I can't decide if I am Catholic or Protestant!

[St_Redemption]

When you finally get to heaven, and stand at the pearly gates, you’ll say to St. Peter, “Umm, I’m not sure if I’m a Cath or a Prod. Is that OK?”

Ol’ St. Peter will say, *“Any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine. Come on in.” * :hug3:

I don’t have any doubts that if somebody loved Jesus with all of his heart and soul, was not ashamed of him, and was a good person that that person is going to Heaven. But I want to do things as right as possible. Hence my current conundrum. I want to glorify My Lord as much as possible so I am trying to determine the best way to do this.

 

[slh3016]

I don’t have any doubts that if somebody loved Jesus with all of his heart and soul, was not ashamed of him, and was a good person that that person is going to Heaven. But I want to do things as right as possible. Hence my current conundrum. I want to glorify My Lord as much as possible so I am trying to determine the best way to do this.

This is EXACTLY how my husband and I feel. We believe this ^^^ with all our hearts and we truly believe that the Catholic Church provides a structure that will point us toward Him (i.e., through the sacraments, through the Mass, receiving the Eucharist, the richness and continuity of the faith, with confidence in the authority of the Church’s teachings, etc.) more than what we have ever experienced in a Protestant, evangelical church. However, we have no doubts about anyone who loves and seeks Jesus with all their hearts. God is their judge, not us. I just know that He will judge me for what I knew and what I did with it. I don’t ever want to stand in front of Him and explain how, in the face of the Truth, I turned and went my own way because it was “hard.”

May God bless you during this time.

 

[St_Redemption]

Are there many of you who started protestant but then went Catholic? Or are there many of you who started Catholic and then when Protestant? Id like to hear your stories if you’d he willing

 

[slh3016]

Are there many of you who started protestant but then went Catholic? Or are there many of you who started Catholic and then when Protestant? Id like to hear your stories if you’d he willing

I was Protestant for 20 years. I was totally ignorant of the Catholic Church, having grown up in the South. About two years ago, my best friend informed me she was considering converting and asked me to read some books and to try to basically talk her out of it. Now, my family is on our way into the Catholic Church. No looking back The evidence was too overwhelming to ignore.

Please look at the books I mentioned to you before because all those were of converts who came into the Church from Protestantism. In my experience, you will find those that convert to Catholicism are much more well-versed in history and Sacred Scripture than those who leave. I’ve yet to find a compelling, thought-provoking, and intellectually honest argument from anyone who left. Everyone I know personally that left was because of a “hard teaching” that they didn’t like (in most cases, because of a divorce), their feelings were hurt by someone inside the Church (parent, friend, clergy, etc.), or they weren’t properly catechized

 

[KathleenGee]

slh…your testimony gave me goosebumps! That is fantastic.

My mother’s mother was widowed when my mom was 6…3 girls…and she was hit by a car at the same age. My grandmother would talk about her being Christian and believing in the Bible…and the Red Dragon, China and the world would be destroyed by fire…so it would have to be nuclear bombs. That was it. She was married to, I must have to unfortunately admit, a racist. They came from the South, some kind of Baptist like background. But I grew up hearing my great grandparents or whatever back, had plantations.

My mom converted to Catholicism before she met my dad. She was very drawn to the rosary, to praying novenas, to lighting candles in the home to symbolize her prayers for us.
My aunt said she would probably be Catholic. Her kids were baptized and my parents godparents. I wanted to see her this one day after she retired, but she was so tired and told me not come. It turned out she died suddenly that weekend…but I had a dream about her…or…when I was waking up, she was there to tell me to forgive others. So I think her desire took her.

And my grandmother, she got mad at the neighbor who came to my cousin’s wedding, making fun of the ‘telephone’ ringing during the nuptial Mass wedding. I think my grandmother defending the sacred of the Mass and the wedding…somehow was a sign she was on her way to being a Catholic although she never went to Mass after that.

So I grew up hearing stories of the Deep South and saw my mother’s family be inclined to Catholicism.

