To Protestants: HAPPY REFORMATION DAY

[guanophore]

I mean, there’s not much place for growth there. Not much room for challenge of my ideas. Little opportunity to see insights from other perspectives, even though I might disagree.

I agree, but it seems that, from the beginning, you have been clear that you personally outgrew the Catholic church, were firm in your ideas, and had no desire for insight on other perspectives. This has been expressed constently in your “pronouncement” approach as opposed to a questioning approach.

So, since I kind of wanted to hang out with Roman Catholics anyway, and because a long-distance colleague of mine recently converted, I decided to come here and dive in. I made a mistake apparently. Very sorry. and I bid you all adieu and peace.

One in Christ,

R.A.

If you made a mistake, it was an honest one, it seems. You may have genuinely believed that you were interested in discussion, yet found you are not. Or, perhaps you just need another venue. I find that the Catholic living section is much more conducive to “fellowship” than any of the Apologetics areas, where those of us that tend toward combat tend to collect.

 

[JonNC]

Consider that all of the Apostles, all of the early church fathers, and all of their successors up to Luther, continuously and consistently believed in the real presence of Christ. It fleshes out His promise to be with us until the end of the age. Christ is both a physical and spiritual presence. What has been lost in those today who do not believe?

up to and including Luther.

Jon

 

[Ghoti]

Here’s my problem with the teaching of transubstantiation. In healing services, the very presence of the Lord comes down usually through prayer or adoration. In Acts, people sitting in Peter’s shadow were healed. Later in Acts, cloth that had touched Paul was sent all over the place to transfer physical healing. If transubstantiation were real, why don’t we see the mentally deficient become coherent, the physically crippled rising to walk, the blind able to see, or the deaf able to hear? Is the Spirit able to come through sinful man outside of the Catholic Church to see these things done, but not inside the Catholic Church and with something that is supposed to have been sanctified by a priest (acting as a vessel of the Lord) and untainted before touching those in Mass?

Even when Jesus was physically present as a man, healing was not automatic. Why didn’t everyone who was sick/injured/insane/possessed suddenly become well and hale when He simply walked around? The haemorrhaging woman had to crawl through the crowd to touch His cloak. The paralytic had to be lowered through a window to Him. He had to visit the little girl and call to her, “Talitha coumi.” When He actively drove the demons out of the possessed, they hung around long enough to ask a favour instead of bolting at His very sight. When He healed the blind man, rather than just letting His shadow fall on him, He mixed His spittle with mud and smeared it on the blind man’s eyes; it wasn’t until the blind man went and washed his eyes that his sight was restored. Why didn’t the mere contact with Jesus’ hands – and the spit of His own mouth, no less – heal him instantly? Why didn’t the lame walk, the blind see, the dead arise and appear to many, when Jesus fed the multitude with the bread and fish that He touched and distributed?

It is obvious – to me, anyhoo – that Jesus did not walk around with a “healing aura” like a magnetic field or a D&D magical area-of-effect that automatically heals anything coming into contact with it; His healing power is a focus of the Divine Will – whenever anyone was healed by Jesus, either through His touch, or His spit, or the shadow of Peter, it was because at that moment, God willed it.

Jesus Himself – the Divine Logos, God-from-God, the “I AM” before Abraham was – could not perform any miracles in His hometown, because of the lack of belief.

It seems to me that miraculous healing happens when 1) Jesus is present; 2) the afflicted desire and request the healing; and 3) the Lord wills it at that moment.

Just because I can’t throw away my specs and cane at the Consecration does not mean Jesus is not there, anymore than the lack of any particular healing at various points in the Gospel does not mean Jesus didn’t walk around Galilee. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Who knows – maybe if I hadn’t gone to Mass and witnessed Christ at the Consecration, my physical conditions may have gotten worse! Jesus as preventative medicine – definitely so, for the soul, anyway!

Again, if Jesus deigns to heal, it is because He deigns to heal. Not because we demand Him to as an automatic side-effect of His presence.

 

[benedictus2]

Unite according to whose standards? What we see as unification (according to 90% of this board, by everyone becoming Catholic, and the other 10% a variety of answers) may not be what actual unification looks like. By the same token, what we see as division may not be actual division.

I have to disabuse you of this rosy picture. We are divided. It is a fact and no amount of spin will make it go away.

I think what po18guy was trying to emphasize is whether the break that happened because of Luther, et al, was either the work of the devil or the work of the Holy Spirit.

Only the devil would have a vested interest in wanting the Body of Christ dismembered.

There was a break. And the break exists because of the “reformers” pride. I think Luther regretted what he had done. But he just did not have enough humility until the end to say that he was wrong.

If he had been more humble, he would have been a true force for reform. As it is, he started the division that caused even more divisions. Protestantism is more fragmented now than ever. And who do you think, is at the bottom of that fragmentation? The Holy Spirit? I don’t think so.

I was thinking that the reason God caused for St Ignatius to write the discernment of spirits around about this time is to show us how deadly wrong we can get it without proper discernment.

