THE JOYS OF BEING CATHOLIC

The Joys of the Bible seen Through Catholic Eyes

2012-01-26T10:18:00.002-05:00

The Bible is so Catholic!

As a Protestant, I thought I knew the Bible. After all, I had been reading it since I could read. When I was twelve years old I started collecting Bible translations and even spent my birthday money in 8th grade on a RSV pocket Bible I could carry around in my purse.You see, I love and have always loved Jesus and to me the Bible has always been the infallible, precious, God-breathed WORD! I never placed anything on top of it. I carried it everywhere I went. It was my physical connection to my dearest and best friend. I have worn out several Bibles from reading and underlining them.

Yes, I did indeed know the words written on the page. I understood the historical context and knew the Protestant scholar's commentary as well as had my lexicon and study books all around me as I studied scripture. Since 1997, I arise at 5:30 am each morning to have my special time with Jesus. I even began wearing a veil over my head that year in obedience to Paul's command that women have their heads covered in prayer. I loved obedience to His Word.

Now that I am Catholic, I am humbled by what I read (and what I thought I knew!) --- I was seeing correctly, but I wasn't seeing it all. Like some kind of magic eye picture, I knew what was printed on the page, but it was only when I became Catholic and I was taught how to read scripture that the amazing picture blossomed in front of my eyes and I could see the picture that the words were trying to get at--the meaning and form.

For example, this morning I read I Corinthians 4 in response to a Protestant's argument of sola scriptura and found things I had never seen before. What they don't see, and I wouldn't have seen as a Protestant is this chapter in actuality is imbibed with Catholic theology. This chapter is so Catholic. Lets look at it:

1 So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. (Here we see that not all things were written down. Some people were entrusted with the secret things of God. Not all of us are chosen to be the shepherds. God chose some men to be His authorities.)

2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. (If you are entrusted to be His authority, you are not allowed to slide and live in a presumption. As God's authorities, a faith-alone belief is not enough. You must prove faithful!)

3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. (This is a very interesting passage. Paul, as God's chosen authority is not worrying if others see him as God's authority. He doesn't even judge his worthiness and faithfulness as God's authority himself. He is relying upon a different system than individual or civil judgments.)

4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. (What? Paul says that his conscience is clear but he cannot trust EVEN HIS OWN CONSCIENCE!! Our consciences can deceive us into thinking we are innocent, but in fact we are not! So, if he cannot trust himself, or others who will be be trustworthy and how can any of us know?)

5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

(Again, this is confusing. Paul is saying that the Corinthians are not to judge the faithfulness of God's servants until the final judgement? So then how do we know just who is God's authority? If I can't trust my own conscience to judge, if I am not to judge as an individual then who gets to judge and know if a person is God's faithful servant? This is terribly confusing in a world where preachers claim to teach the Word of God authoritatively each week at the pulpit. We can't judge them and they can't judge themselves? But I thought we were supposed to judge them by their fruit? )

6 Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written."

Note: This is extraordinary in that Paul is not quoting scripture here. He is perhaps quoting from an oral tradition, not necessarily even a Jewish tradition! He may be quoting the pagans. Scholars are unsure as to whom Paul is quoting! So Paul is going outside scripture to say that we should not go beyond what is written. And we are not even sure about which "written" works to which Paul is referring as the quote is not explicitly referring to scripture. And this verse cannot be speaking of the Bible since the New Testament was a couple centuries from being codified. Paul wouldn't be saying don't go beyond the Old Testament or that would be saying that the letter he was writing to the Corinthians would be technically "beyond scripture."

Now this is either a deep irony and Paul is contradicting himself by doing just what he says not to, or he is saying something--not about sola scriptura but about pride!

The entire letter to the Corinthians is urging unity and not pitting Christian leaders against each other. Paul is telling his audience that he and Apollos have applied the test of faithful Christian authority to themselves. Because they are the leaders they have remained faithful for the benefit of those to whom they preach.

In the end, Paul is saying to take Paul's word for it. He and Apollos are faithful authorities, not because of what they themselves think or even what the regular church members think (his audience.) Paul considers himself the authority because God, through the Apostles ordained him--even though he doesn't explicitly say that here. (Although he had already taken the time to explain this in the first two chapters of his letter to the Galatians.)

They are NOT saying to the audience, "go to scripture yourself and interpret it--then don't do anything beyond what is written." That is far from what Paul is saying as he is actually saying quite the opposite. He is saying that when you listen to us--WE ARE TEACHING YOU the meaning of the saying "don't go beyond what is written."

The meaning of the quote is being learned not from scripture itself but from the life and teachings of Paul and Apollos. You as sheep are learning from the shepherds --they are the examples of it and you then follow the shepherd’s example! The shepherds are to be an example of not going beyond what is written. It is not taking away our shepherds, but our shepherds are supposed to show us what it means.

This text is by not pitting sola scriptura against church structure and church authority, in fact, it supports it!

The context is pride--pridefully pitting one shepherd against the other--Paul against Apollos. To pit God's appointed shepherds against one another is what is beyond what scripture teaches! It is not saying that everything God's shepherds teach must be written in the Bible and it is not setting up the doctrine of sola scriptura or that the Bible is the final authority.

Of course we know the Bible is an authority to God's leaders--for Paul says so himself to Timothy. (II Tim. 3: 16) But this passage cannot be used to prove sola scriptura. He will continue to back up his own authority as we continue the chapter.

Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.

Don't have sects....

7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

The sheep received it from the shepherd! No one can brag that they received it themselves either from their own imagination or directly put there from the Holy Spirit or even from a book!

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings--and that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you! 9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. 14 I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children.

Here Paul is taking on father role! He is the father of his Christian children. This is not pointing to the Bible as usurping or removing his position as leader.

15 Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Why we Catholics call our priests "father."

16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me. 17 For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. 18 Some of you have become arrogant, as if I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. 20 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. 21 What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?

Does this sound as if Paul is authorizing sola scriptura? No, Paul is not sending a book to lead them but a man. Paul gives the church leaders the authority. How can he do that? Because God appointed Paul and anointed him through the apostles. Paul wasn't self-appointed, but God appointed through the established church.

__________

As I read scripture, I now see that at every turn it supports Catholic teaching. This example is a daily occurrence--seeing a deeper and broader, a more historical and logical approach to scripture. Not on my own, but through the teachings of the church. After all, they are 2000 years old and we have the privilege of standing on the shoulders of theological giants. The view is so much clearer from here!

PRO-LIFE!

2012-01-23T12:56:00.000-05:00

FATHER, most glorious creator of Life, may we, in union with your sacred heart and your Mother Mary and all the saints in heaven and on earth, fall on our knees in repentance for this most deplorable wickedness--abortion.

Change us father, each of our hearts so that we may love life, love your precious gift of life in our babies.

Give our fathers courage to be fathers and take on the responsibility of their seed.
Give our mothers mercy upon the fruit of their wombs.
Give those of us who know the depths of this sin to speak bravely.

May we place our right to happiness at the feet of your Cross and sacrifice that we may become holy.
Amen

Calling All REAL Men to the Catholic Church

2012-01-18T17:56:00.005-05:00

Michael Voris is brilliant. I have to admit, I have been talking about this very topic for years, so of course I would say that. But it is time someone have the guts to say this. Bravo!! I for one, as a very feminine and happy woman, would love to see men become masculine again. Take charge, take responsibility. I like men to be men. And God needs men to be men. Let's let them recapture the quest, the epic, combative struggle to become men!

This is a series of five episodes of the Vortex, here are the first four:

We'll Join the Jesus Vs. Religion Fun!

2012-01-14T14:24:00.003-05:00

Okay, here's the original. This sincere young man who has found a great relationship with Christ, now is using his zealotry to bash religion. Who can blame him? But I love his passion and I am praying that with some spiritual maturity he will not pit God against His Bride. In the end, we need to talk about this stuff, so glad he brought it up.

Turn this one way up as it is hard to hear...

Untitled from John Hollowell on Vimeo.

This one is a little slow but I love chanting.....

