Catholics are ritualistics?

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hi there everyone…
a free evangelical friend of mine just call me and all other catholics ritualistic pagans. she said that everything we do during mass is unbiblical and takes us further away from god. i know she is dead wrong, but how do i defend the church?
where can i find in scripture that we are a bible based religion?
thank you soo much

shalom
annie
 
Everything we do during Mass is biblical.

But as to ritualism, does your friend celebrate birthdays with cake and candles? Does she shake hands when meeting someone? Does she bow her head when praying? These are all rituals. The world runs on rituals.
 
wow… that site is amazing!
thanks a lot!!! i hope this will blow her socks off… lol
once again, thank you soo much.
i believe that she pointed it out not as to ‘hurt’ me, but i think she is just worried for my ‘salvation’
i hope that this site will open her eyes and heart to the Catholic church. 🙂

shalom
annie
 
Hi Annie,

It might be better not to discuss religion with your evangelical friend until you are well grounded in apologetics and Catholic evangelization. They are constantly taught lies about Catholicism, and have their own version of history. There is not one evangelical web site that, when the Catholic Church is discussed, do they ever teach the truth. Lots of people are deceived, but no one wants to be deceived.

Whatever point that is brought up, tell them you will get back to them with an answer. This, and other Catholic web sites, have the answers. Print them off and give it, for one answer at a time. Finding answers on the net takes practice, and there are fake “Catholic” web sites out there. But to keep it simple, stick with these solid ones, and make use of the provided search engines.
catholic.com/
phatmass.com/directory/
 
I would recommend the book by Mike Aquilina “The Mass of the Early Christians”

Here is a summary of what the book contains:
What did the first Christians believe about the Eucharist?
How did they follow Jesus’ command “Do this in remembrance of me”?
How did they celebrate the Lord’s Day?
What would they recognize in today’s Mass?
The answers may suprise you. In The Mass of the Early Christians, author Mike Aquilina reveals the Church’s most ancient Eucharistic beliefrs and practices. Using the words of the early Christians themselves – from many documents and inscriptions – Aquilina traces the Mass’s history from Jesus’ lifetime through the fourth century. The Mass stood at the center of the Church’s life, evident in the Scriptures as well as the earliest Christian sermons, letters, artwork, tombstones, and architecture. Even the pagans bore witness to the Mass in the records of their persecutions. Catholic Book, Softcover, 215 pp.
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Also Scott Hahn’s book “The Lambs Supper” is a good book for the biblical background of the Mass.
 
Unbiblical Traditions and rituals of evangelicals:

Catholics are constantly being accused of being unbiblical and of having traditions “of men” that are not in the Bible. On the other hand, I hear many evangelicals state that they belong to “Bible-only” churches which totally reject Tradition and rituals. I am constantly told, “We got the Bible and that’s all we need. Nothing else! We don’t need your silly unbiblical rules, rites, rituals, beliefs, and medieval hocus pocus.”

Perhaps they need to be reminded of following are examples of the many unbiblical traditions, beliefs and rituals of “Bible-only” churches:

The following are “Must do’s” to be saved:

Just accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior, nothing else - Not in the Bible
Must recite of the “Sinners Prayer” – Not in the Bible
Must have altar calls – Not in the Bible

Other unbiblical beliefs/practices:

Must be baptized by full immersion - Not in the Bible
Sin is a sin – Not supported in the Bible
Saved by faith alone (sola fide) – Not in the Bible
Christ paid the full penalty of sin – Not in the Bible
Bible is the sole rule of faith (sola scriptura) – Nowhere in the Bible
Private interpretation of Scripture – Bible says it’s not allowed
Health and Wealth Gospel – Contradicts the Bible
Once saved always saved – Contradicts in the Bible
Baptism is symbolic and just a public declaration of faith – Not in the bible
Pre-tribulation rapture – Not in the Bible
Going to church on Sunday – Not in the bible
Celebrating Christmas – Not in the Bible
Celebrating Easter – Not in the Bible

They don’t reject Tradition and rituals, just “Catholic” Tradition and rituals (except the ones that are easy to keep, like Easter and Christmas), then replace it with inferior unbiblical rules, rituals, beliefs, and post-modern hocus pocus!