 

[benedictus2]

I want to make it clear, I was not damning the modern Protestants . . . or the Reformers for that matter. I do not hold that ability.

Good one:extrahappy:

Aahh, the fruits of clear logical thinking!

 

[benedictus2]

Here’s my problem with the teaching of transubstantiation. In healing services, the very presence of the Lord comes down usually through prayer or adoration. In Acts, people sitting in Peter’s shadow were healed. Later in Acts, cloth that had touched Paul was sent all over the place to transfer physical healing. If transubstantiation were real, why don’t we see the mentally deficient become coherent, the physically crippled rising to walk, the blind able to see, or the deaf able to hear?quote]

Actually, we have seen the healings take place because of the Eucharist.

There is a really good book called “Miracles Do Happen” by Briege McKenna. Do read it.

But Eucharistic miracles are not limited to this. There’s heaps others.

It must be emphasized though that God heals who He wishes to heal. Not everyone who receive the Eucharist will be cured of their ailment. It is all according to God’s plan.

We do not go to the Eucharist expecting a miracle show. We go to the Eucharist simply because God is there. And He commanded us to do so.

The Eucharist is not a magic wand. Methinks you only want God for his miracles. I think that is rather shallow.

 

[Ghoti]

Hajnalcsillag;4375674:

Here’s my problem with the teaching of transubstantiation. In healing services, the very presence of the Lord comes down usually through prayer or adoration. In Acts, people sitting in Peter’s shadow were healed. Later in Acts, cloth that had touched Paul was sent all over the place to transfer physical healing. If transubstantiation were real, why don’t we see the mentally deficient become coherent, the physically crippled rising to walk, the blind able to see, or the deaf able to hear

?

We do not go to the Eucharist expecting a miracle show. We go to the Eucharist simply because God is there. And He commanded us to do so.

The Eucharist is not a magic wand.

Thanks, Benedictus2. That was the point I was trying to get across, but in your case far more succinctly.

 

[graceandglory]

And now, here is a bit more information, my dear RC friends. I was saved while still INSIDE the RC Church.

For nearly two years after accepting Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I continued attending Mass faithfully. I sang my heart out to God (while everyone around me was silent and looked at me like I was insane). I responded to the priest loud and clear during Mass (while everyone around me was silent and looked at me like I was insane). And I asked questions (while everyone around me was silent and looked at me like I was insane).

I also visited the church late at night when it was empty, and there I sat at the foot of the crucifix to speak to Jesus – telling him how much I loved him, how thankful I was that he had died for me, and how wanted to serve him all the days of my life.

I looked for Christ in the “true” church, in the people, in the priests, in the nuns, and in the do’s and donts I was told I had to follow. He wasn’t in any of those things – for me.

But I found that he was in my heart. And that he was in the Bible. And that he was in my dreams (yes, God has and does speak to me in dreams - but not often).
**
I found that we actually had a relationship – and there was no church between us. No institution. **

When I started attending Bible studies by evangelicals, they seemed to know him, and love him, and want to serve him, too – just like me. And their teachings, based on scripture, seemed to me to be more in harmony with: 1) context, 2) language, 3) history, and 4) reason.

My 2 cents.

R.A.

Hi again RA!
I could have written that whole story.
I read in another of your posts that you also were in Folk Group. I too played guitar and sang my heart out in my Catholic folk group.

It was my deep love for Scripture and a realization that Christ wanted us to all be as one, and looking for the best “Bible Commentary” that all my internet searches kept bringing me back to the Catholic Church.

I believe that the Catholic Church is the most faithful institution on earth to Jesus Christ and the Whole Gospel.

Everything you said could be said by a faithful Catholic too. Pope Benedict has written in Salt of the Earth that we all must have that personal relationship with Christ. That isn’t new. The evangelical churches of America didn’t make that up. That is the Gospel of Christ. That is the Good News!

Sorry I keep bringing up books for you, but Jeff Cavins has a testimony just like mine, AND YOURS. Raised Catholic. Didn’t make his faith personal until he met evangelicals. Then got married and became an evangelical pastor. He’d be a good resource for you. We’ve all wrangled with these questions.

In Christ,
grace

 

[benedictus2]

And now, here is a bit more information, my dear RC friends. **I was saved while still INSIDE the RC Church. **

For nearly two years after accepting Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I continued attending Mass faithfully.).

How do you understand being saved? Do you pin the moment of your salvation to the moment you accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour?

I also visited the church late at night when it was empty, and there I sat at the foot of the crucifix to speak to Jesus – telling him how much I loved him, how thankful I was that he had died for me, and how wanted to serve him all the days of my life.

It is very evident that you have a hunger for Christ. Wonderful.

I looked for Christ in the “true” church, in the people, in the priests, in the nuns, and in the do’s and donts I was told I had to follow. He wasn’t in any of those things – for me.