 

[St_Redemption]

For reasons I cannot really explain…I WANT to be Catholic. I just want to know that the Catholic Church the same Church that she was in, say, 100 AD.

 

[slh3016]

For reasons I cannot really explain…I WANT to be Catholic. I just want to know that the Catholic Church the same Church that she was in, say, 100 AD.

I believe this is a valid concern and one that has multiple issues that need to be addressed in order to truly believe that it is. Below is kinda the process that we had to go through in order to fully embrace the Catholic Church.

1. The Eucharist - What church today presents Communion in the same way that the Christians of the first and second century believed and practiced? You won’t find this info explicitly in the Bible. That’s where the history of the church is so critically important. The writings of the early church fathers were HUGE in helping convince us that the early church believed in the Real Presence. That eliminated 99% of Protestantism from even being a viable choice.
2. Sola Scriptura - One of the defining doctrines of Protestantism; This was actually fairly easy to debunk, especially in light of the Eucharist. Because the Bible is often vague on some issues (remember, the NT is basically a group of letters written to various churches in response to some doctrinal or disciplinary issues that had arisen. It was not compiled to be a “Christianity for Dummies” book.) Protestants tout that the Bible is the SOLE rule of faith, but when you study church history and realize that the Bible was actually put together and “canonized” by the catholic Church in order to decide which writings could be read at Mass, one will pretty quickly realize that, hey, the Church had survived and flourished without a “Bible” for a few hundred years and if the Church had evolved into erroneous teachings by the 400’s, then how can the authenticity of the Bible even be trusted by Protestants today to be their final rule of faith?
3. Protestants that truly recognize that the Church had the authority to even canonize a New Testament will often say that somewhere along the way that Church lost its authority due to corruption. However, no one can p(name removed by moderator)oint exactly when that was or what it was that happened to cause the Holy Spirit to stop leading it? They also can’t tell you which church it is leading now because the ALL claim to be lead into all truth by the Holy Spirit, but we know that CANNOT be true with a different denomination on every corner, especially in the Bible Belt. So where is the Church that is a “city on hill” and the “light to the world” and the “pillar and bulwark of truth”, as described in the Bible? I now believe it is the Catholic Church.

The Protestant’s Dilemma is Devin Rose is very great at pointing out all these discrepancies and hypocrisies in Protestantism. I highly recommend this book along with the others I mentioned before.

 

[RosslynV]

1. 
   *]Vat II did NOT do that. Protestants are NOT “in” the Church. If they were “in” the Church they could walk off the street and receive the sacraments. Can they do that? NO!.
   *]Just look at confession catholic.com/quickquestions/as-a-protestant-who-wishes-to-stay-focused-on-the-lord-may-i-confess-my-sins-to-a-pri
   
   looking at this further
   
   I numbered the points of CCC 837 (all emphasis mine)
   
   Here’s 5 salient points
   
   *"*Fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, (i.e. baptised)
   
   1. 
      *]accept all the means of salvation given to the Church
      *]together with her entire organization,
      *]who—by the bonds constituted by the profession of faith,
      *]the sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion—are joined in the visible structure of the Church of Christ,
      *]who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops.
      
      taking that same list and applying that to validly baptised Protestants, they don’t meet the requirements for being “in” the Church.
      
      "Fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, (i.e. baptised)
      1. 
         *]-] accept all the means of salvation given to the Church /-]
         *]-] together with her entire organization, /-]
         *]who—by -]the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, i.e. the Catholic profession of faith /-]
         *]-] the sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion—are joined in the visible structure of the Church of Christ, /-]
         *]-]who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops./-]
         
         Protestants are NO on all 5 points. Ergo they are **NOT **“in” the Church.

1. 1. 1. 
         I’m not disputing the facts you’ve listed from John Paul 2’s catechism. However if u read Lumen Gentium you will notice a more broad destination of the “church of Christ”, which only subsists in the Catholic church and includes other ecclesiastical communities not in union with the Catholic church. So a proper reading of this Vat 2 document reveals that protestants are part of the church of Christ. And therefore protestants may attain salvation-- the point of my original post.
         Your post was NOT very ecumenical.

