Saying of mother theresa

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blackrobe said:
In heaven our wills will be united with God’s will and we will know what God knows and love as God loves. Then you will understand how it is that God loves all equally.
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That is quite an assertion. You think because you are united to God in heaven that you have the capacity to love as God loves and know what God knows?

I disagree. You will love as perfectly as you can. But based upon the grace which you merited, you capacity will be limited.

As St. Therese of the Child Jesus said, imagine you have two cups, one very large and one very small, and both are filled to the brim with water. Which on is fuller? Both are the same, but the amount of water is different. It works the same with in Heaven when you talk about your glory, merit, love, etc.

God Bless.
 
Helping the Hindu to become a better Hindu would not be what God would want based on any scripture. Do you believe differently?
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Hmm…

Remember, she said “better” Hindu. Not “more stubborn” Hindu.

Hindus have many moral requirements.

We’d love it if someone became Catholic, honestly. But would you really say you wanted someone to become a WORSE Hindu?

That you’d want someone to start stealing, and being an adulterer and such just so that they would give less support to a false religion? Remember, becoming a worse hindu in no way necessarily implies becoming closer to Catholicism. Frankly, being “better” in most religions implies coming CLOSER to Catholicism.

Someone who disrespects a pagan god is unlikely to suddenly give respect to the True God. It is usually the most committed people from old religions who become Catholic, through a desire to please God and live the Good Life, and intellectual honesty in exploring doubts and inconsistancies in their old faith.

Someone who is a “bad hindu” is a theif and liar and adulterer and doesn’t attend their religious ceremonies etc…do you really think that encouraging such “bad hinduism” really encourages them to be Catholics?
 
Reformed1 said:
You can’t have Jacob without Esau.

God obviously favored Paul more than Pontius Pilate, Moses more than Hamurabi (sp?), Peter more than Judas.
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Not so…

Peter and Judas were both called, both choosen…
Peter responded… Judas did not.

God loved them both… it was they who determined their own response…

Same from the time of Cain and Abel
 
HailMary said:
This is not true. Love is but one of the attributes of God. He is also holy, just, etc.
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But since God is Being itself, his attributes are perfectly realized–
God *is *holiness, justice, love, etc.

Is God just toward one more than another? Is God holy in a different way with respect to one or another? Of course not, and neither does God love one differently than another.

If you do not believe that God is Love you had better call the Holy Father right away and set him straight. Or read his first encyclical.

JSA
 
HailMary said:
That is quite an assertion. You think because you are united to God in heaven that you have the capacity to love as God loves and know what God knows?

I disagree. You will love as perfectly as you can. But based upon the grace which you merited, you capacity will be limited.

As St. Therese of the Child Jesus said, imagine you have two cups, one very large and one very small, and both are filled to the brim with water. Which on is fuller? Both are the same, but the amount of water is different. It works the same with in Heaven when you talk about your glory, merit, love, etc.

God Bless.
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I’m too lazy to dig out my resources to argue your first point, but I will suggest that your second assertion supports my position about God’s love. Indeed we are limited in our capacity to love, at least in this life. But God is not limited in his capacity to love which is precisely why his love extends to all in exactly the same way.

Merit and glory are not the same as love. With respect to love, all we cups are immersed in the ocean of God’s love and thereby equally full regardless of our capacity, even those of us who are full of holes.

God’s love is neither defined by our response nor our capacity to respond.

JSA
 
st_lucy said:
Where do it say that God loved one more than the other? God loves all his children. Are you a parent? If your answer is yes, than can you possible love one of your children more than another? Of course not. Now isn’t God a better parent than any of us. He loves us all equal. It is only up to us to fall out of grace in His eyes. This falling out of grace doesnt make Him love us any less it just really saddens Him to not have us in full communion with Him. Remember the story of the prodigal son. The father loved his son even after he left. Just as our Father loves us even at our lowest.
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Im not sure if this is official Church teaching. But I have always been under the impression that the Blessed Virgin is the most favored and loved mortal child of God.
 
Missa_Solemnis said:
Im not sure if this is official Church teaching. But I have always been under the impression that the Blessed Virgin is the most favored and loved mortal child of God.
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I think that we could never assume anything about God. Yes God loves Our Lady, He did hail her amoungst all, but God in perfect. He can perfectly love all of His children. If God so chose he could stop loving me at any moment and at that moment I would cease to exist. He is so great that He is beyond our mere understanding. All I can say that I know is we can see that He loves all by just looking at the crusifix. He didn’t just do that for Our Lady, He did it for me, and for you and yes for all of His children. Why? Because He loves us all equally.
 