Other responses:
http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/
http://youngandcatholic.net/2012/01/why-i-love-jesus-and-religion/
http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2012/01/jesus-v-religion.html
http://opinionatedcatholic.blogspot.com/2012/01/catholics-look-at-why-i-hate-religion.html
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=24948
http://www.stjohnsstockton.org/?p=292
http://shrove.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/ill-communication-about-religion/

A Cruel Silence

2012-01-13T11:39:00.002-05:00

Heaven Now

I have always had this incredible peace about God’s merciful sovereignty.

Most of my life, I have not worried about my salvation or that of my family’s. Sure, for a year or two in Adventist elementary school when we studied last-day prophecies and the teachers read terrorizing fiction, I would be afraid that one day I would break under the torture of bamboo shoots thrust up my fingernails as my little sisters and brother were sliced into pieces before my pried-open eyes to get me to renounce the Sabbath and go to church on Sunday...and then I would be eternally obliterated. You know, the average Adventist fears. But my parents always downplayed SDA prophecy and told me not to worry about it. So I trusted them and didn’t.

For the vast majority of my life, I have believed God is incredibly good and powerful and has the world in the palm of His hand. Shoot, I even think God is going to be really merciful towards atheists. I am simply not worried about heaven and whose going to spend eternity in hell. The thought doesn’t enter my spiritual radar system.

My heart is for the here and now. In a sense (and don’t think I am being theologically dogmatic or clarifying a personal doctrine) but in a general sense, I think heaven and hell are going on at this moment. The seeds of heaven and hell, anyway.

When a person is full of joy in the Lord and their life is at peace, I figure they are already inside heaven. They have “made it” and I am not worried about what happens to them after they die. I don’t have this need to make someone think like I do doctrinally, believe the way I do in specific theology. I trust God will bring them along the path to where they need to be--including me!

Now, I am utterly convicted, convinced and on fire that the Catholic Church is the kingdom on earth and I am passionate about sharing the beauties of Christ I find within her. But I do not think if you reject Catholicism, Protestantism, Christianity or even God that you are necessarily going to hell.

Absolutely, Christ has commissioned us to go and spread the gospel. And I believe that if we have faith in Him, God is going to save us. But I also think God has mysterious ways of saving that He alone knows and its none of our business. He is sovereign. We have a job to do in spreading the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and that is that. God saves and He alone saves and if He gives someone salvation outside of the system He gave us, we are not to question it but rejoice! After all, if billions of aborted babies couldn’t have a personal faith that saves, I doubt they are all going to an eternal hell. God has His ways of saving through Christ Jesus that He doesn’t explain to me and I am so happy He does! For it gives me great hope, for what seems in my eyes, hopeless.

Catholicism teaches us that we can always have hope. Always.

Back onto my point that I am having a hard time getting to:

A Cruel Silence

The truth--the truth--is important, not just because of an eternal home in some nebulous future, but for us--right here, right now. Truth sets us free from sin. We Christians seem to have it all backwards.

Christians today are afraid of speaking truth because of this whole idea of being nice and tolerant. Making people feel bad seems to be the ultimate sin in our society. That is the very opposite of what is real.

The truth is what actually makes our lives worth living. It is lies that oppress us and enslave us. People are miserable because they have fallen for lies. We are certainly not being nice by keeping quiet. That fear of being judged “mean” or “bigoted” is a bullying spirit of the ultimate slave master--our greatest enemy--Satan. He is attempting to swallow us up in misery. His strategy is to seduce us, addict us to sin, exploit, tyrannize and dominate us. Satan’s plan is to reduce us to beggars, make our souls disappear into the cosmic nothingness and convince us nothing has meaning.

Christ, on the other hand, wants to bring us to the point where we are towering saints and princes of the universe. His desire is that we are perfect, like His Father in heaven is perfect--where we have the capacity to endure beauties beyond our imagination. Where we can fly into the sun and not be burned. Our immortal bodies, shed of their restrictive sin, will bi-locate, hover, time-travel, raise the dead--right now. Saints have done this and more! The cartoon superheroes are shadows of what God has placed deep within our psyches, the craving to be saints!

The lie is that we can’t get there or that we can get to a facade of it by wielding the power of money, or in fame or influence. We falsely believe in an immortality brought on by being successful on human terms. God has something vastly better.

The truth is being kept from us so that in this life we can begin the eternal hell, living a miserable damnation of confusion, chasing ephemeral pleasures, searching for heaven within the doorless, windowless prison of hell itself.

I continue to speak against lies because they darken our path and eventually blind us. The Father of Lies reduces us to beggars, and makes us love our filth, cling to that which is slaughtering us and defend with screeching shrieks that which is eradicating our very existence.

The Father of Lies has convinced a world of Christians that life is not worth fighting for and has brainwashed us into an assembly-line, zombie existence of silently waiting for death. Don’t look, don’t see for it is too painful, too ugly. So we put our calloused hearts on auto-pilot, watch the inflight movie and hope heaven comes soon.

Satan has so cruelly beaten us with his lies that we have, as a Christian culture, submitted to his loathing of true authority, consented to Satan’s despising of God’s rituals and rites that keep us focused on Christ and unify us. Our enemy has glutted our churches with untrustworthy leaders so that we will hated religion itself. He has puffed us up with an arrogant and false self-righteousness that lustfully craves the rights and freedoms to sin!

And God help anyone who dares to voice that our Christian appetite for sin is evil.

So, we play nice and stand firm on the false premise that as a Christian we must fight for the rights of others to kill their souls in sin. Or equally bad, we say nothing-- trying to make sure people like us.

Make no mistake--Lies demand a cruel silence.

Truth cuts us free from the bondage of sin, awakens us and makes us sensitive, painfully sensitive to wickedness. There is this strange and mysterious, harmonious contradiction of Truth that overwhelms us with joy and can, at the same time, sear our hearts with the tragedy of sin. Our capacity to experience life expands till we think we cannot bear either the ecstasy of God of living with us, within us in our current human flesh nor bear the sorrow we see. Yet miraculously, as we behold the Lamb of God in humble obedience, He gives us the grace to press on from glory to glory! And we taste the goodness of the Kingdom. We become like Him!

My soul’s desire is that we all can experience heaven now, today, this minute. But it cannot be reached when our lives have accepted hell and sin and lies.

Joining the Battle for Truth

Though the war for the Kingdom has been won with Christ, the battle for your eternal home and your earthly joy is fiercely waging as you make daily decisions about what you will read, what you will watch, what you will think, what you will say and do.

There is no passive Christianity, no conscientious objection status in this, all Christians, every single one within the body of Christ has been drafted into this battle of living as saints today so that you will influence the souls of your neighbor. The demonic excuse, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” are words from the abyss that are sucking precious souls into her bosom of fifth. Pornography, fornication, adultery, sodomy... The list is endless of the seductive, vulgar entertaining comedy of abominations that intimidate us into silence.

It is a great and glorious act of mercy when someone loves you so much they are willing to reach out and sear you with truth.

It is a great and glorious act of mercy when you love someone so much that you are willing to reach out and sear your brother in Christ with truth.

Christians will tell me to lighten up, but when you don’t courageously confront the sins you protect, that are polluting your own soul, you will be too cowardly to condemn the wickedness of our culture.

So you will allow your light to dim. You will become so small in your thoughts, so self-deceived that you will brush off the responsibility of love as if it were dandruff on your shoulder.

There are those who do want to get involved in the battle against the culture of death, and they don’t know what to do. So they get involved with a political candidate (which I am completely for, mind you--get politically involved for the sake of our country!) But in the end, political victory will only stem the tide. It cannot do what a country of Christians can do as individuals--which is save our youth from a life of pride, self-centeredness, immaturity, disobedience, confusion, isolation, loneliness, divorce and misery.

Battle Gear

We must become saints. Saints who have conquered sin, not for the salvation of our own souls, but to give a reality to Christ--right now. To bring the power of Christ to a nation that is hungering for truth and authenticity.

Love others enough to become a saint for them.

Cast away your own selfishness and desires, place your rights at the foot of the Cross and be Christ to the world so that they can feel His love, His concern, His nearness.

You will not receive love in return, you will receive pain. But some of those Roman soldiers who scourged Christ, some of those who screamed out the loudest “crucify Him!” were the very ones who fell to their knees at the feet of the Apostles and would later stand, head held high, while a colosseum of scoffers giddily watched them being torn to bits for their faith.

