Love one another

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NoelFitz

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At present in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, the Church is going through a rough time. It seems at times very polarized with liberal and conservatives disagreeing. Perhaps this is a scandal to those Catholics who are struggling and to non-Catholics of good will.
Perhaps we should focus more on Christ and on our Catholicism.

Many of us disagree on moral issues, as the necessity for Sunday Mass, and the use of contraceptives, but should we focus more on our fellowship in the Church and our mutual support, rather than on our disagreements.

I am reminded of Phil 2:2 (NAB):
If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. (Phil. 2:1-2 NAB).

Should all of us Catholics try more to be of the same mind with the same love, united in heart?

After all we are all part of the same body. We should aim for unity among Catholics – one Lord, one faith, one baptism;e (Eph. 4:5 NAB) - more than for unity among all Christians.

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (Jn. 13:34-35 NAB)
 
NoelFitz said:
At present in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, the Church is going through a rough time. It seems at times very polarized with liberal and conservatives disagreeing. Perhaps this is a scandal to those Catholics who are struggling and to non-Catholics of good will.
Perhaps we should focus more on Christ and on our Catholicism.

Many of us disagree on moral issues, as the necessity for Sunday Mass, and the use of contraceptives, but should we focus more on our fellowship in the Church and our mutual support, rather than on our disagreements.

I am reminded of Phil 2:2 (NAB):
If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. (Phil. 2:1-2 NAB).

Should all of us Catholics try more to be of the same mind with the same love, united in heart?

After all we are all part of the same body. We should aim for unity among Catholics – one Lord, one faith, one baptism;e (Eph. 4:5 NAB) - more than for unity among all Christians.

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (Jn. 13:34-35 NAB)
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You know, the moral issues are pretty important.

The thing is, Noel, that unless you agree on the heart of Catholicism --those moral issues-- what you are in danger of is the kind of ‘universalism’ that is so broad in its attempt to cover everything that it winds up being worth exactly nothing.

If you have an umbrella faith that allows people to claim that said faith allows for contraception, yet does not allow it; allows people to attend Mass as they choose, yet does not permit them to miss Sunday Mass, allows for people to receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin, yet forbids them to receive unless they are in a state of grace. . .you don’t really have a faith at all. You have a label of "Catholicism’ and, however you choose to obey or disobey the practices, you claim to be ‘equal’ to somebody also Catholic who does exactly the opposite.

I’d find that very confusing.

I know it’s hard to accept, but when it comes right down to it, we have seen in the last few decades especially what Christianity looks like when it is stripped of its Christian teachings and replaced with ‘just love and accept each other as you are, don’t make demands, just be love and think of Jesus.’

It looks . . like a social club. A club where you can walk in as you choose, do what you choose, and have people just smiling at you for showing up and affirming you ‘where you are’.

Back even in the 1960s, we had a lot of social clubs like that.

Nowadays, not so many. The memberships are dropping. Why? Because what is the POINT of these clubs? You can get more ‘fellowship’ going on the internet, and you don’t have to even leave your home. Why bother to go someplace and get a ‘smile’ when you get it for free everywhere? It’s not special anymore and it’s a chore to go someplace you don’t have to!
 
NoelFitz said:
At present in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, the Church is going through a rough time. It seems at times very polarized with liberal and conservatives disagreeing. Perhaps this is a scandal to those Catholics who are struggling and to non-Catholics of good will.
Perhaps we should focus more on Christ and on our Catholicism.

Many of us disagree on moral issues, as the necessity for Sunday Mass, and the use of contraceptives, but should we focus more on our fellowship in the Church and our mutual support, rather than on our disagreements.

I am reminded of Phil 2:2 (NAB):
If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. (Phil. 2:1-2 NAB).

Should all of us Catholics try more to be of the same mind with the same love, united in heart?

After all we are all part of the same body. We should aim for unity among Catholics – one Lord, one faith, one baptism;e (Eph. 4:5 NAB) - more than for unity among all Christians.

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (Jn. 13:34-35 NAB)
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I’ll drink to that. And, good use of scripture as well.

It seems to me that this is a kerygma vs didache problem. They should not be put in a verses situation, but it seems like they often are.
 