MrS said:
Not so…

Peter and Judas were both called, both choosen…
Peter responded… Judas did not.

God loved them both… it was they who determined their own response…

Same from the time of Cain and Abel
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Do you think God pours out his grace equally among all humans?
 
batteddy said:
Hmm…

Remember, she said “better” Hindu. Not “more stubborn” Hindu.

Hindus have many moral requirements.

We’d love it if someone became Catholic, honestly. But would you really say you wanted someone to become a WORSE Hindu?

That you’d want someone to start stealing, and being an adulterer and such just so that they would give less support to a false religion? Remember, becoming a worse hindu in no way necessarily implies becoming closer to Catholicism. Frankly, being “better” in most religions implies coming CLOSER to Catholicism.

Someone who disrespects a pagan god is unlikely to suddenly give respect to the True God. It is usually the most committed people from old religions who become Catholic, through a desire to please God and live the Good Life, and intellectual honesty in exploring doubts and inconsistancies in their old faith.

Someone who is a “bad hindu” is a theif and liar and adulterer and doesn’t attend their religious ceremonies etc…do you really think that encouraging such “bad hinduism” really encourages them to be Catholics?
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Encouraging someone to continue to pray to false god’s just can’t be a good idea. By becoming a better Hindu, one would become more entrenched in their false belief and more likely to reject Christ.

Notice that mother Teresa did not say that she encouraged folks to become more moral but to become better Muslims and better Hindus. There is more to this statement than encouraging them not to be thieves, adulterers, etc…

I would prefer all Hindus to completely reject their false belief and accept Christ.
 
I would prefer all Hindus to completely reject their false belief and accept Christ.
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Well duh. Me too.

But wouldn’t you rather have someone believe in a false god more than nothing?

Paganism is not as bad as Atheism.

If someone isn’t going to become Catholic (at least not right away)…do you really still want them to leave their false religion anyway?

I don’t like false gods either, but I’d rather have someone praying to and believing in SOMETHING more than NOTHING.

Being involved in SOME religion is more correlated to become Christian than being involved in NO religion.

Conversions from a false religion to the true is more common than conversions from NO religion to the true. Religiosity in any religion is more likely to lead to Christianity than no religiosity at all (because only generally religious people care about looking into religions or bothering with them anyway)

Also remember that people are required to follow their conscience, and often times the consciences of pagans are malformed. We have a duty to try to form them in Truth…but if they believe, in the internal forum, that something is right…and don’t or can’t yet understand what is really right, do you really want them doing what they sincerely believe is a sin?

We do not need to “break people down” in order to “build them back up”. We don’t need to first reduce their religion to nothing and then put our religion in its place. That’s why it’s called “conversion” instead of “destruction and replacement”: someone can go directly from being religious in one religion to being religious in another without ever having to go through a No Religion stage in between…

Conversion shouldn’t be won by weakening their old religion and then taking advantage of the void to pull them into ours. It should be won by showing the Truth and Beauty and Goodness of ours. A positive portrayal of ours, not so much a negative portrayal of theirs…because if we disconvince them of theirs, but cannot convince them of ours…then they have NO religion. Then they might be Atheists, which is Worse than paganism.
 
batteddy said:
Well duh. Me too.

But wouldn’t you rather have someone believe in a false god more than nothing?

Paganism is not as bad as Atheism.

If someone isn’t going to become Catholic (at least not right away)…do you really still want them to leave their false religion anyway?

I don’t like false gods either, but I’d rather have someone praying to and believing in SOMETHING more than NOTHING.

Being involved in SOME religion is more correlated to become Christian than being involved in NO religion.

Conversions from a false religion to the true is more common than conversions from NO religion to the true. Religiosity in any religion is more likely to lead to Christianity than no religiosity at all (because only generally religious people care about looking into religions or bothering with them anyway)

Also remember that people are required to follow their conscience, and often times the consciences of pagans are malformed. We have a duty to try to form them in Truth…but if they believe, in the internal forum, that something is right…and don’t or can’t yet understand what is really right, do you really want them doing what they sincerely believe is a sin?

