A few questions about Catholicism

Hi

First of all I think I'd better say that I'm a Protestant, but I'd really like to understand what you believe, so I thought it was best to ask Catholics rather than anyone else. I just have a few questions that have come up from reading some threads in here..perhaps they're silly, but I'd like to understand.

Ok. First, in a previous thread someone posted this:

I thought that Jesus acted as a mediator between us and God, so does this mean that there is a mediator (Mary) between Jesus and his people and then a further mediator (Jesus) between God and us?

Second, in an earlier thread someone mentioned Mary being a perpetual virgin. I haven't come across this term before. Can anyone tell me what it means?

Third, I'm confused about where the whole idea of Purgatory comes from.

Sorry if these are silly questions

Thanks

God bless,
Liesje

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Welcome to the OBOB.

Only Jesus saves our soul. But we do pray to Mary and Saints in that we ask them to pray on our behalf to Jesus. We pray directly to Jesus too.

It's like asking you to pray to Jesus on my behalf. Catholics do not recognize that Christians here on earth and saints in heaven are separated by death. We believe that when Jesus rose from the dead, he conquered death and hell.

I'm sure other Catholics will be able to give you much better answers to your excellent questions.

Regarding the Perpetual virginity of Mary. We believe that Mary was always a virgin.

Purgatory comes basically in how we interpret some of the Old and New Bible Scriptures mixed with Traditional teachings. None of your questions are silly. I'm glad that you are asking them and I'm sure that other Catholics will step up and give much better answers then the ones that I have given here.

God's peace,

Deb

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Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is eternal Life.



"The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society"- Mother Theresa

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion?

As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts... her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.

And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion". - Mother Theresa

Okay - a few points here...

Yes - Jesus is THE mediator between us and God. There is no other. Period.

However, we are also told in Scripture to pray for others, aren't we? We are also told to imitate Christ, right? We are also told to imitate St. Paul, too, aren't we?

Therefore the short answer is that even as Christ is the only mediator for us, so too we are called to mediate on behalf of others in need. If we know of someone in need, we are called to pray to God on their behalf. This doesn't mean we are suddenly taking something away from Christ. No, we are including Christ and acting as we should: as a FAMILY. Likewise, when Paul told us to imitate him, he wasn't suggesting that we should imitate him instead of Christ. No - he was saying that his (Paul's) example should serve us in a way to know how to mediate for others. Imitating Paul and praying for others takes nothing away from the mediating power and authority of Christ.

And when we look for other examples to imitate, there is none better than Mary since she always told us to "do whatever He tells you" - Mary always points to Christ. Therefore there is nothing wrong with imitating her example or in asking her to be our prayer partner when we go to God or to Christ.

That is all it means in a nutshell.

It means she remained always a virgin and never had any other children than Jesus. Just as a side note, when the Bible speaks of the "brothers" and "sisters" of Jesus, that doesn't mean they were necessarily children of Mary. Most likely they were members of the same "clan" that Jesus belonged to. In that culture everyone who was in your given clan was considered a "brother" or a "sister".

This belief (in Mary's perpetual virginity) is one of the oldest Christian traditions and can be traced back in the early Church writings almost to the Apostolic era itself. Both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches (both of which claim to be of Apostolic origin) have always believed in this doctrine. All Christians believed it for many centuries (including the Reformers themselves including Luther and Calvin). It wasn't until just a few short centuries ago that anyone (some - not all - Protestants) denied it.

This CAN be a very lengthy topic. However, the best way to understand the nutshell version is to keep in mind that nothing unclean can enter heaven. The saints who enter heaven will no longer even be inclined to sin, even though while they were on earth - they did sin and were inclined to sin up until their very last day living. Therefore between their life on earth - and their eternal home in heaven - all humans will undergo something called "final sanctification". Nearly all Christians, including Protestants, agree that those in heaven undergo this transformation.

However, the question becomes, will we experience it? Will we be aware of it while it happens? And if so, how will it affect us? Will we suffer when we begin the process of giving up our self-centeredness? Will we suffer as we see our life's works and imperfections being changed and burned up by God's fiery and transforming love? If little things like giving up smoking are so painful for us here on earth, how much more difficult and painful will it be to give up sin - and its illicit pleasures - itself?

We don't know if Purgatory happens instantly or if it involves some duration (the afterlife is outside of time, so who knows how this is measured?), nor do we know if Purgatory is an actual place or just a state of being.

