P
panoikei
Guest
Jimmy B.
That’ll work for me. Someone’s gotta pay my mortgage.
That’ll work for me. Someone’s gotta pay my mortgage.
Why do some non-Catholic Christians avoid Christian devotions and practices? Is it simply because these practices are observed or performed by Catholi
- Status
V
vocatio
Guest
Bump
D
DHC1Chipmunk
Guest
This thread is interesting to find. My question is, is it wrong for me, a non-Catholic who will someday join the Catholic Church because I believe it to be the true Church of Jesus Christ, to pray Catholic prayers? By “Catholic prayers” I mean the rosary and the many other prayers found, for example, in the back of the Daily Roman Missal but not found in Protestant prayer manuals? I always wonder, as I am praying the rosary on my way to work, whether I am wrong to pray the rosary as a non-Catholic. Related, is it wrong for me to consistently support a Catholic organization? Do Catholic organizations expect their regular supporters to be Catholic? These questions sound silly when I see them in writing; nonetheless I would appreciate feedback. Thanks so much!
H
happygal
Guest
Hi Chip
Although i am not a catholic, but i find it strange when you asked about being a christain, is it wrong to pray Rosary!!! There is nothing wrong with it. I never know that they are stuff which catholic can do where christian cannot do. I never know God can divide us into different groups to classify Rosary is meant for catholic and not for christian…blar…blar…Is all depend upon you, if you want to do it, just go for it but just need to understand what you’re praying about (i mean the Rosary) otherwise it defect the purpose. i am 100% sure no catholic will tells you, Rosary is a catholic thingy…No No No…
C
Curious
Guest
If I go to mass I cross myself with everyone else and I feel just fine about it.
J
Jimmy_B
Guest
What do you think? 
P
peary
Guest
Why would ‘protestant prayers’ be any less efficascious than ‘catholic prayers’?
If you feel comfortable reciting recognized prayers of the Church, then I see nothing wrong with it.
D
DHC1Chipmunk
Guest
J
JReducation
Guest
As a teacher of Mystical Theology I can assure you, there is nothing wrong with using any form of prayer to the one true God. These include the rosay and any other pius acts of devotion that Catholics perform.
The only restriction that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church have is that non Catholics cannot receive communion or go to confession until they are in full communion with the Church, that is, until they have professed the Catholic faith and have been accepted into the Church.
By all means, pray as much as you want.
JR
A
ALLFORHIM
Guest
Hi,
Thank you for posting this.
As a born again christian who has given their life to Christ ,outside the CC, I find some postings offensive at best.
We ALL need to be careful of how we word our posts. We are to be humble not self-righteous.Im sorry Jimmy, but many of your posts seem to be self-righteous. I hope this is not your intention but that is how it comes across.
As far as your OP–I was never taught to cross myself growing up. My episcopal church didnt do it.
My IL are catholic so I have done it in a CC. I dont have a problem with it at all. I just dont feel the need to do it and God doesnt command it so it is optional. If it helps you then GREAT!!I also dont feel led to raise my hands in church. That is biblical but not necessary either. I dont begrudge anyone doing something they feel honors God. God made us all different with different personalities. So, if crossing oneself or raising hands help people feel closer to God then I say AMEN!! Keep doin it!!!
R
reteeks21
Guest
I totally agree. Have you seen what he has to say on his Masons thread? It’s as if he just want to start an arguement solely for the sake of trying to prove that he is right and we are all wrong.Hi,
Thank you for posting this.
***Im sorry Jimmy, but many of your posts seem to be self-righteous. I hope this is not your intention but that is how it comes across.
As far as your OP–I was never taught to cross myself growing up. My episcopal church didnt do it.
I also dont feel led to raise my hands in church. That is biblical but not necessary either. I dont begrudge anyone doing something they feel honors God. God made us all different with different personalities. So, if crossing oneself or raising hands help people feel closer to God then I say AMEN!! Keep doin it!!!
P
Publisher
Guest
A
ALLFORHIM
Guest
I honestly cant go thru his threads because they irritate me.
When someone has this mindset, they lose all credibility with me.
Plus I have no interest in that type of discussion. They are usually pointless and go nowhere and only cause frustration.
God Bless
P.S. I would like to add that Jimmy is not the only here that comes across self-righteous. I dont want Jimmy to think Im picking on him.
