Does it really matter

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mack26
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Mack26

Guest
I have posed several questions on this forum lately as I recently joined. As Someone who is no longer identifying as a Catholic but am a Christian I find myself asking does it matter?

My understanding is that we all fall short of the Glory of God, we all sin, we all need Christ, we get to Heaven through accepting Christ and following him and confessing when we screw up (like we all do). Does it REALLY matter that you believe in pergutory and I don’t? Won’t I go there with all of you anyways for being a believer, if it is true? Does it REALLY matter about the way “it comes across” when I say I’m saved, should I worry how it offends you? I understand the differences in saved, and working on being saved. But if those of us who identify as being saved live a life for Christ then were doing the same thing you are by “working on it.” Right? Does it REALLY matter that you pray to saints and I do not… dont you think were missing the point? Why do the forums (while being VERY helpful for me to understand catholism more, so thank you) focus on Cathollics says this, protestants say that.
( from both catholics and non alike, please dont take this as a bashing post) when the basis of the belief is identical , from what I understand. No-one gets to Heaven except through Christ. Period. Confess your sins. Period. And try to live a life that displays Christ. Period.

Am I missing something? Why did everything get so he said , she said… do you think Christ really care?

Genuine questions…it seems were all so torn over the petty details. When we should come together over the common Savior, Christ! … or maybe I’m a newbie who is way off .
 
Can you explain why it matters. What do those differences have anything to do with Christ dying for us all.
 
Because Christ gave us certain teachings, specially the sacraments, and most specifically the Eucharist. If for no other reason, the Eucharist is why the Catholic Church matters. The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is spiritual food that we need.
 
Because Christ died for us all. Told us to believe in him, repent of our sins and we would have eternity in Heaven. Isn’t that the belief of the Catholic church? That’s the foundation and it’s mine too
 
Mack26 said:
Because Christ died for us all. Told us to believe in him, repent of our sins and we would have eternity in Heaven.
Click to expand...
He also sent Apostles in His Name and that “whoever listens to you, listens to me”. If you want to bypass the gift of Holy Mother Church, then you might as well bypass Christ Himself.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber." John 10:1
 
The grace from the Sacraments of a Catholic in good standing are a help of immeasurable value. Don’t leave.
 
It doesn’t say go to a Catholic mass…it says assembly. Also being an assembly of Christians. Where 2 or more are there Christ is too. So attending a church outside of the Catholic church makes me an enemy of God? If im understanding you correctly?
 
Mack26 said:
It doesn’t say go to a Catholic mass…it says assembly. Also being an assembly of Christians. Where 2 or more are there Christ is too. So attending a church outside of the Catholic church makes me an enemy of God? If im understanding you correctly?
Click to expand...
Neglecting the Eucharistic sacrifice does.
 
As Catholics, we believe that the Church contains the fullness of truth of the Christian faith, the fullness of truth which was given by Christ Himself. Our God is a God of truth, His commandments and precepts being sweeter than honey. The Saints before us labored to preserve and teach us this truth, even dying for it. We care so much about it because it came from Christ, and if God is a God of truth, if all truth leads to Christ, then doctrines as fundamental as the Trinity to as (as you seem to put it) “unessential” as purgatory are all sacred and precious to us. They do matter. We cannot, will not, and shall not relinquish or give up one iota of the treasure that is the deposit of faith that God has given to us.

Does that make sense?
 
Last edited:
Mack26 said:
Because Christ died for us all. Told us to believe in him, repent of our sins and we would have eternity in Heaven. Isn’t that the belief of the Catholic church? That’s the foundation and it’s mine too
Click to expand...
Hi. That is like a title of a book, say, a manual. To know what is inside, you have to open the manual, read it and follow the instruction.

So it matters if you want to follow the manual correctly.
 
Last edited:
Mack26 said:
does it matter?
Click to expand...
Yes. Very much so. Looking back at myself when I did not think such things mattered, I realize that was a time of infatuation with the Lord. When we’re infatuated we tend to fall in love with our conception which may be more or less in proximity to reality. But to truly love someone means you want to love them as they actually are, whether the truths about them are difficult to accept or not. And so in passionate allegiance to my Lord I searched to know him and his desires: if it was true that he meant to establish and commission a church, if it was true that he established sacraments as a means of entering into his grace, if it was true that he meant “if you love me, you will keep my commandments”, then so be it.

All the so-called petty details that you mention are, perhaps, not so petty to Jesus insofar as they are part of his plan. That’s not to degrade the faith of non-Catholics at all. Because in a sense, you are correct: many of those things are not important compared to love for Christ, “faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” Yet understanding the loving providence of God in establishing the order of the world to include purgatory, the communion of saints, the sacraments, et al. is to understand his love for us more deeply, is to love him more deeply.

