher than your own–and you accept the seemingly impossible (by our earthly terms). But then you remain unconvinced by a literal teaching. It is not necessary to twist or read something into the text that is not there. This teaching is glorious!
John 6: 51-54
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you;
he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Peace and blessings to you,
Mickey
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Lazerlike42
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In response to everyone’s posts about mine -
I wasn’t attempting to show a * proof of the faith there, I was simply making a point. My point, clarified, is this:
When one looks at Catholicism as compared to all of the other Christian faiths, it is reasonable to conclude that Catholicism is either the true Church started by Christ or it is a work of the devil. By reasonable I do not mean that it is a necessary conclusion or that one could not argue against it, but rather that it is a conclusion that does have some merit. In fact, this point can be summed up in one doctrine of the faith: transubstantiation. If Catholicism is the true religion, than we should be bowing down to and worshipping the consecrated host. If Catholicism is wrong, then doing this is to worship a false god. If Catholicism is teaching to worship false gods, then it is a qwork of the devil. When we look at a person like mother Theresa, her entire life was formed by the teachings of Catholicism. My point is that it is somewhat ridiculous to believe that someone doing the things she did would be a person whose entire life was formed on a faith that was the work of the devil.
This does not really hold true for other religions. We can’t really say that just because some baptist does a lot of really great things that her religion must be true, because there isn’t that same backdrop that if the faith is wrong its the work of the devil.
I don’t mean this to be a proof or anything of the sort. I am just trying to give people something to think about, that’s all. No, just because Martin Luther was anti-semitic it doesn’t mean his religion was wrong any more than his complete dedication to God means that it was right.*
I wasn’t attempting to show a * proof of the faith there, I was simply making a point. My point, clarified, is this:
When one looks at Catholicism as compared to all of the other Christian faiths, it is reasonable to conclude that Catholicism is either the true Church started by Christ or it is a work of the devil. By reasonable I do not mean that it is a necessary conclusion or that one could not argue against it, but rather that it is a conclusion that does have some merit. In fact, this point can be summed up in one doctrine of the faith: transubstantiation. If Catholicism is the true religion, than we should be bowing down to and worshipping the consecrated host. If Catholicism is wrong, then doing this is to worship a false god. If Catholicism is teaching to worship false gods, then it is a qwork of the devil. When we look at a person like mother Theresa, her entire life was formed by the teachings of Catholicism. My point is that it is somewhat ridiculous to believe that someone doing the things she did would be a person whose entire life was formed on a faith that was the work of the devil.
This does not really hold true for other religions. We can’t really say that just because some baptist does a lot of really great things that her religion must be true, because there isn’t that same backdrop that if the faith is wrong its the work of the devil.
I don’t mean this to be a proof or anything of the sort. I am just trying to give people something to think about, that’s all. No, just because Martin Luther was anti-semitic it doesn’t mean his religion was wrong any more than his complete dedication to God means that it was right.*
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Richard_Hurtz
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Lazerlike42
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My point has nothing to do with devout faith. My point is that Mother Therea’s faith was formed in a faith which one could argue is either true or is of the devil.
If one assumes that the Catholic faith is either true or is of the devil, and cannot be otherwise, then Mother Theresa’s actions actually could go a long way to proving Catholcism, because nothing formed of the devil could produce the fruits that she did.
The disagreement must be over whether this proposition is true. I say that it is reasonable to conclude that it is true. Perhaps it is best said another way. This arguement would do no good for a Muslim, Jew, atheist, and so forth because of their lack of a common understanding of God. However, if one assumes that Christianity is true, then the arguement does have benefit. The reason is that Christians all assume that certain things about God are true. For instance, all of Christianity assumes to be true that He is one and that He alone must be worshipped. Catholicism is the lone Christian faith in which people literally worship any physical objects here on earth. I suggest either Catholicism is correct and these hosts really are God, or it is wrong and Catholicism must be a work of the devil. That is the proposition upon which the arguement hinges.
I suggest that Catholicism contains many things completely distinct from other Christian faiths, whereas other Christian faiths agree on the majority of their beliefs. Therefore, I suggest that there is nothing in these other faiths which one could claim to be the work of the devil in that it is common to all beliefs. However, Catholicism is alone in that so many of its beliefs depart from general Christianity.
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eaglesmark
Guest
Hi to all!!!
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
Let us not forget that satan is not really really bad as we were taught by our ancestors. We must also remember that satan has also his soft side… How can he decieve anyone if everyone knows of his evil scheme. if anyone would look the devil face to face having a horn and a long tail and holding a fork, i dont think anyone would be decieved by him… so to decieve many, he will have to appear holy and immitate those who do the work for God.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
Let us not forget that satan is not really really bad as we were taught by our ancestors. We must also remember that satan has also his soft side… How can he decieve anyone if everyone knows of his evil scheme. if anyone would look the devil face to face having a horn and a long tail and holding a fork, i dont think anyone would be decieved by him… so to decieve many, he will have to appear holy and immitate those who do the work for God.
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Fiat_Lumen
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If this is what you believe about God´s Enemy, I think it would be good that you approach the teachings of the Magisterium and learn what the Church has to say about the mistery of the Evil One.
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