Gee, guess what we all learned in RCIA last night

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Celia:
See, I think that’s just an expanation of what Christ was trying to say, not really at all a support to referring to our Lord as our mother.
I believe you have hit on the key idea, that is, the actual meaning of what Christ was trying to say.

It seems that the image Jesus would give us of God is an image of strength, compassion, justice and mercy. The way many would imagine the ideal father to be.

The thought occurs to me that some individuals have not had that experience of a father - or anything close to it - and perhaps some people have great difficulty associating those qualities with a father figure. I believe that it would be more important to Jesus that a person have an image of God with those qualities than it would that the image be of a person of male gender.

Although I do continue to think that in the ideal (more or less) world, the image of a compassionate Father is the single image that most closely reveals how we should consider God to be.

peace

-Jim
 
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davy39:
This is how we get into so many bad situations. Priests, nuns, and sometimes bishops, assuming that if they believe something, that automatically makes it church law. If I were a bishop, and I heard of a nun teaching this, that would be the last rcia class she would ever teach. I would send her to some convent in Alaska or somewhere. We have the right to have the true church teaching taught to us, and not some of the wall belief of liberal nuns or priests.
Hahahaha! Yeah! Alaska! I agree!!

On a more serious note - I think it’s great that us lay folk can tell the difference nowadays. We used to weakly accept the wrong teachings of misguided priests/nuns/brothers without much dissent just one generation ago!

The problem remains though … how to we weed out … or correct misguided ‘authority figures’?
 
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DreadVandal:
I think you should just stand up and say “nonsense!!!” “You, madam, are teaching heresy!”
Todd Easton:
God as mother? Boy, was I wrong; I thought the passage supported the idea that God was a chicken.
Just 2 reasons why I keep coming back to this site!

Hilarious!
 
Write a letter to your Bishop and explain the problems. ALso use your Catechism note where the nun was wrong (i.e. reformed).

Next time the nun speaks, raise your hand and politly ask her if she is a Baptist or a Lutheran nun?:whistle:

If you don’t want to ask that question, just ask the nun to explain why the Catechism explains things in a way that contridicts her. Have the Catechism ready with your notes too. Tell her you will follow what the Church teaches regardless of what she teaches.

I am glad I have never had this kind of problem at any parish I have attended. I have had other Catholics do this kind of thing though. Sometimes Catholics know less about their own Faith then the anti-Catholics do! I guess that’s why ignorant Catholics leave the Church and become Protestant or JW or LDS, etc…

In the nuns defense, I have seen some instructors try to simplify matters due to time. This sometimes causes a missunderstanding by the students. I hope this is what happened.
 
Just had to share a recent discovery.

If anyone thinks there are not many references to God as feminine, they should read the book of Wisdom.

Peace

Jim
 
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trogiah:
Just had to share a recent discovery.

If anyone thinks there are not many references to God as feminine, they should read the book of Wisdom.

Peace

Jim
There is no Wisdom in the Protestant Bible!

Sorry, I just had to say it!:rotfl:
 
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LaSalle:
Hahahaha! Yeah! Alaska! I agree!!

On a more serious note - I think it’s great that us lay folk can tell the difference nowadays. We used to weakly accept the wrong teachings of misguided priests/nuns/brothers without much dissent just one generation ago!

The problem remains though … how to we weed out … or correct misguided ‘authority figures’?
The answer might be found in the visual observation of groups such as Call to Action. Anyone attending such a meeting will find that it is populated by a few individuals, usually there as observers, under the age of, say, 40 or 45; the actual attendees and participants generally are somewhere over 50 and on up.

In other words, 10 they are not replicating themsleves, and 2) the ranks are thinning through the natural process of dying off.

Sad to say, but the great majority of radicals are a good bit older; they are not getting the youth to follow them, and literally, they are dying off. Wait long enough and the problem will solve itself.
 
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Orogeny:
The Church has not abandoned the concept of purgatory, yet that was part of your original post.

No, you are correct, it doesn’t say that it is ok to refer to God as mother. However, it specifically does not forbid using the feminine sense either. The passage makes clear the Church teaches that God is a spirit and neither male or female. Refering to Him as either is not disrespectful.

Please understand that I always refer to God in the masculine sense and don’t care for the use of the feminine when refering to Him. My point is that it is not a heresy or an abomination to refer to God as She.

Peace

Tim

No, I asked about limbo.

Anyway, I will never think it is ok to call God something other than he prefers to be called. And for a nun in the Catholic church to be teaching that it is, well, it just makes me sad. Perhaps it’s not a defined teaching, but I think it’s one of those “goes without saying” deals.
 
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Holland:
Please do not send her to Alaska. We have enough problems as it is.
:rotfl:

TobyLue, Malachi, otm, others, thanks for your posts, appreciate your responses. I’m trying to work up the guts to bring this up in the next meeting…or talk to the priest maybe, (I don’t know if that would do anything, but I could give it a whirl, I 'spose) or something…:hmmm:
 
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Orogeny:
How is that wrong according to Chruch teacing? How do you oppose that statement in light of this from the Catechism?

