Did Jesus have siblings?

[jesusfan1101]

no Mary was a virgin]

 

[Sir_Knight]

Of course not. You just told people like him (and me) that they are already excommunicated by the fact that they do not believe the teachings of the Catholic Church.
You called him (and others) a heretic followed by the excommunication enacted by the fact of the denial.

Please try to follow along …

1. 
   *]Mary remaining a virgin her entire life is an INFALLIBLE teaching of the Church as declared by Pope Pius XII in the “MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS” and taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
   
   *] According to Church Canon 751, anyone who denies or even doubts official Church teaching is a “heretic”.
   
   *]Canon 1364 §1 further goes on to say that heretics are AUTOMATICLY excommunicated/
   
   … using OFFICIAL Church references, I connected the dots. What, exactly, is the problem?

 

[Janet1983]

Please try to follow along …

1. 
   *]Mary remaining a virgin her entire life is an INFALLIBLE teaching of the Church as declared by Pope Pius XII in the “MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS” and taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
   
   *] According to Church Canon 751, anyone who denies or even doubts official Church teaching is a “heretic”.
   
   *]Canon 1364 §1 further goes on to say that heretics are AUTOMATICLY excommunicated/
   
   … using OFFICIAL Church references, I connected the dots. What, exactly, is the problem?

1. 
   I just stated the facts. Well as you said you did not excommunicate anybody and I said that you truly did not. You just pointed out that someone was a heretic by not embracing Catholic dogma and is thereby automatically excommunicated. I just restated that you said that, confirming your answer that you did not excommunicate anybody.
   Better try to debate someone who actually disagrees with you instead of contesting someone who tries to defend your position.

 

[StevenFrancis]

May I ask, in all sincerity, why non-Catholic Christians are so bent on arguing about the Church founded by their Saviour? I understand about the reformation and all. I began as a Protestant myself many years ago. (Now granted, at the time, I wasn’t particularly devoted). I’m just asking why we have all these different viewpoints among CHRISTIANS? I’m not even asking about Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Sihks, Scientologists, etc… Just Christians. in fact, just Trinitarian Christians? (I must differentiate, because, if I understand correctly, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, Seventh Day adventists and others refer to themselves as Christians also),

Jesus Christ is the truth.

If Jesus is the truth, than His Church is true.

Why would it be offensive to someone, of the CHRISTIAN faith that Mary was perpetually Virgin? The Church prayed, studied, and poured over this since the 1st Pentecost. There were councils. It wasn’t just somebody waking up one morning and saying, “by jingo…I’ll bet Mary stayed a virgin”. Under the guidance of the paraclete of Christ, they ended up finding and eventually declaring that it was a necessary part of the a divine incarnation that she was perpetually virigin. Scripture and tradition support it. To NOT support it, one must go out of their way to find and believe in a heretical thought. This has been decided by the Church. The Church founded on St. Peter. The Church which was given the Holy Spirit by it’s founder, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

If you are a trinitarian Christian, and are baptised, you are a member of this Church, whether you have acknowledged this fact, or not. You can rail and fight, and disagree, and look for all kinds of ways to try to cheapen or dismiss Jesus and His Church, but it IS what it IS. Just as Jesus IS before Abraham. Before anything. This Church is the beloved bride of our Lord, and you are a member of it. Sometimes far far removed from its teachings, but a member none the less, by degree.

Shouldn’t the seeking and questioning that we all do be to resolve in our own hearts WHY we disagree with the truth, and ask for God’s healing and guidance rather than simply make up different truths? Or abandon all the truths that we don’t find convenient or easy to understand?

Instead of throwing things away, we should be praying for our Lord to help us understand why they are true. Not arguing about how we can get out of some of it, or change some of it to fit the modern disposition or notions of man.

Real Christianity is hard. It calls upon us to believe things that aren’t easy to believe. To have faith. To also use reason informed by faith. It calls for us to love one another, and not always in a warm and fuzzy peaceful way.

There are paradoxes and puzzles galore. There are divine mysteries. There is a God-man. There is a creator who actually incarnated and lived among His own creations. He was hated. He was tortured and He was finally executed by His own people. To the degree and with the depth of our belief in Him, it stands to reason that we will be hated in proportion.

