Saved or self deceived?

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Hello,

I have not gone away, but after reading all of this I see a lot of compassion, then I see other things as well…part of our human nature. It seems that no matter the religion, Protestant, Catholic, Mormon et al; there is the good and not so good.

The person that mentioned they have read my post and some had to be edited by the the admin is correct, but the edits were for posting links to content unrelated to the topic and/or deemed as anti-Catholic. But to say I am anti-Catholic would be not be correct…I have many devout Catholics as well as Protestants and atheist in my family. I have many good neighbors that are Catholics.

I have learned from this forum a little better understanding of Catholicism and maybe a better understanding of my Aunts and Uncles faith (they are the Roman Catholics).

We have now digressed from the topic, but I really appreciate the compassion, thoughtfulness, suggestions, links and ideas and have a lot to look at.

God bless and Merry Christmas to all of you!
 
NonCatholic said:
Hello,

I have not gone away, but after reading all of this I see a lot of compassion, then I see other things as well…part of our human nature. It seems that no matter the religion, Protestant, Catholic, Mormon et al; there is the good and not so good.

The person that mentioned they have read my post and some had to be edited by the the admin is correct, but the edits were for posting links to content unrelated to the topic and/or deemed as anti-Catholic. But to say I am anti-Catholic would be not be correct…I have many devout Catholics as well as Protestants and atheist in my family. I have many good neighbors that are Catholics.

I have learned from this forum a little better understanding of Catholicism and maybe a better understanding of my Aunts and Uncles faith (they are the Roman Catholics).

We have now digressed from the topic, but I really appreciate the compassion, thoughtfulness, suggestions, links and ideas and have a lot to look at.

God bless and Merry Christmas to all of you!
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I am glad you did not do a “hit and run”. We get a lot of those around here, and we would much prefer to have some productive dialogue. I am also glad to hear that you are not anti-Catholic. It is a lot easier to learn about something when one does not have his mind made up to the contrary in advance. 😃
 
Being saved is dependent upon the mercy of God. No one can be assured of salvation. We can be made “receptive” to grace through faith that leads our actions to be receptive to the mercy of God, however, our actions are not always pure, therefore we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help repair our relationship with God.
Code: 
   Sometimes the language of the Church gets in the way of our presenting our beliefs before others.  As Catholics, we hope in faith, that God will be merciful and allow us to live with Him forever in paradise.  We are not entitled to this, nor can we become entitled to this.  

    Once again, the language is that through faith we hope our actions, choices and intentions, by grace, make us receptive to God's Mercy and Forgiveness.
 
NonCatholic said:
Help…what must I do to be saved? How can I know that I am saved and won’t be in hell?
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**It hasn’t changed.

You are to love God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. This is His perfect will for us all.

You can’t achieve this by your own power and knowledge so God established the CC to show you the way. With her help and your own cooperation He will mold you into a being worthy of eternal life.**
 
I guess the problem I have is with your quote “worthy of eternal life”. No one is made worthy of eternal life. We are made receptive to the Mercy of God. Our best intentions will be imperfect, since we are imperfect. However, God’s Mercy is infinite and can encircle the most imperfect if, by grace, we try to do His Will.
 
I suspected maybe a little game of trying to stir the pot with Catholics, but on the otherhand I feel that it is a serious question. But at any rate I have no problems with either. Try to evangelize me and I’ll try to evangleize you at the same time. Try to prove me wrong and I’ll try to represent my Faith and clarify it as best I can. St. Augustine said…

“Advance with me when you share my certainty. Seek with me when you have the same doubts. Accept my interpretation when it is you who is error. And win me over to yours when it is I who am wrong.”

I welcome any questions about the Catholic Faith, regardless if it is meant to try to get me to see the error of my way. We as Catholics have nothing to fear. Roll the red carpet out for non-Catholics and let them test us to see if we are right, because I know that we are!
 
michael_quinlan said:
I guess the problem I have is with your quote “worthy of eternal life”. No one is made worthy of eternal life. We are made receptive to the Mercy of God. Our best intentions will be imperfect, since we are imperfect. However, God’s Mercy is infinite and can encircle the most imperfect if, by grace, we try to do His Will.
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My understanding of “worthy of eternal life” is for us to be perfected in love. God will allow no sin to enter heaven (we can’t experience heaven anyway with attachments to created things) and sin is always evidence of -or it could be said that it is- lack of love for God or neighbor.
 
