Catholic Tradition Is Confusing To Other Christians

[rinnie]

What lvoice is upset about is the the way that we practice our faith.

Some pray the rosary’s that is also not mentioned in the bible. I guess lvoice thinks everything must be mentioned in the bible.

We have many ways of receiving the Grace of God and praying and wearing the brown Scapular is one of them.

lvoice also seems to blame the Catholic Church and education for not knowing enough about his own faith. He does not seem to understand that a Catholic Education in the faith takes a lifetime to accomplish not just a few hours a week in school learning the basics.

lvoice also has a false misconception that what the Brown Scapular is and feels it can guarantee you salvation. This is also blamed on the Church and Catholic Education.

The Brown Scapular worn is a guarantee that our Dear Blessed Mother will interceed for us upon our death if we meet the requirements of the Brown Scapular.

1. Worn in good faith.
2. Were chaste according to the state in our life.
3. Many daily devotional prayers
4. Upon the departure in this life are in a state of charity.

No one can guarantee our Salvaton but Christ. But praying and living our life the best we can and devoting it to Christ fully every breathing moment in prayers and devotions and our actions, and prayers of the Saints interceeding for us can help us to obtain eternal life in Christ.

1voice has a problem with this.

As usual it is not the teaching of our faith it is ignorance of our faith and teachings that is the problem.

Again all this guarantees us is a promise from our Mother Mary that if we die in the state of Grace she promises to be with us at the time of our death and interceed for us with her prayers. While this in no way gurarantees us Salvation, it in no way could hurt our chances thats for sure.

 

[rinnie]

I don’t agree with your premise. ISTM that you are asserting that the ‘assurance of salvation’ belief is the Biblical position and then are asking how it makes sense to Catholics to not hold your position. Assurance of salvation is heavily debated even amongst Protestants. So to answer your question; if you ask me how it feels to not take heed of your personal and fallible interpretation of the Scriptures…

I am sorry you feel let down by your Catholic education. My RCIA classes gave me a good and solid foundation but it was in no way all inclusive of the Catholic faith. A lot was left to me to continue to grow spiritually and in knowledge of my faith.

God bless you

I agree with You R.C. My Dad was in the Knights, served Mass everyday after his retirement, Went to confession alot. And read the bible and books on the Early Fathers of the faith, He read and studied this until the day he died at 83. And was still learning.

To learn the Catholic faith takes time, dedication and much prayers.

If the ends of the world could not contain the works of Christ how could we learn it all in a couple hours of school a week.

 

[GRATEFULONEjim]

Are you basing your faith on Sola Scriptura or are you also including Apostolic Tradition (oral) teachings? The Brown Scapular is an oral teaching passed on. That is the Catholic faith.

 

[rinnie]

But to make it short and sweet. lvoice does not believe that if we do what is asked of us with wearing the Brown Scapular that the Blessed Mother can’t interceed for us because he does not see this in the bible.

ANd has a false understanding of the Scapular that her intercession can gain us Salvation.

 

[rinnie]

[SIGN][/SIGN]

I was discussing how Catholic traditions are so confusing to the rest of us

over here in this discussion
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=548861&page=13
The topic of the Scapular kind of starts at post #183 …

and I was asked to start this new thread … So anyway… Here is an example of the confusion I dealt with as a Catholic kid…

As a child I wore a scapular … and was told by my Grandmother, lay head of the Order of St Francis … and in the Blue Army … as she sewed on one of those thousands of Scapulars that she and her friends made …
… [SIGN]that if you died wearing it and said 5 decades of the Rosary daily … you were saved from hell. [/SIGN]As a child I believed every word… as a young adult I came to realize that salvation had nothing to do with Scapulars … or Rosaries…
This is the way to salvation as far as I understand:
“For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.”

• Romans 10:9-10

Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”
Acts 2:38

The scriptures that I quoted above were never taught to me … In 8 years of Catholic School and 4 years of CCD through High School … In fact I was taught that there was no real assurance of salvation and that saying so was a sin of presumption. Just live a good life and hope that it is good enough to only go to purgatory. The official Canonized Saints were the only ones that we know for sure are in Heaven.