But we ALL agree that He conquered death, atoned for man’s sin, opened Heaven and restored the possibility of eternal life to a creation whose first acts were sin, lies, and murder. Even then. In Genesis, He promised to send one to make things right, and He kept His promise.

The Apostles couldn’t live in physical form forever. They trusted apostolic succession. It still goes on. But only in His Church.

Please come together. All Christians. There are so many people living without Christ AT ALL!! WE are supposed to be the people HELPING them to see, on behalf of our Lord. And what do we do? We prophets, priests and kings? We argue with each other, (and meanly, mind you), whether or not the MOTHER OF GOD, the Ark of the New Covenant, the one referred to by Angels as Full of Grace, who all generations shall call blessed, was preserved as a virgin??? And who are we arguing with about it? Muslims? No. Hindus? No. We’re arguing about it with Christians who stay away from their own Church because of a pride that allows them to think they can know better than actual Saints, such as Augustine, and Aquinas, Polycarp, Origen, Iraneus, any of the Apostles, any other of the Church fathers, or the Angels.

Please brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us be one, and if we’re not ready for that yet, can we at least be moving in that direction rather than farther apart?

May the Lord grant us His peace and blessed help.

 

[Sir_Knight]

I just stated the facts. Well as you said you did not excommunicate anybody and I said that you truly did not. You just pointed out that someone was a heretic by not embracing Catholic dogma and is thereby automatically excommunicated. I just restated that you said that, confirming your answer that you did not excommunicate anybody.
Better try to debate someone who actually disagrees with you instead of contesting someone who tries to defend your position.

I’m sorry if I misunderstood what you were trying to say to me. Sometimes that happens. I meant no offense. Please accept by apologies.

 

[grndslm]

Our faith also teaches us that we are to distance and separate ourselves from those who do not embrace the teachings of our Church (see 2 Corinthians 6:14).

Could you also share with us… Paul’s definition of “the Church”? … Just for the sake of continuity.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Church - the pillar (supporter) of the faith and bulwark (defender) of the truth … 1 Timothy 3:15

 

[ConnieMelton]

Our faith also teaches us that we are to distance and separate ourselves from those who do not embrace the teachings of our Church (see 2 Corinthians 6:14).

I believe you never turn your back on a sinner or someone who doesn’t embrace the truth.
To witness to them, to try and make them understand the truth, embrace them and help them would be my action.

 

[inkaneer]

Please try to follow along …

1. 
   *]Mary remaining a virgin her entire life is an INFALLIBLE teaching of the Church as declared by Pope Pius XII in the “MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS” and taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
   
   *] According to Church Canon 751, anyone who denies or even doubts official Church teaching is a “heretic”.
   
   *]Canon 1364 §1 further goes on to say that heretics are AUTOMATICLY excommunicated/
   
   … using OFFICIAL Church references, I connected the dots. What, exactly, is the problem?

1. 
   There is no problem other than some people want to believe that they, not the church, are infallible. Luther did it, Calvin did it, Zwinglii did it, ditto Henry VII, The Wesleys, etc. It’s the Burger King Church where you can “Have it your way.” [play the jingle]

 

[ConnieMelton]

Darlene, actually I would like to see all the Catholic pro-abortion (they call it pro-choice) members of Congress thrown out of the Church.

Unfortunately, our faith teaches we must love the offender but hate the offense. :knight2::knight1: Darn!

I agree with the above, but without the word unfortunately. We must love and then teach. We must educate the Congressman/Congresswoman about the beginning of life. I believe most of the pro-choice Catholics in Congress only approve of abortion in the cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother being in danger. These three circumstances I believe are the reasons why most of the pro-choice people in this country feel the way they do. I have never talked with someone who is pro-choice that believes it should be a form of birth control.

 

[Janet1983]

I’m sorry if I misunderstood what you were trying to say to me. Sometimes that happens. I meant no offense. Please accept by apologies.

Apologies accepted.
I guess it’s because what we are having here often times seems like a battle and as I do not sort myself among the Catholics any longer I guess anything I say must be bad from the get go.