 

[slh3016]

slh…your testimony gave me goosebumps! That is fantastic.

My mother’s mother was widowed when my mom was 6…3 girls…and she was hit by a car at the same age. My grandmother would talk about her being Christian and believing in the Bible…and the Red Dragon, China and the world would be destroyed by fire…so it would have to be nuclear bombs. That was it. She was married to, I must have to unfortunately admit, a racist. They came from the South, some kind of Baptist like background. But I grew up hearing my great grandparents or whatever back, had plantations.

My mom converted to Catholicism before she met my dad. She was very drawn to the rosary, to praying novenas, to lighting candles in the home to symbolize her prayers for us.
My aunt said she would probably be Catholic. Her kids were baptized and my parents godparents. I wanted to see her this one day after she retired, but she was so tired and told me not come. It turned out she died suddenly that weekend…but I had a dream about her…or…when I was waking up, she was there to tell me to forgive others. So I think her desire took her.

And my grandmother, she got mad at the neighbor who came to my cousin’s wedding, making fun of the ‘telephone’ ringing during the nuptial Mass wedding. I think my grandmother defending the sacred of the Mass and the wedding…somehow was a sign she was on her way to being a Catholic although she never went to Mass after that.

So I grew up hearing stories of the Deep South and saw my mother’s family be inclined to Catholicism.

That’s one of the things I do love about the Catholic Church is that there is the belief that only God can judge a soul’s worthiness of heaven and that there is hope for everyone, regardless of their circumstances in life My best friend who converted was a baptized Christian before, but her husband was not. He was baptized in the Catholic Church and has said many times that the attitude of the many denominations he grew up around was what kept him out of church. Everywhere he turned, the Methodists, Church of Christ, and Baptists were trying to “sell him” on how he needed to be a member of THEIR church

 

[dcana]

Not all Protestants have “symbolic” Holy Communion. While we don’t believe in transubstantiation we do believe in the “Real Presence” when partaking of the elements.

This is something I don’t understand from Lutheran theology. In what way is Jesus “really” present? What is the manner of His presence in the species?

Is Jesus “really” present in this room with me, and everywhere else in creation, for that matter? Yes, in a way, as God is omnipresent. Is He really present when I read the Scriptures? Yes, in another sort of way, since He is the Word of God. Is He really present when “two or three gather in His name?” Yes, in another sort of way, He is really present.

So in what way do Lutherans believe that Jesus is really present in the species at a Lutheran service? They believe that the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine, correct? If you don’t believe in transubstantiation, then it seems that this must be so. A thing cannot be two things at once. So I guess Jesus must be present in some manner of “spiritual” sense. How is this presence different from His presence that exists in the bread *solely because of His omnipresent divinity holding it and all other things in existence by an act of His will?

*Thanks

 

[steve_b]

Thanks for the response.

even if I am saved but confused on doctrine, I still wish to be corrected in order to better serve His will, as would any good Christian. But I do not believe that our loving Lord rejects those that love Him because they grew up in a househould that taught that the eucharist was symbolic, assuming in fact, that it is not. The Catechism itself states that -]many/-] protestants can be -]and are /-]saved.

For clarification I think you are refering to the following CCC response to (Outside the Church there is no salvation) clarifying the teaching.

all emphasis mine

847This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

Is that what you were refering to?

As an aside

May ≠ will, May ≠ probably, May = a possibility.

For example,

if I say it may rain tomorrow, It’s not saying it will rain. Only that there is a possibility of rain.

The teaching is also saying

Providing one who is in such a tradition, (outside the Church) is innocently ignorant of the truth and remains innocently ignorant of their tradition’s schism and heresy from the Catholic Church

Once they know the truth however, THEN they need to make a decision to return to the Catholic Church. If they don’t return to full unity, they are no longer innocently ignorant of their schism and heresy, and there is no salvation for them. 846
St:

even if I am saved but confused on doctrine, I still wish to be corrected in order to better serve His will, as would any good Christian. But I do not believe that our loving Lord rejects those that love Him because they grew up in a househould that taught that the eucharist was symbolic, assuming in fact, that it is not.

