SPLIT: From Fatima...Images & the Salvation of Catholics

[Mannyfit75]

More on the Scapular:

**The Blessed Virgin teaches us:

* To be open to God, and to his will, shown to us in the events of our lives;
* To Listen to the Word of God in the Bible and in life, to believe in it and to put into practice its demands;
* To pray at all times, as a way of discovering the presence of God in all that is happening around us;
* To be involved with people, being attentive to their needs.

The Scapular finds its roots in the tradition of the Order, which has seen in it a sign of Mary’s motherly protection. It has therefore, a centuries old spiritual meaning approved by Church.

* It stands for a commitment to follow Jesus, like Mary, the perfect model of all the disciples of Christ. This commitment finds its origin in baptism by which we become children of God.
* It leads us into the community of Carmel, a community of religious men and women, which has existed in the Church for over eight centuries.
* It reminds us of the example of the saints of Carmel, with whom we establish a close bond as brothers and sisters to one another.
* It is an expression of our belief that we will meet God in eternal life, aided by the intercession and prayers of Mary.

**

 

[Church_Militant]

As for the cross issue, it was a gift. You want to wear a cross with body on it, God bless you. Wear it in good health. My cross does not have a body and it reminds me that Jesus is risen. I don’t recall ever saying that either way was biblical or non biblical. It really doesn’t matter to me. I don’t see what the problem is. If you want to call me a heretic for wearing a cross without the body of Jesus on it So be it.

No one called you anything except wrong.

We know Jesus is risen. I also know what He suffered for me and every time I see a crucifix I am reminded of that price and it makes me not want to sin. I’ll take the deterrent to sin over the profession of the ressurection any day because the ressurection follows the cross and is the next part of the Gospel that we proclaim.

BTW, did you somehow miss the profession that Catholics make at the consecration during Mass?

Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
Pax tecum,

 

[lak611]

Well I went to mass for many years and never heard any passage out of numbers.

Yes, you would have heard Numbers if you really did go to Mass all those years. Here is when Numbers is read: “407 Week 18 - Mon Num 11:4b-15 408 Week 18 - Tues Num 12:1-in Year A,
409 Week 18 - Wed Num 13:1-2, 25—14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35
410 Week 18 - Thurs Num 20:1-13”.

Here’s the link to the Lectionary: catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/2002USL-Weekdays-OT-I.htm

 

[Mannyfit75]

More on the Scapular:

**The Blessed Virgin teaches us:

* To be open to God, and to his will, shown to us in the events of our lives;
* To Listen to the Word of God in the Bible and in life, to believe in it and to put into practice its demands;
* To pray at all times, as a way of discovering the presence of God in all that is happening around us;
* To be involved with people, being attentive to their needs.

The Scapular finds its roots in the tradition of the Order, which has seen in it a sign of Mary’s motherly protection. It has therefore, a centuries old spiritual meaning approved by Church.

* It stands for a commitment to follow Jesus, like Mary, the perfect model of all the disciples of Christ. This commitment finds its origin in baptism by which we become children of God.
* It leads us into the community of Carmel, a community of religious men and women, which has existed in the Church for over eight centuries.
* It reminds us of the example of the saints of Carmel, with whom we establish a close bond as brothers and sisters to one another.
* It is an expression of our belief that we will meet God in eternal life, aided by the intercession and prayers of Mary.

**

As you can see, none of wearing the Scapular negates Jesus.

 

[Mannyfit75]

The Scapular is only in the Latin Rite Catholic Church not the Eastern Rite. It’s been in the Latin Rite for centuries.

 

[newbie1234]

I am not trying to turn anyone into an evangelical protestant. You are all happy in the catholic church. You feel fulfilled. You feel safe being under the guidance of the pope.
You believe the doctrines.
You feel enriched at mass.
You trust your priests and bishops and nuns
So be it.
I had questions in many of these areas.
I found answers by studying the Word.
But those answers apparently are only for me.
On this forum it seems that I get persecuted for even asking the questions.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I am not trying to turn anyone into an evangelical protestant. You are all happy in the catholic church. You feel fulfilled. You feel safe being under the guidance of the pope.
You believe the doctrines.
You feel enriched at mass.
You trust your priests and bishops and nuns
So be it.
I had questions in many of these areas.
I found answers by studying the Word.
But those answers apparently are only for me.
On this forum it seems that I get persecuted for even asking the questions.

You are not persecuted, if you were, we would want you to leave this forum or wishing you harm. That is not the case here. We are trying to engage you in dialogue here.