I’m not sure why this is an issue. Why would you think St. Michael’s is unorthodox based on that statement?

Peace

Tim
Tim, any church with deacons that intersperse their teachings with “he/she” in reference to God has some serious issues to deal with. This is obviously a deacon that is extremely hung up on political correctness and while he might be some exception to the rule at St. Michael’s I’d say they are suspect until proven innocent if they have deacons like that one teaching RCIA.

The Lord taught us how to pray and it never involved referring to God as “MOM.” I’d have to ask what is the motivation for referring to the Christian God as “Mother.?” In my opinion those that have a hard time referring to God as “Father” are doing so out of a contentious and rebellious spirit. It is pride that motivates this mode of political correctness. A pride so robust that it can’t humble itself enough to say “Father.” Why? Because “It’s always been a mans world …up til now…why not a woman’s world? I am woman hear me ROAR!!! And I’ll skin alive any man that argues with me.” I don’t know what repulses me more. The woman that is caught up in being a man or the man that goes along with it. It’s pride on the womans part and timidity on the mans. There is no scripture to support the view nor sacred tradition. It is the result of prideful imaginings…PERIOD. That is what makes it heresy and abomination. That is what makes it something other than worship.

Bah, hogwash. Why don’t you show us in the Catechism where it says we can refer to the Father as the Mother because it “feels” better for us that way. It is the PC feminatzi crowd that had better start proving themselves and their perverse doctrines rather than asking those adhearing to tradition to do so.
 
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Celia:
Paris…it’s not that easy for me to jump up and interrupt and tell an 80 year old nun that is highly loved and respected in this church that she’s off her rocker. Should I have the courage? Maybe, but I didn’t. I intend to amend the situation with my RCIA teacher as I said. (Plus, I’m sitting there like, "Did she just say what I think she said?? And by the time I realized that I should say something she had already started into something else…not an excuse probably but just saying…)

I think I know the faith rather well. I’ve been Catholic my whole life. Better than this particular nun, I believe, anyway…on these issues…
Gee, I’m sorry if I ticked you off. :crying:

Don’t mind my enthusiasm anymore…sometimes it gets way too far.

:o
 
I’m just curious, do you all really think that God, the Father, is a male? Do you think the ‘Father’ aspect of the trinity is of the male gender? Or, do you think that the word ‘Father’ was used to help us conceptualize this aspect of the Trinity? What do you think?
 
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spiritblows:
I’m just curious, do you all really think that God, the Father, is a male? Do you think the ‘Father’ aspect of the trinity is of the male gender? Or, do you think that the word ‘Father’ was used to help us conceptualize this aspect of the Trinity? What do you think?
I think we’re all quite aware that God does not actually have a human gender. My beef with this is that it is obvious that God prefers to be called, when we refer to him, in the male form. To call God something other than he wishes to be, is disrespectful. (I know, I’m repeating myself, but I just can’t get past this. :o ) That said, sure, it helps us conceptualize the Trinity, but that doesn’t support the notion that God can be referred to in a female sense, in my view…
 
Paris Blues:
Gee, I’m sorry if I ticked you off. :crying:

Don’t mind my enthusiasm anymore…sometimes it gets way too far.

:o
No, it’s fine Paris, I’m not ticked off. I just wanted you to understand that for a shy person it’s not that easy.

Friends 🙂 🙂
 
Dear Celia,
I think, and this is a theory, that some people in our modern age have a different reference point than the culture that the Bible originated in. I’ve talked to non-Christian friends, and they find the patriarchal language of the Bible irritating. They view it as too male oriented, and they think that humanity has moved moved away from this constrictive and stifling viewpoint to one that is more respectful of women. I think this is probably where this old nun was coming from.

Let’s face it, most of us modern women would find the Old Testement times oppressive to us. It represents an extreme form of patriarchy that we find so offensive when were see it alive today in the Middle Eastern Cultures.

So, I think some people have a need to break free from what they view as limiting and sexist language more applicable to another time and place. I think this old nun was trying to address this, that God is not a male or a female, and probably she wanted to give people a little leeway in their conceptualization of him, based on their individual points of view.
 
i had a crazy nun teach me the same kind of nonsense at my rcia classes … fortunately some friends stepped in to show me what the church really teaches

the nun running my rcia class eventually left religious life … maybe this one should jump over the wall too
 
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spiritblows:
Dear Celia,
I think, and this is a theory, that some people in our modern age have a different reference point than the culture that the Bible originated in. I’ve talked to non-Christian friends, and they find the patriarchal language of the Bible irritating. They view it as too male oriented, and they think that humanity has moved moved away from this constrictive and stifling viewpoint to one that is more respectful of women. I think this is probably where this old nun was coming from.

