Question on faith

[St_Gregory]

Can I shift the thread slighlty to ask the question: where do you get faith? Where can a knowledge of God’s Truth be gained? What might lead someone to faith in Christ?

 

[CentralFLJames]

Can I shift the thread slighlty to ask the question: where do you get faith? Where can a knowledge of God’s Truth be gained? What might lead someone to faith in Christ?

This is all in the Catholic Cathecism:

153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come “from flesh and blood”, but from “my Father who is in heaven”. 24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. “Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’” 25

162 Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: “Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.” 44 To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith; 45 it must be “working through charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church. 46

**179 Faith is a supernatural gift from God. In order to believe, man needs the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. **

158 “Faith seeks understanding”: 33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens “the eyes of your hearts” 34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God’s plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the centre of the revealed mystery. “The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood.” 35 **In the words of St. Augustine, “I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.” **36

2591 God tirelessly calls each person to this mysterious encounter with Himself. Prayer unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation as a reciprocal call between God and man.

155 In faith, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace: “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.” 27

154 Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to “yield by faith the full submission of… intellect and will to God who reveals”, 26 and to share in an interior communion with him.

1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus’ proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 38 Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man. 39

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification: 48 Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself. 49

1253 Baptism is the sacrament of faith. 54 But faith needs the community of believers. It is only within the faith of the Church that each of the faithful can believe. The faith required for Baptism is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop. The catechumen or the godparent is asked: “What do you ask of God’s Church?” The response is: “Faith!”

James

 

[St_Gregory]

well I’m well informed with the CCC, but the problem is that it only presents orthodox doctrine - it does not work on theology behind or about it.

For example if faith is a gift, then how can we have freewill? Either God allows us to believe or not. Why are some chosen to have this gift and not? How can God give a gift which is unaccepted, can God’s will ever fail?
Why does God give very different faiths to different people? How can we be sure OUR faith is from God and not just human thought?

There are so many problems that its just not enough sorry.

Okay faith may be presented by God, for us to initiate and drive, but we’re still no further in coming to truth really - any Theistic Tradition could say the same about their faith.

 

[Sinner1]

well I’m well informed with the CCC, but the problem is that it only presents orthodox doctrine - it does not work on theology behind or about it.

For example if faith is a gift, then how can we have freewill? Either God allows us to believe or not. Why are some chosen to have this gift and not? How can God give a gift which is unaccepted, can God’s will ever fail?
Why does God give very different faiths to different people? How can we be sure OUR faith is from God and not just human thought?

There are so many problems that its just not enough sorry.

Okay faith may be presented by God, for us to initiate and drive, but we’re still no further in coming to truth really - any Theistic Tradition could say the same about their faith.

I have been following this thread with great interest because this is indeed a question I have struggled with quite a bit.

To a firm believer in Catholicism, this question is silly because the very thought that Catholicism might be wrong is inconceivable. Catholics simply “get it” and the rest of the world doesn’t.

But no, Catholicism is not clearly the right religion. If it was, then everybody would be a Catholic.

Every person seems to be born with an innate desire to seek the truth. But for some reason, God remains hidden from sight, (both literally and figuratively). If having the right faith is so damn important, then why isn’t it 100% clear? Why doesn’t God give a obvious choice of loving him or rejecting him? I don’t know. My guess would be that he wants us that take that journey to seek the truth. Maybe it’s more important to seek than to actually be right.

For instance, a child that draws a picture for his mother has the desire to make his mother happy. After working very hard on the drawing, he gives it to his mother, but it just looks like a bunch of scribbles. The mother isn’t going throw it away and scold the child for being a terrible artist. Instead, the mother is going to see how much the child tried and how much he wanted to please her, that she will be very happy. She could have given him a stencil so that he would be able to draw a dinosaur that actually looked like a dinosaur, but his own drawing was so much more meaningful.

I know that is a weak analogy, but that’s the best I can come up with.

