Catholics seem to believe...

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sandmountainsli

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…that Protestants would improve themselves by reverting to Catholicism, would it not make sense by the same logic that both Catholic and Protestants would better ourselves by reverting to Judaism? We would be back at the origin of our faith and we would be following the religion of our Lord himself. Gimme thoughts.
WP
 
One major prob with this…
Jesus is the son of God, Jews dont believe that.
 
sandmountainsli said:
…that Protestants would improve themselves by reverting to Catholicism, would it not make sense by the same logic that both Catholic and Protestants would better ourselves by reverting to Judaism? We would be back at the origin of our faith and we would be following the religion of our Lord himself. Gimme thoughts.
WP
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Only if one ignores the New Testament (which one must also do to embrace Protestanism)
 
Hello,
sandmountainsli said:
…that Protestants would improve themselves by reverting to Catholicism, would it not make sense by the same logic that both Catholic and Protestants would better ourselves by reverting to Judaism? We would be back at the origin of our faith and we would be following the religion of our Lord himself. Gimme thoughts.
WP
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There is a major difference. A Protestant reverting to Catholicism only makes sense if the Protestant was once a Catholic. Otherwise it would be a Protestant coming into the fullness of the Catholic faith. Both are ideal, because while Protestants have part of the Truth, only the Catholic Church has the absolute fullness of revealed Truth - Protestants don’t and the Jews don’t - only the Catholic Church.

In contrast, Judaism - which is basically the same as that at the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. - also doesn’t have the fullness of revealed Truth. They only have that which was revealed in the Old Testament.

Catholicism is the natural and divine evolution of Judaism. There will be no more revelation, no more evolution, no new Church being founded until the end of time, when Christ will come to fetch His Bride, the Church.
 
Ani_Ibi said:
Not a reformed Jew. A messianic Jew maybe.
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That’s what I was going to say. Despite conventional usage of the word “Jewish” nowadays, it is not necessarily a mutually exclusive thing to being Catholic.
 
A Jew that believes that Jesus is the Son of God is a CHRISTIAN 🙂

Melanie
 
sandmountainsli said:
…that Protestants would improve themselves by reverting to Catholicism, would it not make sense by the same logic that both Catholic and Protestants would better ourselves by reverting to Judaism? We would be back at the origin of our faith and we would be following the religion of our Lord himself. Gimme thoughts.
WP
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The Catholic Church is the Church Christ established in the new covenant. The Jewish faith never progressed to that point. The Protestant movement rebelled against the true Church, therefore is not in communion with it.
 
I had a thought about jewish people tonight. They seem to think that the messiah will be a military leader. Is it possible that when the anti-christ shows up and begins leading his armies, that the jews will think he is the messiah and follow him? Further damning them to hell? After being God’s chosen people?
 
thomasf said:
I had a thought about jewish people tonight. They seem to think that the messiah will be a military leader. Is it possible that when the anti-christ shows up and begins leading his armies, that the jews will think he is the messiah and follow him? Further damning them to hell? After being God’s chosen people?
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Pretty much all the early church fathers beleive the anti-christ will be Jewish but that is not church dogma but merly an opinion though a opinion with strong consensus. But how much that is a product of the religious rivalry and not straight exegesis is not something I delved into. For instance many protestants starting with Martin Luther no less thought the Pope was the anti-christ and many protestants still hold to this though many protestants will admit this is a product of religious rivalry and not the stuff of good biblical exegesis. So I might not bet the house on any of these predictions. Whomever he will be will have the ability to decieve not only Jews but Christians as well and we should all remember this.
 
Okay I think that we are getting way off track. Reverting back to Jewish practices in the first century AD would seem to be the ideal because that is the religion our Savior practiced. But Jesus called for something new. There was to be no more animal sacrifce at the Temple because he is the the sacrifice. Jesus changed the focus from being at the temple to himself.

I am sorry but I am getting off track. What seperates Protestants from Catholics and Orthodox is Tradition. Our Mass and Holy Liturgy grew from the synagogue practices that were developing during Jesus’ time. The singing of Psalms, reading outloud of scripture and teaching based upon the reading came from rabonic services. What was added to the Christian services was what Jesus added, the Last Supper. You can see this very clearly because are Mass is divided up between the Liturgy of the Catecumen (the Word) and the Liturgy of the Faithful (Eucharist). Most of our prayers are based upon scripture (usually Psalms), prayers of the priests at the Temple and prayers of rabbis. The Catholic and Orthodox liturgies grew from this mix into different, yet still simular Liturgies. They both drew from the same Tradition. On a side note, even the architecture of traditional Catholic and Orthodox churches maintain simularities to the Temple of Jerusalem and the Synagogue. Instead of the Holy of Holies we have the tabernackle containing the Eucharist. The Orthodox Church still maintains a screen with 3 doors on it to seperate the Holy of Holies from the rest of the faithful (only the Priests are allowed back there). The doors are then dramatically opened during the Consencration to symbolize the tearing of the Curtain in the Temple. The Catholic Church has generally kept a divide (usually it is just elevation or an alter rail) of the Tabernackle from the general faithful but the tabernackle is always there to see.