Dear NonCatholic,
I want to say, that our faith is constantly evolving as revealed through the Holy Spirit. We never fully understand the totality of our faith because of this awareness. Sometimes the Catholic Church gets poor press because we come from a legalistic tradition. But in practice all of us are struggling to not only get it right but to understand our faith. Can you imagine understanding something that is constantly being evolved. it can be overwhelming. We anchor ourselves on one sure thing. God is Love. He loves us and He wants us to love Him and our fellow human beings. The question of eternity is clouded in the Mystery of God's Mercy. Humility is a great generator to help focus our attention on the fact that all good comes from God, not us. It is only our cooperation with grace that allows us to participate in bringing about good in the world. Even this wonder we can not claim as a point in our favor, since no person is entitled to eternity with God. Salvation was made possible by the cross, it is true. But God's judgment relies upon His mercy, not our entitlement.
 
NonCatholic said:
Help…what must I do to be saved? How can I know that I am saved and won’t be in hell?
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Two questions for you:​

  • Does it matter ?
  • If it does - why ?
    Bothering with salvation - whatever one means by that - is a waste of time if it concentrates attention on oneself. It becomes just another form of self-centredness 😦 What matters is not us, but God. If we put His Kingship first, relatively unimportant stuff like our salvation will look after itself. If OTOH we make Him nothing more important than a means to our own comfort, we will not be believing in Him, doing His Will or find salvation.
So there are far more important things than not being in Hell. We must let God be first in all things. Without Him, salvation is an empty word.
 
michael_quinlan said:
I guess the problem I have is with your quote “worthy of eternal life”. No one is made worthy of eternal life. We are made receptive to the Mercy of God. Our best intentions will be imperfect, since we are imperfect. However, God’s Mercy is infinite and can encircle the most imperfect if, by grace, we try to do His Will.
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Oh, but we are! Since nothing impure can enter heaven, all of our imperfections will be removed. We know, when we see Him, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He really is. Jesus did not come to make us snow covered dunghills, but actually to transform us, by the working of His great might, into pure vessels that bear fruit that befits repentance.
 
I am sorry to be the one to inform you, but there was a residue of sin not vanquished by the cross(St. Paul). This residue is our responsibility. We attend to it in an imperfect way. Since we try and our attempts will always fall short, we are forever groveling before the Mercy of God. He sees us and wants us to always remember that we are totally dependent upon Him in all things. But life eternal, that is to be decided by His Mercy alone.
 
michael_quinlan said:
I am sorry to be the one to inform you, but there was a residue of sin not vanquished by the cross(St. Paul). This residue is our responsibility. We attend to it in an imperfect way. Since we try and our attempts will always fall short, we are forever groveling before the Mercy of God. He sees us and wants us to always remember that we are totally dependent upon Him in all things. But life eternal, that is to be decided by His Mercy alone.
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No one’s saying that we become permanently sinless upon believing in Jesus or entering the Church, or that we don’t need God. We’re saying that the struggle with sin you refer to-our attachments to things other than God-will be won-by His grace- prior to admission into eternal life-or there will be no eternal life.
 
I guess the true basis for this on-going dialogue refers back to Non-Catholic’s question: Saved or in hell? Being saved in essence is unanswerable, though we can walk in that direction through grace in the hope of receiving mercy.
 
I have a question. Is there a website that has a Catholic Bible, that one can search through Scripture and dogma etc? Here is a link to show as an example of what I am speaking of.

searchgodsword.org/

Please post and/or send me a private message with a link.

Thanks
 
Thanks for the links:

I peeked at this one:
Douay-Rheims Bible, but do you know what it means when things are in red? I clicked JOHN and the entire chapter appears, but as I scrolled down, I saw certain versus in red.

I figured it out to a little extent, but perhaps it can be elaborated on.
 
NonCatholic said:
Thanks for the links:

I peeked at this one:
Douay-Rheims Bible, but do you know what it means when things are in red? I clicked JOHN and the entire chapter appears, but as I scrolled down, I saw certain versus in red.
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The red is commentary on certain verses that proceed it.

For example the verse John 2:4 states:
4 And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come.
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And the commentary in red follows:
4 “What is that to me”… These words of our Saviour, spoken to his mother, have been understood by some commentators as harsh, they not considering the next following verse: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye, which plainly shows that his mother knew of the miracle that he was to perform, and that it was at her request he wrought it; besides the manner of speaking the words as to the tone, and the countenance shown at the same time, which could only be known to those who were present, or from what had followed: for words indicating anger in one tone of voice, would be understood quite the reverse in another.
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You are very much welcome for the links.

God bless you
 
Is there one that I can search individual versus. I put John 20:23, but the entire chapter appears; am I doing something wrong?
 
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