James! You rock brother! (hope you can say that in English/ I’m not American)
Halleluja, your post just made me happy…
I often feel alone with my quest for a simple, holy, apostolic faith that I can just have in peace.
We know that the first Christians prayed the Our Father three times a day… did not let anyone judge them on the basis of which holidays and sabbaths they preferred to keep, what they liked to eat and when… and so on and so forth…
But sometimes I think we forget this apostolic freedom of the first Christians… all things are made complicated and but into heavy systems… we have a Vatican where people sit and have politically correct audiences or lengthy discourses instead of dropping their robes and stepping out into the streets to minister to crowds and heal the sick.
The Gospel is really simple and its beautiful in its simplicity. Jesus could have told us to become new rabbis who made halacha upon halacha, new mishah… new books on how to go around the simple laws layed down in the Bible… But He didn’t. He gave parables… parables on human dignity and the love of God.
I am not advocating a Christianity where everything goes or something like this… but I get tired when I have to explain marian dogma that are not explicitly described in the Bible, to people who are held away from the Sacraments for this same reason… or when I have to explain to the Jews why we have made new rules and new times of worship instead of the ones that were there at the beginning… or worse, when I have to explain to myself why it is that I have to confess a death sin if I dont go to Mass one sunday, while Paul said: dont ever let anyone judge you on the basis of festivals or sabbaths…
I wanna understand… and obviously I need to keep it simple because I am not as smart as scott Hahn.
I am sorry… I could continue.
I thought that this place would be full of people who are pro-new-marian-dogma… I am happy and surprised to see that I am not alone with my thoughts.
Thanks for expressing yours so well, James