Let’s face it, most of us modern women would find the Old Testement times oppressive to us. It represents an extreme form of patriarchy that we find so offensive when were see it alive today in the Middle Eastern Cultures.

So, I think some people have a need to break free from what they view as limiting and sexist language more applicable to another time and place. I think this old nun was trying to address this, that God is not a male or a female, and probably she wanted to give people a little leeway in their conceptualization of him, based on their individual points of view.
Oh, sure, I mean, I’m sure this older nun has no evil agenda behind her or something 🙂 she seems like quite a nice lady actually. But her theology in my view is off from what the Catholic church would traditionally espouse. And, in a setting like this we could have a really great discussion about something like that, but there is no place for such talks in RCIA I believe. We should be learning the traditional views I think, because, think how confusing this could be to a new convert - that’s what I’m most concerned with. (I mean, and we wonder why we have such a problem with cafeteria Catholics, you know? If they all have an RCIA experience like this, well…)

Regardless of what modern women find offensive, it doesn’t give license to change what the church traditionally believes. And like it’s been said, it’s not defined doctrine but pretty much a long standing presuppposition that God is called a He, for reasons known to Him, and well, better Catholic scholars than I. :o

But I thank you for your post. It was very thoughtful and interesting and gives some insight into, “what is she thinking??” 😛 🙂
 
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spiritblows:
Dear Celia,
I think, and this is a theory, that some people in our modern age have a different reference point than the culture that the Bible originated in. I’ve talked to non-Christian friends, and they find the patriarchal language of the Bible irritating. They view it as too male oriented, and they think that humanity has moved moved away from this constrictive and stifling viewpoint to one that is more respectful of women. I think this is probably where this old nun was coming from.

Let’s face it, most of us modern women would find the Old Testement times oppressive to us. It represents an extreme form of patriarchy that we find so offensive when were see it alive today in the Middle Eastern Cultures.

So, I think some people have a need to break free from what they view as limiting and sexist language more applicable to another time and place. I think this old nun was trying to address this, that God is not a male or a female, and probably she wanted to give people a little leeway in their conceptualization of him, based on their individual points of view.
So, some people find the patriarchal language irritating. We wouldn’t want to irritate people now would we. Hey, the bible is a living breathing document. We don’t have to adhere to the teachings of the magisterium, do we? We can simply alter the language so as to not bruise our egos, can’t we? And hey, if we can change He to She, why not something else? There’s much in the scriptures that might make someone uncomfortable, isn’t there? We live in a day and age when the very word “Christmas” irritates those same people you speak of. I know a few myself. They say it’s too “exclusive.” It reminds them of the oppresive roots in our society. LOL They’d much rather worship the earth goddess, practice sex magic and hug a tree.

We don’t live in the times of the old testement and to use the middle eastern traditions concerning the treatment and status of women in the Christian world is galling. There can be no comparison whatsoever.

It seems the people here are well aware that God is sexless. We all know he is sexless. Shouldn’t that be enough? You people that want to alter the image of God given us through the ages, not just by men, but by Him make me sick. Again I say it’s to sooth your own egos and self image and not for the purpose of worship. Your part of the problem in this age of self worship and not part of the solution.

Give an inch and they’ll take ten miles people. Allow this farce to continue and you won’t even begin to believe the next aspects of scripture and tradition that are reworked. This inclusive language nonsense is only the first step in reconditioning the church to accept women into the priesthood. Keep in mind where this movement comes from and what it’s related too. It has the distinct stench of the feminist militant movement. It is merely another attack on the church by the world, albeit with grandmotherly face.
 
If anyone thinks there are not many references to God as feminine, they should read the book if Wisdom
This is one of the things that many use as their excuse to refer to God in the feminine pronoun by referring to the Book of Wisdom. Feminists love to use this as their “proof” that it is OK to refer to God as “she”, or “mother”. But a close look will reveal that this is only a rhetorical personification of wisdom and not referring to the Holy Spirit as being feminine.
Two things:
  1. In the “NORMS FOR THE TRANSLATION OF BIBLICAL TEXTS FOR USE IN THE LITURGY.” Issued in 1995 by the CDF has this
4/4. “Similarly, in keeping with the Church’s tradition, the feminine and neuter pronouns are not to be used to refer to the person of the Holy Spirit…”
  1. In the Creed, that history traces back to the Apostles, it says
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth;
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;
He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the **Father **almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
** Amen. **
And the “amen” means we approve and express assent to what is stated in the creed. If anybody does not believe in what the Creed teaches, then they are lying when they say “AMEN”

St. Ambrose says:
“This Creed is the spiritual seal, our heart’s meditation and** an ever-present guardian**; it is, **unquestionably, the treasure of our soul.” ** (emphasis mine)
Do we dare go against the Creed?
 
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