**But I found that he was in my heart. And that he was in the Bible. And that he was in my dreams (yes, God has and does speak to me in dreams - but not often). **

And this is where the error comes in. Christ is not in the do’s and don’ts. We don’t believe he is in them either. Christ is in the priests and nuns yes, but only in the same way as he is in you in me. Christ dwells in all of us. We are the temples of His Spirit.

Yes, He does speak to us in dreams sometimes but not just in dreams. In our musings, in nature, in everything.

But more than this, Jesus is in the Eucharist in the most special way possible. To feed us, to give us life so that we may truly be branches of His Vine. Think how close that is. All that life that flows in Him flows to us when we receive him in communion.

I think of your story of why you left the church and then I think about stories like those of Leif Eriksons’ (a member here) and I am posting an exerpt of this below from the thread called “To Live by Faith”

While I was Protestant, this was my system of behavior when I wanted to know things from my dear Lord:

I would first pray and ask Him for his view. Then I would research what the Scripture has to say on the matter. …

I would pray to the Lord throughout day to day activity, receiving signs often or other words in answer to my prayers. I think God did greatly bless me.

The shift to Catholicism came after a spiritual dark spot in my life and, I believe, the Virgin Mary’s intercession. I described that side of the shift recently in the patron saints thread in this Spirituality forum.

The change for me was monumental. Like smacking your face in ice water.

I HAD THE EUCHARIST! HALLELUJAH!!!

There is nothing in the entire world like the Catholic Eucharist. I had reverenced the Protestant Eucharist and had gone to different presentations of the Protestant Eucharist, from an Episcopal church to an Assemblies of God, but they are nothing in comparison. Nothing. Like eating a peanut vs. eating a steak and mash potatoes. Sorry if you find that insulting at all .

The Catholic Eucharist is at the heart of my faith life. It is the single most important feature of what makes me Christian. It is Life.

I found that we actually had a relationship – and there was no church between us. No institution.

And this is where the error comes in as well. The Catholic Church is not an institution. It is His Body and His Bride (read St Paul). It is the Church that Christ built upon Peter and He promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

When I started attending Bible studies by evangelicals, they seemed to know him, and love him, and want to serve him, too – just like me. And their teachings, based on scripture, seemed to me to be more in harmony with: 1) context, 2) language, 3) history, and 4) reason.

My 2 cents.

R.A.

It’s strange that you found you have a relationship with God when you left the Church. I have and millions of others have a personal relationship with God and we didn’t have to leave the Church.

Think about this: Two people were put into a room to look for a Precious Gem. One found it, the other did not. The other one did not find it not because the Precious Gem is not there, it was probably because he had blinkers on or a pair of very dark glasses. Or, he did not see the Precious Gem because he was looking for a Precious Gem other than what the Precious Gem really is.

Secondly: Their teaching is not really based on the Bible at all if you take the Bible in its entirety. They preach from some passages in the Bible and when they hit the hard passages this skim it over, becuase their doctrine of the Bible Alone cannot be supported by the Bible itself.

It is like one of the blind men of Hindustan. One said the Elephant was a fan upon touching its ear, another said it was like a sword upon touching its tusk and another said the elephant was a wall upon touching its side. This is also how the Evangelicals see Scripture. Should they inadvertently touch the side and the tusk, this will dismiss this because they are already convinced that the elephant is a fan.

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

**Guan: **Well, he is new to the threads, and he clearly does not understand the purpose and mission of CAF. It seems that he thought that the non-catholic section was less Catholic than the rest? He also seems to erroneously believe that this is a fellowship venue, when it is clearly an apologetic venue.

RA: Well, if that is the case, then I’ll graciously leave. And I apologize.

You see, I enjoy making new friends, talking, sharing ideas, and yes, even debating and getting into some good discussions dealing with faith, beliefs, reasons why people believe things. It’s been a long time since I’ve interacted with Roman Catholics, so I thought, “Hmm, that’d be interesting.” (I have no Roman Catholic friends.) I can’t really interact with Roman Catholics because in my circles I have no access to them.

So I thought CAF looked like a good place to start, especially because I saw some Mormon issues being addressed online here and thought I might could help RCs in that area given my studies.

I guess for me, it just gets tiresome to always talk to people who believe *exactly *the way I believe. I mean, there’s not much place for growth there. Not much room for challenge of my ideas. Little opportunity to see insights from other perspectives, even though I might disagree.

So, since I kind of wanted to hang out with Roman Catholics anyway, and because a long-distance colleague of mine recently converted, I decided to come here and dive in. I made a mistake apparently. Very sorry. and I bid you all adieu and peace.

One in Christ,

R.A.

Hi Richard,

I see no reason for you to leave. You have been charitable and reasonable. One of the reasons CAF exists is to debate issues with Protestants. That is what has been happening on this thread (just like Catholic Answers Radio has shows where they invite Protestants who disagree with the Faith to call in):

catholic.com/radio/calendar.php

No one here is in charge of CAF or this thread. If you are out of line (and you’re not) then a moderator can step in.

 

[Rachel_Malloy]

This thread is now closed.

Thanks for your participation.

God bless-

Rachel