And some of those watching the martyrs in the colosseum would themselves be crushed by the weight of the cross and later join them in facing down death for their Lord. This is the story of the early church. Saints overcoming in the face of terrible slaughter, so that others will find the strength to overcome.

This is not about a work-based salvation, this is about love. Loving others enough to boldly proclaim the truth, to be truth, to live truth so that others will look at the strength of our love and have the audacity to repent and be saved--live as someone saved.

Fighting sin in our lives is not about a self-centered fear of hell, but to save others from the doom of today, the agony of the results of their sins they commit, the wrong choices they make that ruin the gift of life God has given them as they walk this earth!

Our silence is a crime against our children, blinding them, enslaving them to make the same mistakes and lead the ruinous lives we see all around us. And if you don’t see the sin in the insidious little lies we tell and hear daily, the arrogant flouting of wickedness, the collapse of our culture, then may God have mercy on your soul. You have closed your heart to the cries of God’s creatures.

Many will agree with my assessment, many of you disagree but almost all will read this and then click back to your jobs and your life with an impenetrable apathy, the church of Laodicea, and will draw back into a victimhood mentality and lament about how evil the world is getting.

But I know there are those of you already in the epic battle doing amazing things for God and pressing onward to perfection out of love for your neighbor. Your prayers will avail much and the heavens will open one day, clearing away the rubbish of lies and you will receive endless blessing from those who your fight for the right gave them the courage to choose a better life here.

Your courage to face down the tsunami of lies, though it left you alone, battered and bleeding, was watched by at least one pair of innocent, little eyes--who stood against temptation and made the right choice and saved him or herself from being enslaved by sin-- because they saw God in you.

Question For Protestants

2012-01-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

If the Holy Spirit interprets scripture for us personally, why am I considered wrong for following the Holy Spirit into the Catholic Church?

You Can't Get There From Here....

2012-01-08T15:18:00.012-05:00

It started at a railway station outside London when we were recently traveling abroad. We had this amazing train pass that was supposed to let us travel all over for one low price. We wanted to go to Stonehenge (or something like that) and the man in the ticket booth looked up at us and said with a thick accent, "ya cahn't get theh from heyah..." Arthur and I looked at each other dumbfounded. What did that mean? We can't get to this hugely important historical monument from this city? It is impossible to achieve our transportation goals from this spot? What on earth? (We can hear so many of you remark."Yep, the give-up mentality of all those European socialists.")

From Britain to France to Austria to Italy we would occasionally get that reply. The phrase refused to register in our brains even after this concept was translated to American. It only meant that within the boundaries of that particular railway system, there is no direct route. You either have to change to a different rail system, make transfers on theirs or you would have to add walking, a bus, or auto to the plans.

I have been tempted to use that phrase when speaking to my Protestant friends when they accuse the Catholics of being idolators or rejecting scripture. I usually pause with my mouth gaping open and can't think of anyway of answering it in a short timeframe. And the fact is you really can't get there from here... because we do not use the same "rail system." Our basic understandings and ways of getting to the same place differ quite a bit and if we try as Catholics to use the Protestant systems of understanding Christianity, we find it extremely difficult to connect.

As Catholics we have to lay out some groundwork in order for our Protestant brothers to understand where we are. We cannot start out by answering their questions about Mary or the Inquisition or celibacy of the priesthood. We should just reply "you can't get there from here." There is no direct way of reaching understanding when you start in the middle of the story. You will never get to the fullness of truth when you debate or discuss theology on faulty premises. You have to begin with the premise of Catholicism and then go out from there.

So, what premises should we make clear before engaging? Unfortunately there are several and each take a tremendous amount of explanation. Catholicism, being 2000 years old, isn't good at soundbites. I think of Treebeard's quote in Lord of the Rings, "You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say." That is pretty much Catholicism.

Because it is so complex to explain, often Protestants give up and say,"Shouldn't this be simple? Isn't the gospel simple?" To them I reply, if Japanese is your native tongue it seems simple to you, but when you try and teach it to someone speaking English, it can't be learned in a few minutes. Catholic to Protestant isn't quite that difficult, but at times it seems like it.

If a person, especially a Fundamentalist, really wants to understand Catholicism you will have to prove a few premises first before getting into specific theology.

SIDE NOTE: There is also another problem. Lots of Protestants will say they are interested in what you believe but really just want to open up discussion so they can correct you and bring you to their understanding of the gospel. When a Protestant asks questions, before saying a thing, ask them if they believe Catholicism was/ is/ or will be the Whore of Babylon. If they start carefully chiseling their words and break eye contact or admit they do, don't even waste your time getting into a discussion. If they honestly believe that the Catholic church is the Whore, then in their minds, the Catholic Church is unredeemable. Whatever logic, scriptures, history you bring up will be passed over. You and your church are untrustworthy and on the Devil's side. If you believe God wants you to try and convince them it isn't, that Catholicism is the Bride of Christ, bless your heart and peace be with you. Let me know if it works.

If however, you believe the person is truly desires and understanding of Catholicism start with these premises:

Authority

Catholics reject Sola Scriptura.

Catholics do not believe in an invisible Kingdom.

Our source of authority is not a book. For Catholics, our source of authority for salvation and living as a Christian is the Word of God. The Word of God is what proceedeth from the mouth of God and it is manifested threefold. The Word of God is breathed in oral form and when it is breathed it became:

One: Flesh--Christ, the Word. When salvation was accomplished on the Cross, Christ returned to heaven and left his New Covenant body on earth. We, Christians are His visible body, His visible kingdom on earth. The church, as His Body, has His authority to pass down, protect, and interpret what He taught them. The two means by which His Church protects what He told them is:

Two: Oral tradition and Three: Written tradition. The oral form came first, it is God-breathed and infallible, inerrant. Some of that was later recorded with small symbols on papyrus or vellum and became the written form of God's word. Both are equally important. God uses the same miracle to protect His truths in oral form as in written. There is no magic in those squiggly lines on paper. They are the Word written. The source is the miracle, not the book itself. God is inerrant and that inerrancy is recorded in scripture.

What God spoke is authoritative. Catholics do not pit the Apostles' written words against the words they spoke and never wrote down. They are both God's word. The Catholic church obeys all God's words. Catholics reject Sola Scriptura because Jesus never taught it, nor did His Apostles, disciples or their successors. The inerrant, infallible, God-breathed scriptures support Catholic teaching and they prove Catholic teaching.

God's Word was given to an organized, visible church.
The visible church preaches orally and having written down a portion of what they preached in gospels and letters, later compiled those writings, translated them into 120 different tongues in the first few centuries and continues to protect and disseminate them.

God bestowed this visible, organized church with the titles: The Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven. A major theme of the written word is the story of God's visible, organized people. Indeed, His New Covenant Kingdom is an intrinsic part of the gospel. For John came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven!

And actually, there is no such thing as an invisible church. For if the church was invisible, there would be no Bible. Scripture was birthed from the New Covenant visible, organized church begun by the Messiah.

Jesus Christ commissioned His disciples and endowed them with His authority to bind and loose and preach the gospel. This God-authorized body of shepherds interpret scripture in unity with the Holy Spirit. Christ taught against private, individualistic interpretations of faith and morals.

The Catholic Premise is that we answer to God--all God's words. Because we are His Bride we would never contradict those we wrote in the Bible. Never.

Your Protestant friend will at this time want you to prove this to them in scripture. Explain to them that their insistence that it be in scripture would be comparable to telling Michelle Obama that she must prove all she knows of the president by pointing to the page and line written in his memoirs. That will sound ridiculous to a Catholic.

This clearly shows the problem with debating Catholicism. We don't use the same system and you can't get there from here. We cannot agree on the premise of Sola Scriptura or the premise of an invisible church or that God gave us the right to a private interpretation of faith and morals. Their only final source of all truth is what they personally believe the Holy Spirit is showing them in scripture. We teach what God taught us-- through tradition, which later was partially written down.

So it is futile to discuss or debate Catholicism with someone who doesn't believe your premise and it is wrong for us to argue upon their false premise. In general, the fullness of truth cannot be established upon a faulty premise. (Although, God can do miracles--so I won't say it can never happen!) Let the Protestant know gently that you are not trying to convince them, you are simply opening up a window into Catholic understanding, so there can be mutual respect.