We do not need to “break people down” in order to “build them back up”. We don’t need to first reduce their religion to nothing and then put our religion in its place. That’s why it’s called “conversion” instead of “destruction and replacement”: someone can go directly from being religious in one religion to being religious in another without ever having to go through a No Religion stage in between…

Conversion shouldn’t be won by weakening their old religion and then taking advantage of the void to pull them into ours. It should be won by showing the Truth and Beauty and Goodness of ours. A positive portrayal of ours, not so much a negative portrayal of theirs…because if we disconvince them of theirs, but cannot convince them of ours…then they have NO religion. Then they might be Atheists, which is Worse than paganism.
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So you are okay with a Christian, mother T in this case, encouraging Muslims and Hindus to continue on in the their religion and not only that, but to become better Hindus and Muslims? I don’t remember Jesus saying anything about going out into the world and encouraging all nations to become better pagans, do you?

Why not encourage them to become Christian? Encouraging them to become better at rejecting Christ is certainly not the answer. Letting them continue on in their disbelief, putting their soul at risk, does not seem very loving to me.
 
Your right even though Mother Teresa was a good person she is not stating official Catholic belief, just her own personal belief in caring for someone.

Even though someone is dying, and we are supposed to see Jesus in them we should make every effort to share that. We can’t judge Mother just because of these quoted words. I have said many things in my life but to really know my attitudes and practice you would have to meet me.

We are all called to share Jesus with everyone even the dying. If I allow someone to continue without sharing the truth of Catholicism or stating that Catholicism the the one Holy Church founded by Jesus then if they have their heart open to it, it could be the difference between Salvation and Condemnation.
If someone closes their heart to the truth then they do reject Truth, if at least their heart is open, even if they don’t understand then they have much more chance of Salvation.
Ultimately it is up to God, but we must do everything possible to open peoples heart to the truth of Jesus.

In Christ
Scylla

(again we shouldn’t judge Mother Teresa or claim that everything any Catholic or Saint said is official Catholic belief.)
 
Reformed1 said:
Do you think God pours out his grace equally among all humans?
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No. God imparts his grace as he wills in varying kind and measure. He has, however, instructed us in the means to grace and provides each person sufficient grace for salvation.

JSA
 
blackrobe said:
No. God imparts his grace as he wills in varying kind and measure. He has, however, instructed us in the means to grace and provides each person sufficient grace for salvation.

JSA
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If God imparts his grace as he will in varying kind an measure does He not than, by grace, favor some over others?
 
John_Henry said:
Welcome to the sweet fruits of Calvinism.
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Do you believe God favors some over others?

Does God see Mary the same as Pol Pot? I thought you guys believed Mary was preserved from sin by an act of grace by God. Why didn’t God choose to give me or you or Hitler or Pol Pot or Stalin or Judas that grace?
 
Reformed1 said:
Do you believe God favors some over others?

Does God see Mary the same as Pol Pot? I thought you guys believed Mary was preserved from sin by an act of grace by God. Why didn’t God choose to give me or you or Hitler or Pol Pot or Stalin or Judas that grace?
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Again I ask are you a parent? If you are do you treat each of your children the same. No of course not. One child might need more cuddling and comfort will the other might just need an encouraging word. Now does that mean that you love the one who gets cuddled more than the one who gets the talk? No you love them the same, you just know that they are different and need to be treated as such. God gives what He knows we each need. No more or no less. But He still loves us all equally.

This argument is being to remind me of my little ones. “Mom loves me more! NO she loves me more! Well, she held me longer today. Mom tell him you love me more” :rolleyes:

Do you see what I am saying. 🙂
 
st_lucy said:
Again I ask are you a parent? If you are do you treat each of your children the same. No of course not. One child might need more cuddling and comfort will the other might just need an encouraging word. Now does that mean that you love the one who gets cuddled more than the one who gets the talk? No you love them the same, you just know that they are different and need to be treated as such. God gives what He knows we each need. No more or no less. But He still loves us all equally.

This argument is being to remind me of my little ones. “Mom loves me more! NO she loves me more! Well, she held me longer today. Mom tell him you love me more” :rolleyes:

Do you see what I am saying. 🙂
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I may have missed it but did you comment on the scripture where God says he hated Esau but loved Jacob?

Also, my second post in this thread stated that we are not all equal before God. God clearly favors some with more grace and give less grace to others. Do you agree with this statement?
 
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