?

See because his Grandmother misled him and as you see the Last line of his Topic the Catholic School and his 4 years of the CCD in High School did indeed lead him into the truth. There is no assurance of Salvation. On the day that we die it is God who will judge us and we do not know the mind of Christ.

But if we do indeed as stated repent and confess our sin and if we die in the grace of God we can get into Purgatory which is the path to heaven. Unless of course we do not need the fnal cleansing of Purgatory and were made Holy in this world which of course by the Sacrments of the Church is made possible for us.

 

[rinnie]

Are you basing your faith on Sola Scriptura or are you also including Apostolic Tradition (oral) teachings? The Brown Scapular is an oral teaching passed on. That is the Catholic faith.

Exactly and Oral Traditon was taught in the Catholic Church and is also taught in the Bible. The CC is Oral and written teaching’s.

 

[fred_conty]

Exactly and Oral Traditon was taught in the Catholic Church and is also taught in the Bible. The CC is Oral and written teaching’s.

Yes, there is often confusion about oral tradition. The spoken(oral) word of God was proclaimed in the beginning of the church. From this spoken proclaimation the written was later derived, but not all the spoken was written down.

As far as I am aware, the content of the oral not in the written is limited. Men being priests only, assumption of Mary into heaven, Mary without original sin, liturgy of prayers, purgatory, and a few more. All of these are found in the Bible in an indirect way and can be reasonably concluded by the logic of other Christian truths. They obviously cannot be abstractly proven by logic.

Scapulars are not tradition is the real sense of the word. These are customs developed later for deepening our faith and devotion, and strictly speaking are not required. they are there for those who choose them and understand them properly. Nothing as far as I know will guarantee that a person will go to heaven.

 

[catsrus]

**1Voice **has issues with:
his grandmother
scapulars
Catholic education
Perhaps not in that order.
If you are an adult 1Voice, please read up on Holy Mother Church and the books recommended to you in these answers to your posts. If you are truely sincere in finding truth, you will find it easily.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Here’s the thing, 1voice.

You wouldn’t be confused if you actually read up on what is confusing you instead of relying on your ‘memory’ from years ago of what you claim to have heard (assuming you heard the entire thing absolutely correctly from your grandmother and didn’t do a half-hearted, oh grandma’s saying this again, blah blah blah not paying attention to half the words).

May we cordially invite you to read (as many have suggested) the paragraphs in Catholicism for Dummies (as an example of something readily available) regarding the use of such pious sacramentals as the scapular? For this, you see, is what the Church teaches. Which is not necessarily what your grandmother ‘thought’ she knew, or you ‘thought’ your grandma said.

Because it seems to me that rather than addressing what the Church teaches, you have fixated on an incident from your PERSONAL past in which you THINK you were somehow wrongly taught (though as others have noted on this thread, it appears that you were indeed taught correctly in many areas including salvation but somehow cannot or will not make the ‘jump’ to acknowledge it being ‘fixed’ with the notion that you were NEVER taught this as such and were taught something different instead. )It would certainly help all of us were you to actually address what the Church teaches and not cherry pick from "grandma’s quotes’, anecdotal accounts, and misunderstandings of Papal writings. .

 

[1voice]

This might help.

catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/general/Scapular.htm

Sorry that this is poorly written. I didn’t write it. :S

By the way, it may help to read all the posts in a thread and gather an understanding from all of them rather than just responding to individual ones and ignoring the others.

Thanks for the link … I will read it.

In response to your recommendation to read all the posts … I have sincerely attempted to do that. There has been a wide variety of responses. As to the clarity they collectively produce … I get the impression that non-C’s are not the only ones that are honestly confused about this particular tradition.

 

[latingirl]

The Catholic church has been around for about 2,000 years, is it any wonder their traditions and practices are confusing?

Moreover, God is complicated! As the Bible says: “who is his council or knows his thoughts?” Would you expect God’s church to be anything less than complicated?