If they are willing, for the sake of understanding their Catholic brothers and sisters (and God bless them if they are) to take our railway system to truth, then you can begin other important premises:

Covenantal Unity

The Kingdom of Heaven

After they understand the premise of our authority, we can show how the Bible does indeed point to the Catholic Church as the Kingdom of Heaven. Then you can begin taking them through scriptures showing how, when you see it through Catholic interpretation, it does indeed support Catholic teaching. Show them how God came to fulfill the Kingdom of Heaven through His promise to David and establish an actual kingdom--organized with leadership: apostles, teachers, etc. It is a unified visible body. It began as a seed with the Apostles and will continue forever. Then you can point to the story of how God gave the keys of this kingdom to Peter and how it was foretold by Isaiah in chapter 22. Get to know the story of your church so you can then explain it using scripture to a Protestant.

During all Catholic explanation of our interpretation, the Protestants will, naturally upon their premise, believe the Holy Spirit brought them to their particular understanding and they will think we are twisting scripture. All we can do at that point is agree to disagree. But if they are willing to listen (understanding the Catholic worldview that we receive truth via God through His Apostles and the Bible records that infallibly) then continue with other vital Catholic premises that differ from Protestants.

Covenantal Salvation

The model of salvation is family covenant, not simply a legal exchange. You are born again at baptism, you enter the family of God and you are indelibly marked as a child of God. You can chose to disregard your inheritance. When you run from the kingdom, you become like the prodigal son who is in need of returning to the father’s house. Catholics see the process of salvation as a family.

There is not a moment when you are saved just as there is not a moment you were perfect to your parents. You were seen as perfect when you were born, then as a three-year-old, you became more perfect when you came home and showed your parents your first crayola picture. You are perfect, becoming perfect and will be perfect as you grown and mature and make mistakes and see the mistakes and feel sorry for them and repent. You never loose your status as children under any circumstance. But if you leave your family forever, you will not get your inheritance. God will not disinherit you, you choose to be disinherited. That is your choice.

The Body of Christ

Catholics see no difference between the church and Christ, they are one! What Christ does, His church does. They are one body therefore what Christ did, the Church did. The Catholic Church makes no distinction between Him and itself. When Christ said He is the way, the truth and the light, the Catholic Church believes that because they are His physical body on earth, one with Him, that they are the way, the truth and the light. If no one can come to the Father but through Him, the church teaches that no one can come to the Father but through His Body! We are one and God's true body on earth. Discover all the Biblical texts that support this and know them. They are dozens of Catholic apologetic websites that can help you.

(Side Note: Now I know I opened a can of worms here, because the Catholic Church does pass on the Apostolic teaching that one can be saved who never belonged to the Catholic Church.... we'll deal with that another time.)

Because we are God's body on earth, we have been given the responsibility of spreading to the world the means of salvation. The Catholic church believes God gave them the keys to heaven. But not to hell. Because we believe God is sovereign, we never pronounce someone soul is in hell, no matter who they are. God judges mercifully. Though Christ gives us a sure way to spend eternity with Him and the church tells the world what that is, God is never bound to any laws He creates for man. God saves. It is not formulaic.

The church is not individualistic but communal. As the Trinity is communal, so every thing from marriage, family, community, church, heaven and earth are communal in nature--not isolating. The structure of salvation is communal. We are saved with the help of others. And no sin is personal and no good deed is personal. All we do affects the church. We are all intertwined. It is extremely difficult for Americans to understand this....

Matter is Good

The World is good. Never did God reverse that pronouncement even when He cursed the ground. God’s creation is and always has been good! And it was even made better when Christ took upon Himself the curse and lifted it through His suffering, death and resurrection. Therefore all the material world is good. Go hug a tree... take a picture of a sunset and put it on your wall. Catholics worship the Creator using His creation. After all, God used His creation by becoming matter in order to save us. So it is naturally that we would use matter to worship Him. Rites, rituals, relics--these all use the material to teach us of God and to help us reach perfection.

The Bride of Christ

The Enlightenment worldview dictates that we be the measure of all things. This right-to-judge theology employs a personal conscience-based interpretation of scripture. Catholics premise differs in that it teaches the fullness of truth is not placed directly into man via the Bible and the Holy Spirit. The Catholic church teaches that we humans must be taught. The fullness of truth is given to His Holy Bride to disseminate.

God's Sufficiency, not Biblical Sufficiency

The Holy Spirit (promised to the church) enlightens the mind and heart of the hearer--through the Bible, through His Bride and through nature. The Holy Spirit is sufficient to use anything to reach a person for Christ. The Bible alone isn't sufficient, neither is the church, neither is nature. But all is sufficient when used by the Holy Spirit for our salvation! And the Holy Spirit has chosen the Bride to bring the fullness of truth to the world.

Mysteries of Faith

The mysteries of God are so deep that often a person must receive the Eucharist for years before his mind can comprehend some doctrines. There is no room for judging others. The mysteries of God are revealed by the Holy Spirit and prideful ideas such as "an understanding of Christian history will automatically make you a Catholic" or Protestants who claim their interpretation is "the plain reading of scripture" is not being charitable. No matter how brilliant your education, nor how high your IQ, nor the numerous times you have read the Bible, you cannot understand scripture unless you are taught by the Holy Spirit. God uses nature, the Holy Written Word, Tradition, people, numerous ways of teaching us. Be careful of judging others who do not understand. And if someone isn't getting "it" as quickly as you think they should...humble yourself and remember that understanding is a gift of grace.... not intelligence.

For the Catholics, the primary and greater reality combines both the physical and the spiritual. The realities of the Trinity are mirrored in marriage, the real is the Trinity and the symbol in flesh is marriage. Marriage isn’t an afterthought that God decided "this looks a lot like what I am trying to express, I think I will use the marriage relationship to explain to humans about the Trinity." No, marriage was foreordained and created for the very purpose of understanding the Trinity and the relationship between God and man. Again, food was not created merely for sustenance but we were made to be hungry and thirsty, filled and satisfied, to point to the better reality found in hungering and thirsting after righteousness and satisfaction in Christ. Our bodies were created for the Eucharist.

The world will look at Catholicism and think it is contradictory: How can you claim to be based upon reason and fully embrace the world of science and also accept the supernatural? How can you claim your salvation to be totally based in God's sovereignty and grace, and still accept free will and the merits of our works.... Ahh!! God is very clever and does indeed do these things and more.

(One of the most amazing things about being Catholic is that you always have the saints to follow! Pride cannot enter into your mind--you cannot think you know anything at all when you study the giants of the Catholic church. It humbles even the most scholarly of Catholics. When one can bi-locate then they can claim to be spiritual! Read St. Augustine, St. John of the Cross, St. Anselm, go live like Mother Teresa. Yeah, we have a lot to learn!)

That is more than enough to keep you busy for months just explaining the premises of Catholic thought. But once they understand, explaining more specific dogmas, doctrines and discipline will more easily flow. For example we can tie the Marian dogmas to the Queen Mother of the Davidic Kingdom. Communal faith, indulgences, penance all flow from the idea of the unity of the kingdom.

Most Protestants will draw their theological sword and expect you prove each point to them from scripture alone even after you explain that God did not require everything to be written. But be very patient and let them know each time that they are arguing upon a different system of thought than Catholics and we don't look to the Bible to provide all the answers.

Truly, have courage when you speak as a Catholic. In the end, even though it is not our sole authority, the Bible comes to life and reaches down deeply into the heart and soul when you understand it from a Catholic perspective. After all, it should, it is her own story. And once you understand these premises all the rest will become understandable--you will be able to "get there from here!"

The Crucified Rabbi

2012-01-02T07:30:00.001-05:00

Musings on our Rome Pilgrimage, 2011

2012-01-01T08:28:00.000-05:00

I am going to sound like an old person.... Reflecting and sounding as if I have some worldly wisdom to impart here... Sorry if this comes across that way, but it is just my personal reflecting upon the last three months and I have learned and grown in wisdom.

Arthur (my husband) and I lived for almost two years in Seattle, we've lived near DC and in many different places in the US because for the last ten years I have traveled with him in his work. Therefore we have gotten to know the large cities of the US. These last three months we have hit several of the main cities of western Europe: London, Edinburg, Paris, Lyon, Geneva, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Rome, Barcelona, as well as little towns also.