But the Catholic position is that some people (not everyone) will be made to experience their final sanctification (and there are some Bible verses that hint this might be the case), whereas Protestants believe that nobody will ever experience their final sanctification (even thought the Bible does not ever state this anywhere). To Protestants, we are instantly transformed without any awareness of the process itself and without any suffering that may come along with it.

That is the big difference in a nutshell.

Hope that helps - and it is not silly to ask these questions.

God's Peace,

NewMan

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Hi liesje,

Newman is right on. However most of the questions you ask have much more depth too that would be hard for anyone to put down all at once.

For that reason I offer you a resource.

Here is a site from someone (David McDonald - a Christian musician) who has had the same and many more questions and as a result built a helpful site with the answers he found that you also may find helpful:


You can search for a term in the search box or in the left panel click on Site Index and find more answers by category that you may be wondering about Catholicism and if they're not there, come back here and as always, it's our pleasure to help in any way we can.

Peace and God bless.

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Jesus is the Mediator between man and God . . He is the Mediator of the New Covenant in His blood.

That doesn't make Him the ONLY mediator . . . we are all mediators with Him, because of Him. We share in His mediating but in a lessor, subordinate manner.

Mary does as well, but more perfectly and at a higher level than the rest of us . . so when we say that Mary is co-mediatrix, we are not saying she is co-equal to Christ in her mediation, for the world "equal" appars nowhere there ..

"co" simply means "with" . . and we understand that this means nothing more than she works with Christ in His mediation, in a subordinate, dependent manner.

She was always a virgin until she died.

[quotew]Third, I'm confused about where the whole idea of Purgatory comes from.

Sorry if these are silly questions

Thanks

God bless,
Liesje[/quote]

[/quote]

It comes from the scriptures and the early teaching of the Church.

The original bible first canonized in the first centuries contained 7 books yours does not contain. . . they are called today the "deuterocanonicals". They were part of the scriptures the early christians used. They are Old Testament books, and in there we find references to this state.

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Theotokos, my mother, you who bore the Lord our God in your womb, you the gate through which he entered into the world lift my prayers up to your Son. Daughter of Zion, I want to eat of this blessed fruit, the blessed fruit of your womb, who hung on a tree, who's flesh is food indeed and blood is drink indeed. The Cross became the tree of life, the altar of our High Priest and Paschal Lamb. Theotokos! Theotokos! Most blessed of all women, pray for me, a sinner

The deal is why do we pray, why do we believe in it?

if you pray for anyone at all to God -- guess what? You are a meditator, a intercessor. You are standing between them and God, asking God to grant them favor.

Hi, maybe this might help!

http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/index2.htm

God bless!

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Thanks to all of you for your replies. I think I can see where you are coming from a bit clearer now

God Bless,
Liesje

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anymore questions, feel free to ask, no reason to feel silly, there is no shame in not being familiar with the Catholic Church, if you grew up without a lot of Catholics around, how can we expect you to know about us?

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VIVA CRISTO REY

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St.Raphael pray for us
O angel of God, my holy guardian, given to me from heaven, enlighten me this day, and save me from all evil. Instruct me in doing good deeds, and set me on the path of salvation. Amen.

According to the Gospel of Luke, Mary was a virgin when the Angel Gabriel came to her to tell her that she would conceive with the Holy Spirit. As far as I know, Mary's ever-virginity is a tradition which has been made dogma and does not have Biblical authority. However, I believe that it is a nice tradition and one which I subscribe to. The doctrine of the ever-virginity basically means that Mary's womb was dedicated solely to Christ. Mary's womb became a living shrine to Christ. It was a holy of holies. It held Christ's body inside it a bit like the tabernacle which is where the Eucharist is kept in a Catholic church.

The doctrine of the perpetual virginity or ever-virginity also means that the marriage between Mary and Joseph was not a union of the flesh or consummated and could be considered null and void in the Catholic Church. It is not a comment on the nature of marital relations but a special vocation that they were called to based on their discipleship of Christ. Mary and Joseph's marriage was a marriage in law and could be considered to be a form of spiritual marriage (compare to St. Clare and St. Francis of Assisi). It was also the precedent for female and male celibates in Catholicism.

I agree with the doctrine of the ever-virginity but I dislike the Immaculate Conception which is unpopular amongst many Catholics.

Katherine