-
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
-
CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
Upvote
0
Fully 60% of the words in this Sunday’s Gospel are Jesus warning of harsh, dire consequences for sin — but take hope...
- By Michie
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 0 Replies
The Gospel for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, shows Jesus denouncing sin in the strongest possible terms. It’s no wonder: The world has been destroyed by sin and the Church has been shipwrecked by it — in fact, by men and women who were taught to sin as children.
But Jesus also gives a giant promise of hope for our future.
Fully 60% of the words in this Sunday’s Gospel passage are Jesus warning of harsh, dire consequences for sin.
Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna.” He says the same thing about your feet and your eyes.
This is Semitic hyperbole; it doesn’t mean you should literally maim yourself. But it does mean that it is better to be a blind quadruple-amputee than to be committed to sin. It also means that you should eliminate anything in your life that draws you toward sin, be it your laptop, liquor, or your lifestyle — your friends, pass-times, or secret addictions.
Doctors amputate a limb in order to save the body. We have to amputate sin to save our soul. But we often do the opposite: We amputate our soul to save our sin.
Jesus describes where that will lead us — “to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” This is hell, which as described by Jesus Christ is a place where we are tortured from within, as if by a worm eating our soul, and tormented from outside, as if by fire that scorches us without burning us up, forever.
Continued below.
But Jesus also gives a giant promise of hope for our future.
Fully 60% of the words in this Sunday’s Gospel passage are Jesus warning of harsh, dire consequences for sin.
Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna.” He says the same thing about your feet and your eyes.
This is Semitic hyperbole; it doesn’t mean you should literally maim yourself. But it does mean that it is better to be a blind quadruple-amputee than to be committed to sin. It also means that you should eliminate anything in your life that draws you toward sin, be it your laptop, liquor, or your lifestyle — your friends, pass-times, or secret addictions.
Doctors amputate a limb in order to save the body. We have to amputate sin to save our soul. But we often do the opposite: We amputate our soul to save our sin.
Jesus describes where that will lead us — “to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” This is hell, which as described by Jesus Christ is a place where we are tortured from within, as if by a worm eating our soul, and tormented from outside, as if by fire that scorches us without burning us up, forever.
Continued below.
This Sunday, Jesus Points to Horrible Shame — and Enormous Hope
The Church needs to hear Jesus’s harsh words about sin and abuse — but also about our legacy of love.
media.benedictine.edu
Upvote
0
The secret to a long life.
- By RileyG
She ate 2 pounds of chocolate per week and apparently had only one drop of wine and one cigarette per day.I think extreme longevity is mainly due to genetics. Plenty of people who were vegans and exercised a lot etc, died in their 80s. Whereas others who lead an average lifestyle made it into their 90s and 100s.
One woman named Jeanne Calment who lived to be 122, smoked most of her life and imbibed to the end
I remember her because of a story I read. In France there's a custom that if you agree to take care of an elderly person, you inherit all their stuff. A man made this deal with her when she was in her 90s, and she outlived him. His children had to continue caring for her.
It’s mind boggling.
Sadly she outlived her children.
Upvote
0
Donald Trump Says God Saved Him. He Can Repay God by Defending Life.
- By eleos1954
- OBOB General Politics Forum
- 6 Replies
Paul tells us that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11). All things are subject to God's immediate control. All things happen according to His eternal purpose ... whether through intervention or not.COMMENTARY: If the Republican presidential candidate truly believes that God twice spared him from assassination, he has a moral duty to oppose abortion.
“God has now spared my life … not once, but twice.”
So said Donald Trump this week, reflecting on the failure of two would-be assassins to kill him. The first attempt on his life, in July, came within millimeters of killing the former president. The second attempt, earlier this month, was disrupted by law enforcement before the shooter could pull the trigger. These brushes with death have left the president — and millions of voters — with the firm belief that God himself intervened. As the Trump said last week, “God has now spared my life … not once, but twice.”
Unsurprisingly, the media has jumped on anyone who holds this view, belittling Christians for believing that God intervenes in the world, much less on behalf of Donald Trump. But the criticism isn’t fair. God works in mysterious ways, so it’s fair to wonder if he intervened to let Trump fulfill some larger plan. At the same time, God hasn’t told us what that plan is. Until we get some revelation from heaven, those of us on earth will struggle to discern God’s will.
That duty of discernment now falls to Trump himself. If he honestly thinks God saved him, he should be asking a simple question: What does God want me to do in return?
Continued below.
Donald Trump Says God Saved Him. He Can Repay God by Defending Life.
COMMENTARY: If the Republican presidential candidate truly believes that God twice spared him from assassination, he has a moral duty to oppose abortion.www.ncregister.com
According to His eternal purpose ... we are not privy to knowing if/when He directly intervenes or when He allows things to happen ... (play out without intervening). It's something we simply do not know. He is all knowing ... not us.
Regardless of how something happens ... doesn't matter ... God is in control and one day He is going to right all wrongs. We rest in that.