NoelFitz said:
At present in Ireland, and perhaps elsewhere, the Church is going through a rough time. It seems at times very polarized with liberal and conservatives disagreeing. Perhaps this is a scandal to those Catholics who are struggling and to non-Catholics of good will.
Perhaps we should focus more on Christ and on our Catholicism.

Many of us disagree on moral issues, as the necessity for Sunday Mass, and the use of contraceptives, but should we focus more on our fellowship in the Church and our mutual support, rather than on our disagreements.

I am reminded of Phil 2:2 (NAB):
If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. (Phil. 2:1-2 NAB).

Should all of us Catholics try more to be of the same mind with the same love, united in heart?

After all we are all part of the same body. We should aim for unity among Catholics – one Lord, one faith, one baptism;e (Eph. 4:5 NAB) - more than for unity among all Christians.

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (Jn. 13:34-35 NAB)
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Do you think that you’re loving someone by pating their heads and maintening them in the wrong path that will lead them to eternal punishment?
Our Lady of Fatima showed the horrors of hell to 3 little children so they be aware of what is waiting for those who don’t follow the faith.
 
Christ prayed later that same night “that they shall be one as I am one with” the Father. If we are one simply because we ignore differences of fundamental importance, we are not living this. This is the basic problem with nondenominationalism - unity through indifference and ignorance.

There is not any disagreement about basic moral, doctrinal, or legal precepts among those who trust the Church as the instrument of God’s revelation and governance. The Church participates in Christ’s kingship and prophetic office, just as much as She participates in His priesthood.

“No man can serve two masters.” Instead of ignoring our weakness and cognitive dissonance, let’s pick up our crosses and work out our salvation with fear and trembling instead of thinking we can coast into Heaven because we feel good about God and about each other.
 
The sad truth is that true love is tough love. The analogy of a parent and child is pretty obvious here: a good parent is one that lays down rules and enforces certain behaviors that the parent knows will raise up a disciplined, good, well-formed child. The child will typically hate many of the rules but will come to know the value of that tough love once mature.

Our society wants a type of love that is not real love at all. God’s love is real love: He has rules, disciplines, boundaries. We don’t like them, often, but those who follow them grow to spiritual maturity. To tell people that they are just perfect the way they are, that God requires nothing of them, that they should relax and enjoy the pleasures of life–this is actually cruelty. Of course this doesn’t mean that one lectures others or preaches fire and brimstone. But it does mean living out the essentials of the faith yourself and encouraging others gently, as one can, to do the same. “Speak the truth in love.”
 
Limocello402,

I am grateful for all the replies I have received, and am thinking about all the considered replies.

But I find it hard to believe your reply, remembering God is love.

If one misses mass on Sunday, with clear knowledge and full consent one is condemned to hell for all eternity.

I cannot think of a good parent who says to his teenage child be home by 11 pm, and if the child is late rejects him permanently.

I am reminded of Paul.
For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. (Rom. 6:14 NAB)
 
** e_c #5**

Thank you for your post.

Three points concern me:
  1. I am not considering nondenominationalism, as I am concerned with issues within the Roman Catholic Church.
  2. There are disagreements in the Church about basic moral principles. Often it seems the majority of Catholics accept contraception.
  3. We do not work out our salvation, Jesus saves. Phil2:12 is followed by
    *For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work. (Phil. 2:13 NAB) *
In the early 60s I heard Gabriel Marcel speak in Dublin. I am that old.
 
Pseudno

Q: Do you think that you’re loving someone by pating (sic) their heads (sic) and maintening (sic) them in the wrong path that will lead them to eternal punishment?
A: No.

You wrote “Our Lady of Fatima showed the horrors of hell to 3 little children so they be aware of what is waiting for those who don’t follow the faith.”
Again I will ask you do all who do not follow the faith go to hell (Extra ecclesia nulla salus)?
 
1Lord1Faith

Thank you for your encouraging reply. All others are critical of me.

I am surprised that advocating that we love one another in the Church is controversial.

You wrote “it seems to me that this is a kerygma vs didache problem. They should not be put in a verses situation, but it seems like they often are.”