Maybe the gift of faith is like the ability to draw. God gives some people great artistic talent, so it’s easy to draw that picture. Other people just don’t have that artistic talent. But God is more interested in the effort that went in than the actual picture itself.

That’s not to say that all religions are equal. There has to be one religion that is right, (or one that is more “right” than the others). Otherwise, they are all wrong. So one must always seek the truth to wherever it leads them. It’s humbling to be able to admit that one’s own religion might not be the right one.

So those are just some of my thoughts. Maybe this will help a bit.

Good luck on your journey.

 

[CentralFLJames]

well I’m well informed with the CCC, but the problem is that it only presents orthodox doctrine - it does not work on theology behind or about it.

For example if faith is a gift, then how can we have freewill? Either God allows us to believe or not. Why are some chosen to have this gift and not? How can God give a gift which is unaccepted, can God’s will ever fail?
Why does God give very different faiths to different people? How can we be sure OUR faith is from God and not just human thought?

There are so many problems that its just not enough sorry.

Okay faith may be presented by God, for us to initiate and drive, but we’re still no further in coming to truth really - any Theistic Tradition could say the same about their faith.

For example if faith is a gift, then how can we have freewill?

But one must of course accept the gift of faith as an expression of freewill. This is ironic since its humanity’s pride that makes it so hard to accept as credible the notion that a free gift of such extraordinary value that can never be earned or repaid is plausible. A person trapped in pride and human thinking can not accept a free gift of faith - nor can it be forced on anyone. As an aside let me say that what often compels these hard cases to finally accept the free gift of faith is either seeing the faith in other’s who accept their own sufferings and setbacks or some other life changing encounter that softens their hearts.

The problem is that [the CCC] only presents orthodox doctrine - it does not work on theology behind or about it?

Actually the CCC is extremely deep, well vetted and holistically integrated with scripture, tradition and saintly insights. Examine the CCC references and foot notes.

Look again at CCC 158 - FAITH SEEKS UNDERSTANDING. This one verse tells volumes. We see here a concept of progressive understanding and revelation. This is where I think Catholics and Orthodox leave what I would call the Christian-Lite faiths of Protestantism light-years behind. None of these have the depth of Catholic insight and teaching. Just look at the COHESIVE and RATIONAL and CONSISTENT spiritual, theological, traditional and intellectual depth present in Catholicism (and Orthodoxy); nothing else on the planet comes close. To an objective and moderately disciplined and intellectual mind everything outside of Catholicism is easily dismissible as mere partial truths that lack depth and are not traceable to any original Church history or teaching or are poor copies and variations of Catholic thought and inspiration. OT and NT topologies present in the Catholic Faith are profound. The very things that Protestants most often reject - Marian Dogmas and the insistence on ecclesial authority (Pope, Bishops, Priests, and Deaconate) and the preeminence of The Church itself as a living sacrament are what make us unique through their doctrine of “protest”. No where in the bible do we see God every embracing a “spirit of protest and pride”. No where do we see doctrines of disobedience and warfare or violence. This is how we know the Catholics have it right since no other religion comes close.

Everything in the CCC speaks a higher ordered message that surpasses mere human ideas and philosophies and the childish idealism we see in some of the other fractional religions. We are compelled even by the very language elements used in the CCC to discover a personal “relationship” with God and to dig deep into our faith to “be all we can be”.

We are called to be much more than mere believers - we are called to change our very natures to “put on Christ” and become lovers of God so that through “a more penetrating knowledge [we] will in turn call forth a greater faith”. The depth of the Catholic message tells all that we are far cry from the “hallelujah brother - I am saved” sort of jingoistic faith we often see coming out of the various Protestant Salvation Slogan mills.
CCC 158:

158 “Faith seeks understanding”: 33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens “the eyes of your hearts” 34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God’s plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the centre of the revealed mystery. “The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood.” 35 In the words of St. Augustine, “I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.” 36

**Why are some chosen to have this gift and not? **
The question to ask here is why do some chose to reject the gift that is offered to all? Who is to account for the irrationality or what moves the hearts of each of our fellow humans?