I would suggest you get a basic book on Catholicism, one for Catholics by Catholics or prehaps stick to asking questions here. Also perhaps you could study into the Jewish roots of Christianity. There are alot of answers to be found there. I myself found it fascinating how much more understandable Catholicism became one I started to understand Judaism.

Pace be with you, Latingirl.

 

[Planty_Pall]

Hi 1voice.

Sorry about your school 1voice. It sounds like school was probably a negative experience. It seems like maybe you would be mistaken to insist that they gave you a full formation in the Catholic faith. I can understand though how you might think otherwise. Even parents have made the same mistaken assumption. Serious Catholic parents have now learned they can’t just entrust their children to the parish school unless it gives evidence that they are passing on the faith to the students.

We homeschooled all four of ours until our youngest was done last year. All four still practice their faith and those who have married are married to devout Catholics. I don’t know if they all wear their scapulars. I’ll be reminded to encourage them to do so because I know they’ll understand how a scapular can be properly used. What has it been like after school years for your classmates? Except for you, were/are most of them enthused about their faith with a horror of marrying outside the Church? How many priests and religious do you know of from your class? I have a sad feeling that my family of four children could end up giving more priests to the Church than your entire school. Anyway, if your class has no priests, and a lot of classmates left the faith, you can be almost certain that you had a stinko education with the word “Catholic” on the outside.

But what of your well-meaning grandmother? Is Grandma still around? What do you think she would say now that you are not six or seven years old in regard to the scapular? There is after all, a good “wear your scapular” message for grownups as well as children. I hear it in the closing of the sermon at my parish frequently.

As grownups we know that a scapular isn’t some charm that commits God to take us to heaven, but that it is a daily sign and reminder to us of who we are as Catholic Christians, and serves as a means of helping us keep our promises and good resolutions. This is why, in private revelations that Catholics may ignore, the Blessed Mother has promised that those who faithfully wear their scapulars are assured of perseverance. Whatever you thought Grandma taught as a child, if you had been in an environment in your subsequent years calculated to nourish your beliefs and to make you desire to persevere in your Catholic faith, your knowledge would have grown too.

The Church discusses sacramentals in the new Catechism:

The religious sense of the Christian people has always found expression in various forms of piety surrounding the Church’s sacramental life, such as the veneration of relics, visits to sanctuaries, pilgrimages, processions, the stations of the cross, religious dances, the rosary, medals, etc.

—#1674

Scapulars would certainly be included under, “etc”. I would encourage a review of the entire section. #1670 explains that

"Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Ghost in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.

God bless you in your search.

Sincerely,

PP

 

[rinnie]

Thanks for the link … I will read it.

In response to your recommendation to read all the posts … I have sincerely attempted to do that. There has been a wide variety of responses. As to the clarity they collectively produce … I get the impression that non-C’s are not the only ones that are honestly confused about this particular tradition.

I agree with you on this. Many Catholic’s do not know their faith. And I as one know there is much to be learned. None of us claim to know all of our faith,

But in all honesty do you not agree it is better to learn your faith and what it truly teaches before you speak out against it?

There is NO EXCUSE to not know the Catholic faith. God has given us the CHURCH the Pilar of All truth. It is a VISIBLE Church for all to see. There are thousands of them.

 

[latingirl]

It is true that when one is a child, it is the duty of their parents and elders to teach them the faith and the child cannot be blamed for not knowing the faith if it has never been properly taught.

However, when one becomes an adult, the duty to learn the faith becomes their own and no more excuses can be made. As adults, we can better find out for ourself what Catholicism is and what it teaches. We are obligated to know our faith, and while our teachers and parents who failed to do their duty shall be held accountable for their sins, how much more acoountable shall we be held for refusing to learn ourslevs?

Adults, pick up your Bibles and Catechisms and read!

 

[nathaniel1976]

I also think that some confusion comes from the fact that the Church Jesus gave us is Perfect but the people running in it are less then perfect; from priests to laity. Our priests at Easter Vigil Mass told us that very fact; that he is only human that we need to follow Jesus and His teachings and traditions of the church and try to not get tripped up by what imperfect people do in the church.