If it’s true that God wants the communion of saints to love each other and pray for each other, does it matter?
 
Last edited:
Your post also made me think of Belloc’s The Great Heresies:
The denial of a scheme wholesale is not heresy, and has not the creative power of a heresy. It is of the essence of heresy that it leaves standing a great part of the structure it attacks. On this account it can appeal to believers and continues to affect their lives through deflecting them from their original characters. Wherefore, it is said of heresies that “they survive by the truths they retain.”

We must note that whether the complete scheme thus attacked be true or false is indifferent to the value of heresy as a department of historical study. What we are concerned with is the highly interesting truth that heresy originates a new life of its own and vitally affects the society it attacks. The reason that men combat heresy is not only, or principally, conservatism - a devotion to routine, a dislike of disturbance in their habits of thought - it is much more a perception that the heresy, in so far as it gains ground, will produce a way of living and a social character at issue with, irritating, and perhaps mortal to, the way of living and the social character produced by the old orthodox scheme.

So much for the general meaning and interest of that most pregnant word “Heresy.”

Its particular meaning (the meaning in which it is used in this book) is the marring by exception of that complete scheme, the Christian religion.

For instance, that religion has for one essential part (though it is only a part) the statement that the individual soul is immortal - that personal conscience survives physical death. Now if people believe that, they look at the world and themselves in a certain way and go on in a certain way and are people of a certain sort. If they except, that is cut out, this one doctrine, they may continue to hold all the others, but the scheme is changed, the type of life and character and the rest become quite other. The man who is certain that he is going to die for good and for all may believe that Jesus of Nazareth was Very God of Very God, that God is Triune, that the Incarnation was accompanied by a Virgin Birth, that bread and wine are transformed by a particular formula; he may recite a great number of Christian prayers and admire and copy chosen Christian exemplars, but he will be quite a different man from the man who takes immortality for granted.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Mack26 said:
we get to Heaven through accepting Christ and following him
Click to expand...
Catechism
2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. …
Click to expand...
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. “Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”
Click to expand...
 
Why do you not believe? It takes more effort to reject the reasoned beliefs of the Church than to accept them - since they come from an eternal God. I can see rejecting man-made arguments and beliefs. Easy. But these are divine.

Don’t complicate it. As they say, the devil is in the details.
 
You have a good question which a lot of people are asking now day especially teens and young adults. Why should we believe in what the Catholic Church teaches? The teaching are outdated? Just as long as I love Christ and confess straight to him I am good? Just some questions people have.

First off we are the only Church that goes straight back to Jesus Christ and his successes. We have had 266 Popes ( Italian word for Papa- father). With Pope Francis being number 267. St. Peter is the head when the Lord tells him in Matthew 16:13-19 he said to Peter You are a Rock in on this Rock I will build my Church! ( capital R/ One Church).
St. Linus is the second Pope from 67-76 AD he is mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:21 We also have the first of the many Councils of the Catholic Church. The Council of Jerusalem to decide whether gentiles had to follow the law of Moses as well as the law of Christ. Notice after Peter spoke The assembly fell silent. Meaning his statement ended the discussion.

For 250 years, the Roman emperors try to destroy Christianity through persecution. In the first 200 years of Christianity, every Pope was martyred. Meaning why would they die for something if there didn’t truly believe it.

The true canon of the Bible. The protestant old testament is based on the Hebrew canon use by Hebrew speaking Jews in Palestine. The Catholic Old Testament is based on the greek canon use by Greek speaking Jews throughout the Mediterranean including Palestine. Pope St. Innocent 1 (401-417) in AD 405 approved the 73-book canon and closed the canon of the Bible.

We must never hold to Bible alone or ( Sola Scriptura ) as a sole rule of faith. We must also hold fast to oral tradition ( 1 Cor 11:2; 1Pet 1:25)
The authority of the Church tells us what belongs in the Bible. (1 Tim 3:15)

Marian doctrine… if a person denies that Mary is the mother of God, whether he realizes it or not he is denying the incarnation. He is saying either that Jesus is not God, or that Jesus is two persons one human and one divine.Even the fathers of the reformation hold to the Marian doctrine.
John Calvin… it cannot be denied that God in choosing and designing Mary to be the mother of his son granted her the highest honor. Elizabeth calls Mary mother of the Lord, because the Unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God ,

So you see there is a lot to our tradition and it does go back to the Bible and outside of the Bible and continues today. The thing I love most is reserving our Lord in the Eucharist. Hope this helps God bless!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top