I understand.

I’m not talking about folks who are innocently ignorant of the truth. Ignorance however isn’t always innocent

1791ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin." In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

Therefore, one could ask, what about those who insist on NOT being corrected and won’t change from their error(s)?

Here’s what Paul says

Titus 3:10
“As for a man who is factious ( αἱρετικὸν heretic ), after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

Paul doesn’t write to heathens and pagans. He writes to the Church in various locations. He writes to the baptised. Paul is obviously warning those who have that grace of baptism and won’t hear and won’t change from their error .
St:

I have many charges against Protestantism. I only answered some Catholic charges that I have here because you are Catholic I have a long way to go. And you guys are helping me get there. Lets keep dialogue open. Thanks for all of your time

Prayers ascending for your journey.

Keep asking away :tiphat:

 

[dcana]

For clarification I think you are refering to the following CCC response to (Outside the Church there is no salvation) clarifying the teaching.

all emphasis mine

847This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

Is that what you were refering to?

As an aside

May ≠ will, May ≠ probably, May = a possibility.

For example,

if I say it may rain tomorrow, It’s not saying it will rain. Only that there is a possibility of rain.

The teaching is also saying

Providing one who is in such a tradition, (outside the Church) is innocently ignorant of the truth and remains innocently ignorant of their tradition’s schism and heresy from the Catholic Church

Once they know the truth however, THEN they need to make a decision to return to the Catholic Church. If they don’t return to full unity, they are no longer innocently ignorant of their schism and heresy, and there is no salvation for them. 846

I understand.

I’m not talking about folks who are innocently ignorant of the truth. Ignorance however isn’t always innocent

1791ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin." In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

Therefore, one could ask, what about those who insist on NOT being corrected and won’t change from their error(s)?

Here’s what Paul says

Titus 3:10
“As for a man who is factious ( αἱρετικὸν heretic ), after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

Paul doesn’t write to heathens and pagans. He writes to the Church in various locations. He writes to the baptised. Paul is obviously warning those who have that grace of baptism and won’t hear and won’t change from their error .

Prayers ascending for your journey.

Keep asking away :tiphat:

re: RosslynV

Preaching the Truth is perfectly ecumenical.

 

[fasolislithuan]

For reasons I cannot really explain…I WANT to be Catholic. I just want to know that the Catholic Church the same Church that she was in, say, 100 AD.

The real question is: If the Catholic Church is not the same Church that the Church in 100 AD, then: where is the Church that Jesus claimed He will build in Matthew 18:16?. He said in Matthew 18 :* “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”*** If the Church that Christ established in the first century doesn’t exist today then Jesus has failed, He has lied us and He is a false prophet. If Christ is the Son of God , then His Church necessarily must exist today and accordingly His Church must be the same Apostolic Church that in 100 AD. Now the crucial question is: Which Church, of all Christian Church exists since 100 AD and keep the apostolic tradition? And also, which Church chose Jesus to preserve, to compile and to canonize the Bible?**

The answer can be only one: The Church that Christ called “My Church” was, is and always will be One, Saint, Catholic and Apostolic Church, but is necessary a leap of faith to embrace it.

 

[dcana]

Preaching the Truth is perfectly ecumenical.

Isn’t the goal of ecumenism (or if not the goal, then maybe the essential first step) to understand what the other truly believes?

Well, there you go, that’s what we believe regarding our separated brethren and the need to belong to the Church. Unfortunately, we have gotten away from the use of the word “heresy.” It’s quite simple. Catholic=Christian and Christian=Catholic. Protestant=Christians who believe heretical things and/or who don’t accept everything that is taught infallibly by the Catholic Church. Of course under this last definition, many Catholics would be defined as Protestants. So be it. Are they not protesting against the Church of Christ by refusing to submit to her divinely-given teaching authority? Are they not, in some sense, separating themselves from the Church? The word “heretic” itself means someone who is “fitted or able to take or choose a thing”, according to the first definition given in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon. So what are they choosing? What to believe and what to reject. As in, “I think I’ll take this jello salad with raisins and carrots, I don’t like the looks of the lime jello. Too watery. Yes, can I have a slice of that roasted pork loin? Your prime rib looks a little too bloody tonight. Oh, that chocolate cream pie looks good. But the pecan pie does to. I think I’ll go for the key lime.”