[continued]

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

[continued from above]

How can God give a gift which is unaccepted, can God’s will ever fail?

God does this very thing in offering us The Eucharist from the Tree of Life. Originally in Eden the commandment was DO NOT EAT of the fruit of The Tree of Good and Evil least you die. The new tone is an invitation to EAT of the fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist) so that you may have Eternal Life. Why do we try to steal what we are told will kill us but not receive the free antidote that is offered to us? The answer is some people can not accept a gift because they are too proud to accept it and want instead to diminish the value of the gift. Can God’s will fail? Why do you think we pray “…Thy Kingdom come Thy WILL be done.”? The reason is because God’s Divine Providence is so profound that even giving us free will there is not one single thing humans can do that will diminish God’s Plan from reaching its objective and the prayer is really asking for God to manifest His will in us (where the Kingdom starts) in place of our own will. God respects our personal will and will not force us to love Him - even though He wills that we all do.

**Why does God give very different faiths to different people? How can we be sure OUR faith is from God and not just human thought? **
God did not give different faiths - ignorant and unenlightened men and Satan did that. Each person ever born is endowed with a supernatural faith and natural desire to know and love God. How can we be sure Catholics have it right? As you deepen your faith you will discern that there is no possible other faith out there (I consider Orthodox the same faith) that comes remotely close. Faith requires us to dig deeper and to learn more - this and the sacrifices of the prior saints and ther permanence of The Church is what anneals us to our belief that we have the true faith.

James

 

[grannymh]

[continued from above]

How can God give a gift which is unaccepted, can God’s will ever fail?

God does this very thing in offering us The Eucharist from the Tree of Life. Originally in Eden the commandment was DO NOT EAT of the fruit of The Tree of Good and Evil least you die. The new tone is an invitation to EAT of the fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist) so that you may have Eternal Life. wills that we all do.

Oooops!!! Shut my mouth before I get silly!

The Eucharist is a Who and not anywhere near being “a fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist)” see above.

Neither is " The Eucharist from the Tree of Life" see above

Also check out the Nicene Creed normally recited in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You will find a more appropriate definition of the Eucharist.

 

[grannymh]

Please delete this

 

[Sinner1]

How can we be sure Catholics have it right? As you deepen your faith you will discern that there is no possible other faith out there (I consider Orthodox the same faith) that comes remotely close. Faith requires us to dig deeper and to learn more - this and the sacrifices of the prior saints and ther permanence of The Church is what anneals us to our belief that we have the true faith.

James

And yet there are so many people out there ascribing to a different belief who feel the same way. Catholicism may be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to everyone.

 

[CentralFLJames]

How can God give a gift which is unaccepted, can God’s will ever fail?

God does this very thing in offering us The Eucharist from the Tree of Life. Originally in Eden the commandment was DO NOT EAT of the fruit of The Tree of Good and Evil least you die. The new tone is an invitation to EAT of the fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist) so that you may have Eternal Life. wills that we all do.

Oooops!!! Shut my mouth before I get silly!

The Eucharist is a Who and not anywhere near being “a fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist)” see above.

Neither is " The Eucharist from the Tree of Life" see above

Also check out the Nicene Creed normally recited in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You will find a more appropriate definition of the Eucharist.

HI Granny. I think some of your comments got lost before you saved your reply since most of them do not make a lot of sense to me.

**The Eucharist is a Who and not anywhere near being “a fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist)” see above.?
**

I am sorry but the Eucharist is most definately a Who but it is metaphorically also a fruit. Do you not recall your Hail Mary prayers? e.g. “…and blessed is the fruit of thy womb - Jesus”. Scripture is very layered and has many senses. Jesus is the Living Word of God - the Word that became flesh. We must live by every word that comes out of God’s mouth - Jesus is that Living Word and why we must eat of His body.