M
Mystic_Warrior
Guest
I cross myself and have taught my kids the same when we say prayers. I pray the rosary occasionally and the St. Michael chaplet. Guess I’m just a weird protestant
Peace…
MW
P
peary
Guest
All of you have to remember that for the practicing Catholic, the Church was founded by Jesus Christ and is historically the community that contains the ‘fullness’ of Faith. The Catholic Church didn’t break away from any other ecclesial body… all others did, and even broke away from each other. The farther one is removed from Christ’s Church, the more difficult it becomes to discern the Truth.
M
Mystic_Warrior
Guest
P
peary
Guest
It was an indirect comment to Mikew262 to Jimmy B.
J
JReducation
Guest
Hold on Peary. This is not exactly the teaching of the Catholic Church, close but not quite.
Yes, the Catholic Church can trace its history back to the Apostles, from there to Jesus.
However, the Church teaches that the fullness of faith subsists in the Catholic Church. The Church does not contain the fullness of faith. It may sound like a play on words, but it actually has to do with ontology. The faith holds up the the Church, that why it subsists, as a foundation holds up a building. If the Church contained the fullness of faith, then the building would be holding up the faith. That’s the reason for the proper terminology.
Technically speaking the Catholic faith did not break off from any ecclesial body. However, the Church does teach that the Catholic Church has its roots in the Jewish faith and therefore the two are inseperable. Christ is covert in the covenant with Israel, but still present. After his incarnation, death and resurrection he is overt. So that the covenant is called new, not because it’s a second covenant. The newness is the overtness of what was hidden from human eyes, becomes visible through the incarnation. This is contained in John’s Prologue. The Logos was alays there.
Historically, Catholics are the younger brothers and siters of the Jewish people. This was proclaimed by John Paul II and repeated by Benedict XVI in NY just last week.
As to the other Christian communities there are two types. The Orthodox are Churches, with upper case C. Catholicism calls them Sister Churches, because they have Apostolic succession as they have preserved a valid priesthood. The other Christians communities are called the Reformation ecclesial communities instead of Churches, because they retain many of their original Catholic elements. Through those Catholic elements they retain communion with the Catholic Church, even though the communion is incomplete or less than perfect, because not all of the Catholic elements are there.
However, the Catholic Church teaches that through the elements that the Reformation communities have preserved, the Spirit of Christ HAS made use of them as a means of salvation and a means to communicate Truth.
What people do with the truths that they receive is a whole other topic. That is really another thread. This falls under the area of hermaneutics. Hermaneutics can be found in the Scripture sub-forum, which is its proper place for discussion.
As to your point on the further you’re removed from the Church the harder it is to know truth. This is not a teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not measure how close or how far ecclesial communities are from her. Only God knows what means of communion these communities have with the Catholic Church, because some of these means are not observable and some are.
For example, Christology is observable. All of the Christian communities share the same Christilogy, that’s one means of communion.
Scripture is observable… All of the Christian communities share the same New Testament, that’s another means of communion.
Baptism is observable. Many of the Christian communities share the same baptism. That’s another means of communion.
The other sacraments are observable. All of the Sister Churches, have the same sacraments with the same degree of validity and liciaty. That’s another means of communion.
Jewish roots are observable. All the Christian communities have the same Jewish roots. Jesus was a Jew and so were the original Apostles. There is another means of communion with Christians and Jews.
The covenant is observable. Alll the Christian communities, the Jews and the Muslims share the same faith in the covenant with Abraham. There is another means of communion.
It would be arrogant to say that only Catholics have any means of salvation. It would be incorrect and against the wishes of the Catholic Church for any Catholic to begin ecumenism through anything other than dialogue on the means of salvation that are found amongst us. This is the mandate of the Catholic Church to all Catholics. We are to begin dialogue, not through discussion of what separates us, but through discussion of what unites us. Once we are clear in what unites us, then we are to share with each other our differences.
It is also a mandate of the Catholic Church that Catholics must be willing to learn from other ecclesial communities. As Catholics, we must be the first to recognize truth wherever we find it and to apply reason to understand it. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have reiterated and clarified what Vatican II has said about our obligations and behaviours in pursuit of unity.