We are trying to give you the correct teachings of the CC. So far you still have the many misconception of Catholic teaching. It is late and I’m going to bed.

 

[lak611]

I am not trying to turn anyone into an evangelical protestant. You are all happy in the catholic church. You feel fulfilled. You feel safe being under the guidance of the pope.
You believe the doctrines.
You feel enriched at mass.
You trust your priests and bishops and nuns
So be it.
I had questions in many of these areas.
I found answers by studying the Word.
But those answers apparently are only for me.
On this forum it seems that I get persecuted for even asking the questions.

We are not persecuting you. We are giving you answers to your questions, including many answers from the Word. We study the Word too, probably more than you do.

 

[water]

I believe you are here to make your own statements about what you think Catholics are doing rather than asking questions. If you don’t believe me, go back to all your posts on this thread and read them again.

When you made many assumptions without proofs, and we were asking for those proofs, you feel you are persecuted.

When you said “But I can recognize the gifts of the Spirit.” I hope you do. Two of the gifts of the Spirit are Charity and humility. I hope you have recognized the two, and use it well along with the other gifts that you think you can recognize.

 

[newbie1234]

The church I go to is a small nondenominational church. We study the Bible line by line from genesis to revelation. Wed night is 2 hours. We just finished the minor prophets. This Sun morning 1hr on 1cor15 resurrection of the dead. Along with 1/2hr fellowship. Sun eve 1hr spiritual gifts and fellowship.
I do evangelistic work for my small church, every friday we feed the homeless and give out bibles and tracts. In summer we also outreach on Thurs. Mens group on Saturday morn 9-11. My pastor has a radio show m-f 4-5pm. and I listen every day.
This is what my walk with Christ as a born again believer looks like. I’m in the Word almost every day and I fellowship with other Christians almost every day.
I didn’t just write this to boast.
It is a illustration of how my faith has grown since I left Catholicism

 

[water]

The church I go to is a small nondenominational church. We study the Bible line by line from genesis to revelation. Wed night is 2 hours. We just finished the minor prophets. This Sun morning 1hr on 1cor15 resurrection of the dead. Along with 1/2hr fellowship.

But you skip couple of books

Sun eve 1hr spiritual gifts and fellowship.I do evangelistic work for my small church,

But you’ve come here not well prepared

every friday we feed the homeless and give out bibles and tracts. In summer we also outreach on Thurs. Mens group on Saturday morn 9-11.

It’s good for you. Keep it doing what you are supposed to do best.

My pastor has a radio show m-f 4-5pm. and I listen every day.

yeah! and we don’t just listen to one man’s show.

This is what my walk with Christ as a born again believer looks like. I’m in the Word almost every day and I fellowship with other Christians almost every day.
I didn’t just write this to boast.

I believe you.

Good night all.

 

[newbie1234]

You can make all the wise cracks you like.
I wrote all those things as an illustration of how my walk has changed. How I have changed.
I am not trying to impress anyone.
My life is becoming more and more about serving God and less and less about being part of this world.
Yes you all have all the answers.
They are the same answers I get from every catholic, including my family. It’s like they are from a manuscript.
I went to a catholic revival last year. They go over all the answers to all the questions.
I know I am happy and fulfilled.
I also know that my walk as a catholic was empty.
The mass was meaningless.
And the rules didn’t make sense.
I don’t feel like that anymore.

 

[LilyM]

You can make all the wise cracks you like.
I wrote all those things as an illustration of how my walk has changed. How I have changed.
I am not trying to impress anyone.
My life is becoming more and more about serving God and less and less about being part of this world.
Yes you all have all the answers.
They are the same answers I get from every catholic, including my family. It’s like they are from a manuscript.
I went to a catholic revival last year. They go over all the answers to all the questions.
I know I am happy and fulfilled.
I also know that my walk as a catholic was empty.
The mass was meaningless.
And the rules didn’t make sense.
I don’t feel like that anymore.

Well, now you know precisely how we feel about Catholicism. It fulfils us. And I’d be willing to make a sizeable bet that if I spoke to lots of members of your church the answers of a lot of you would be similar, no? It’s because you all learn from each other and your pastor - and because you’re all DRAWN there because you think similarly to begin with.

In our case there are a billion-odd of us - that’s an awful lot of people who willingly choose their faith (we’re not children after all) and share a system of belief. So of course we’re organised - we have to be, being so huge. Doesn’t make us wrong.

Let me tell you about my walk as a Catholic.