What I have discovered is that the entire world isn't happy. There is just a black cloud of trouble, of discontent, a beneath-the-surface boiling of restlessness and resentment. The world isn't smiling--there isn't even the pretense of a smile to please tourists anymore. People are openly unhappy.

And I talked about it... I talked to every cab driver, every cleaning lady, every hotel clerk, sales clerk, pastor, priest and casual conversation with other tourists who could understand even the most modest amount of English words. I wanted to take the vital signs of the world (nurse lingo for my husband) and see how it was doing.

The western world is depressed.

We all know it in our hearts. We all have such troubles in our lives and I can tell you first hand that everyone else seems to be having big problems too.

Symptoms:

Everyone thinks this is a money problem. Con artist beggars have flooded the west from the east. From Paris south, you are continually and aggressively harassed by fake beggars--who are hardly even attempting to hide their deceit as they will occasionally let fake crippled feet fall out from under their blankets exposing their real legs tucked under. One girl (rather plump) was playing video games on her iPod as she lay prostrate on the ground in tattered clothing pleading the mercy of the passersby for money to eat on.

Then there are the merchant salesmen who stand around every single famous monument trying to sell you cheap children's toys and scarves and trinkets and roses. They line the side walks so you have to say "NO!" as they follow you trying to get you to purchase something over and over and over until you are just exhausted from the constant bombardment. No one seems to care if their cities are being littered by garbage or by fake beggars (although for some they truly ARE beggars. They don't have jobs but are professional beggars. So they would indeed go hungry if people didn't give them money.)

There are some young pathetic girls who carry around babies and small children who they drug and ask for hand outs for their children. (Local say they actually rent the children or borrow them from other family members to look pathetic.) This fake begging is ruining it for those who truly need our help.

Everyone seems to think it is a money problem, or ethnic problem or cultural problem or religious problem and they look to their local and federal leaders for political answers. We met the Wall Street zombie demonstrators in many of the cities we went to. We thought they were following us for a while. On November 12, we were literally hedged in by the green beret and camoflauge wearing, machine gun toting soldiers in front of palace in Rome during a street protest to oust Prime Minister Berlusconi. "Buffuno! Buffuno!" I will always remember the scene as we tiptoed upon some huge cement pots containing bushes trying to see the Prime Minster's car as it drove to Parliament.

We live in a world that is puppeted by the Father of lies. Every commercial slogan, world views, political and cultural systems are seeped in confused propaganda. We are swimming in the refuse of misinformation and twisting of the facts. There is no one to turn to who we can trust... no even ourselves. Not our church leaders. Not our politicians, not our parents, not our employers, not our television commentators or journalists. No one is trustworthy.

The problem isn't money.

The problem isn't politics.

The root of the problem and the cure is where nobody wants to look, for it makes us very uncomfortable. We can't blame anyone, and we can't look to anyone to solve it for us. For the problem is sin.

Not general sins--like poverty, social injustice, intolerance.
Not general sins even in our own lives such as the gray cloudy tendency towards sinning because of our fallen natures.

The problem is more direct. It is our personal day to day ignoring of little lies, of excusing moral demands. It is our laughing at dirty jokes. It is our divorces, our abortions, our sexual immorality, our pride, our selfishness, our self-centeredness, our impatience, our demanding of rights, our critical thinking of others, our laziness, our greed, our love of money, our disrespect of others or giving of our time to pleasures that corrupt, music that corrupts, entertainment that corrupts, friends that corrupt....

Sin doesn't point just outward. We live in a world that is blinded to its own sins and therefore cannot repent and be healed. This is a sin problem that will not go away until we each repent be forgiven and begin anew in Christ.

We will not be healed as individuals, as families, communities and countries until we are holy.

Did Jesus Teach Sola Fide (Faith Alone?)

2011-12-28T12:14:00.001-05:00

Note: Since the majority of my readers are Protestant and do not accept any higher authority than the Bible, I will confine documentation to that source. Thence, I will discuss the problems of Sola Fide with Sola Scriptura....(smile.)

Read the differing views on justification by faith alone has swept me up in countless hours of researching these positions. Everything turns to white noise, though, when scholars debate over nuances in ancient Biblical grammar--like verbal binyanim non-infinite, reflexivity conjugations and tenses and the modal, jussive form. (whew...)

Some claim that justification happens only once simultaneous to sanctification, others claim it happens immediately before sanctification and others claim it is a process. And all assert that their understanding is vital to salvation, indeed, the true gospel rests upon Sola Fide and a proper understanding of when and how it happens.

Is this the simple gospel of the Fundamentalists? If their claim is correct that the Bible is straightforward, what do we do with the exegetical map which looks like the jumbled wires of a 1970 computer board that these theological trailblazers of the Sola Fide doctrine have created?

This layperson must admit she is in way over her head.

When analyzing these debates I compare it to people deciding whether it is moral to abort an unborn based upon when a fertilized egg becomes a blastocyst. It is an unnecessary technical point when we see the results of a child being born.

In the end, what is important? The moment when we are justified or when we stand before our maker in judgement--that moment you are born into an eternal kingdom of seeing God face to face? You aren’t going to be arguing with the Almighty over exegesis.

So, as fascinating as it is to discuss the segregating theological positions on Justification, why not unify in what is going to happen at the end of our earthy lives?

What did Jesus teach about judgement? Did Christ teach that when we stand at the throne of His Father that faith alone will be the criteria for our eternal salvation?

To make the question as clear as possible: if Jesus said there was anything necessary at our judgement other than faith, then we must admit Sola Fide isn’t a good theological working model. Because if faith isn’t the only thing God is expecting from His children, then we aren’t giving the full gospel.

Diving into the gospels, we find that in His first recorded sermon Jesus gives a litany of those who will inherit eternal life--the poor in spirit, the meek, pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted because of righteousness. Nothing about those who have faith in Him. This list is about our characters or our deeds.

Later Jesus commanded His followers to love God, our neighbors and even our enemies! (Matt. 5: 44, 46; 19: 19, 22, 29; 22: 37, John 8: 42)

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13: 35

Love is a commandment, not a suggestion. And before Jesus breathes a word about faith He calls us to perfection.

Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matt. 5: 48

Jesus tells us to seek righteousness first and that, rather than being judged by faith we will be judged by how we judge others!

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matt. 6:33...

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again . Matt. 7: 2

Read one of Jesus’ first parables:

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. Matt. 7: 24.

Where is this idea that our deeds will not be judged? And our actions do receive a reward:

He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. Matt. 10:41

Sts Matthew and John record the words of Jesus which show that our righteous actions, our deeds are a very important part of being God’s children and will be weighed in deciding our eternal destination

The Gospel of St. Matthew

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 16: 27

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. 19:21

When the Son of man shall come in his glory... before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred , and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in : Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick , and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. ...And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. Matt. 25: 31-37, 46 [Note: they were separated by their DEEDS!]

The Gospel of St. John

This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. 3:19-21

And when he is come , he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 16: 8, 10.

All mainstream Christians agree on the point that we are Justified by faith and that it is through the merits of Christ’s death that we are saved. Having said that, we have quite a few biblical texts that talk about the importance of Christian behavior, deeds, actions or righteousness. I didn’t begin to list the scores of texts written by the Apostles and St. Paul.

Rather than separate upon the technicality of merits or non-merits, (imputed or imparted, sanctified or justified) of Christian works ... Should we not, for unity sake, admit that the obedience of faith, which brings fruits of righteousness ARE important to the Christian? Should we not admit that Jesus warned us that when we stand before the Father in heaven, that our deed will be reviewed and judged.

If nothing else, the words of Christ should cause us to wonder about the use of the doctrine of Justification by faith alone. While these arguments are fine for the erudite, what are we teaching the Christian about God’s earthly and heavenly expectations and his final judgement?

The Joys of Catholic Forgiveness

2011-12-20T13:47:00.003-05:00

I have spent my entire life excusing sins, imagining that I was being kind and forgiving.

When someone was hateful to me, I would calm myself and by sheer willpower control my desire for retribution. I would begin self-talk such as “Oh, this person had a bad day” and try and shake off the injustice or behavior towards me. If someone truly wronged me, I would call upon a mantra of excuses in order to sooth the feelings of resentment building in me.