This was exemplified by Pope Benedict XVI during this trip to the USA. He met with and prayed with Jews, Christians and other faiths. He announced that Christ is our hope and accepted and thanked them for their kindness and even asked for their prayers. He invited them to embrace the message of Christ as our hope and he mentioned that there were matters of history and hermaneutics that separated us. He also mentioned the importance of dialogue. He never said that others had to become Catholics. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, not of man.
As to the Reformation communities, he said that the unity had been compromised, not broken, by hermaneutics. We must put aside the antagonisms of the past and deal with the hermaneutics.
The difficulty is that hermaneutics is a very specialized are of study and the average Christian (Catholic or Reformation Christian) is not trained in hermaneutics. We need to leave that part to the Scripture Scholars and Church Historians.
Those of us who are uneducated in hermaneutics, must limit ourselves to preaching by the way we live our faith.
JR
Yes, the Catholic Church can trace its history back to the Apostles, from there to Jesus.
However, the Church teaches that the fullness of faith subsists in the Catholic Church. The Church does not contain the fullness of faith. It may sound like a play on words, but it actually has to do with ontology. The faith holds up the the Church, that why it subsists, as a foundation holds up a building. If the Church contained the fullness of faith, then the building would be holding up the faith. That’s the reason for the proper terminology.
Technically speaking the Catholic faith did not break off from any ecclesial body. However, the Church does teach that the Catholic Church has its roots in the Jewish faith and therefore the two are inseperable. Christ is covert in the covenant with Israel, but still present. After his incarnation, death and resurrection he is overt. So that the covenant is called new, not because it’s a second covenant. The newness is the overtness of what was hidden from human eyes, becomes visible through the incarnation. This is contained in John’s Prologue. The Logos was alays there.
Historically, Catholics are the younger brothers and siters of the Jewish people. This was proclaimed by John Paul II and repeated by Benedict XVI in NY just last week.
As to the other Christian communities there are two types. The Orthodox are Churches, with upper case C. Catholicism calls them Sister Churches, because they have Apostolic succession as they have preserved a valid priesthood. The other Christians communities are called the Reformation ecclesial communities instead of Churches, because they retain many of their original Catholic elements. Through those Catholic elements they retain communion with the Catholic Church, even though the communion is incomplete or less than perfect, because not all of the Catholic elements are there.
However, the Catholic Church teaches that through the elements that the Reformation communities have preserved, the Spirit of Christ HAS made use of them as a means of salvation and a means to communicate Truth.
What people do with the truths that they receive is a whole other topic. That is really another thread. This falls under the area of hermaneutics. Hermaneutics can be found in the Scripture sub-forum, which is its proper place for discussion.
As to your point on the further you’re removed from the Church the harder it is to know truth. This is not a teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not measure how close or how far ecclesial communities are from her. Only God knows what means of communion these communities have with the Catholic Church, because some of these means are not observable and some are.
For example, Christology is observable. All of the Christian communities share the same Christilogy, that’s one means of communion.
Scripture is observable… All of the Christian communities share the same New Testament, that’s another means of communion.
Baptism is observable. Many of the Christian communities share the same baptism. That’s another means of communion.
The other sacraments are observable. All of the Sister Churches, have the same sacraments with the same degree of validity and liciaty. That’s another means of communion.
Jewish roots are observable. All the Christian communities have the same Jewish roots. Jesus was a Jew and so were the original Apostles. There is another means of communion with Christians and Jews.
The covenant is observable. Alll the Christian communities, the Jews and the Muslims share the same faith in the covenant with Abraham. There is another means of communion.
It would be arrogant to say that only Catholics have any means of salvation. It would be incorrect and against the wishes of the Catholic Church for any Catholic to begin ecumenism through anything other than dialogue on the means of salvation that are found amongst us. This is the mandate of the Catholic Church to all Catholics. We are to begin dialogue, not through discussion of what separates us, but through discussion of what unites us. Once we are clear in what unites us, then we are to share with each other our differences.
It is also a mandate of the Catholic Church that Catholics must be willing to learn from other ecclesial communities. As Catholics, we must be the first to recognize truth wherever we find it and to apply reason to understand it. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have reiterated and clarified what Vatican II has said about our obligations and behaviours in pursuit of unity.