If we are ritualistic pagans then so was Jesus and so were the first Christians, and so are evangelicals. The only difference is, we follow the rituals established by Jesus Christ and practiced by the early Christians.
 
The Old Foreshadowed the New…the Jewish Religion was HIGHLY ritualistic…JESUS observed these rituals faithfully, why SHOULDN’T Christianity have it’s rituals as well? Ritualism isn’t a dirty word…by license can be, and that’s what we quite often see in the “free evangelical” world with it’s “name it and claim it” theologies, compromised communion (small “c” as they have no Eucharist)…etc. We worship as the apostles did.
 
I might also mention rituals = stability.

How many of us have morning/evening rituals? What kind of a mess would our lives turn into if we threw all of our personal rituals out the window?

Does this make us all mindless pagans?

Rituals give us the comfort of knowing what to expect and keep us from chasing every spicy new fad that comes rolling along. Because when the spiciness become bland we find ourselves looking for a new taste, a new pastor, a new church, a new religion that will keep our senses stimulated.

Trying to keep up with something that is always changing is insanity. However, the Catholic Church is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and keeps us from becoming slaves to passing fads.
 
quixotic said:
hi there everyone…
a free evangelical friend of mine just call me and all other catholics ritualistic pagans. she said that everything we do during mass is unbiblical and takes us further away from god. i know she is dead wrong, but how do i defend the church?
where can i find in scripture that we are a bible based religion?
thank you soo much

shalom
annie
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Ask her what is wrong with ritual.​

It seems to be assumed - on the strength of bits & pieces in the Gospel - that ritual is of itself a bad thing.

If this were so, why did Jesus:
  • go to the Temple
  • attend the synagogue in Capernaum
  • keep the Passover
    & why - after the Resurrection - did the Apostles:
  • go to the Temple
  • go to synagogues
    • & why did St.Paul make a vow at Cenchreae, which he went to the Jerusalem Temple to perform ?
    • why did he lay down instructions for the Corinthian Christians, in 1 Cor. 11 & 14, for them to follow in their worship ?
      ISTM that this distaste for ritual is a largely US thing; a result of living in a society which is insulated from the rest of the world by its geography & its age. If US Evangelical Protestantism lived in the sort of societies one finds in Europe, which are hundreds of years old, this kind of insularity might well be far less common. Evangelicals in the UK have plenty of criticisms of the liturgical Churches (Anglicanism, & Catholicism for instance) - but objections to ritual as such seem to be very rare; it seems not to be an issue here.
But if US Christians have no experience of any societies but their own, & no incentive to bother with them, any kind of Christianity with a long history before it came to the US is going to look alien, unChristian,unBiblical, & the rest of it. Whether it’s Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Chaldean, or any other.

How can any human being, & a fortiori someone who does not know any of us, know what “takes us further away from God”, or anyone else for that matter ? I wasn’t aware that Christians, of any kind, had been given the gifts of
  • reading the consciences & hearts
  • of people of whom they know nothing
  • & whom they have never met 😦
 
quixotic said:
hi there everyone…
a free evangelical friend of mine just call me and all other catholics ritualistic pagans. she said that everything we do during mass is unbiblical and takes us further away from god. i know she is dead wrong, but how do i defend the church?
where can i find in scripture that we are a bible based religion?
thank you soo much

shalom
annie
Click to expand...
Invite her to Mass and ask her at afterwards how much scripture she heard.
 
Someone recommended “The Mass of the Early Christians”, I have read that book and would also recommend it. I would also recommend “The Lamb’s Supper”, by Scott Hahn, it has some great insights.
Our Parish is presently going through a bible study on the book of Revelation led by Jeff Cavins and if you have access to attend this I would also recommend it to get some insight on the Mass.

Stillkickin
 
In addition to what Gottle of Geer posted take this single episode from the Gospel of St. Mark. In chapter one a leper is made clean by Jesus and in v 44 Jesus says to him, “…go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.” To see what our Lord was telling him to do read Leviticus 14…an extensive ritual. I don’t see Jesus condemning ritual here.
 
When my DH and I were dating (before he had committed to converting), we attended mass together sometimes and I attended services at his parents’ church a few times.

At mass, he had complained about the ritual: “Stand up, sit down, stand up, shake hands, sit down, stand up, kneel, etc. This is ridiculous!”