I go to Mass most every day (half an hour) where I get fed the Body and Blood of Christ without which I don’t have life in me, according to Christ himself, hear plenty of His word and some good preaching from my pastors and meet with my fellow mass-going Catholic friends afterwards.

I read the Bible every day too, pray plenty (both with others and by myself) and get involved with things like the local St Vincent de Paul (thrift shops which funnily enough do a lot of good for the homeless as well ) and young adult Bible study, which is an hour and a half every week. I’ve only recently found out about them, but they very much go through the Bible systematically much like yourself (been doing Mark’s gospel lately).

I also ‘fellowship’, if you want to use that term, through the Franciscan fraternity of which my parents are members, although formally I’m not one myself I do a lot of things, retreats, conferences, socialising and such, with them. I not only meet Catholic Franciscans from all over the country and all over the world, but there are Franciscans of other Christian denominations too (and there are lots of them, since the Franciscan religious community well predates the Reformation of the 1500s).

All in all it doesn’t sound much different to your testimony really

So it would appear that any reasons you may have had for feeling unfulfilled don’t specifically have to do with the Catholic faith, although of course I can’t speak for the individual Catholics you’ve known and it appears it has a lot to do with them. Which is an incredible shame.

 

[Mintaka]

If you say, “I don’t find images very useful to me, and besides, they’re just not part of our church’s tradition”, nobody’s going to argue with you (except maybe to point out something you might like). If you say “Anybody who uses pictures and statues is going to Hell”, then we’re back with the Iconoclasts, heading down the road to denying Christ’s incarnation, and even Islam. So of course, then we have to defend images.

The same thing goes with Mary and the saints. Nobody is saying that you have to pray to them. (There are plenty of Catholics who don’t particularly get into this stuff, though of course we call on the saints for prayers every time we celebrate Mass, since the “cloud of witnesses” is always part of the congregation there with us.) But the principle has to be defended, or else we’re running down the road to denial of the resurrection of the dead, the life of the world to come, and the communion of saints of all times and places through the Body of Christ.

There’s a big difference between “I don’t get into this” and “This isn’t true, and in fact it’s Satanic.” If more people made that differentiation, we’d be a lot better off.

 

[Mintaka]

It also behooves any Christian to use his God-given ability to find out the truth, instead of just going by first impressions. Thinking badly of people and condemning them without knowing what you’re talking about – that’s not Christian behavior.

If you see the statue of a lady with a crown in New York harbor, do you assume that New York worships a pagan goddess? Or do you do a little research, and find out that Liberty Enlightening the World represents a commitment to freedom, and proclaims “liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof”? And would you assume that every New Yorker has to be able to explain and justify Miss Liberty perfectly, or would you assume it was your job to find out?

So why would you assume that a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel processing through the streets has nothing to do with Jesus? Why didn’t you look at the schedule – I’m sure proceedings began and ended with a Mass, and there is Jesus. Heck, I’m sure there were tons of other public prayer activities involved. All those dollar bills was money donated to the parish or to some charitable organization; you have something against tithing and alms?

Or why didn’t you look up Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and find out why she’s called that? If the mountain’s name means “God’s vineyards”, doesn’t it make us think on how the Vine Himself chose to grow in Mary’s fertile soil? We also remember that Mount Carmel is where Elijah defeated the priests of Baal, demonstrating the Lord’s power over false gods. Mary proclaimed the Lord’s greatness, too. But mostly the title reflects Mary as a role-model of service and love for Jesus, particularly for the Carmelites, male and female, as they do their best to live like Elijah and Jesus did in the desert, staying away from the world, immersing themselves in prayer, and depending on God alone for sustenance. So I think it’s rather beautiful to have a procession in Mary’s honor in the middle of New York, bringing God’s desert into the middle of a city hungry for God. Isn’t that a fitting reason for a festival?

Clearly, the middle of a parade is not the place to go into such things in detail! But next time you run into a street festival, maybe you’ll look for a pamphlet or flyer that does explain it. Or maybe you could do the research yourself, and put together a flyer for folks who are as puzzled as you were.

 

[San_Patricio]

If I had been you, I would’ve taken the money and gone help the poor. How that sounds to you?

…didn’t someone else have that idea once? I’m sure I wouldn’t know who, as I’m Catholic & we don’t read the Bible.

 

[San_Patricio]

Yes you all have all the answers.
They are the same answers I get from every catholic, including my family. It’s like they are from a manuscript.
I went to a catholic revival last year. They go over all the answers to all the questions.

Because they haven’t changed in 2000 years. They are the same answers that Our Lord gave His Apostles.

I know I am happy and fulfilled.
I also know that my walk as a catholic was empty.
The mass was meaningless.
And the rules didn’t make sense.
I don’t feel like that anymore.

I will honestly pray for you. I spent half my life as an athiest & occultist before I returned to the Church, and I have never seen or heard anything that made as much sense or had as much meaning as Catholicism, nor have I ever felt as fulfilled as when receiving the Blessed Sacrament.

I think it’s wonderful that you are so active in your church, I just wish it was the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ, which He promised will stand til the end of time and against which the gates of Hell will not prevail.

 

[decn2b]

The Bible is the infallible Word of God and I take it literally from Genesis to Revelation. The tradition of the Catholic Church changes with each pope and ecunenical council. How can it be infallible if it changes all the time?

Newb Peace,

There are millions of people like you who had the same beliefs, Scott Hahn comes to mind. Scott, a former militant anti-catholic Evangelical Christian minister and professor studied Catholicism to better “convert” Catholics away from the Catholic church to what he called The true Christian faith. I was raised a Catholic and left the church almost exactly like you did. I became a bible christian etc. However one day I read something about the early church and it made me think. It made me feel as though my “christian” faith was not of antiquity. I then started wondering what christians did for the word BEFORE the bible was written. then I looked at where the bible came from? I was astounded that it was the Catholic church that gave us the bible. Some of my Christian friends never approached that very question and one of them made the comment that their pastor told them it fell from the sky. The one thing that really made me question the bible alone theory (sola Scritura) was the fact that the doctrine itself is no-where to be found. If in fact the bible alone theory is true then where does it say that in the bible? That also brings us back to the early church. In the early years there was No bible. And after that most people couldn’t read anyway and scriptures were a rarity. (not becuase the church wouldn’t let people read it because of the huge job of hand writing the scriptures.) (yikes). All of the arguments that you have against Catholicism are nothing terribly earth shattering to most Catholics. They are the same old paper thin unresearched theologically feeble points. You have to remember there are dozens of former “bible christians” now Catholics who are memebers of this message board. Another problem with your argument is where does your authority come from to interpret scripture? You cannot say the Holy Spirit because there are 33,000 different denominations for Christianity and the spirit does not lead us 33,0000 different ways. I can take a room full of “bible Christians” and if all of them have different interpretations they all automatically think the others in the room are not listening to the spirit correctly. Lastly when I was young I despised going to Mass…I thought it was a dead religion too. Now my heart overflows with love and desire for Mass. In fact there are times where I cannot leave the church and wish Mass would go on forever. . When I was away form the church I had no idea what Worship was. Evangelicals Never really worship on sunday. They basicall listen to someone sermonize and quote the bible. They sing some songs then go home. When you quoted the revelation quote I chuckled a little because I too like you was at one time convinced in the babylon mystery religion. The whole Harlot and beast thing is a very very very big stretch.

Anyway God Bless you and remember every time you lead someone to Christ you are a mediatrix of Grace too.

 

[Mijoy2]

I would say that any person who makes a statue of a woman, be it Our Lady of Fatima, or The Queen of Heaven, or The Lady of All Nations, and bows down and venerates that statue, and says prayers to that statue, is not saved. That means they do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit and they are part of the great deception. Sorry.

“not saved”? How can this be? My understanding of Sola Fida (Faith in Christ alone) is that all I have to do is believe Jesus is my Lord and Savior and regardless of what I do or think from that moment on I am saved. Am I mistaken? If I can fornicate, steal or murder wouldn’t bowing to a statue simply be a trivial matter?

Maybe you can explain to me why many Fundementalist Protestants preach Faith in Christ alone for salvation and yet make an exception for Catholics who Love adore and obey the Lord. Catholics beileve in Christ.

 

[water]

The mass was meaningless.

I feel sorry for you - Jesus wasn’t smiling when you said this. I keep you in my prayer, especially when I go to mass.

By saying that the mass was meaningless, you were indirectly saying the followings:

1. the gathering, praying, and worshiping of the Lord were meaningless.
2. the mass’ Readings were meaningless
3. the remembrance of the Jesus’ supper was meaningless - not to mention that you no longer believe in His real presence in the Eucharist.

Newbie, you could do a whole lot for others, but if your heart were lack of love, your works could be useless.

Remember, Faith without love is NOTHING.
1 Cor 13:2 and if I have the gift of prophecy, and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.