Sorry for the ramble, I’ll get to my point. Catholic and Orthodox Churches have their Tradition grounded in the tradition of Jewish customs. Prostestants are different. They have generally broken away from this great Tradition and have instead created their own traditions. They had thrown away what had been growing for centuries. It is sad really. Sorry I do not have time tonight to go into detail about what has happened since the Reformation but there are plenty of intelligent people here who can help you.

Pax Cristi
 
Mr.Bean said:
The Orthodox Church still maintains a screen with 3 doors on it to seperate the Holy of Holies from the rest of the faithful (only the Priests are allowed back there). The doors are then dramatically opened during the Consencration to symbolize the tearing of the Curtain in the Temple.

Pax Cristi
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Actually this practice was also done in the west probably till around the millinium. Don’t know why it changed. The Orthodox seem even more Jewish than Catholics in some of the liturgical aspects. But I always thought the west practice of the holy water fonts was very reminiscent of the Jews washing themselves before going into the temple so they each have unique character traits that connects them with Judaism. Most of the litrugical protestant churchs are dyeing out and have empty pews and gray haried old ladies they have been replaced by rock and roll protestants usually of the Pentacostal and Non-denom variety who seem to reinvent the wheel on a dialy basis, its more rock concert and media presentation than anythng resembling liturgical worship. But hey this is what makes protestant survive desptie its weakness they reinvent themselves for the times and adapt to attract people who are attracted to trends, I don’t think this is entirely healthy as you have old trends dyeing out and those denoms and have new denoms to take their places, their is no room for tradition and stablization of liturgy or doctrine.
 
The OP uses the terms “improve themselves” and “better themselves.”

That seems a tremendous understatement. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the OP. Perhaps the poster is not from the U.S.A. and is using the terms in a different sense than I am used to.

“Improve themsevles” and “bettert themselves”–that’s not it at all. There are many people who are better people than I am. Being a Christian Catholic doesn’t make me “improved” or “better” than others.

We want people to come to Catholicism because we believe it is the Church that Jesus Himself established. The Catholic Church contains the fullness of the Gospel. Protestants want “Jesus” in all of His fulness. A popular Protestant hymn is “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful Face.” That’s what we do constantly in the Catholic Church. We know Jesus in all His fullness. We want everyone in the world to know Him, too.

I don’t think we have any right, though, to say that we are “improved” or “better” than another group of people because we know Jesus. We can say that He is giving us graces daily that are helping us to become more like Him, without sin. So can Protestants (the Catechism says that they possess a portion of grace). We can say that we hope to enter heaven, but so can Protestants.

We are no better than anyone else on this earth. The lowliest person (in human eyes) on this earth is of equal worth to the Pope himself.

Becoming Catholic doesn’t improve us or make us better. It simply gives us Jesus.

I hope I’m expressing this adequately.
 
Cat said:
The OP uses the terms “improve themselves” and “better themselves.”

That seems a tremendous understatement. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the OP. Perhaps the poster is not from the U.S.A. and is using the terms in a different sense than I am used to.

“Improve themsevles” and “bettert themselves”–that’s not it at all. There are many people who are better people than I am. Being a Christian Catholic doesn’t make me “improved” or “better” than others.

We want people to come to Catholicism because we believe it is the Church that Jesus Himself established. The Catholic Church contains the fullness of the Gospel. Protestants want “Jesus” in all of His fulness. A popular Protestant hymn is “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful Face.” That’s what we do constantly in the Catholic Church. We know Jesus in all His fullness. We want everyone in the world to know Him, too.

I don’t think we have any right, though, to say that we are “improved” or “better” than another group of people because we know Jesus. We can say that He is giving us graces daily that are helping us to become more like Him, without sin. So can Protestants (the Catechism says that they possess a portion of grace). We can say that we hope to enter heaven, but so can Protestants.

We are no better than anyone else on this earth. The lowliest person (in human eyes) on this earth is of equal worth to the Pope himself.

Becoming Catholic doesn’t improve us or make us better. It simply gives us Jesus.

I hope I’m expressing this adequately.
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Well we don’t improve or better ourselves Jesus does that by his grace. But having said that we do increase our chances of his grace by participating in his sacraments and cooperating with his blessings. So if the end result is that we appear to others as to improved and better persons this is why and because we are Christ representatives on earth we should hopefully reflect as better persons than we were before though this is not a result of our own power of course.
 
A Christian con/re-verting to Judaism would be denying that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God, as someone else pointed out. So, if one does believe He was…well it wouldn’t make much sense to become Jewish (besides Messianic Jew, I suppose). I see what you’re saying though, “getting to the root” and all. But as another poster said, only the Catholic Church has the fullness of Truth.
 
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