Our Church....

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Singinbeauty

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…is dying. The church that Jesus founded, the Unity that He established, is being threatened by those who love Him. My heart is heavy and I have been thinking about this for a while now. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with the following…

It is true that the Church of Christ will not be conquered but something is happening within His church that is causing Her sickness. The outside world mocks Christ’s church because of the hands of the men and women that ‘claim’ authority in our faith.

We bicker and fight about doctrine that has nothing to do with our Salvation. We are hurting our children and causing eachother so much pain. We ignore our own to prove our prideful ‘worthiness’ to God when that is not what He intended. We have turned our attention inwards on ourselves, individually, instead of watching how we are perceived to those who need healing the most. There are those who mock God because our representation here on earth is horrible. We kill eachother in the name of God. Protestants and Catholics alike are at eachother’s throats claiming that the other is the anti-christ and they have the sole handle on Salvation. We have wounded Christ’s church by pride. We, meaning each and every denomination (Protestant AND Catholic), are in a race to see who can worship God the best beyond the churches surrounding them. Saying ‘See, see! I worship God better than you… those who follow you will die in Hell!’

My brothers and sisters… I urge you to look into the Church. We need a healing process done to preserve the Unity that Christ needs to win a world over that is becoming more and more cynical. We need to stop trying to convert eachother to our ‘religion’ and start looking outside and seeing the multitude of dying people who need our help. We NEED to bridge the gap! And bring the Church back to it’s whole to follow Christ. We follow the SAME God, the SAME Jesus, and the SAME Holy Spirit.

How can we be on the SAME side and still look so divided?
 
Catholics agree that division is horrible to Christianity, it hurts me to see new churches starting every week. Each saying that truth is what you personally believe, yet people don’t agree on truth.

I feel your pain, I was at a Calvary Chapel beach baptism this Saturday. Unfortunately I heard some of what you were describing with none of them realizing that their Church was just started in 1965. This is the shame that the constant division of Christianity brings to itself.

I then just sang with them and shared how their Church had developed from the Jesus movement and to look to history and look for truth. Hopefully some will open their hearts and prayerfully look for unity. I also talked with them about Atheists, how we can share Christianity with them.

God Bless
Scylla
 
We’ve weathered worse. We’ve survived two thousand years of heretics, persecution and even open war. The priest sex scandal is one of the worst things to happen in the history of the Catholic Church, but it won’t be enough to put an end to us. The liturgical debates have been a part of our history since the time of the apostles.

Some of the bleakest moments in the church’s history are also some of the times when the greatest saints have risen to defend her. We’ve seen saints in our era, those who stand for what is right, but it’s only the beginning. I see more and more young people turning back to the faith and not just the faith, but an orthodox understanding of the faith. The generation that is still growing up will yield some great Christians.

The postmodernist and other moral relativists that have brought our culture to this point are having their last hurrah before the pendulum starts to swing the other way again. It’s the cycle that human history has followed since the beginning. Don’t lose heart when you look around and see the state of things today. It’s not over yet, and I personally see a lot of hope over the horizon in the younger generations who have learned first hand (from being raised by baby boomers who don’t know any better) that the current path of our culture has to change.

I’m heartened in some way by the continued expansion of Christianity. It shows that people are looking for the truth. People want to find God. People are trying their hardest to find the truth. If they keep trying, if they remain sincere in their desire to find the truth, they will. The greatest revivals are always preceded by the worst scandals. Sometimes, it gets darkest right before the sun rises.

Do your best to live your life as best you can today. Take care of your soul and look after your family, friends and loved ones. Do your best to be the example that Christ wants us all to be. Do what you can in your life. Don’t worry the church. Don’t fear for her sake. She’s tough. She’s been through this all before. She’s going to be around long after we are dead and gone. Do your part, and be happy in the gifts that God has given to you in your life.

Fear of apostasy, fear of the loss of the Gospel, fear of the corruption of the church, fear of the worst… these things are what caused the Protestant schism in the first place. The fear that a corrupt pope can destroy the sanctity of the church is what drove many people away in the first place. The fear of what current representatives of the church may do can not possibly help us. Fear cannot help us.

Faith is what we need. Be faithful. Do your part. Trust in God. Don’t worry about the church.
 
I feel united with my brothers and sisters in Christ. True, they don’t share the same faith as mine, but I love them because I know that they, too, are children of God, and He would want nothing less than love.

I won’t try to convert them. They know that I am part of the Catholic Church. I can only share my love of Jesus Christ and the Lord with them - I cannot share with them my love for Mary, our Blessed Mother, and of the saints, our liturgy (to me the highest form of worship). Only God can show them the truth, if they are willing to see it, and hopefully, I can be there for them when they are ready. 🙂
 
Singinbeauty,

“Fear not!”

I share your concerns. I also become “down-hearted” at times. Let us be re-assured in our Lord’s prayer for this unity (John 17), He has the power to calm the storms (Matt. 14:22-36), trust in Him.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
-Mohandas Gandhi

We are given grace to discipline (be disciples of Christ) ourselves, may we exercise it.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, or be afraid” -John 14:27

Joe
 
Christ himself said that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church. We humans can do our sinful part to make a mess of things, but the Church will remain.
 
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aurora77:
Christ himself said that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church. We humans can do our sinful part to make a mess of things, but the Church will remain.
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This seems a good place to ask a question I have had for awhile, what is “the church”, that which the gates of hell will not prevail against? Is it an idea or concept? something real that can be seen, felt, touched?

I ask because several times recently someone pointed out that the people are not the “church”, and I have been a bit confused, because I thought the people were the church. (I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together…)

cheddar
 
Yes, the people are “the Church”, the members of the Body of the Living God.

But have you ever heard that the Church, like the Trinity, is Three in One?

On earth, we have the Church Militant–all of us living beings. In purgatory we have the Church Suffering–all of us who have died and are being purified for heaven. In heaven itself we have the Church Triumphant. . .the saints.

So “the church” is all of these. Because we have not just the corporeal, fallible, humans who are subject to all the corruption which humanity faces as the wages of sin, we also have those who have died in Christ AND have also been resurrected with Him, “the Church” is MORE than simple, human, fallible, and corruptible. It is timeless. It is incorruptible. It is the body of Christ, who freed us from sin and death and who will come in glory.
 
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