 

[babylonsfalling]

I was discussing how Catholic traditions are so confusing to the rest of us

over here in this discussion
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=548861&page=13
The topic of the Scapular kind of starts at post #183 …

and I was asked to start this new thread … So anyway… Here is an example of the confusion I dealt with as a Catholic kid…

As a child I wore a scapular … and was told by my Grandmother, lay head of the Order of St Francis … and in the Blue Army … as she sewed on one of those thousands of Scapulars that she and her friends made …
… that if you died wearing it and said 5 decades of the Rosary daily … you were saved from hell.
As a child I believed every word… as a young adult I came to realize that salvation had nothing to do with Scapulars … or Rosaries…
This is the way to salvation as far as I understand:
“For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.”

• Romans 10:9-10

Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”
Acts 2:38

The scriptures that I quoted above were never taught to me … In 8 years of Catholic School and 4 years of CCD through High School … In fact I was taught that there was no real assurance of salvation and that saying so was a sin of presumption. Just live a good life and hope that it is good enough to only go to purgatory. The official Canonized Saints were the only ones that we know for sure are in Heaven.

?

I went to catholic school and ccd classes too and didn’t learn lots of stuff, but guess what? Other kids DID and I could have learned just as much as they did if I’d wanted to.

A little honest perspective would be good too. The catholic church does not teach book, chapter and verse numbers. It does teach the stuff of Romans 10:9 and Acts 2:38 and if your intent were to present catholicism honestly, you’d have already clarified that. If you’re ex catholic, you know that all you weren’t taught was the book, chapter and verse numbers…which are not important and were not included in original Scriptures anyway.

In honest perspective, you learned the stuff of salvation from the catholic church. You also learned other stuff which you now reject and choose to complain about the things your reject instead of being positive and grateful about the things you DID learn from the catholic church which even you seem to believe are necessary. Complaining that they didn’t teach the verse numbers is childish.

A bit more maturity about yourself and less complaints about the church would be good right now.

 

[rinnie]

I went to catholic school and ccd classes too and didn’t learn lots of stuff, but guess what? Other kids DID and I could have learned just as much as they did if I’d wanted to.

A little honest perspective would be good too. The catholic church does not teach book, chapter and verse numbers. It does teach the stuff of Romans 10:9 and Acts 2:38 and if your intent were to present catholicism honestly, you’d have already clarified that. If you’re ex catholic, you know that all you weren’t taught was the book, chapter and verse numbers…which are not important and were not included in original Scriptures anyway.

In honest perspective, you learned the stuff of salvation from the catholic church. You also learned other stuff which you now reject and choose to complain about the things your reject instead of being positive and grateful about the things you DID learn from the catholic church which even you seem to believe are necessary. Complaining that they didn’t teach the verse numbers is childish.

A bit more maturity about yourself and less complaints about the church would be good right now.

Something you said just hit me. She claims she did not learn the scriptures she quoted. Then would she not have to say she did not learn about Confession. (Peter saying Repent…)

I am like you granted we did not learn the scripture word for word number etc. But when we were taught scripture we were taught in the same context as the teachngs of the Church.

You have Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition taught together in light of the Holy Spirit. Maybe the CHurch according to her should have used the bible more. BUt in the CC the bible just was not that important. I mean Jesus didn’t leave us a bible he left us the teaching tool the Church. Thats how we were taught.

Even today you could burn every single bible in the world. Where would other Church’s be. But the RCC. Will still be here. SImply because it has the Holy Spirit teaching.

Like the Sacraments. Where does the bible say this is the 7 Sacraments. It don’t but they are in there.

It started with Baptism. Then you went to the beginning how Adam and Eve committed Original sin. Then it turned into how CHrist took it away. It was taught quite well now that I come to think of it.

Look at many protestants they deny orgiinal sin. Actually don’t ever understand it. But the more I been thinking today the more I learned and forgot I knew.

Then we had Tradition to feel in the gaps.