“They are immature, they didn’t mean it.”

“They are ignorant of how to behave correctly. They weren’t raised as well as I was.”

“We’re all sinners in need of a Savior, this person just doesn’t know Jesus.”

As nice as it is to give someone the benefit of the doubt, in essence, I wasn’t truly forgiving them, I was just excusing sin. I have been under the impression that forgiveness was a cessation of bad feelings towards someone--that it was an emotional response to a sin against me. But I have been very wrong, as all I have been doing is deflecting the sin--not forgiving it. The forgiveness wasn’t about doing anything for them, but for me. I needed to feel better and when I felt better I thought I had forgiven them.

Over the course of one’s life, excusing sin shoves resentment to a subconscious level and a righteous injustice turns into an unseen raging furnace, like an underground fire.

Nice feelings towards a person who has sinned against you isn’t forgiveness. We need to undo their sin.

I asked God, “Now how on earth can I, who cannot control anything hardly in myself, going to undo a sin? Didn’t Christ do that on the Cross?”

Of course Christ did, but He also commands that He will forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us! Christ didn’t just forgive us by extinguishing His emotional wrath and turning it to a good warm fuzzy feeling for us. He took upon Himself the eternal--the spiritual--punishment for our sins. Forgiving sin is more than feelings, it is undoing the effects of the sin. And sin hurts much deeper than our emotions.

Sin, no matter how big or small, causes a wave that emanates out effecting all those in its path. It not only hurts the sinner, but God, the Body of Christ (Christian believers) and anyone it is directed at. There is simply no such thing as a private sin. Sin’s destructive path ripples in concentric circles.

While Christ has paid the eternal consequences, there is always a residue of sin here in this temporal abode that must be cleaned up. Sin is a contagious poison. True forgiveness is the antidote.

To truly forgive, we must not excuse, deflect nor minimize the wrongful act, but have the courage to see the depth of the offense. Then consciously, freely and with the grace of God--intentionally bear the temporal consequences of the sin. Without too literal a comparison, it is like offering the sinner a personal indulgence.

We become little Christs, living sacrifices for that person, by bearing the hurtful effects of the person’s trespasses. We willingly, lovingly accept the suffering of the sin. Though it was involuntarily forced upon us, for love of God and our neighbor, we take the punch of the sin and stand against the crashing wave of pain and injustice. Thus, at least allowing the suffering to go no father in your direction.

When someone has harmed you, fall to your knees and lift the sin up to Christ. Offer up the pain you feel as a sacrifice of love for the one who sinned against you. You may even feel called to perform an act of penance in behalf of the person’s sin, such as fast a meal, give a monetary gift to charity... say a rosary for them. Prayers and charitable actions will avail much, for you are acting as a righteous person.

Don’t misunderstand. I am certainly not suggesting you go to jail for another person’s crime or pay any civil penalty or take the blame for someone else. What I am talking about is accepting the offense against you, personally as a Christian and acting in love in return. It is about acting in behalf of the sinner, not simply calming the emotions as if that wipes away the sin.

And, we cannot bear another’s sin without doing as Christ did.

With the obedience of faith and love for His Father, Christ offered up the sin. And we must do that too. With Christ, we offer the sin up to the Father in behalf of the sinner. We take the offense and lift it high in prayer to God. It is only then that the fires of love can consume the sin and its effects can be destroyed. It must be offered to the Father, through the sacrifice of the Son. That is forgiveness.

Don’t worry too much about reoccurring emotions against the sinner. Reacting in love by a peaceful offerings to God will eventually subdue the feelings and they will be replaced by a holiness and not just a controlled anger. Keep focused on the crucified Christ and remember it is what He has done for you. We break ourselves for others, just as Christ has broken Himself for us. If it is just too much for you to do it for the sinner, do it for love of God. Focus on your love of Christ, rather than the offense and it makes it so much easier.

We extinguish the raging fire of sin, not by excuse, nor deflection, not by reducing the offense in our minds, but accepting the offense with a full understanding and taking the effects upon us as a sacrifice to God.

What about abuse and grave sin? I am certainly not offering advice about how to deal with the abusive person or suggesting you continue to allow someone to abuse you. This is only about how to forgive them.

What about someone who sexually abuses children? What about someone who is unfaithful to a spouse? Or a thief or murderer?

With such diabolical, momentous sins, forgiveness is only a gift of the abundant grace of God. Only on our knees we can receive such power to forgive. But forgive we must. Yes, it is a shocking injustice we are asked to bear.

But true forgiveness rights the wrongs through Christ. The person you are interceding for will one day fully see what you did for them. Do not think I am minimizing the inferno of pain. God’s grace must overwhelm you to sustain you in such moments. For we cannot fully comprehend the deep horror of sin until we battle it spiritually.Yet, as we act in faith as little Christs, our fervent prayers will heal us as we are forgiving those who have destroyed, deserted and betrayed us.

The impossibility of this becomes miraculously possible in Christ. And it creates within us a divine love and mercy that can only come through the suffering of forgiveness.

The Rich Man and Lazarus

2011-12-17T16:22:00.001-05:00

When at the St. Sebastian Catacombs in Rome, I placed a veil over my head and knelt in prayer before the altar in the chapel where the body of St. Sebastian lie. After rising, I noticed we were alone except for an American couple. They had glanced at me when I removed the veil.

I felt impressed to started a conversation.

They were nice and Protestant, so naturally--for me anyway--I began a discussion about religion. They, of course, were quite dumbfounded as to why we, who had been Fundamentalist-Protestant-Born-Again-Believers (and claim to have a vibrant relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ), would ever become.... (gulp) C... C... Catholic (wheeze!). The response is both typical and expected, after all, Protestants believe Catholics stubbornly ignore the plain teaching of the Bible--right?

They were knowledgable about scripture, so they graciously took some time from their vacation to “reason together” with us about Christianity and faith and scripture.

Most likely in response to my praying in front of the tomb of St. Sebastian, the woman gently pointed out that Jesus’ parable of Lazarus proves there is no communication between earthly Christians and saints who have died. She referred to this verse:

"And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence."

There was no time for a full Catholic response to them at that moment, so I thought I would explain it briefly here (and link this to their email address):

In fact, the parable solidly supports four basic Catholic doctrines--including the doctrine of the communion of saints repeated since the fourth century by Christians in the Apostle's Creed. But first let's read the parable in Luke 16:

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died , and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died , and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said , Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted , and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Please note: I am not saying Protestants will agree with the Catholic interpretation of Jesus’ parable, but at least Protestants should admit that Catholics (rightly or wrongly) use the Bible to support these doctrines.

Point 1 Addressing Church Leaders as “Father”

Jesus addresses Abraham as “Father.” Why would Christ address him thus in light of His command:

“And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” Matthew 23: 9 KJV ?

Since Christ clearly calls Abraham "father" in this parable, is He contradicting Himself? Do a Bible search for how many times Christ and scripture uses the word "father" to describe our male parent. If it was wrong to do, why would He do it? See Rom. 4:1, 11-18, 9:10; Phil. 2:22; Thess. 2:11; I Tim. 5:1.

Without a lengthy explanation as to exactly what Jesus meant, suffice it to say it was not a command about technically calling someone "father" as Catholics refer to their pastors. It was more meaning that Israel should not claim the "fathers" (the Patriarchs) as their proof for God automatic favor anymore than a Catholic can point to Father Peter as proving their automatic favor with God. So this text cannot be used by Protestants to claim it is wrong to call a priest "father" for Christ entitled Israel's leader Abraham "Father."

Point 2 Purgatory

Neither Abraham nor Lazarus in this parable are understood to be in heaven, yet they are clearly not in hell. This parable speaks of another place, called by the Jews “Abraham’s Bosom” and later by the Catholics “Purgatory.” It is a place of purification we go to for sins we were not repentant for, sins we clung to in this life. That is where both Father Abraham and Lazarus were awaiting heaven.

This statement by Father Abraham, “between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence,” is used to support the Protestant idea that petitioning the saints in heaven to pray for us is not possible because of this fixed gulf.

In fact, this passage does not address communication, as there is proof by the rich man speaking to Father Abraham that communication is possible past the fixed gulf. Father Abraham’s response is not about communication but about Lazarus, in Abraham’s Bosom before the cross and the New Covenant, who cannot physically returning to the earth to warn the rich man’s brothers.

Point 3 Oral Tradition

Nowhere in the Old Testament is the doctrine of “Abraham’s Bosom.” It is not found in written scripture before Christ refers to it as if it is well-known. Abraham’s Bosom is part of the Hebrew’s oral tradition. Jesus several times in His earthly ministry refers to the oral tradition, citing it as truth.

Point 4 Praying to Saints in Heaven

Protestant argument:

Even if a dead saint is up in heaven – he or she has no power to answer a prayer. Maybe, at best, they could pray for you but... come on...? Why waste your time praying to a dead saint when you can go straight to God? Jesus directed His prayers to God and told us to pray "our Father." Nowhere in scripture does it say we can pray to a saint or they can listen to us.

Catholic Biblical response:

Notice in this parable that Lazarus is praying (petitioning) someone who is supposedly dead (Abraham)! And the dead rich man is asking something of Father Abraham which is assumed that Abraham can actually do for him!

"Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house."

Why would Christ use such a parable if it taught such an abominable practice such as praying to the dead? Of course He wouldn’t use a devilish practice to make a heavenly point! It is because those who die in Christ or in the favor of God do NOT go to hell. They are not technically dead but asleep as Christ said about Abraham in Matthew 22: 32:

“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' ? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

Catholics petition those saints in heaven who are there interceding to God in our behalf. That is their heavenly “job” until Christ comes again. They are actively participating in the salvation of mankind in the same way we are on earth today! They pray for us in the same way that our brothers and sisters in Christ pray for us. Why would Christ tell us to pray for each other, intercede for each other, if it were a “waste of time” as Protestants suggest?

The NT is full of Christians and non-Christians asking for the believers’ prayers, even as a direct command from Christ! And please note that it is not just an empty ritual, prayer by Christians is assumed to have great power!

Pray for me to the Lord... Acts 8: 24

...pray for them which despitefully use you...Matt. 5:44

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him... James 5: 14

...we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 2 Cor. 5: 20

Pray for me. Pray strenuously with and for me. Rom. 15: 30

... pray for me that when I speak... Eph. 6:19

Pray for me...this will all turn out for my deliverance. Phil. 1:19

...pray for me... Col. 4: 18

Brethren, pray for us. I Thess. 5: 25

Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified. 2 Thess. 3:1

Pray for us.... Heb. 13:18

When Catholics petition saints in heaven for things, Jesus Himself gives credence to this practice in His parable of Lazarus. It is assumed that the patriarch Abraham can and will be able to perform a task asked by someone in torment.

None of these four doctrines have anything to do with the point of Christ’s parable, which is prophecy of Israel remaining in disbelief even after Christ raises Lazarus from the dead later in His ministry. Yet, the parable does have doctrinal issues that are assumed and these need to be pointed out as backing up Catholic doctrines.

Pilgrimage of Miracles 2011

2011-12-16T08:19:00.003-05:00

It is impossible to return in any way but physically...

It feels like a drowning. But no, even more...

We have been baptized in angelic wonders--transformed and our world no longer fits. Home ceases to refers to any earthly abode. We feel distant and lonely, like we shall be forever falling till we have been given wings. Time is no longer constant, but expanding.

Songs fall still and prayers give way to wordless adoration. The universe is filled with an overpowering, reverent and terrifying silence. The darkest and the lightest become a white hot furnace of pure love.

Senses struck senseless with new eyes to see the horrifying struggle between the cancerous meaninglessness of sin against the beauty and holiness of a Sovereign God.

********

Miracles are not comfortable.

Miracles make demands upon you.

Do NOT pray for a miracle unless you are prepared to give up this world and live a new life. Miracles sweep away your identity, your worldview, your comfort and leave your existence fundamentally changed.

Miracles are not given for our spiritual entertainment, nor are they necessarily given to strengthen our faith, for most happen when Christ says, "Your faith has healed you." Miracles are given to stretch us, sear us and bring us into the holiness of saints.

Miracles either burn, heal, and make you a saint or make you an atheist. That must be why God doesn't give them often. You either embrace the supernatural and give glory to God or you analyze them, your heart rejects such powerful grace and belief diminishes and dulls.

There are many many who claim Christ as their best friend out there who are atheists.

Photos of our Pilgrimage of Miracles 2011. More to come... (All photos-- copyright held by Arthur Beem, 2011)

From the Queen Mary 2 transatlantic voyage from NYC to Southampton, England

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Cathedral

Scene from my window in Langley Castle, Hexham, England

From Goddess Liberty To God

2011-10-01T07:22:00.000-04:00

I am taking a cyberspace sabbatical to work on a novel until Christmas. I ask for your covering in prayers during this time as I will be dedicated much of my time to prayer also not only for the novel itself but for its readers. After Christmas I am returning and only then will I be able to review and post any of your comments. Please feel free to comment, just understand no comments will actually show up until I get back. God bless you all and I leave you with a poem I recently wrote:

(Note, this is not a political statement)

************

From Goddess of Liberty to God

Consciences burn with holy lights,

The Cross, blood shed for sacred rights.

O hallowed choice to pluck from tree

The pleasing fruit of liberty.

Saint of exiles, heavenly flame

To her the yearning masses came

Autonomy burned in every breast,

The only worship God has blessed.

God’s freedom to choose and happiness gain,

Decides good and evil by personal reign

To follow one’s heart is the holiest right

in the red, white and blue, it’s not black and white.

Allot, Relativism--cunning tyrant, what’s true!

Within each soul’s breast a new truth doth debut,

Stamped with the seal of “Jesus and me.”

Reminding us God died that the truth may be free.

Oh glorious rights, to thee proudly we sing,

Righteous tolerance and diversity bring,

On Luther, on Calvin, on Zwingli, on Knox

Peace thou hast brought us, recorded by Foxe

Another dies for believer’s baptism

His heart commanded a glorious schism

No pope, no priest, God doesn’t require

A leader, he vows till the heretic’s fire.

Once saved, always saved, there is no condemnation

Genuine Christians impute justification.

Only sixty six books from the King James,

All others versions need set to the flames.

Scriptures teach Adventists, “touch not the swine,”

Conscientiously rejecting a Coke, beer and wine,

Each Sabbath gathering with thankful tear,

Cherishing freedom to proclaim time is near.

Pressed and tied boys on their bicycles roam,

To shake off the dust of their feet at each home.

Piously suffering the child who has died,

Parent refused blood the Lord had supplied.

To him bread’s a symbol, to her wine is real,

If we truly love Jesus, it’s about how we feel.

The spirit tells some that to judge is to hate,

as long as we love, we can all fornicate.

As God brought to Adam all creatures to name,

He honors my viewpoint, that I’ll feel no shame.

Then we all can be happy, we all can be saved,

Nothing is evil, nothing depraved.

The brilliance of gods, brought to each Christian mind.

Infallible freedom could never be blind.

Enlightenment promises not to deceive,

Stand firm! Trust your heart and believe.

Unfaithful servant, whom dogma has bruised

PRAY! For the Spirit is clear, not confused.

Lord Scriptures, thy master, is thine only law.

Within it, perfection, no chaos, no flaw.

The fruit of such liberty, crystal to see,

The blind leading blind, and the blind one is me.

I fall to my knees, for freedom enslaved,

Naked and wretched, for this I was saved?

For truth to be truth, it must reign from outside

my weak understanding. Oh where is your Bride?

We need a pillar, foundation and rock,

For fear false shepherds are guiding Your flock.

The Bible’s my shepherd? I shall not want,

That I may baptize in my own knowledge font?

I am the church? My rock, faith alone?

What I loathe, You rebuke, what I like, You condone?

******

To draw us to unity, Apostles You chose

A kingdom of God from a seed it arose,

Forewarned church militant holds wheat and tares,

False shepherds exposed not in schism but prayers.

Broken men, fallen leaders, God’s nevertheless,

The church instituted, so it’s not someone’s guess.

Bound by the oath in the bread and the wine,

Grace pours unity, the world sees love’s sign.

For freedom of conscience the remnant has sliced

into bite-sized theology, the Body of Christ

awakened I find I am not at The Tree, but

prostrating to the goddess of my own liberty.