I don’t want to deviate too far from the original OP but the cross is prefigured in multiple places in the OT. Even the apostles mention the cross in the expression of “a tree”: Acts 5:30 (KJV) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Take that with the verses John 15:5 & John 14:11 (“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit…”) and (“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me”) and its very easy to justify the imagery I have presented here. Is it a complete “definition” of Eucharist - no. But its a useful way of looking at it since it integrates the OT and NT messages in a way that shows how God not only heals man but elevates His nature.

The Nicene Creed has no mention whatsoever of “Eucharist” so I am clueless what you mean by that reference if you’d be so kind as to clarify.

James

 

[grannymh]

HI Granny. I think some of your comments got lost before you saved your reply since most of them do not make a lot of sense to me.

The Eucharist is a Who and not anywhere near being “a fruit of the Tree of Life (Eucharist)” see above.?

I am sorry but the Eucharist is most definately a Who but it is metaphorically also a fruit. Do you not recall your Hail Mary prayers? e.g. “…and blessed is the fruit of thy womb - Jesus”. Scripture is very layered and has many senses. Jesus is the Living Word of God - the Word that became flesh. We must live by every word that comes out of God’s mouth - Jesus is that Living Word and why we must eat of His body.

I don’t want to deviate too far from the original OP but the cross is prefigured in multiple places in the OT. Even the apostles mention the cross in the expression of “a tree”: Acts 5:30 (KJV) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Take that with the verses John 15:5 & John 14:11 (“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit…”) and (“Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me”) and its very easy to justify the imagery I have presented here. Is it a complete “definition” of Eucharist - no. But its a useful way of looking at it since it integrates the OT and NT messages in a way that shows how God not only heals man but elevates His nature.

The Nicene Creed has no mention whatsoever of “Eucharist” so I am clueless what you mean by that reference if you’d be so kind as to clarify.

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

And yet there are so many people out there ascribing to a different belief who feel the same way. Catholicism may be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to everyone.

Within Christianity it should be completely obvious to anyone who has any knowledge of religious history.

James

 

[Sinner1]

Within Christianity it should be completely obvious to anyone who has any knowledge of religious history.

James

Tell that to an Orthodox, Coptic, Old Catholic, and a Protestant, and they’ll laugh at you.

 

[grannymh]

HI Granny. I think some of your comments got lost before you saved your reply since most of them do not make a lot of sense to me.

Good evening James,

Thanks for the kindness of a reply to my post #27.

One of my English teachers would pounce on anyone who mixed metaphors or used them inappropriately. I’m sorry, but she would have pounced on your metaphor/descriptions.

As to the Eucharist. There is one section in another thread that
debated whether Jesus was speaking metaphorically in John, Chapter 6, The Brread of Life Discourse. I believe Jesus was not speaking metaphorically even though in other sections of the Gospels He referred to Himself as the vine, gate, shepherd, truth, etc.

You see the Eucharist is Jesus Himself and this is far different than a metaphor He used to teach.

I don’t think it is appropriate to override John, Chapter 6 and call Jesus a fruit even when you mean it metaphorically because Jesus was very careful not to give any indication that He would be a metaphorical self as Eucharist.

Regarding your request – referring to the Nicene Creed not mentioning “Eucharist” One question, Who is the Eucharist?

I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is substantially present in the Eucharist. The sustance of the bread and wine changed (called Transubstantiation) but not the name of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is Jesus Christ.

If you read the last two lines of my post very carefully, you will note that I was directing you to the Nicene Creed for a more appropriate definition of the Eucharist.

Since the Eucharist is truly Jesus Christ, please go to the part of the Nicene Creed which begins “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God…”

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[CentralFLJames]

Tell that to an Orthodox, Coptic, Old Catholic, and a Protestant, and they’ll laugh at you.