This was exemplified by Pope Benedict XVI during this trip to the USA. He met with and prayed with Jews, Christians and other faiths. He announced that Christ is our hope and accepted and thanked them for their kindness and even asked for their prayers. He invited them to embrace the message of Christ as our hope and he mentioned that there were matters of history and hermaneutics that separated us. He also mentioned the importance of dialogue. He never said that others had to become Catholics. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, not of man.
As to the Reformation communities, he said that the unity had been compromised, not broken, by hermaneutics. We must put aside the antagonisms of the past and deal with the hermaneutics.
The difficulty is that hermaneutics is a very specialized are of study and the average Christian (Catholic or Reformation Christian) is not trained in hermaneutics. We need to leave that part to the Scripture Scholars and Church Historians.
Those of us who are uneducated in hermaneutics, must limit ourselves to preaching by the way we live our faith.
JR
P
peary
Guest
J
JReducation
Guest
JReducation;3598466:
in the Catholic Church.
What the Church Militant here on earth ‘subsists’ in is the *total *Church: the other integral parts are the Church Suffering (those undergoing after-death purification) and the Church Triumphant (all the angels and saints in Heaven). That is the concept referred to in the Vatican II document.
The Church does not contain the fullness of faith. It may sound like a play on words, but it actually has to do with ontology. The faith holds up the the Church, that why it subsists, as a foundation holds up a building. If the Church contained the fullness of faith, then the building would be holding up the faith. That’s the reason for the proper terminology.
The Church contains the fullness of Faith - everything revealed by God through Christ our Lord for our salvation.
Historically, Catholics are the younger brothers and sisters of the Jewish people. This was proclaimed by John Paul II and repeated by Benedict XVI in NY just last week.
As to the other Christian communities there are two types. The Orthodox are Churches, with upper case C. Catholicism calls them Sister Churches, because they have Apostolic succession as they have preserved a valid priesthood. The other Christians communities are called the Reformation ecclesial communities instead of Churches, because they retain many of their original Catholic elements. Through those Catholic elements they retain communion with the Catholic Church, even though the communion is incomplete or less than perfect, because not all of the Catholic elements are there.
However, the Catholic Church teaches that through the elements that the Reformation communities have preserved, the Spirit of Christ HAS made use of them as a means of salvation and a means to communicate Truth.
…insofar as they have retained what was originally from the Catholic Church. Many protestant ecclesial communities have rejected the priesthood and, hence, the Real Presence in the way it has been understood in the Faith. They have also rejected the communion of saints and the possibility of a soul’s purification after death. The Word of God has been substituted by the bible rather than the living sacramental Christ. If they practice a valid Baptism, they have been offered a life of limited grace yet have the possibility of being ‘saved’. And, of course, they have our Scriptures.
As to your point on the further you’re removed from the Church the harder it is to know truth. This is not a teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not measure how close or how far ecclesial communities are from her. Only God knows what means of communion these communities have with the Catholic Church, because some of these means are not observable and some are.
I disagree. The Church may not measure the closeness or further-ness of its separated ecclesial communities, but the farther one gets from the Eucharist, the less understanding of Truth and the Faith there is.
For example, Christology is observable. All of the Christian communities share the same Christilogy, that’s one means of communion.
It would be arrogant to say that only Catholics have any means of salvation. It would be incorrect and against the wishes of the Catholic Church for any Catholic to begin ecumenism through anything other than dialogue on the means of salvation that are found amongst us. This is the mandate of the Catholic Church to all Catholics. We are to begin dialogue, not through discussion of what separates us, but through discussion of what unites us. Once we are clear in what unites us, then we are to share with each other our differences.
The Church has never deviated from its original mission: to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world, making disciples of nations and people, through Baptism, and administration of the other sacraments. Also, the Church is true to the revelation given it: there is no salvation outside of Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
No one said that understanding this Truth is difficult, and one doesn’t have to have a degree in rocket science to comprehend the Truth and the Faith. But Faith is a gift. One cannot ‘get’ Faith or ‘do’ Faith. That is the starting point.
I strongly recommend that you read Ut Unum Sint by John Paul II
newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02uu.htm
All of this is clearly explained in this encyclical.
This is why Pope Benedict prayed with both Jews and other Christians. Ut Unum Sint says differently from what you say.
JR
- Status