I am not sure what you mean.

The kerygma is (I suppose) the proclamation of the basic Christian message, while didache is the teaching, or do you meant the Didache as an early church writing that discusses church order such as the Eucharist etc. I am not sure of your point.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
You know, the moral issues are pretty important.

The thing is, Noel, that unless you agree on the heart of Catholicism --those moral issues-- what you are in danger of is the kind of ‘universalism’ that is so broad in its attempt to cover everything that it winds up being worth exactly nothing.
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I think i can agree with this. As much as people might hate the values expressed by the Catholic faith, i think people would have less respect for the Church if they changed every-time they were challenged. A Morally evolving infallible Church doesn’t really work.

It has to be a rock, Otherwise its just a house built on sand.
 
NoelFitz said:
Pseudno
You wrote “Our Lady of Fatima showed the horrors of hell to 3 little children so they be aware of what is waiting for those who don’t follow the faith.”
Again I will ask you do all who do not follow the faith go to hell (Extra ecclesia nulla salus)?
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Yes, all those who do not follow the faith are going to hell . There are the cases that one repents just before death, and then God forgives and that person is saved, just like Saint Dimas. But that happens because in that last instant, that person is following the faith and acknowledging that he was wrong.
 
IWantGod

You wrote
  • A Morally evolving infallible Church doesn’t really work.*
Blessed John Henry Newman wrote of the development of Christian Doctrine. Things do change. Both doctrine and moral values change with time.

In the moral field we no longer believe in slavery, burning of heretics and witches, trial by ordeal, torture, the sinfulness of banks charging interest, the subjection of wives and the beating of children.
 
NoelFitz said:
IWantGod

You wrote
  • A Morally evolving infallible Church doesn’t really work.*
Blessed John Henry Newman wrote of the development of Christian Doctrine. Things do change. Both doctrine and moral values change with time.

In the moral field we no longer believe in slavery, burning of heretics and witches, trial by ordeal, torture, the sinfulness of banks charging interest, the subjection of wives and the beating of children.
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Yes but these views are either not infallible in the first place or under certain circumstances do not hold the weight of sin.

For example the church will never change its morals concerning the moral status of homosexual behavior or abortion. If that were not the case then the church would be guilty of misleading people.
 
NoelFitz said:
IWantGod

You wrote
  • A Morally evolving infallible Church doesn’t really work.*
Blessed John Henry Newman wrote of the development of Christian Doctrine. Things do change. Both doctrine and moral values change with time.

In the moral field we no longer believe in slavery, burning of heretics and witches, trial by ordeal, torture, the sinfulness of banks charging interest, the subjection of wives and the beating of children.
Click to expand...
Yes but these views are either not infallible in the first place or under certain circumstances do not hold the weight of sin. Human understanding changes, but not Moral Law.

For example the church will never change its morals concerning the moral status of homosexual behavior or abortion. If that were not the case then the church would be guilty of misleading people.

If the Church was everything people wanted then the Church would just be an expression of human ideals rather than an expression of God. People want the Church to evolve and adapt to the social ideals of our current time, but it can’t. If Catholicism compromises its foundations it will fall apart.
 
NoelFitz said:
Limocello402,

I am grateful for all the replies I have received, and am thinking about all the considered replies.

But I find it hard to believe your reply, remembering God is love.

If one misses mass on Sunday, with clear knowledge and full consent one is condemned to hell for all eternity.

I cannot think of a good parent who says to his teenage child be home by 11 pm, and if the child is late rejects him permanently.

I am reminded of Paul.
For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. (Rom. 6:14 NAB)
Click to expand...
Noel, with respect, you have it wrong. Only if a person clearly and knowingly sins mortally and does not ever repent would that person have condemned himself or herself to hell for eternity.

Picture a parent who says, “be home by 11”. The child not only does not return by 11, the child refuses to return, flips off the parent, and refuses to enter the house until he is ‘celebrated’ for coming and going when he chooses, and tells the parents he will only obey what he chooses, BUT tells the parents that THEY are responsible for his choices if anything ‘bad’ happens because “they made him”, ‘he didn’t ask to be born’, ‘their rules are stupid anyway’, ‘and if they loved him they would let him choose and reward him for whatever choice he made at any time and in any way’. Then picture that the family has another 4 or 5 younger children at home and that if this child ‘gets his way’, they will all demand to be treated the same.