We went to services at his parents’ church and, after the third time standing BACK up to sing another “spontaneous” repeat of the refrain to a song, I looked at him and whispered, “At least kneeling would be a change of pace…” He laughed and admitted that I had been right; we all have rituals and traditions. Catholics just admit it.

To paraphrase Ben Franklin’s comment about revolution: Ritual is always legal in the first person: “our ritual.” It is only in the third person, “Their ritual,” that it becomes illegal. 😉
 
We’re all ritualists.

From Heretics by G.K. Chesterton

“In a similar way, humanity is divided into conscious ritualists and. unconscious ritualists. The curious thing is, in that example as in others, that it is the conscious ritualism which is comparatively simple, the unconscious ritual which is really heavy and complicated. The ritual which is comparatively rude and straightforward is the ritual which people call “ritualistic.” It consists of plain things like bread and wine and fire, and men falling on their faces. But the ritual which is really complex, and many coloured, and elaborate, and needlessly formal, is the ritual which people enact without knowing it. It consists not of plain things like wine and fire, but of really peculiar, and local, and exceptional, and ingenious things-- things like door-mats, and door-knockers, and electric bells, and silk hats, and white ties, and shiny cards, and confetti. The truth is that the modern man scarcely ever gets back to very old and simple things except when he is performing some religious mummery. The modern man can hardly get away from ritual except by entering a ritualistic church. In the case of these old and mystical formalities we can at least say that the ritual is not mere ritual; that the symbols employed are in most cases symbols which belong to a primary human poetry. The most ferocious opponent of the Christian ceremonials must admit that if Catholicism had not instituted the bread and wine, somebody else would most probably have done so. Any one with a poetical instinct will admit that to the ordinary human instinct bread symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolized otherwise; that wine, to the ordinary human instinct, symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolized otherwise. But white ties in the evening are ritual, and nothing else but ritual. No one would pretend that white ties in the evening are primary and poetical. Nobody would maintain that the ordinary human instinct would in any age or country tend to symbolize the idea of evening by a white necktie. Rather, the ordinary human instinct would, I imagine, tend to symbolize evening by cravats with some of the colours of the sunset, not white neckties, but tawny or crimson neckties-- neckties of purple or olive, or some darkened gold. Mr. J. A. Kensit, for example, is under the impression that he is not a ritualist. But the daily life of Mr. J. A. Kensit, like that of any ordinary modern man, is, as a matter of fact, one continual and compressed catalogue of mystical mummery and flummery. To take one instance out of an inevitable hundred: I imagine that Mr. Kensit takes off his hat to a lady; and what can be more solemn and absurd, considered in the abstract, than, symbolizing the existence of the other sex by taking off a portion of your clothing and waving it in the air? This, I repeat, is not a natural and primitive symbol, like fire or food. A man might just as well have to take off his waistcoat to a lady; and if a man, by the social ritual of his civilization, had to take off his waistcoat to a lady, every chivalrous and sensible man would take off his waistcoat to a lady. In short, Mr. Kensit, and those who agree with him, may think, and quite sincerely think, that men give too much incense and ceremonial to their adoration of the other world. But nobody thinks that he can give too much incense and ceremonial to the adoration of this world. All men, then, are ritualists, but are either conscious or unconscious ritualists. The conscious ritualists are generally satisfied with a few very simple and elementary signs; the unconscious ritualists are not satisfied with anything short of the whole of human life, being almost insanely ritualistic. The first is called a ritualist because he invents and remembers one rite; the other is called an anti-ritualist because he obeys and forgets a thousand”
 
hey there everyone…
thank you soo much. i did tell her all the things that you guys had said. now she said that we re doing it just because we are taugh to do it. so i said a lot of things that we do as humans are because someone else taugh us to. that must be a ritual as well. jut as washing hands before eating. or saying grace before a meal. i mean, non catholic christians do it. will update you more on it. 🙂
thanks
God bless
annie
 
quixotic said:
hey there everyone…
thank you soo much. i did tell her all the things that you guys had said. now she said that we re doing it just because we are taugh to do it. so i said a lot of things that we do as humans are because someone else taugh us to. that must be a ritual as well. jut as washing hands before eating. or saying grace before a meal. i mean, non catholic christians do it. will update you more on it. 🙂
thanks
God bless
annie
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Thanks for the update, Annie. I think you are off to a good start with your friend. Here’s another very helpful book on the subject:

ignatius.com/ViewProduct.aspx?SID=1&Product_ID=589&AFID=12&
 
quixotic said:
hi there everyone…
a free evangelical friend of mine just call me and all other catholics ritualistic pagans. she said that everything we do during mass is unbiblical and takes us further away from god.
Click to expand...
Jesus gave His Apostles the comission to teach what He taught them. The Divine Liturgy of the Mass is based on the Liturgy of St. James. There are also liturgies based on St. Mark and St. Thomas. These are the only worship services that can be shown to be traced directly back to the Apostles whom Jesus sent. That’s a darned site more true to Christ then the man made ‘services’ invented Sixteen hundred years after Christ.

Now, Here’s something to to ask your friend:

Do you have any idea when your church was founded and by whom? You may find this enlightening:

If you are of the Catholic faith, Jesus Christ founded your Church in the year A.D. 30.
If you are Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk in the Catholic Church, in 1517.
If you are Anabaptist, your religion was founded by Nicholas Storch and Thomas Munzer in Germany in 1521.
If you belong to the Church of England (Anglican), your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.
If you belong to the Mennonites, your church was started in 1536 by Menno Simons in Switzerland.
If you are a Calvinist, Jon Calvin started your belief system in 1555 in Switzerland.
If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded when John Knox brought the teachings of John Calvin to Scotland in the Year 1560.
If you are Unitarian, your group developed in Europe in the 1500s.
If you are a Congregationalist, your religion branched off Puritanism in the early 1600s in England.
If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1607.
If you are Dutch Reformed, Michaelis Jones founded your church in New York in 1628.
If you are a Methodist, your religion was founded by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1744.
If you are an Episcopalian, your church came from England to the American colonies. It formed a separate religion founded by Samuel Seabury in 1789.
If you are a Campellite Christian Church, your religion was started by Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone at a revival held at Bushy Creek around 1836.
If you are a Mormon (Latter-day Saints), Joseph Smith started your church in Palmyra, N.Y. in 1830.
If you are Seventh Day Adventist, your religion was founded by Ellen Whitein 1844 in Washington, New Hampshire.
If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.
If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year your religion was founded by Mary Baker Eddy.
If you are a Jehovah’s Witness, your religion was founded by Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania in the 1870s.
If you’re Church of Christ, your church broke of from the Campellites in 1906.
If you are Pentecostal, your religion was started in the Topeka, Kansas in 1901 by Charles F. Parkham
If you are Assemblies of God your church grew out of Pentecostalism in 1914 in Hot Springs, Az.
If you are a member of Four-square Gospel, your church was started by Aimee Semple McPherson in L.A. in 1917.
If your Church of Christ, your church broke of from the Campellites in 1906.
If you are Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith founded your church in Costa Mesa, Ca, 1965
If your organization is “evangelical nondenominational Christian” your group started in the 1970s by protestants.

Grace and peace to you.

Yours in Christ.
 
Here is one way to look at it.

A child’s birthday party is a ritual. The party is meaningful partly because it is celebrating something real in the present - the completion of another year of life and the family’s happiness about that. At the same time, the pary points to something in the past - the child’s actual birth and the family caring for the child since then. The party also points to a hoped for future - the child’s continued growth and the family’s continued love. All three dimensions of meaning can probably be found in the minds of the people at the birthday party.

In general, we can say that Christian rituals are meaningful to the extent that people know what they point to in the past, that people celebrate what is real for them in the present and that people affirm what they point to in the future. The more important, significant and cherished these past, present and future dimensions are for people, the more the ritual symbolizes and celebrates what is sacred for them. That makes it more meaningful for them.

The problem with your friends veiw is that she doesn’t see the significance of what these rituals represent. Take a simple greeting ritual such as shaking hands. How did shaking hands come to mean something like, “Hello, I’m glad to see you”? What would it mean to someone from a culture where people greet by bowing to one another? Would it mean anything to a visitor form outer space? These questions suggest that the meaning of the ritual is not only in the ritual itself but also in the minds of the people who participate in the ritual.

Hope that helps.

Ryan 🙂
 
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