Well Sinner1 you have **me almost laughing **by even attempting to group the legion of secular religious sects of Protestantism with those few other obscure Christian sects that have, or had, an ancient apostolic succession and a legitimate priesthood and real liturgies. Protestants are a secular religion with absolutely no priesthood whatsoever. Even the Anglicans (and their derivatives) and Lutherans who have some elements of the original Catholic liturgy have lost their apostolic succession and are completely cut off from a having a legitimate priesthood.

Further I have said repeatedly in this series of posts that I consider Orthodox to be the same faith as Catholics. Coptics are not far removed except for some technical differences in Christology. For practical purposes we can say that the very small coptic church (10-15 million world wide and originally formed by St. Mark by traditional accounts) in Egypt has a legitimate priesthood. Again, I think most Catholics can respect the Copts for maintaining their apostolic succession in the face of a very challenging history of persecution and having to pay homage to the Islamics just to live. Personally I think that they were seperated from Rome more by misunderstandings of their theological positions and by council protocol and bureaucratic SNAFUs and perhaps some polarizing personalities than by real serious differences in faith. They are also playing a vital modern role in converting Islamics to Christianity - a thing that is worthy of strong respect. Thus, I consider them similar to Orthodox and believe they have substantially the same faith which can still be reunified. But anyone with a universal view can see that the Copts are parochial in scope and more a regional phenomena than anything else.

As for Old Catholics, these are extremely liberal and are going down the same corrupt path that Anglicans did in ordaining women and permitting homosexual unions and open communion etc. This excommunicated group is not so “old” either and were given some autonomy in the 1100s and later excommunicated in the 1700s for disobedience and Rome appointed its own bishops. “The Old Catholics” are now internally fracturing into progressively more liberal sects and following the Protestant pattern of decay and separation and disintegrating into disunity.

But like Orthodox all these other apostolic branches lack the scalability, reach and influence to be legitimate contenders for the role of “universal church”. The sobering reality that should make those inclined to laugh at my comments suddenly go silent is to realize that none of these “sects” are hardly a shiny example of a mustard seed growing into a large bush with universal appeal. So, now its my turn to laugh in imagining the relatively few numbers of Coptics, PNC, Old Catholics, Orthodox etc. going door to door evangelizing the world to their faith. Have you ever even met a Copt or an Old Catholic in daily life to have the occasion to even talk to them about their faith and get them laughing as you suggest?

Nope, sorry, its more laughable to imagine the parochialism of these obscure apostolic sects being scalable to the role of Universal Church - Catholicism stands alone here. These other fringe apostolic sects have no choice but to eventually reunite with Rome under one ecclesial authority or to increasingly face obscurity and risk of assimilation into the corpus of their host cultures and socio-political systems.

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

CentralFLJames;4491045:

HI Granny. I think some of your comments got lost before you saved your reply since most of them do not make a lot of sense to me.

Good evening James,

Thanks for the kindness of a reply to my post #27.

One of my English teachers would pounce on anyone who mixed metaphors or used them inappropriately. I’m sorry, but she would have pounced on your metaphor/descriptions.

As to the Eucharist. There is one section in another thread that
debated whether Jesus was speaking metaphorically in John, Chapter 6, The Brread of Life Discourse. I believe Jesus was not speaking metaphorically even though in other sections of the Gospels He referred to Himself as the vine, gate, shepherd, truth, etc.

You see the Eucharist is Jesus Himself and this is far different than a metaphor He used to teach.

I don’t think it is appropriate to override John, Chapter 6 and call Jesus a fruit even when you mean it metaphorically because Jesus was very careful not to give any indication that He would be a metaphorical self as Eucharist.

Regarding your request – referring to the Nicene Creed not mentioning “Eucharist” One question, Who is the Eucharist?

I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is substantially present in the Eucharist. The sustance of the bread and wine changed (called Transubstantiation) but not the name of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is Jesus Christ.

