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brkn1
Guest
Could you explain what you are driving at more clearly please? Thanks.
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minkymurph
Guest
I have just started to look into this myself so bear with me. There are others here who perhaps have a deeper understanding and can perhaps enlarge on what I say or make adustments to the terminology I use.
The Incarnation is a crucial element to the sacrifice of Christ. The early Church Fathers reasoned that Christ took on flesh in order to save flesh and many theologians have described life as flowing through mankind from the throne of God, the giving of life to all things and you’ve hit on a similar theme when you say ‘God shares the same blood as man and Jesus became God-man.’
When Christ rose body and soul in heaven, he became an eternal sacrifice as his body and blood are no longer constrained by the boundaries of human flesh. When we enter into the life of Christ through baptism, we enter into the life of Christ and are baptised into his death, which is supported by scripture, and the Holy Spirit then dwells within us.
I believe all these things happen in a physical sense and that we partake of the life that flows from God in the Mass. Our soul is physically cleansed as it is the soul that sins and we are physically prepared for heaven. Blood being life is the life Christ generates within us once we are joined with him. As the eternal sacrifice, he is life giving to all mankind by means of his body and blood. This was made possible by the his Incarnation, his death and resurrection. To me, there’s a lot more to the sacrifice of Christ than simply God demanded a blood sacrifice to make up for Adam’s sin.
I could say a lot more but I think this will do for starters.
D
distracted
Guest
i mean, basically, that Protestants believe things that are not in Scripture either…
all truth is not contained in the relatively small book known as the Bible…
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Reformed
Guest
How about having a relationship with God as our Heavenly Father, and Jesus as our elder brother? It seems very personal to me, being adopted into the family of God.
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distracted
Guest
that was not my point… My point was that Protestants who say they believe in sola scirptura… do NOT…How about having a relationship with God as our Heavenly Father, and Jesus as our elder brother? It seems very personal to me, being adopted into the family of God.
They have thier traditions just as they claim Catholics do (and Catholics claim it as well… They are honest about it.).
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minkymurph
Guest
As you say, if we where honest about it, all denominations have ‘traditions,’ practices and theological opinions that could be claimed are not in scripture. For example; Jesus asked us to commemerate his death, not his birth. Therefore, is celebrating his birth wrong? There is nothing in scripture to say we should have a harvest service, does that make that celebration wrong? There is nothing in scripture that says we should build churches, is that wrong? At no point in Jesus life did he say, ‘I am God Incarnate.’ That belief is discerned from what he did say. The Bible however does not say specifically in black and white Christ was God, should we believe he was as it is discerned?
My point is that just because something is not specifically stated in scripture, that does not in itself make it wrong or more to the point, untrue. I believe what Jesus condemned in relation to traditions was not the tradition itself, but why a person practices it ie; to be seen by other people and give an appearance of holiness and not out of love for God or others.
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Usagi
Guest
Absolutely not.
He died once, rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and can never again be harmed in any way.
Rather, He graciously allows us who come along later to participate in His once-for-all sacrifice.
Under the appearances of bread and wine, we are permitted to consume the Lamb That Was Slain, just as the Israelites ate the sacrificed lamb in the Passover meal.
Likewise, we are permitted to join Him in making the one acceptable offering to the Father. Our earthly altars become one with the heavenly altar, and Jesus our High Priest acts through His earthly priest to let us experience and participate in that heavenly moment.
Just as Malachi the prophet revealed, in these latter days even the Gentile nations are enabled to make a pure offering to God – the one and only truly pure offering, namely the broken Body and shed Blood of His Son. And the Mass (including its Eastern counterparts, more properly termed the Divine Liturgy) is indeed offered “from the rising of the sun to its setting,” whether you take that to mean from East to West throughout the world, or at every moment of time.
Usagi
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geezerbob
Guest
It is stated in Hebrews that those who have known the truth and turn away from it crucify Him all over again.
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Usagi
Guest
Addendum:
Some Catholic theologians do hold that those participating in a Mass are, in some mystical sense, “transported” to Calvary. In that case we would indeed witness Jesus’ death in every Mass – not because He must die multiple times, but because every Mass places us at the foot of the Cross where He died once for all.