His ways are higher .... eternal purposes.
Did God intervene with Trump? Maybe ... maybe not .... we do not know.
Upvote
0
I want to make sure we have moved on.
- By visionary
- Messianic Judaism
- 6 Replies
Upvote
0
Upvote
0
Do You Have an Immortal Soul?
- By Michie
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 0 Replies
Woody Allen once said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” Since not dying isn’t an option, Allen advised, “Don’t think of death as an end, but think of it more as a very effective way of cutting down on your expenses.” What (else) happens to you after you die? Nothing? Forever? Or is there life after death? Such questions can be considered both theologically and philosophically.
A theological way to answer the question about life after death is to consider another question: Is Jesus trustworthy? Jesus taught that this life is not the only life—that death destroys the body but does not destroy the soul. As they were both dying on Roman crosses, Jesus told the good thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Indeed, Jesus spoke of heaven and hell on many occasions. So, if Jesus is trustworthy, eternal life is a reality.
C.S. Lewis thought life after death was not just a matter of revelation but also of reason. Lewis wrote, “If we really are the product of a materialistic universe, why don’t you feel at home in a world where we die and disintegrate? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that not strongly suggest that they were once not purely aquatic creatures? Why are we continually shocked and repulsed by death, unless indeed something in us is not temporal.” Lewis held that philosophy, not just theology, points to life after death.
Continued below.
www.wordonfire.org
A theological way to answer the question about life after death is to consider another question: Is Jesus trustworthy? Jesus taught that this life is not the only life—that death destroys the body but does not destroy the soul. As they were both dying on Roman crosses, Jesus told the good thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Indeed, Jesus spoke of heaven and hell on many occasions. So, if Jesus is trustworthy, eternal life is a reality.
C.S. Lewis thought life after death was not just a matter of revelation but also of reason. Lewis wrote, “If we really are the product of a materialistic universe, why don’t you feel at home in a world where we die and disintegrate? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that not strongly suggest that they were once not purely aquatic creatures? Why are we continually shocked and repulsed by death, unless indeed something in us is not temporal.” Lewis held that philosophy, not just theology, points to life after death.
Continued below.
Do You Have an Immortal Soul? - Word on Fire
Edward Feser's latest book, "Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature," is a readable and wide-ranging guide to human nature.
www.wordonfire.org
A Back-to-Basics Catechesis on the Fall of Man...
- By Michie
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 0 Replies
I am compiling a “Back-to-Basics Catechesis” by focusing on Biblical Stories. Here is a reflection on the Fall of Man. A PDF of this reflection is here: THE FALL OF MAN
God had made all things, and He pronounced it “very good.” And yet, something very tragic took place that would shake and alter the very foundations of what God had set forth. That event is call by various titles: Original Sin, the Sin of Adam, The Fall of Man, and so forth. The story begins in the third chapter of Genesis:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Gen 3:1-7)
Two things surprise us right away. Why was there a serpent in the garden of paradise and, why was there a tree from which they should not eat? Both questions have a similar answer: They are there because of human freedom. When God made Adam and Eve He made them, and later us, to be His children, not His slaves. We were not like the animals who live by instinct, nor the plants which simply vegetate. No, we have rational souls, and the glory of our person is that we unite two orders of creation, the spiritual and the physical. We are called to love God as His sons and daughters. But love requires freedom and thus, real alternatives must be available to us.
Why This Tree?
Continued below.
God had made all things, and He pronounced it “very good.” And yet, something very tragic took place that would shake and alter the very foundations of what God had set forth. That event is call by various titles: Original Sin, the Sin of Adam, The Fall of Man, and so forth. The story begins in the third chapter of Genesis:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Gen 3:1-7)
Two things surprise us right away. Why was there a serpent in the garden of paradise and, why was there a tree from which they should not eat? Both questions have a similar answer: They are there because of human freedom. When God made Adam and Eve He made them, and later us, to be His children, not His slaves. We were not like the animals who live by instinct, nor the plants which simply vegetate. No, we have rational souls, and the glory of our person is that we unite two orders of creation, the spiritual and the physical. We are called to love God as His sons and daughters. But love requires freedom and thus, real alternatives must be available to us.
Why This Tree?
Continued below.
The Fall of Man - Community in Mission
I am compiling a “Back-to-Basics Catechesis” by focusing on Biblical Stories. Here is a reflection on the Fall of Man. A PDF of this reflection is here: THE FALL OF MAN God had made all things, and He pronounced it “very good.” And yet, something very tragic took place that would shake and alter...
blog.adw.org
Upvote
0
A new generation of worshippers is longing for a ‘lost type of Catholicism’ — and among young women, veils are making a comeback...
- One Bread, One Body - Catholic
- 12 Replies
At the Catholic Identity Conference last nite in Pittsburgh, Bishop Athanasius Schneider gave a talk. At the conclusion of his talk, he and the conference attendees publicly made a "Profession of Faith in Jesus Christ and His Church as the only path to God and to eternal salvation".
This profession was written by Bishop Schneider in response to the recent public statement by Pope Francis that "all religions are a path to God".
The profession:
We unshakably believe and profess what the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church has continuously and infallibly taught since the time of the Apostles, namely,
That faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God and only Savior of mankind, is the only religion willed by God.
After the institution of the new and everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, no one may be saved by adherence to the teachings and practices of non-Christian religions. Because “the prayer, which is directed to God, must be linked with Christ, the Lord of all people, the one Mediator (1 Tm 2:5; Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24) through whom alone we have access to God (Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18; 3:12).” (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, n. 6)
We firmly believe that “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), except the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead (cf. Acts 4:10).
We believe that it is “contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus Iesus, 21).
We furthermore hold that Divine Revelation, faithfully transmitted by the Church’s perennial Magisterium, forbids affirming:
That all religions are paths to God,
That the diversity of religious identities is a gift of God, and
That the diversity of religions is an expression of the wise will of God the Creator.
We hold, therefore, that Christians are not simply “travelling companions” along with adherents of false religions — which God forbids.
We fervently implore the help of Divine grace for all those churchmen today who, by their words and deeds, contradict the Divinely revealed truth about Jesus Christ and His Church as the only path by which men can reach God and eternal salvation. With the help of divine grace, may these churchmen be enabled to offer a public retraction, required for the good of their own soul and the souls of others. For “not accepting Christ is the greatest danger for the world!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers, In Matth. 18).
By the prayers, tears and sacrifices of all the true sons and daughters of the Church, and especially of the “little ones” in the Church, may the Shepherds of the Church, and first and foremost Pope Francis, receive the grace to emulate the Apostles, countless Martyrs, numerous Holy Roman Pontiffs and a multitude of Saints, especially St. Francis of Assisi, who “was a Catholic and an entirely apostolic man, who set about personally and commanded his disciples to occupy themselves before everything else with the conversion of the heathen to the Faith and Law of Christ.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Rite Expiatis, 37)
We believe and, with God’s grace, are ready to give our lives for this Divine truth pronounced by Jesus Christ: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
remnantnewspaper.com
This profession was written by Bishop Schneider in response to the recent public statement by Pope Francis that "all religions are a path to God".
The profession:
Profession of Faith in Jesus Christ and His Church as the only path to God and to eternal salvation
We unshakably believe and profess what the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church has continuously and infallibly taught since the time of the Apostles, namely,
That faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God and only Savior of mankind, is the only religion willed by God.
After the institution of the new and everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, no one may be saved by adherence to the teachings and practices of non-Christian religions. Because “the prayer, which is directed to God, must be linked with Christ, the Lord of all people, the one Mediator (1 Tm 2:5; Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24) through whom alone we have access to God (Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18; 3:12).” (General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, n. 6)
We firmly believe that “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), except the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead (cf. Acts 4:10).
We believe that it is “contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus Iesus, 21).
We furthermore hold that Divine Revelation, faithfully transmitted by the Church’s perennial Magisterium, forbids affirming:
That all religions are paths to God,
That the diversity of religious identities is a gift of God, and
That the diversity of religions is an expression of the wise will of God the Creator.
We hold, therefore, that Christians are not simply “travelling companions” along with adherents of false religions — which God forbids.
We fervently implore the help of Divine grace for all those churchmen today who, by their words and deeds, contradict the Divinely revealed truth about Jesus Christ and His Church as the only path by which men can reach God and eternal salvation. With the help of divine grace, may these churchmen be enabled to offer a public retraction, required for the good of their own soul and the souls of others. For “not accepting Christ is the greatest danger for the world!” (St. Hilary of Poitiers, In Matth. 18).
By the prayers, tears and sacrifices of all the true sons and daughters of the Church, and especially of the “little ones” in the Church, may the Shepherds of the Church, and first and foremost Pope Francis, receive the grace to emulate the Apostles, countless Martyrs, numerous Holy Roman Pontiffs and a multitude of Saints, especially St. Francis of Assisi, who “was a Catholic and an entirely apostolic man, who set about personally and commanded his disciples to occupy themselves before everything else with the conversion of the heathen to the Faith and Law of Christ.” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Rite Expiatis, 37)
We believe and, with God’s grace, are ready to give our lives for this Divine truth pronounced by Jesus Christ: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
A Profession of Faith in a Time of Apostacy
Profession of Faith in Jesus Christ and His Church as the only path to God and to eternal salvation We unshakably believe and profess what the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church has continuously and infallibly taught since the time of the Apostles, namely, That faith in Jesus...
Upvote
0
James Earl Jones has died, 93
- News & Current Events (Articles Required)
- 24 Replies
Guys, can I just say this, not in a weird way, cos I'd rather be with a woman according to the Bible, but the young James Earl Jones is handsome. He was a good lookin' man from Mississippi. Whew, yeah.
Upvote
0