If you read the last two lines of my post very carefully, you will note that I was directing you to the Nicene Creed for a more appropriate definition of the Eucharist.

Since the Eucharist is truly Jesus Christ, please go to the part of the Nicene Creed which begins “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God…”

Blessings,
grannymh

Well Granny if your bible you will see that The Holy Spirit and Jesus and the Apostles mixed metaphors in the bible cover to cover. I am speaking from a holistic perspective of the bible - not just the gospel of John. So your teacher would have had to pounce on Christ and all the gospel writers and even the early Prophets.

You do know that I am Catholic yes? I agree with you that in John Christ is speaking for the most part literally and especially so in the verses about real presence in the Eucharist. If this were not so there would be no reason for the large number of followers to depart from him in John 6:66.

So of course Jesus is substantially present in the Eucharist.
As for the Nicene Creed - it does not explicitly mention Eucharist at all so was not relevant to what I said - even though I agree with you in faith that we know Christ is present in the Eucharist. Maybe it might be better to make to comparison to the “Lord’s Prayer” since it at least gives bread imagery. Remember the words? “…give us this day our daily bread”.

What I presented was a deeper insight into what Christ has done for us in making Himself the salvific fruit for a humanity hungry for God’s Truth and salvation. We are on the same side here.

James

 

[St_Gregory]

I have been following this thread with great interest because this is indeed a question I have struggled with quite a bit.

To a firm believer in Catholicism, this question is silly because the very thought that Catholicism might be wrong is inconceivable. Catholics simply “get it” and the rest of the world doesn’t.

But no, Catholicism is not clearly the right religion. If it was, then everybody would be a Catholic.

Every person seems to be born with an innate desire to seek the truth. But for some reason, God remains hidden from sight, (both literally and figuratively). If having the right faith is so damn important, then why isn’t it 100% clear? Why doesn’t God give a obvious choice of loving him or rejecting him? I don’t know. My guess would be that he wants us that take that journey to seek the truth. Maybe it’s more important to seek than to actually be right.

For instance, a child that draws a picture for his mother has the desire to make his mother happy. After working very hard on the drawing, he gives it to his mother, but it just looks like a bunch of scribbles. The mother isn’t going throw it away and scold the child for being a terrible artist. Instead, the mother is going to see how much the child tried and how much he wanted to please her, that she will be very happy. She could have given him a stencil so that he would be able to draw a dinosaur that actually looked like a dinosaur, but his own drawing was so much more meaningful.

I know that is a weak analogy, but that’s the best I can come up with.

Maybe the gift of faith is like the ability to draw. God gives some people great artistic talent, so it’s easy to draw that picture. Other people just don’t have that artistic talent. But God is more interested in the effort that went in than the actual picture itself.

That’s not to say that all religions are equal. There has to be one religion that is right, (or one that is more “right” than the others). Otherwise, they are all wrong. So one must always seek the truth to wherever it leads them. It’s humbling to be able to admit that one’s own religion might not be the right one.

So those are just some of my thoughts. Maybe this will help a bit.

Good luck on your journey.

Yeah that’s sort of my current position.
And I think that’s quite a strong analogy actually.

James:

Sinner1:

And yet there are so many people out there ascribing to a different belief who feel the same way. Catholicism may be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to everyone.

Within Christianity it should be completely obvious to anyone who has any knowledge of religious history.

That’s the thing: within Christianity - that’s an very limited scope of Religious Thought.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Dear St. Gregory, I am only an uninformed human being without much knowledge of saintly matters such as the details of Mother Teresa’s life but some other people on this site keep on posting that one of Mother Teresa’s greatest sorrows, if not her greatest sorrow, was to see communion received in the hand.

Maybe these facts help to prove that Catholicism is true.

