Confused Catholic

[benedictaoo]

Jim -- (I am directing this to him because my computer won't let me quote, so I will have to try this as best I can)

I want to address a couple of things you said, Jim. I will italicize quotes from you and respond.

First, you must accept Jesus Christ into your life. Go to him and ask for the gift of faith. Be willing to surrender yourself completely, to Him.

And why do you assume I haven't? I have been raised a Christian and actually have a personal relationship with God my Father, as well as His Son, my Saviour. I talk to Jesus often throughout my day, I cast my worries on Him and ask his help, as well as showing my love to Him. I read my Bible and contemplate God's word. What makes you think I haven't accepted Jesus, as you put it?

So, tonight, pray for the gift of Faith. Ask Jesus to come into your life and take it. Surrender your will to Him.

I don't subscribe to the belief system that says every person must sit down and say, "Jesus, please come into my heart/life" and that means they are saved. Sorry, but it conflicts with what I've read personally in the Bible and what I've been taught, and also how I feel.

Although I don't agree with all you've said, Jim, I do really appreciate the insight from another view and thank you for it!

well based on that response, I'd say, you got it going on...

 

[MandoosetheGoose]

Michael, thank you, I believe you have helped me understand this even better.

Can someone tell me more about purgatory? Where does the idea come from? Is it in the Bible? Did Jesus mention anything about it? I like the idea of there being a place for people to atone for what they've done before they just automatically end up in Heaven or Hell. It is a comforting thought because none of us are perfect!

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Hi everyone,

My name is Mandy. I am 23-years-old (turning 24 next month!!) and was born and raised Roman Catholic, but now I am finding that I am confused about whether this is the denomination for me. What I am looking for is advice and insight from fellow Catholics on how you deal with some of the issues I'm wondering about. Please feel free to share your opinion.

I'm 25 (turning 26 this month) and am a convert. My mother was Catholic but left the Church a long time ago (my grandmother would call herself Catholic but she is lapsed) and married my dad, who was raised Lutheran (and they now attend a Methodist church, so we're all over the map). I became a Christian when I was 21-22 as an Anglican (mostly because I met some friends who were, also because it was more ambiguous on the gay issue -- I was in a lesbian relationship at the time). It was as an Anglican that I learned most of the Catholic faith and practice -- liturgy, history, theology, feasts, intercessory prayer, Divine Office, Rosary, etc. I became more and more conservative and crossed the Tiber last year and have learned much more since then.

So thus I will give my personal opinions and limited understandings on these matters.

First of all, how do we as Catholics know that when we pray to saints or the Holy Mother, that we are not doing something wrong? Is there somewhere in the Bible that says not to do this? That is what many Protestants say, and it has me confused. I have always loved praying to Mary, and even had an experience in my youth where I believe She made Her prescence known to me. Praying to Her has always given me comfort. I also love the idea of praying to saints, for example, if I want to pray for my father, I will of course pray to Jesus and God, but it makes me feel good to pray to the patron saint of fathers as well -- but is this blasphemous?

Some Protestants claim that asking people in Heaven to pray for us is blasphemous or even claim it is the same as necromancy (like a Ouija board or Saul consulting a witch to talk to Samuel).

Neither let there be found among you any one that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire: or that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any wizard, nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead. For the Lord abhorreth all these things, and for these abominations he will destroy them at thy coming.

However, there is a big difference between holding a seance and praying the Rosary. When we ask people in Heaven (angelic or human) to pray for us, we aren't asking information of them, which is what witches/New Age spiritists do.

The second issue brought up is the idea that Jesus is the "sole mediator" and we should thus pray to no one else because it would be blasphemous.

For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus:

But this verse only says this when you take it out of context and apply a Protestant spin to it.

I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.

This passage does not say that the only one who can pray for us is Jesus. It says that Jesus is the one who redeems us by His intercession before God the Father. When we on earth pray for other people on earth, we pray to Jesus. When say, "St. Therese, pray for us!" (her feast was yesterday in the Old Calendar, Monday in the New; and she happens to be someone special to me), who is she praying to? Jesus. Praying to Mary or another saint asking them to pray for us is not going around Jesus, it's going to Jesus with the merits (influence) of the saint. St. Therese had a lot better relationship with Jesus while one earth than I do and certainly has one exponentially better now that she is in Heaven. Furthermore, certain saints know ell what it is like to be tempted in certain ways or to overcome difficulties, this is why ask for their prayers and assistance.

A third objection is that the saints and angels are not omniscient and so there is no way they could hear all the prayers said to them, like God can. There are two problems with this objection. First, "omniscience" means "all-knowing" or having "infinite knowledge" like God has but there are not an infinite number of prayers being said even throughout all the world and all history. Think how much information Google has or even right here on CF, now certainly that is a lot of data but is it infinite? No. When our bodies and souls are glorified in Heaven, we can understand and do a lot more than we can here on earth.

A fourth objection is that human beings in Heaven (with the exception of Mary, Enoch and Elijah) do not have bodies and thus do not have ears so how can they hear our prayers, furthermore even if they had super hearing, how could they hear them if we don't speak out loud? It is quite true that a disembodied soul has no new inputs from the body, they have no way of knowing anything except what God reveals to them. God infuses knowledge into their souls, presenting our prayers to them, so they can pray for us. So our prayers actually go to God first, then to the saint and the saint prays to God on our behalf.

If that sounds convoluted, look at this:

And after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Themanite: My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends, because you have not spoken the thing that is right before me, as my servant Job hath. Take unto you therefore seven oxen, and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer for yourselves a holocaust: and my servant Job shall pray for you: his face I will accept, that folly be not imputed to you: for you have not spoken right things before me, as my servant Job hath. So Eliphaz the Themanite, and Baldad the Suhite, and Sophar the Naamathite went, and did as the Lord had spoken to them, and the Lord accepted the face of Job. The Lord also was turned at the penance of Job, when he prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.

God accepted the repentance of Job (v. 1-6), but initially refused the repentance of his friends. He certainly heard their prayers but rejected them. Instead, He told them to bring the sacrifice to Job and Job would offer the sacrifice and pray on their behalf instead. So what we have here is similar to what happens when we pray to people in Heaven.

Why does God do it this way? Because we are not islands, no matter what Simon and Garfunkel say. In the Apostles' Creed we say, "I believe in... the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints..." The communion of saints is that network of the Mystical Body of Christ, it does not only exist on earth but rather in three parts -- the Church Militant (on Earth), the Church Suffering (in Purgatory) and the Church Triumphant (in Heaven). We are separated from the other parts of the Church in a certain way but we are not really divided from them -- there is only one Mystical Body of Christ, not two or three. We are supposed to pray for each other, it increases fraternal charity. It does not matter if the person we are asking to pray for us is our sister or priest or Mary in Heaven.

The Protestant will often claim that it is more effective to "cut out the middle man" and go straight to God. That we do as well. But I don't know about them but I am not a good person; if I have any hope of making it to Heaven, I need all the prayer I can get! We storm Heaven with prayers because God has established a certain limit to when He will respond to our requests (this is how we pray for God to do something without actually changing His mind, since God cannot change by definition but appears to in practice).

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

I am also so saddened, as I'm sure are all Catholics, about the abuse scandals that have come to light in the Church. I realize that all religions will have corrupt individuals, but the sweeping-under-the-rug is what really gets me. I feel like the higher-ups in the Church in this case cared more about keeping the Church in a good light than helping the people who suffered because of this.

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.

I think that the Church is the only thing that is going to make the terrible world we are coming to endurable; the only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that on this we are fed. It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

The scandals and contention that has happened over the past 50-60 years, especially following the Second Vatican Council and the institution of the New Mass is not only par for the course but actually not bad. We have been spoiled by a long run of good popes. There have been popes and many bishops who were simply not Godly men but were in it for the temporal power. There were popes with mistresses (Pope John XII died after he was caught in bed with a man's wife by her husband), there were popes who incardinated their relatives, even some who were rumored to favor Greek love -- allegedly Pope Paul II died because he had a heart attack while being sodomized by a page boy.

But far from being a damning statement about the Church, it is actually further evidence that it is from God. Think about this -- the fact that the Catholic Church has not only existed for 2,000 years but thrived is very good evidence that it is divinely inspired. No other organization has been able to do that -- not even whole countries. China was united more than 2,000 years ago but it has passed through different dynasties and then the Nationalist and Communist revolutions of the 20th c. No empire could last as long as the Catholic Church has, no matter how much money and how many guns they have. They all collapse from the inside out if they are not defeated by another nation first. With how corrupt the Church has been, how many debauched popes there have been, surely if it were not supported by God, it would have collapsed under the weight of its own filth.

Remember that this current purging that is going on is not the first time that the clergy have been riddled with homosexual men and had to be purged. Last time around, sodomy was still a criminal offense and the Church turned the offenders over to the police. Now sodomy is a legally protected "right" and the media has a double standard -- they attack the Church for having homosexual priests who abuse teenage boys and young men but also attack them for criticizing homosexuality and for a supposed "witch hunt" to root out gay priests. The liberal media will claim that men having sex with men has nothing to do with homosexuality but you really do have to look at them funny when they say that. As a gay person myself and a Sociology major and History minor, the role of gay men and women throughout history and around the world has been of great interest to me over the past ten years. The overwhelming expressions of male homosexuality cross-culturally is that of pederasty -- adult men going after teenage boys. In ancient Greece, both boys and girls were considered fair game for adult men when they were about 15-16 and that is what is going on here. It is pederasty -- normal homosexuality -- not pedophilia as the media has dubbed it (very few cases involved young boys or girls before puberty). The problem really is gay men in the priesthood (even though certainly there are gay priests who are totally faithful and celibate).

The Church is the Bride of Christ, a Mystical Body but it is also made up of sinful human beings, sometimes exceedingly wicked ones. Look at St. Peter himself -- Protestants say it was not Peter as a man but his profession of faith that the Church is built on:

Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Peter swears Jesus is the Christ and says that he would die to protect Him:

Then Jesus said to them: All you shall be scandalized in me this night. For it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed. But after I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. And Peter answering, said to him: Although all shall be scandalized in thee, I will never be scandalized. Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, that in this night before the [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] crow, thou wilt deny me thrice. Peter saith to him: Yea, though I should die with thee, I will not deny thee. And in like manner said all the disciples.

But what happens? Peter falls, denying Christ three times, getting scared even of a servant girl. He talked big but when it came time to actually act on his profession of faith, he collapsed and failed. If the Church was founded on Peter's profession of faith, it would have fallen right then. Peter was not the first disciple called (Andrew and Peter were the first, but Andrew is called the "Protokletos" or "first-called"), nor did he love Jesus the most (that was John -- the "disciple whom Jesus loved"), rather he is just a man. A man whose zeal was so great he walked on water... until the wind came up and he panicked. Peter was just a fallible man, one with a number of faults. But it was on this seemingly faulty foundation that Christ built His Church -- on the person of Peter, not his profession of faith, nor any good acts of his. Throughout the Bible, we see that God loves the little man, the one no one expects, who the world disdains or simply ignores -- Moses, the fugitive; David the shepherd-boy; Peter the fisherman -- because it is through the weak that God shows His power, that because they are faulty, weak people, we can see God acting in them.

Also, prayers for the dead -- is this blasphemous? Aren't the dead beyond praying for -- they've already been judged? I mean, I don't see the harm in it, I don't think God really cares one way or another, but is there a point to it?

And so betaking themselves to prayers, they besought him, that the sin which had been committed might be forgotten. But the most valiant Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forasmuch as they saw before their eyes what had happened, because of the sins of those that were slain. And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection, (for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead,) and because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.

The dead have indeed been judged. As soon as a person dies, God judges their soul (can't beat Divine Justice for the "right to a fair and speedy trial"). Those who are condemned to hell go there immediately. But those who are rewarded with Heaven can only go there after they are perfect. If they have been made perfect while on earth, they can go immediately to Heaven. But for most people who are going to Heaven, they are detained in Purgatory in order to account for their venial sins and the remaining ill effects of already forgiven mortal sins. We pray for them in order that God may speed them through this process and that they will not suffer as much in their purification. In return, they pray for us when they reach Heaven (or, according to some, even from Purgatory).

The Catholic faith is complex and simple at the same time. It is simple as God is simple but it is complex as God is complex. God is simple because He has no parts but is all the same thing. But our understanding of God is necessarily complex because we are finite creatures trying to grasp some information to learn about an infinite Being. The Catholic faith is complex if you look at like thousands of doctrines and customs, but it is also simple because it is simply about Jesus. I have said this in other threads, taken from the novel "Lord of the World" by Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson:

Well, what they call the Incarnation is really the point. Everything else flows from that. And, once a man believes that, I must confess that all the rest follows -- even down to scapulars and holy water.

Everything in the Catholic faith and practice is wrapped up in the one idea of the Incarnation, of God made Man. All heresies and sects come out of a misunderstanding of the Incarnation. It is the sects who turn their religions into lists of doctrines, it is the Catholic faith alone which is an organic whole because it comes from God.

 

[benedictaoo]

Michael, thank you, I believe you have helped me understand this even better.

Can someone tell me more about purgatory? Where does the idea come from? Is it in the Bible? Did Jesus mention anything about it? I like the idea of there being a place for people to atone for what they've done before they just automatically end up in Heaven or Hell. It is a comforting thought because none of us are perfect!

purgatory is why we pray for the dead and there are many references to this in the NT.

Like when Jesus said, "he will not be let out until he pays the last penny..."

Purgatory is for folks who never rejected God and his mercy, who repented of their sins but are not perfect in the love of God.

They may have residual effects of sin standing in the way of becoming what Christ redeemed us to be, true children of God, aka, perfect.

Catholics believe we can heal the wounds of the 7 deadly sins we are all afflicted with and actually become perfect like Christ said... "be perfect as God is perfect".

Perfection as in holiness.

We are to become Holy, not just be the same, be dung covered up, but really transform ourselves into something beautiful for God.

Look at it like an alcoholic who stopped drinking. He may never take a drink again but he will always be drawn to drink or have liver damage caused by years of drinking.

He may have stopped and is a new person but the damage from years of it may still be there thus he is not fully healed.

Our committed sins are much the same way. We may have stopped, repented and never did the sin again, but the effects or rather attachment to it, may still be there. Like a man may never look at inappropriate content again, but he may still struggle with looking at women lustfully. Before heaven, he will need to be cleansed of this lust that we all suffer with from the fall because no one in heaven has lust.

Since the bible says, "nothing unclean can enter heaven..." we must purge (the name purgatory) the attachments or effects of sin before we can enter fully the beautifier vision.

 

[pulchritude]

Honestly, for research purposes I think Catholicism For Dummies is a GREAT starting place!

(Not the Complete Idiot's Guide, though...that has some weirdness)

 

[Virgil the Roman]

Recommmended: Purchase either "This is the Faith" by Canon Ripley and a good "Baltimore Catechism" with pictures and scriptural references. Both are quite helpful. I purchased the Baltimore catechism to help learn the Catholic faith. It breaks what the Christ-given Holy Catholic religion is, down into simply and easily understandable parts. It is good stuff!


Prayers for you.

 

[MandoosetheGoose]

Thank you everyone. I appreciate it. I am definitely going to look into all the suggested books to learn more.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I hope you are not suggesting that Goose reads the bible and where ever he/she feels lead- go with it, that "it's all good".

Yes, I'm suggesting that she reads the Bible and where the Holy Spirit leads her is good.

God leads we follow.


Jim

 

[benedictaoo]

Yes, I'm suggesting that she reads the Bible and where the Holy Spirit leads her is good.

God leads we follow.


Jim

wow...

 

[JimR-OCDS]

MandoosetheGoose

And why do you assume I haven't? I have been raised a Christian and actually have a personal relationship with God my Father, as well as His Son, my Saviour. I talk to Jesus often throughout my day, I cast my worries on Him and ask his help, as well as showing my love to Him. I read my Bible and contemplate God's word. What makes you think I haven't accepted Jesus, as you put it?

Please don't misunderstand what I wrote.

In your OP, you never mentioned Jesus, or your relationship with God.

You spoke of religion and your issues with the Catholic religion.

This looked to me like you were trying to find religion, before you've been given faith.

Remember, faith comes from God, it is His gift to us. All we can do is be open to Him who is the source of faith.

I'm happy you have cleared that up, in your above statement.

So, tonight, pray for the gift of Faith. Ask Jesus to come into your life and take it. Surrender your will to Him.

I don't subscribe to the belief system that says every person must sit down and say, "Jesus, please come into my heart/life" and that means they are saved. Sorry, but it conflicts with what I've read personally in the Bible and what I've been taught, and also how I feel.

Without a relationship with Jesus Christ, you will not grow spiritually and in
fact, could easily be drawn away, despite following the tenets of a religion.

I'm using what St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross taught, not protestant theology which BTW, isn't nesessarily wrong, but you seem to be misunderstanding that having a relationship with Jesus Christ, is rooted in the Catholic Faith. Read anything that Pope John Paul II wrote or said, and the Catholic Faith is Christ centered, and so should each member of the Church be Christ centered.

Although I don't agree with all you've said, Jim, I do really appreciate the insight from another view and thank you for it!

We are called toward union with Christ and that union is a gift of love.

Until we develop a relationship with Christ, we will not grow to become like Christ, in that we are able to love God with our entire being and to love others as He loves.

St. John of the Cross describes our relationship with the Beloved, as a relationship of love. It is like a bride(us) and Bridegroom(Christ). In a relationship that is rooted in love, the lover takes on the characteristics of the Beloved. So it is, when we have this loving relationship with Christ. Through His transforming grace, we take on the characteristics of Christ, and that is love.

Reading Scripture is a necessary part of Christian spiritual formation.

A good way to read Scripture is to pray with it. Learn how to do Lectio Divina, if you don't know already.

Unless you develop a relationship with Christ, you'll be following religion, but will fall short in becoming a disciple of Christ.

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

BTW, if you think having a relationship with Jesus Christ a protestant idea, here are some quotes from Pope John Paul II on the subject.


“The proclamation of the Word of God has Christian conversion as its aim: a complete and sincere adherence to Christ and his Gospel through faith. Con­ver­sion is a gift of God, a work of the Blessed Trinity. It is the Spirit who opens people’s hearts so that they can believe in Christ and ‘confess him’ (cf. 1 Cor 12:3); of those who draw near to him through faith Jesus says: ‘No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him’ (Jn 6:44). From the outset, conversion is expressed in faith which is total and radical and which neither limits nor hinders God’s gift. At the same time, it gives rise to a dynamic and lifelong process which demands a continual turning away from ‘life according to the flesh’ to ‘life according to the Spirit’ (cf. Rom 8:3-13). Conversion means accepting, by a personal decision, the saving sovereignty of Christ and becoming his disciple.” Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Mission of the Redeemer (1990) 46.

“Sometimes even Catholics have lost or never had the chance to experience Christ per­sonal­ly: not Christ as a mere ‘paradigm’ or ‘value’, but as the living Lord, ‘the way, and the truth, and the life’ (Jn 14:6).” Pope John Paul II, L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition of the Vatican Newspaper), March 24, 1993, p.3.

“It is necessary to awaken again in believers a full relationship with Christ, mankind’s only Savior. Only from a personal relationship with Jesus can an effective evangeli­zation develop.” Pope John Paul II, speech to bishops of Southern Germany, Dec. 4, 1992. L’Osservatore Romano (English ed.), Dec. 23/30, 1992, pp. 5-6.

Personal Relationship to Jesus According to John Paul II -Welcome to The Crossroads Initiative

Jim

 

[Rhamiel]

Yes, I'm suggesting that she reads the Bible and where the Holy Spirit leads her is good.

God leads we follow.


Jim

thats good, since God hates sin, we can know that the Holy Spirit will never lead someone into heresy or schism, those are horrible sins

 

[JimR-OCDS]

thats good, since God hates sin, we can know that the Holy Spirit will never lead someone into heresy or schism, those are horrible sins

True, providing they're following the Holy Spirit and not their own agenda.

Jim

 

[MandoosetheGoose]

Thank you Jim, I really appreciate the thought you put into your replies and the quotes you've shown me. I do not think a relationship with Jesus Christ is specifically Catholic OR specifically Protestant, I just don't subscribe to the "born again" dogma that many Protestants teach.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Thank you Jim, I really appreciate the thought you put into your replies and the quotes you've shown me. I do not think a relationship with Jesus Christ is specifically Catholic OR specifically Protestant, I just don't subscribe to the "born again" dogma that many Protestants teach.

Although I'm not entirely sure what Evangelicals mean when they say "born again" that is ditinct from Baptism, it seems to me that what we call "conversion" is the same thing. If you read the lives of the saints, there is a moment where it clicks, where they begin to make the faith of the Church their own. There arew two parts ~ conversion of life and conversion of heart. Conversion of life is the first step, where we begin to realize the horror of sin and avoid mortal sin for long periods of time. Conversion of heart grows from that, because we are not kicking the Holy Ghost out again an hour after we leave Confession, our relationship with Jesus can really begin to grow. Read the Interior Castle by St Theresa of Avila.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Thank you Jim, I really appreciate the thought you put into your replies and the quotes you've shown me. I do not think a relationship with Jesus Christ is specifically Catholic OR specifically Protestant, I just don't subscribe to the "born again" dogma that many Protestants teach.

Being Born Again in Catholic theology is that we are born into the new life in Christ at our Baptism.

However, for most of us Catholics, this happened when we were infants and we did not experience the effect of being born into a new life.

For many of us, it doesn't happen until much later in life when we finally giver ourselves to Christ completely.

Nonetheless, the experiences is that the old self dies to the new person who is now given himself over to Christ.

Some Catholics get upset when they hear of people speaking of the "born again experience," but my take is that its because they have never experienced it themselves.

I have, and I know many Catholics who have, so when a protestant speaks of being born again, we understand it from the Catholic experience.

Anyway, I'm sure your heart is sincere and that your desire to follow Jesus Christ is real, otherwise you wouldn't be in this forum asking questions.

Prayer is the key to growing spiritually. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said when asked how to grow in faith, he said, "get on your knees and pray."



God Bless
Jim

 

[Rhamiel]

Being Born Again in Catholic theology is that we are born into the new life in Christ at our Baptism.

However, for most of us Catholics, this happened when we were infants and we did not experience the effect of being born into a new life.

For many of us, it doesn't happen until much later in life when we finally giver ourselves to Christ completely.

Nonetheless, the experiences is that the old self dies to the new person who is now given himself over to Christ.

Some Catholics get upset when they hear of people speaking of the "born again experience," but my take is that its because they have never experienced it themselves.

I have, and I know many Catholics who have, so when a protestant speaks of being born again, we understand it from the Catholic experience.

Anyway, I'm sure your heart is sincere and that your desire to follow Jesus Christ is real, otherwise you wouldn't be in this forum asking questions.

Prayer is the key to growing spiritually. As Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said when asked how to grow in faith, he said, "get on your knees and pray."



God Bless
Jim

Catholics and Protestants might use a little differant vocabulary but the "born agian" experiance should not just be written off by pointing out that we are born agian at baptism, we need too get past the words and see what they are really talking about
sorrow for sin
trust in Christ
peace

this is what we will have in common with Evangelicals if we can get past some issues with words

 

[Virgil the Roman]

Yes, I'm suggesting that she reads the Bible and where the Holy Spirit leads her is good.

God leads we follow.


Jim

While the Holy Ghost does guide, we must submit our own personal judgment and beliefs to Holy Mother Church. Let us not encourage a Protestant attitude with regards to the original poster, please.


Remember, many Prots use the term, "just let the Bible and the Holy Ghost be your guide;" they all come up with contradictory scriptural interpretations and doctrines; using their own private judgment, to supplant the public judgment of Jesus's Holy Roman Catholic Church.

 

[JoabAnias]

Thank you Jim, I really appreciate the thought you put into your replies and the quotes you've shown me. I do not think a relationship with Jesus Christ is specifically Catholic OR specifically Protestant, I just don't subscribe to the "born again" dogma that many Protestants teach.

The underlying difference is that Catholics have always recognized the Church as the visible body of Christ and without a relationship with the Church and indeed, all of heaven in praxis, ones relationship with Jesus will be lacking fullness on an intimate level.

It was Jesus himself who said a house divided cannot stand. Well, Jesus as a house in that metaphor is communion in the Church and so much more.

Rejecting any of His gifts in Church teaching is in effect a rejection of part of Him. Protestant theology only grasps a relationship with Jesus superficially at best because it regurgitates all heresies in rejecting parts of the whole Christ.