 

[steve_b]

I’m not disputing the facts you’ve listed from John Paul 2’s catechism. However if u read Lumen Gentium you will notice a more broad destination of the “church of Christ”, which only subsists in the Catholic church and includes other ecclesiastical communities not in union with the Catholic church.

Excerpt
“…to be a Church the community must be “legitimate”; they are legitimate when they are “united with their pastors”. What does this mean? In the first place, no one can make a Church by himself. A group cannot simply get together, read the New Testament and declare: “At present we are the Church because the Lord is present wherever two or three are gathered in His name”. The element of “receiving” belongs essentially to the Church, just as faith comes from “hearing” and is not the result of one’s decision or reflection. Faith is a converging with something I could neither imagine nor produce on my own; faith has to come to meet me. We call the structure of this encounter, a “Sacrament”. It is part of the fundamental form of a sacrament that it be received and not self-administered. No one can baptize himself. No one can ordain himself. No one can forgive his own sins. Perfect repentance cannot remain something interior—of its essence it demands the form of encounter of the Sacrament. This too is a result of a sacrament’s fundamental structure as an encounter [with Christ]…”

Thus Protestantism made themselves. They are 100% manmade… by Luther, Henry VIII, Calvin, Smyth, etc etc. As then Card Ratzinger said, that’s NOT legitimate. Ergo they aren’t “churches”

from ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFECCV2.HTM

Excerpt

…“As is well known this famous expression “subsistit in” was subsequently the object of many and contradictory interpretations. The notion became quite widespread that the Council had not wanted to adopt as its own the traditional statement according in which the Church of Christ is (est) the Catholic Church — as was stated in the preparatory schema2 — so as to be able to say that the Church of Christ subsists also in Christian communities separated from Rome.
In reality, however, an analysis of the Council proceedings leads to the conclusion that
“[t]he phrase subsistit in is intended not only to reconfirm the meaning of the term est, that is, the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. Above all, it reaffirms that the Church of Christ, imbued with the fullness of all the means instituted by Christ, perdures (continues, remains) forever in the Catholic Church”.3
This meaning of the term subsistit coincides with the common language of Western culture and is consistent with classical philosophical language from Aristotle to St. Thomas; that which exists in itself and not in something else is said to subsist.4
“Subsisting is a special case of being. It is being in the form of a subject standing on its own. This is the issue here. The Council wants to tell us that the Church of Jesus Christ as a concrete subject in the present world can be encountered in the Catholic Church. This can occur only once and the notion that subsistit could be multiplied misses precisely what was intended. With the word subsistit, the Council wanted to express the singularity and non-multiplicability of the Catholic Church”.5
In this Document of the Council, the assertion of the subsistence of the Church of Christ in the Catholic Church is followed by the famous phrase about the presence of many elements of sanctification and truth, belonging to the Church, outside her visible structure.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, already in 1985, in the face of erroneous interpretations, made the following statement in this regard: " . . . the Council chose the word subsistit precisely in order to make it clear that there exists a single ‘subsistence’ of the true Church, while outside her visible structure only elementa ecclesiae exist, which — as elements of the Church — tend and lead toward the Catholic Church”.6
More recently, the same Congregation declared: “The interpretation of those who would derive from the formula subsistit in the thesis that the one Church of Christ could subsist also in non-Catholic churches and ecclesial communities is therefore contrary to the authentic meaning of Lumen Gentium”.7"…

ewtn.com/library/Doctrine/subsistit.htm
R:

Your post was NOT very ecumenical.

Ecumenism for me is sharing the truth.

 

[St_Redemption]

I believe this is a valid concern and one that has multiple issues that need to be addressed in order to truly believe that it is. Below is kinda the process that we had to go through in order to fully embrace the Catholic Church.