Concerning the pagan religions of Asia and Africa. In Africa, people are converting from pagan religions to mostly two other religions: Islam and Christianity. Why? These religions were spread to these countries by colonialism, but the pagan religions persisted underground. Now that colonialism is over, people are not converting back: every country is pretty much Islam or Christian. Why? Maybe they see the Abrahamic religion as better for some reason. For example, some of these pagan religions promote human sacrifice of twins and utilize witch-doctors. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s miraculous appearance in Latin America is credited by some with ending human sacrifice there.

Even when these pagan practices produce good, the results have not produced ANY saints like Mother Teresa to the best of my knowledge. It is not that there do not exist African saints: St. Josephine Bakhita is one and there is a Nigerian priest from Onitsha Nigeria beautified by His Holiness Pope John Paul II. (P.S. my grandparents were the first ones in their line to convert from pagan religions to Catholicism and to spread Catholicism. Some of my relatives are still pagan. One reason why I am such an adamant defender of the faith is because I firmly believe in spiritual warfare since I have witnessed spiritual warfare in practice and suffered scars in my unintentional involvement with spiritual warfare. I have also seen the effects of pagan religions in practice in a journey overseas to visit relatives - people in Africa, at the very least, like to try many religions at the same time in hopes of gaining something good so some are pagan and Christian at the same time - personally, I have witnessed people shaking and falling to the ground because of infestations of some sort of non Christian activity in themselves and seen a full room of people trying to get healed from the influences of pagan religion and I’ve studied Africa in some small part.) The most heroic celebrated figures in African history to the best of my limited and very small knowledge are Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and Kgosi Seretse Khama of Botswana. One can read these mens’ biographies on wikipedia, and read Mother Teresa’s biography and see how incredibly holy she is though they did noble things.

I am an ignorant, imbecilic, retarded human being in many ways so feel free to ignore my advice, but my personal belief on why the genocide could happen in Rwanda where people killed and chopped up their own neighbors is that the pagan religious practices still held firmly underway and so people had not learned to value life And I am also stupid and unfarily biased so maybe my opinion is wrong but maybe a lot of the poverty in Africa in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria is due to greed, a spiritual illness best cured by
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary.
Online Adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament louisville-catholic.net/WebCameras/AdorationChapel/tabid/825/Default.aspx
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devotion_to_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus#FIRST_POINT._.E2.80.94_The_ardent_desire_Jesus_Christ_feels_to_be_with_us.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, have mercy on us!

For the sake of his sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[grannymh]

These are some comments on post 24 by Sinner 1

“I have been following this thread with great interest because this is indeed a question I have struggled with quite a bit.”
My reply: I’ve been trying to follow this thread so I could understand it. There are some cool posts and then there are those who contain some thoughts which totally throw me off track.

“… Catholics simply “get it” and the rest of the world doesn’t.”
My reply: Speaking from my own struggle experiences, this kind of statement should be avoided. It is not only partially wrong, it is depressing.

“But no, Catholicism is not clearly the right religion. If it was, then everybody would be a Catholic.”
My reply: Everybody is born with innate free will which is exercised in choice, e.g., choosing to be a Catholic or not. Free will refers to human action. The act of choosing does not determine if the religion chosen is the right religion. In other words, one is free to choose any religion or no religion.
Furthermore, there are some things which affect the Catholic choice. For example, not everyone in the world knows about Catholicism so obviously these people could not choose it.

“Every person seems to be born with an innate desire to seek the truth.”
My reply: True. This desire motivates free will to act. However, the ability to seek truth, the interest in truth, the opportunity to seek truth etc. does vary throughout the human race.

“But for some reason, God remains hidden from sight, (both literally and figuratively). If having the right faith is so damn important, then why isn’t it 100% clear?”
My reply: Good point. But I don’t think it is God Who should be the focus in the above two statements. I think that the answer to the question resides more on the human level.