Would YOU like to live in this family? Do you think the child should be allowed to do as he chooses despite how it affects him and the rest of his family negatively? Do you think the parents should just ‘give in’?
 
Yes, as Catholics we have the most blessed gift of unity - the Pope. All we have to do is follow the Pope, and we are one in Christ.
 
NoelFitz said:
1Lord1Faith

Thank you for your encouraging reply. All others are critical of me.

I am surprised that advocating that we love one another in the Church is controversial.

You wrote “it seems to me that this is a kerygma vs didache problem. They should not be put in a verses situation, but it seems like they often are.”

I am not sure what you mean.

The kerygma is (I suppose) the proclamation of the basic Christian message, while didache is the teaching, or do you meant the Didache as an early church writing that discusses church order such as the Eucharist etc. I am not sure of your point.
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The unique message of Christianity that was new is that agape is to be placed first and foremost above any kind of “law”. Agape is the kerygma, the “law” is the didache, so to speak in my own crude words. Agape comes first, the didache is ineffective without love.

But I am terribly inarticulate so I may want to copy and paste some things:
Let us first of all recall that there is no separation or opposition between catechesis and evangelization. Nor can the two be simply identified with each other. Instead, they have close links whereby they integrate and complement each other.
…
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  1. The specific character of catechesis, as distinct from the initial conversion - bringing proclamation of the Gospel, has the twofold objective of maturing the initial faith and of educating the true disciple of Christ by means of a deeper and more systematic knowledge of the person and the message of our Lord Jesus Christ.(49)
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But in catechetical practice, this model order must allow for the fact that the initial evangelization has often not taken place. A certain number of children baptized in infancy come for catechesis in the parish without receiving any other initiation into the faith and still without any explicit personal attachment to Jesus Christ; they only have the capacity to believe placed within them by Baptism and the presence of the Holy Spirit; and opposition is quickly created by the prejudices of their non-Christian family background or of the positivist spirit of their education. In addition, there are other children who have not been baptized and whose parents agree only at a later date to religious education: for practical reasons, the catechumenal stage of these children will often be carried out largely in the course of the ordinary catechesis. Again, many pre-adolescents and adolescents who have been baptized and been given a systematic catechesis and the sacraments still remain hesitant for a long time about committing their whole lives to Jesus Christ - if, moreover, they do not attempt to avoid religious education in the name of their freedom. Finally, even adults are not safe from temptations to doubt or to abandon their faith, especially as a result of their unbelieving surroundings. This means that “catechesis” must often concern itself not only with nourishing and teaching the faith, but also with arousing it unceasingly with the help of grace, with opening the heart, with converting, and with preparing total adherence to Jesus Christ on the part of those who are still on the threshold of faith. This concern will in part decide the tone, the language and the method of catechesis.
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…
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  1. Thus through catechesis the Gospel kerygma (the initial ardent proclamation by which a person is one day overwhelmed and brought to the decision to entrust himself to Jesus Christ by faith) is gradually deepened, developed in its implicit consequences, explained in language that includes an appeal to reason, and channelled towards Christian practice in the Church and the world. All this is no less evangelical than the kerygma, in spite of what is said by certain people who consider that catechesis necessarily rationalizes, dries up and eventually kills all that is living, spontaneous and vibrant in the kerygma. The truths studied in catechesis are the same truths that touched the person’s heart when he heard them for the first time. Far from blunting or exhausting them, the fact of knowing them better should make them even more challenging and decisive for one’s life.
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w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_16101979_catechesi-tradendae.html
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I believe that St. JPll underestimated the recourse that would need to be given to the bolded part in n.19 over the coming decades. Those who are on the threshold of faith should not be given meat when they are still on milk.

I also believe he underestimated how much catechesis did indeed dry up the kerygma in the preceding decades.
 
1Lord1Faith

Perhaps some over-complicate things.
It is simple - God is love.
  • He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:37-40 NAB)*
 
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