The more likely opinion, however, seems to be that in the Mass we do not so much mystically participate in Calvary itself as we are enabled to participate in the Heavenly Liturgy – as you put it, the event in which the ascended Jesus lays His offering on the altar for the Father’s approval.
The second possibility makes more sense to me, because we definitely believe that the Jesus we receive in Holy Communion is the resurrected, ascended, glorified Jesus, whose Blood shall never again be separated from His Flesh; whose Soul will never again be separated from His Body; and whose Divinity is of course eternally united to His human Soul.
The death of Jesus is symbolically portrayed and remembered in the Mass, by the separate consecration of bread as His Body and wine as His Blood, but we believe that even if we are able to receive only the tiniest particle of the Host or the merest sip from the chalice, we receive the entire Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Usagi
Some Catholic theologians do hold that those participating in a Mass are, in some mystical sense, “transported” to Calvary. In that case we would indeed witness Jesus’ death in every Mass – not because He must die multiple times, but because every Mass places us at the foot of the Cross where He died once for all.
The more likely opinion, however, seems to be that in the Mass we do not so much mystically participate in Calvary itself as we are enabled to participate in the Heavenly Liturgy – as you put it, the event in which the ascended Jesus lays His offering on the altar for the Father’s approval.
The second possibility makes more sense to me, because we definitely believe that the Jesus we receive in Holy Communion is the resurrected, ascended, glorified Jesus, whose Blood shall never again be separated from His Flesh; whose Soul will never again be separated from His Body; and whose Divinity is of course eternally united to His human Soul.
The death of Jesus is symbolically portrayed and remembered in the Mass, by the separate consecration of bread as His Body and wine as His Blood, but we believe that even if we are able to receive only the tiniest particle of the Host or the merest sip from the chalice, we receive the entire Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.
Usagi
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Usagi
Guest
In a sense, yes. But I would not phrase that as His “still being on the Cross.” We have enough trouble with folks thinking we don’t believe in the Resurrection because we use the crucifix in addition to the bare cross.
i often wonder why God doesn’t put an end to the whole world… according to St. Faustina, he wants to…Mary holds him back, apparently… Mary and the prayers of the ones who love Jesus…
Another case in which I would not go nearly that far.God delays the Judgment because He, Himself, wills to save all who can be saved. We must be careful of thinking as though Mary could possibly be more loving or compassionate than God.
Usagi
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Usagi
Guest
The notion of Mary holding back the wrath of God is unfortunately popular in some strains of Catholic piety, but it is bad theology even to us Catholics.
God does not “change His mind” or go against His own will at the pleading of any saint, on earth or in Heaven. To even think that He could is absurd, and I assure you, you will not find the Catholic Church teaching anything like that.
Now, we do see cases in the Scripture in which God appears to allow the pleading of a favored person to turn away His wrath. Abraham has a chance in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, though the conditions under which he requests mercy just aren’t present. Moses intercedes for the entire people of Israel at least once, when it appears that God is willing to wipe them all out.
Since God can’t actually change His mind or alter His will, presumably in those cases His Will was actually conditional – “I will bring down this punishment unless a righteous person intercedes for the deserving sinners.”
So, it is at least possible that similar situations occur today – that God delays judgments He would otherwise mete out because He has previously determined to grant the request of a fervent Christian. In Catholic thinking, that would apply to the thoroughly sin-free Christians in Heaven as well as to us on Earth. So it’s possible that God permits Mary to avert or delay certain judgments by her prayers.
Nonetheless, we should never present the idea as though Mary has power over God, or cares more for us than God does. Please do not take that as any kind of teaching of the Catholic Church.
Usagi
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Usagi
Guest
God is said not to have feelings because having feelings puts one at the mercy of external forces – something outside of you can cause you to change or even diminish you.
Obviously that can’t happen to God, so it is taught that He does not have feelings in the human sense.
Jesus does, of course, because He is also truly human. Jesus shows us what God would be like if He were more like us – weeping for His friends, longing for the repentance of sinners, showing kindness toward the afflicted and anger toward hypocrites.
God in Himself, technically, does not have any feelings, though humans (even in writing Scripture) often interpret His actions as stemming from emotions. Sin cannot actually make God cry or provoke Him to anger, or else sin would in a sense have power over God. Rather, God’s attributes like justice and love are always present and unchanging. (Remember that love, in the Christian theological sense, does not mean having pleasant feelings about someone, but willing that person’s good.)