1. The Eucharist - What church today presents Communion in the same way that the Christians of the first and second century believed and practiced? You won’t find this info explicitly in the Bible. That’s where the history of the church is so critically important. The writings of the early church fathers were HUGE in helping convince us that the early church believed in the Real Presence. That eliminated 99% of Protestantism from even being a viable choice.
2. Sola Scriptura - One of the defining doctrines of Protestantism; This was actually fairly easy to debunk, especially in light of the Eucharist. Because the Bible is often vague on some issues (remember, the NT is basically a group of letters written to various churches in response to some doctrinal or disciplinary issues that had arisen. It was not compiled to be a “Christianity for Dummies” book.) Protestants tout that the Bible is the SOLE rule of faith, but when you study church history and realize that the Bible was actually put together and “canonized” by the catholic Church in order to decide which writings could be read at Mass, one will pretty quickly realize that, hey, the Church had survived and flourished without a “Bible” for a few hundred years and if the Church had evolved into erroneous teachings by the 400’s, then how can the authenticity of the Bible even be trusted by Protestants today to be their final rule of faith?
3. Protestants that truly recognize that the Church had the authority to even canonize a New Testament will often say that somewhere along the way that Church lost its authority due to corruption. However, no one can p(name removed by moderator)oint exactly when that was or what it was that happened to cause the Holy Spirit to stop leading it? They also can’t tell you which church it is leading now because the ALL claim to be lead into all truth by the Holy Spirit, but we know that CANNOT be true with a different denomination on every corner, especially in the Bible Belt. So where is the Church that is a “city on hill” and the “light to the world” and the “pillar and bulwark of truth”, as described in the Bible? I now believe it is the Catholic Church.

The Protestant’s Dilemma is Devin Rose is very great at pointing out all these discrepancies and hypocrisies in Protestantism. I highly recommend this book along with the others I mentioned before.

Great post, thank you. Still trying to soak it all in. I will post more later

 

[dcana]

1. Protestants that truly recognize that the Church had the authority to even canonize a New Testament will often say that somewhere along the way that Church lost its authority due to corruption. However, no one can p(name removed by moderator)oint exactly when that was or what it was that happened to cause the Holy Spirit to stop leading it?

This is believed not for historical and logical reasons. It is believed because it **must **be believed. It has to be so or else there is no validity to breaking away from it and forming a new “church,” as if that could be done by human beings. Jesus said HE would build HIS Church. He founded it, imbues it with life by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Sacraments, and maintains it. It is the Body and Bride of Christ, which will be wed to Christ on the Last Day. Jesus did not and could not “reject” this bride to take on another one to wed. John did not see “some other” bride coming down from heaven; he saw the one to whom he belonged.

Your statement makes me wonder. Many Protestants are big on Israel. All well and good. God made promises to Israel that they would be His special people, forever, as we read in the OT. We believe that too. We also read in the OT of the behavior of the Jews as “stiff-necked” people who time and time again abandon the God of Israel, Isaac, and Jacob and return to worshiping idols and breaking the commandments in every way imaginable, from their kings and priests down to the everyday persons. Throughout the OT, they are excoriated for doing so. Hosea likens Israel to a harlot. This passage from Ezekiel is typical:

The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their doings; their conduct before me was like the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood which they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; in accordance with their conduct and their deeds I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that men said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel caused to be profaned among the nations to which they came. "Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations will know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

Time and again God “abandons” them to their sins, often symbolically referred to as their “harlotry”, but He always takes them back after their repentance. But they did not believe in their Messiah when He came to them and instead called for His crucifixion. Jesus says of them, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” He also adds, by the way, “Behold, your house is forsaken.” We see in them lessons for us, for our falling back into sin time and time again. I know I do. I think it could be said that after their rejection of Jesus, God did not take them back as before, but instead made a New Israel out of the rest of the peoples of the earth. What did Jesus mean with His parables? What did He mean when He said, “Behold, your house is forsaken?” But the fact remains that they are still His special people, even after all this, because God is faithful to His promises, even if they (and we) are not. Protestants, in particular (for reasons I don’t quite understand, but that’s neither here nor there) are (ironically) huge supporters of Zionism and the state of Israel. But they reject God’s true Israel in their midst. I support Israel and the Jewish people myself, by the way, but not in some fanatical fashion.