 

[Mea_Culpa]

Apologies accepted.
I guess it’s because what we are having here often times seems like a battle and as I do not sort myself among the Catholics any longer I guess anything I say must be bad from the get go.

Why did the thread have to get derailed into talking about you?

 

[Janet1983]

Why did the thread have to get derailed into talking about you?

Hold on, I didn’t really derail it. We just had a short innuendo because I supported someone in his position… concerning the Catholic teaching someone who does not believe Mary’s perpetual virginity is a heretic and de facto excommunicated. Outside of the Church heresy cannot be claimed, as those who do not believe because of their prior education in a Protestant denomination are not subjecting themselves to the Roman pontiff.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Apologies accepted.
I guess it’s because what we are having here often times seems like a battle and as I do not sort myself among the Catholics any longer I guess anything I say must be bad from the get go.

No, it wasn’t that. It’s when you quoted me and said that “I didn’t” – as I said, I misunderstood that and thought that you were disagreeing with me.

 

[Sir_Knight]

I believe you never turn your back on a sinner or someone who doesn’t embrace the truth.
To witness to them, to try and make them understand the truth, embrace them and help them would be my action.

Then you would be disobedient to the teachings of Christ Himself, Who commanded us to have nothing to do with someone who refuses to listen to the Church (see Matthew 18:17).

 

[Janet1983]

Then you would be disobedient to the teachings of Christ Himself, Who commanded us to have nothing to do with someone who refuses to listen to the Church (see Matthew 18:17).

I would consider that rather harsh considering the fact that the Lord Himself dined with sinners. Don’t you think that Christians should tell the world about the Lord and try to make them understand? As far as I understand it Matthew 18:17 is about those who are disobedient in the church and rather clear concerning those who sin against another person. He is to be confronted by the one he sins against first and then by a group of people and then by the church. I think that love should guide us to do exactly that and to try and heal first before we amputate.

 

[Sir_Knight]

And, as I said earlier, * 2 Corinthians 6:14 *is very clear in instructing us that we are not to associate with non-believers. Should we disobey apostalic teaching?

Oh, and let me clarify that there is a difference between bringing the faith to someone who has never been exposed to the faith for the purpose of spreading the faith and associating with someone who knows the faith and/or has been exposed to the faith but refuses to accept it. There is nothing wrong with doing the former but there is something wrong with doing the latter.

 

[rtibs]

Back to the question of Jesus’ siblings. If I were Joseph, a righteous Jew, would I compete with the Holy Spirit in fathering Mary’s children other than Jesus? Would I regard someone who has just been espoused to the Holy Spirit, just an ordinary woman thereafter, to satisfy my earthly desires with (even if it is a Jewish thing to do to procreate), she whom God favored as the mother of His son? I would shudder even just with the thought, that here is this woman, full of God’s grace, and I would dare touch her! But with the arguments propounded in this thread, as well as in most of their oral teachings, it seems acceptable to our earthly protestant brothers, to father someone whose spouse just turned his back!

 

[inkaneer]

And, as I said earlier, * 2 Corinthians 6:14* is very clear in instructing us that we are not to associate with non-believers. Should we disobey apostalic teaching?

Oh, and let me clarify that there is a difference between bringing the faith to someone who has never been exposed to the faith for the purpose of spreading the faith and associating with someone who knows the faith and/or has been exposed to the faith but refuses to accept it. There is nothing wrong with doing the former but there is something wrong with doing the latter.

I disagree with your interpretation of 2 Cor 6:14. First, No where does it say we are not to associate with non-believers. Second, the term ‘non-believers’ does not mean non- Catholics. It means pagans.

2 Cor 6:14 says, in the following translations:

“Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness?” [Douay Rheims]

“Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” [RSV]

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” [KJV]

Nothing there about associating with them but more to the point about not marrying them.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Not to yoke, means not to bind oneself. That is a wide spectrum from marriage to friendship. Additionally, if someone does not BELIEVE in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, if someone does not BELIEVE in the authority of the priest to forgive sins, etc.; how can you refer to them as a “BELIEVER”? You can’t! They are non-BELIEVERS.