SHe has NO idea what she really knows. Maybe if she would stop degrading the school and think back what she learned she would come to see that God gave her a grace that many people would have loved to have had.

I bet she does someday

 

[rinnie]

It is true that when one is a child, it is the duty of their parents and elders to teach them the faith and the child cannot be blamed for not knowing the faith if it has never been properly taught.

However, when one becomes an adult, the duty to learn the faith becomes their own and no more excuses can be made. As adults, we can better find out for ourself what Catholicism is and what it teaches. We are obligated to know our faith, and while our teachers and parents who failed to do their duty shall be held accountable for their sins, how much more acoountable shall we be held for refusing to learn ourslevs?

Adults, pick up your Bibles and Catechisms and read!

Think about it, Is that not what Confirmation is. Our parents and God parents duty is now over and it is up to us to continue our faith.

Where did the Bishop ever say okay guys you are done. You learned all you can be taught.

What happened is our Parents quit taking us to CCD or we graduated High School and took it upon ourself to end our studying and relationship with Christ. So when our parents fulfilled their obligation we felt our no longer existed I guess?

What then again what about us. What about us who continue to study our faith, and read and defend it.

You either defend the Catholic faith or you condemn it really. Guess Jesus did tell us our faith is hot or cold no likewarm.

Guess if you can’t defend your faith you are cold. So guess you better fire up and start reading. And there is no excuse not to know.

Especailly with the books today. I mean the CCC is the first for goodness sakes. Look how many books are last 2 Popes took the time to write to help us.

Our Pope today’s writing is amazing. ANd look at John Paul ll for goodness sakes. He is heading for Sainthood!!

 

[babylonsfalling]

Something you said just hit me. She claims she did not learn the scriptures she quoted. Then would she not have to say she did not learn about Confession. (Peter saying Repent…)

I am like you granted we did not learn the scripture word for word number etc. But when we were taught scripture we were taught in the same context as the teachngs of the Church.

You have Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition taught together in light of the Holy Spirit. Maybe the CHurch according to her should have used the bible more. BUt in the CC the bible just was not that important. I mean Jesus didn’t leave us a bible he left us the teaching tool the Church. Thats how we were taught.

Even today you could burn every single bible in the world. Where would other Church’s be. But the RCC. Will still be here. SImply because it has the Holy Spirit teaching.

Like the Sacraments. Where does the bible say this is the 7 Sacraments. It don’t but they are in there.

It started with Baptism. Then you went to the beginning how Adam and Eve committed Original sin. Then it turned into how CHrist took it away. It was taught quite well now that I come to think of it.

Look at many protestants they deny orgiinal sin. Actually don’t ever understand it. But the more I been thinking today the more I learned and forgot I knew.

Then we had Tradition to feel in the gaps.

SHe has NO idea what she really knows. Maybe if she would stop degrading the school and think back what she learned she would come to see that God gave her a grace that many people would have loved to have had.

I bet she does someday

There are a lot of uptight ex catholics determined to only remember things about RCC in a negative way. The bottom line is that Romans 10:9 is all about salvation and that’s the first verse she quoted…

If she were honest she’d acknowledge that catholic kids are putting Romans 10:9 into practice before they can even read the Bible. Romans 10:9 is all in the creed…both the belief and the confession of belief…and almost NO non-catholic churches even use that creed so in that case, it’s NON catholic churches who won’t practice Romans 10:9. Catholic churches believe and profess their belief collectively all the time, and they do it as a regular part of their church service.

 

[paperwight66]

If she were honest she’d acknowledge that catholic kids are putting Romans 10:9 into practice before they can even read the Bible. Romans 10:9 is all in the creed…both the belief and the confession of belief…and almost NO catholic churches even use that creed so in that case, it’s NON catholic churches who won’t practice Romans 10:9. Catholics believe, profess their belief collectively all the time, and they do it as part of their church service.

I suppose it’s because it’s late here, but I’m afraid I can’t follow this paragraph.

Could you explain it, please? What does the bit about no Catholic churches using ‘that creed’ mean? Which creed?