“Why doesn’t God give a obvious choice of loving him or rejecting him?”
My reply: To me, this question shows your compassion for others. On God’s level, He does give a choice because, as you said above “Every person seems to be born with an innate desire to seek the truth.” Speaking from experience, we are not cookie mold humans. Thus, not all of us respond to God in the perfect way. There is a comforting side to my reply. We must always remember not to underestimate the power of God to touch our soul. God individualizes His approach to each one of us. He never gives up. Thanks heavens!

“I don’t know. My guess would be that he wants us that take that journey to seek the truth.”
My reply: Sometimes spiritual struggles are that journey to God. I am sure that God wants us to come to Him. John 3: 16 &17 I am also sure that God respects our free will. Once I heard this rather strange speculation – if God brought us to heaven against our free will, we would be very unhappy.

“Maybe it’s more important to seek than to actually be right.”
My reply: This is one of those statements which tend to throw me off track. That’s not your fault. It’s that I have a tendency to see two things as being correct, i.e., a both/and situation. I think that when possible, given life’s circumstances, it’s both important to seek and to be right.

Blessings,
grannymh

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Dear St. Gregory, I have little knowledge of saintly matters such as the details of Mother Teresa’s life but a few others on this site posted that one of Mother Teresa’s greatest sorrows, if not her greatest sorrow, was to see communion received in the hand.

Maybe these facts help.

Concerning the pagan religions of Asia and Africa: In Africa, people convert from pagan religions to mostly two other religions: Islam and Christianity. Why? These religions spread to these countries due to colonialism, but pagan religions persisted underground. Now that colonialism is over, people are not converting back: every country is pretty much Islam or Christian. Why? I don’t know all the reasons why. I do know that some pagan religions promote human sacrifice of twins and utilize witch-doctors as well, and the Our Lady of Guadalupe miracle in Latin America is credited by some with ending human sacrifice there so perhaps some people like the value system of Abrahamic religions better.

Even when these pagan practices are good, I in my blindness do not know of any ANY heroic figures of these religions like Mother Teresa, and I don’t remember any mentioned in any of the Nobel Peace Prizes. There are African saints such as Blessed Cyprian Tansi of Onitsha, Nigeria by His Holiness Pope John Paul II and St. Josephine Bakhita of Sudan. (P.S. my grandparents are the first ones in our line on my father’s side to convert from paganism to Catholicism and to spread Catholicism. Some of my relatives are still pagan. One reason why I am such an adamant defender of the faith is because I firmly believe in spiritual warfare since I have witnessed spiritual warfare in practice and suffered scars in my unintentional involvement with spiritual warfare and I esteem the morality of Catholicism higher than former traditions in things such as one-man/one-woman marriage (this is a Christian tradition)). I have also seen the supernatural spiritual effects of pagan religions on other people when visiting relatives, - shaking and falling to the ground - and I think pagan religions do have some power - but we don’t really know what spirits they are conjuring do we? I an only one person with little knowledge and no expert at all so feel free to ignore me if I am wrong but I think that it is not that Catholicism says that other religions have no truth or power but that the truth in Catholicism is the full truth and the power is a good power. Most Christians I have met from African and Asia believe that pagan religions have power; they suspect this power comes from the one that Mary has enmity with.

The most heroic celebrated figures in African history to the best of my limited and very small knowledge are Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and Kgosi Seretse Khama of Botswana. These are political men. I do not know of any heroic religious figures on the holiness level of Mother Teresa in Africa.

One way to wonder why the genocide in Rwanda happened is that maybe people killed and chopped up their own neighbors because they had not adopted the Catholic value of life And I am also stupid and unfarily biased so maybe my opinion is wrong but maybe a lot of the poverty in Africa in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria is due to greed, a spiritual illness best cured by
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary.
Online Adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament louisville-catholic.net/WebCameras/AdorationChapel/tabid/825/Default.aspx
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devotion_to_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus#FIRST_POINT._.E2.80.94_The_ardent_desire_Jesus_Christ_feels_to_be_with_us.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, have mercy on us!

For the sake of his sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world! For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *