E
Erich
Guest
Would Jesus have given his Apostles the power to forgive sins if he didn’t expect them to use that power?We have ONE mediator with God and that is Jesus. Not a priest. I do not need a priest to confess.
Would Jesus have given his Apostles the power to forgive sins if he didn’t expect them to use that power?We have ONE mediator with God and that is Jesus. Not a priest. I do not need a priest to confess.
I like going to the other church because I am tired of the apathy I find in the Catholic church, from lay people and priests alike. Why is it that other more evangelical churches are on fire for Christ while in the Catholic church, you’re lucky if you can get half the congregation kneeling when they should?
Like I said, they care a lot about networking opportunities. That is how they stay alive. Protestant churches tend to be businesses.And there is a real community. People actually care if you are there or not. By the time I’d been going a few weeks I knew more people there than I did in the Catholic church because they were interested. The opportunities just weren’t there in any neighbouring parishes.
No, I do not and never have believed in the real presence.
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Well, that would be pretty obvious, because if someone really, truly believed it, then NOTHING would take them away from it. Why don’t you believe? Jesus makes it’s very clear in the Bible. He makes NO implications that it is merely symbolic. Please pray hard about this, if you leave, you are leaving such a precious gift!
mumof5:![]()
I can go to a woman’s study group once a week and I can learn about the Bible. It’s solid.
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A lot of times when you attend these Bible studies, you can’t help but be influenced by what another persons, especially the facillatator’s, own interpretation of the scripture might be. And that can often be a wrong interpretation even if it may seem harmless. I know a lot of things that I studied early on in my faith seemed harmless enough, but later on I’ve have grown to realize how that some things actually were incorrect. And I realized that through my own growth and prayer, not just because someone told me so.
Please think about it some more. And if you still leave, but later on realize it was a mistake, you are always welcome back!
-Tamara
There is an old saying - “Going to church will make you a Catholic when going into a barn will make you a horse”.I’ve enjoyed being with you for the last year but I have decided to leave the Catholic church and get a believer’s baptism in a church that does not weigh it’s members down with man-made rules that cannot be found in the Bible and legalism. Just wanted to let you know. God is good and I have never known Him like this before.
**And this is exactly how and why I came into the Catholic Church! After 40 years of jumping up and down saying “Amen”, clapping my hands and having “fun” at church - it finally dawned on me that this is not exactly “very holy”! Yeah sure, when the music sounded great - I thought I was filled with the Holy Spirit - and for a short while, maybe I was - but it could never compare with the awesome feelings of the Holy Spirit when receiving the Blessed Sacrament at Holy Mass! Once a month we had our “communion” - a piece of torn up bread and some grape juice! Even before I knew I would become Catholic, I would sit and imagine the bread and grape juice as being HIS true Body and Blood - and I don’t even know why I thought that! At that time, I had no clue about the Eucharist! Funny how God saw my love and desire to receive Him in all His Glory - and led me directly to the Holy Catholic Church!I like going to the other church because I am tired of the apathy I find in the Catholic church, from lay people and priests alike. Why is it that other more evangelical churches are on fire for Christ while in the Catholic church, you’re lucky if you can get half the congregation kneeling when they should? Young people sitting slumped IF there are any young people at all? Not in the other church. And my children are now excited about church and learning so much. Much better than Sunday morning complaining.
I can go to a woman’s study group once a week and I can learn about the Bible. It’s solid. They are actually reaching out to the congregation. And there is a real community. People actually care if you are there or not. By the time I’d been going a few weeks I knew more people there than I did in the Catholic church because they were interested. The opportunities just weren’t there in any neighbouring parishes.
Hebrews 10:25Legalism - where does it say in the Bible that if you don’t go to church on a particular Sunday you go to hell if it is not confessed?
On our Sunday obligation:Legalism - where does it say in the Bible that if you don’t go to church on a particular Sunday you go to hell if it is not confessed?
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I think you are right about that and also I would add stay with CAF I believe you can get a lot of knowledge about your faith even on this forum. Oh, don’t forget to visit the website of EWTN another great websiteOn our Sunday obligation:
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?postid=529344#poststop
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=17994
On the unbibilical mysticism of Sola Scriptura:
http://www.geocities.com/thecatholicconvert/staplessolascriptura.html
http://www.geocities.com/thecatholicconvert/solascriptura21.html
I really think you should leave your parish and travel a ways to find a solid Catholic parish that will give you the environment of support you need while you learn the Catholic faith established by Jesus Christ. You probably do not have a good enough grasp of the Catholic faith yet to start your own programs of renewal, and if you tried, you might unintentionally cause other people to have the same stumblings that you are having.
Hi,I’ve enjoyed being with you for the last year but I have decided to leave the Catholic church and get a believer’s baptism in a church that does not weigh it’s members down with man-made rules that cannot be found in the Bible and legalism. Just wanted to let you know. God is good and I have never known Him like this before.
Hey, I bet I know who you are - you’re Tim Staples! This sounds suspiciously like a Tim Staples Conversion Story!Hi,
I would like to offer you my own personal testimony so you can see where I’m comin’ from and WHY I returned to Catholicism.
I am a cradle Catholic and a “revert” to the faith after being gone for about 34 years. I had left the Church at about age 17 because I was on drugs and then “got saved” at a Campus Life Bible study that was run by a very cool minister. I had always gone to church but never really taken it seriously or read the Bible, even though it was in the house and other members of my family read it. The lack was not in the church (I see that now) but within me. I began to read the Bible for the first time in my life…(the epistle of St. James) and it really hit home. I have always believed in God, but I saw that that was not enough. I did alright for a couple of years, got married and we moved here to Florida, where I stayed out of establishment churches because I figured they were all messed up and did my thing as a “Jesus freak”, witnessing on the streets and handing out Christian underground papers and tracts, and “witnessing” to anyone who would listen.
Eventually I and my little family joined a Baptist church because the preacher convinced me that we believed the same things and he liked my no fear witnessing. That was fine until I admitted that I figured that the gifts of the Holy Spirit did not end with the death of the last apostle. That ended my path to being a Baptist minister so we joined a local Assembly of God where we stayed for many years in spite of some really unscriptural and uncharitable things they did. I became a deacon there, but finally we left after they pulled some really lame stuff and blew me off when I pointed out that what they were doing was unscriptural. My letter telling them why we were leaving was 10 pages long.
I intended to find another church, but we never did and so we remained out of any church for many years.
About 5 years ago I hit a real crisis and decided to turn back to the Lord. I found that Jesus meant every word of the parable of the prodigal son. I began to read the Bible again and got a New American Bible which is about like the NIV except this one has all the books (which I liked even though at the time I was still a Protestant). This particular edition was fairly big, with a bright green paperback cover that said “The Catholic Bible” in big orange letters. I went diddy-bopping into a meeting one day with that in hand and wasn’t in there a hot minute when some guy jumped my case.
“Are you Catholic?’ he asked me. “Well…yeah”, says I, (since technically I was). “You Catholics worship Mary.” “Say what?” I responded. “You Catholics worship Mary. You pray to her.” “Look, I know I been outta the church for a long time, and we do pray to her but we DON’T worship her and no Catholic that knows his ear from his elbow would ever even SAY such a crazy thing. We worship God alone. End of story, Dude.”
He persisted so severely that I finally told him that I’d get some books, check it out and get back to him with what I found out, and that if he was right then I would never enter a Catholic Church ever again.
I found a great book by a priest named Father Oscar Lukefahr of Catholic Home Study Service (The Catholic Home Study Service ) and read it carefully and prayerfully. I was happy to find that not only were the Catholics right and that they do not worship anyone but Almighty God, but that their doctrines about Mary are soundly based upon the Bible and that the early Christians believed the very same things. Even the three pillars of the Reformation ( Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli) believed the same things about Mary that Catholics do today. In the end I went back to church and met another Catholic guy, who like myself was returning to the faith as well. We studied and talked and found ourselves having to dig up real answers for people we knew who didn’t like the Catholic Church.
I continued to study Catholic teaching and discovered that a great deal of what I had been taught about the Bible and Christianity was wrong. I found that non-Catholics ignore and “read around” Bible passages that support Catholic teaching and that they completely ignore the history of Christianity prior to the 1500s. Now I know what I believe and why and I will never change, though I promise every non-Catholic that I dialog with that if they can prove that the Catholics are wrong that I’ll be in their church with them every Sunday from now on. No one even comes close…
continued
I really couldn’t tell ya how Tim is doing…I’m not him. Thanks much for the compliment. I greatly admire him as well.Hey, I bet I know who you are - you’re Tim Staples! This sounds suspiciously like a Tim Staples Conversion Story!
How’s it goin there Tim Ole Boy!
hahahaha!
Hi mum,I have decided to leave the Catholic church and get a believer’s baptism.
Perhaps Mum has read scripture, took a look around her Catholic church, and wondered how it could have drifted so far away from what the Bible teaches. As Catholicism has drifted further away from biblical truth by adding layers and layers upon the message of Christ, it looks less and less like the church he founded. Thankfully many are finding the truth within the Holy Bible.If you are of the Catholic faith, Jesus Christ founded your Church in the year A.D. 30.
For someone who is listed as Christian in their profile, that is not a very Christian thing to say.As Catholicism has drifted further away from biblical truth by adding layers and layers upon the message of Christ, it looks less and less like the church he founded.
I do not see how I could be a Christian and allow such error to continue without saying something.For someone who is listed as Christian in their profile, that is not a very Christian thing to say.![]()