Here are two of the Lord’s parables to think about:

And he began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture: ‘The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them; so they left him and went away.

• Mark 12: 1-12

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[dcana]

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have made ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready; come to the marriage feast.’ But they made light of it and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the thoroughfares, and invite to the marriage feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

• Matthew 22:1-10

Jesus also prophesies the destruction of the temple, which came to pass in the year 70: And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” Talk about hugely symbolic.

St. Paul discusses over and over again in his letters how God’s Israel now encompasses the entire world: i.e. the Gentiles, who are all the people in the world who are not Jews. How many parables does Jesus give about the Kingdom of God? Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth: “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.”

Throughout the OT the coming of the Messiah is prophesied, as well as the great works that he would do when he would come. Jesus fulfilled all those prophesies in unexpected and incredible ways, far beyond what any human could have imagined. He talks about the Kingdom of God. He gives us His new, perfect, and eternal commandments, expanding upon the old ones, in the Sermon on the Mount. He personally chooses twelve to be His disciples, to learn from Him and walk with Him for three years. He promises that the Holy Spirit would guide the Apostles into all truth and that He would be with them forever. He gives His life for the salvation of the world. He pours out the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost. He says that He, God Himself, will build His Church: “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” and says to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” He promises that, “I will be with you always, even to the consummation of the world.” And we, the Gentiles, believed in Him, and the Church expanded wildly from that point, even to today, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles.

So after all this, Mormons say that the Church fell away into apostasy before the death of the first Apostle - that the Keys of the Kingdom were “lost” until recovered by Joseph Smith. Are they insane? No, they have to believe that to justify their own existence. Protestants say the same thing, but say it happened after some unspecified or varying number of centuries. Are they insane? No, they have to believe that to justify their own existence. Neither group understands the Scriptures. Even assuming that there was some kind of “great apostasy,” which there was not, if you care to look at history, isn’t the lesson told about 800 times in the OT that God is jealous for His people, is a merciful God, always calls and takes them back, and is faithful to His promises and covenants? Have they forgotten this final covenant he made with His people in His own blood, the eternal covenant of all covenants?: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” Did Jesus, like a wise builder, build His house on sand that when the storms come, would wash away its foundations and so the structure would be ruined, or on rock (in fact The Rock - Peter) that would remain in spite of any storms that would come against it? I say that the Lord God built His house like a wise builder on rock. He says as much, “And on this Rock I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” and I certainly believe Him.

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[dcana]

Having said all that, why all the support for God’s people Israel (the Jews), but the Catholic Church is the apostate whore of Babylon, whose members are not even Christian but members of a cult? It is preposterous on the face of it, and MOST unbiblical, if you understand the Scriptures and the ways of God and the whole purpose of God’s Creation, for that matter. If you believe that, the message of the entire Bible escaped you. Read it again. The Lord God has not abandoned His people (not that there was any reason to do so - but even if there was every reason to do so). On the contrary, the Church that Jesus Christ has personally built is a glorious one. It is the Church of the Saints, those men and women of unsurpassed holiness who have followed the Gospel to a heroic degree, and of the glorious Martyrs, who are not non-Christian cultists as some believe to this day, but, on the contrary, people who were so Christian, that they gave their own lives for Christ rather than deny Him. It is the Church wherein God sanctifies His people and where the promises of God are fulfilled: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” and “You shall be my people and I will be your God.” All the means of our becoming Saints with a capital “S” are available to us. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, we just have to will it.

To the OP: come on in, the water’s fine.

Gotta go, I’ve got two tests tomorrow and I haven’t even begun studying. Good night, all.

Peace

 

[steve_b]

Unfortunately, we have gotten away from the use of the word “heresy.”

True.

• Heretic from the Greek lexicon ( αἱρετικὸν )
• Heresy from the CCC 2089"*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;

Protestantism is material heresy. One of The Great Heresies in history