Of course, now the God-Man sits on the heavenly throne, and presumably still possesses human attributes like emotion. Even then, though, He cannot suffer as He did on earth, any more than the saints have their heavenly joy diminished by the existence of sin on earth or the damned in Hell. Otherwise Heaven would not be Heaven, and God Himself would be incomplete and in need of something outside Himself.
Usagi
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onenow1
Guest
Hi,All
Absolutely not ! But I personally can relate better to a cross with the image of Jesus, because we all have seen death and in fact will die someday. An empty cross relates to a risen Christ in faith we believe this but have yet to see anyone rise from the dead.
Christ said at the last supper do this in memory of me, don’t we have to think and make present how Christ shed his blood for us on the cross not off of it.
Isn’t this why the Jews when they celebrate the Passover, are actually making themselves present on the Passover. They were required to eat the Paschal lamb.
Now, isn’t it true that since Saul persecuted the Church before his conversion,
that the book of Acts had to have been written many years after the Church was founded?
Isn’t it fair to say that those who today persecute that same Church which Jesus Christ founded could very well have their own names substituted for Saul’s in Acts 9:4?
Since every church on earth had a founder with a name, I would strongly suggest that those who persecute the Catholic Church had better find out who is the founder of the Catholic Church.
If they say it was not Jesus Christ, then the onus is upon them to name the person who did,
and to provide genuine historical documents to prove what they say.
“What is gratuitously asserted can be gratuitously denied.”
In other words, statements made without proof can be denied without proof.
Peace, OneNow1
Absolutely not ! But I personally can relate better to a cross with the image of Jesus, because we all have seen death and in fact will die someday. An empty cross relates to a risen Christ in faith we believe this but have yet to see anyone rise from the dead.
Christ said at the last supper do this in memory of me, don’t we have to think and make present how Christ shed his blood for us on the cross not off of it.
Isn’t this why the Jews when they celebrate the Passover, are actually making themselves present on the Passover. They were required to eat the Paschal lamb.
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Side Note
-------------------------------------------------------------that the book of Acts had to have been written many years after the Church was founded?
Isn’t it fair to say that those who today persecute that same Church which Jesus Christ founded could very well have their own names substituted for Saul’s in Acts 9:4?
Since every church on earth had a founder with a name, I would strongly suggest that those who persecute the Catholic Church had better find out who is the founder of the Catholic Church.
If they say it was not Jesus Christ, then the onus is upon them to name the person who did,
and to provide genuine historical documents to prove what they say.
“What is gratuitously asserted can be gratuitously denied.”
In other words, statements made without proof can be denied without proof.
Peace, OneNow1
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Isa_Almisry
Guest
As long as sinners still sin,
as long as His Body is persecuted,
as long as creation groans in travail,
as long as our sufferings fill up in our flesh, the Body of Christ, what is lacking in the afflection of Christ (Col. 1:24)
yes.
as long as His Body is persecuted,
as long as creation groans in travail,
as long as our sufferings fill up in our flesh, the Body of Christ, what is lacking in the afflection of Christ (Col. 1:24)
yes.
D
distracted
Guest
there are traditions of men and there are traditions of God…
Jesus did not condemn the latter…
It seems a lot of Protestants don’ get that…
D
distracted
Guest
it wasn’t just St. Faustina who wrote about this in her Diary. father Gobbi (dont know if approved by Church) says Mary said same thing to him…
don’t insult my intelligence…
D
distracted
Guest
i would prefer to say that God can do (and feel) anything He wants… &* whenever* He wants…
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Usagi
Guest
I did not intend to do so, and apologize if that is how I came across.
Please explain what you found offensive in my words.
Usagi
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Usagi
Guest
That works, too. The important thing (which we both seem to agree on) is that God cannot be made to do or feel anything by any power outside Himself.
Usagi
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distracted
Guest
any intelligent Catholic (and even some who aren’t so cerebrally “blessed” :hypno:
) know that God is above Mary…its a no-brainer…
(of course Protestants insult our intelligence every day… when they say we put Mary over God…).
Sigh!! :yawn:
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