Give me not happiness, Father I plead,

But holiness found in your Word and Your Creed.

Oh, give me freedom at thy feet to lay down,

My desires, my rights, my liberty’s crown.

The goddess lifts scepter lighting self-sovereign seas.

The Cross, God out-stretched, bids us fall on our knees

Wither thou goest, Lamb of God, Son Divine,

There I will follow, not my will but thine.

2011-09-21T09:39:00.000-04:00

A RC H Y RULES!!

I AM A TOTAL ANARCHIST!!

And what I mean by that is that I am a devoted Roman Catholic who promised faithful submission to God’s appointed leaders the pope and Catholic authoritative traditional interpretation of the infallible written Word of God.

Hey, this is America and I have a right to believe anything I want and call myself anything I want. Being a Total Anarchist words have no other meaning than what I personally recognize. And being a Total Anarchist, words should never have a consistent meaning because that would be too structured, so tomorrow I’ll probably define Total Anarchist as a Fundamentalist Baptist who is faithful to the pope and only wears tie-dye t-shirts.

Being a Total Anarchist, I don’t care if this makes any sense to anyone else but me. Indeed that is a fundamental principle of anarchy. Chaos. Duh mooooor kayyyoss zee butter. Shoot, that was way too clear, let me try again--”me no love chaos, you Jane.”

Huh? you react. Yep, then I’ve done my duty.

Okay, here’s my point:

In today’s culture we all consider it our right to self-label no matter how far from the traditional meaning a label is. We create our own personalized dictionary and we don’t care whether it remotely resembles how society takes it.

“I am a Calvinist,” he casually tosses out. But really that person is meaning that he was baptized in a three point, neo-Dutch Calvinist, but he neither attends church and knows more about Calvin Klein underwear than Calvin’s doctrine.

“I’m a Seventh-day Adventist” another person claims and then the hearer assumes that the speaker’s beliefs resemble something of the 28 Fundamentals and then puts a check mark in their brain such as, “do not ask this person to join me in a shrimp cocktail at the fashion show next Saturday.”

Yet, actually it is a Progressive Adventists who would love to join the hearer in a shrimp cocktail next Saturday at the fashion show.

Very confusing.

Words have lost their meaning. Faith, salvation, grace, born-again, law--all these terms have radically different meanings to different religious traditions. Communication is hard enough without creating an anarchy within our religious terms. And yet that is exactly what has happened.

Being a Catholic means that you submit your opinions, your interpretations and your rights to God’s appointed authorities in Rome. So why are so many Catholics out there claiming you can be pro-choice, pro-same-sex marriage when the church has always been clear on both points for its 2,000 year history? Being pro-life and pro life-long monogamous marriage between one man and one woman is a dogma that can never change no matter who is sitting on the pope’s seat.

People who claim they are Catholic or SDA or any other religion but don’t agree with the basic tenets are creating their own mental church and labeling it anything they want.

It would be much simpler if we would all just call ourselves what we really are. If you are not in agreement with the 28 fundamental beliefs of the SDA church--say, perhaps you don’t believe Ellen White was a prophetess, why not just call yourself a sabbatarian or a levitical law sabbatarian. Why label yourself as SDA and confuse everyone?

You have a right to label yourself anything, but why not label yourself where others can know what you believe. Otherwise you’re technically an anarchist.

The Joys of Hope

2011-09-17T07:38:00.000-04:00

As Christians, we pick up our crosses and follow our Savior. And that often means suffering.

I am naturally very naive, idealistic and positive. Almost every morning of my life, I wake up with happy expectations, a little tingle of excitement about what fun and adventure the day will bring. If there are a few thin clouds, I know the sun is always just about to burst out in my heart. My life is a musical, as I tend to have some beautiful song always playing in the background of my mind.

With great gratitude to God, I look at my life, for my life has been so, so easy and comfortable compared to others.

Yet there have been times when I have been given my dose of pain and tragedy. When all my human efforts, all the inspirational reading and praying and Bible study and worship and behaving righteously bring no relief from the despair.

When days of pain, turn into weeks of pain, then months and even years of confused suffering, one tends to loose hope. You search for God and He is not there where you can feel Him, either in your heart or soul or spirit. You feel abandon.

The devil tries to convince you that your light of joy has been extinguished forevermore and you are trapped in a dark, hopeless prison.

At those moments, you may feel your only choice is to sin. God’s power to go on and fight the good fight has imploded inside you and you are left with what seems only bad choices for survival. Your flesh is weak from relentless torment and you cry out to God only to hear the echo of your voice dissipate into the cosmos without an answer.

Forgive me if this seems a trite statement but what I wish to say to you is, do not sin. It will only make things vastly more complicated when the temporary comfort it brings is gone.

No matter what you are going through, though it may seem the very depths of hell, the valley of the shadow of death, do no evil. Defy the abyss Satan is wanting to throw you in, hang on with the words, “though He slay me, yet will I serve Him.” Never, ever give up hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark it may seem. Giving into the temptation to sin will only prolong the struggle.

God’s grace is sufficient. Hold on to that hope though the battle be fierce within your soul. Though the temptation feels overpowering, fall to your knees each time and behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The cross you carry following Christ is leading you to a place where you too will suffer and die. You too may sear with the agony of temptation until you have sweat blood. Where did you think that cross you were carrying was taking you? Not to a comfortable easy chair and refreshments. The eternal promise of God's Faith, Hope and Love do not come with the promise of tranquil cosiness. We are in a battle.

But fear not, for God is with you. He will uphold you with His victorious right hand.

You will survive the pain, the temptation, the despair if you drop to your knees and suffer with Christ at your side. Pour out to Him, offer to Him the desire, the temptation to do evil. Earth’s purgatory lasts only a while and then, you will taste heaven.

Cling to hope, cling with faith when Satan’s vast army appears over the horizon. Don’t give up, you cannot see it yet, but as a Christian, there is a vast host of heaven behind you. Do not think a little sin will not hurt you and others. Do not be deceived that you must sin, it is your nature.
If the future could open up in front of your eyes, you would never make the choice to sin, no matter how strong and torturous the temptation.

God’s grace is there for you. It is power. It is HIS sword He will give you. Stand and fight. For YOU MATTER!! You are an everlasting soul with great significance. Your tears, your heartbreaks fill heaven. Your battles, your failures and successes are watched with loving and merciful wonder. Heaven is FOR YOU, because God so loved you that He sent His only Son to hang on for you.

Never, never ever lose hope. The light is there, believe.

Thoughts on Father Pavone

2011-09-14T16:59:00.000-04:00

Disclosure: I give thousands of dollars to Priests For Life....

Okay, here's what is fishy to me:

Why would the bishop of Amarillo, Texas encourage other bishops to speak against and defund Priests for Life if he was bringing back to his diocese the problem (Father Pavone)? Would he not rather just address his concerns to the bishops on the board of PFL and suggest a new priest to lead? Taking out the top guy and replacing him with a better financial manager and "less" full of himself would have solved the problem. Telling everyone to defund PFL would cause it to disintegrate. Sounds to me like that is his aim when you just read his letter to the bishops.

Will be keeping a close eye on Father Pavone. (Just like Father Corapi). Need the wisdom of Solomon here. If Father Pavone's main concern is the life of the unborn, he will willingly give up his baby rather than have it cut in half (ironic, isn't' it?) by his opposers. Let another priest take his position, at least while the organization is being reviewed and allow the movement to keep fighting. If he makes a stink and claims that he MUST be the leader and causes scandal because of his open defiance of the bishop, I am going to think we have another Corapi situation.

I am SO praying for everyone in this situation. I love that Operation Rescue is coming to the rescue of this priest. I hope this is all a deep misunderstanding and will soon be resolved to the glory of God. I have nothing but respect for Father Pavone and am pulling for him.

Sex Scandal, Truth and Debate...

2011-09-14T13:21:00.001-04:00

Anyone who seeks to defend the Catholic Church about the priestly scandal is often verbally clobbered by those outside and inside the Catholic Church. "It is indefensible" they cry. And of course I do understand, it is indefensible. But I come from a very different perspective on this.

When I point out that this is a sexual abuse coverup in all churches, I am told that I am just making excuses for Catholics! NO! NO indeed. I do not point to the abuse in other churches to soften the Catholic Church's culpability. I am just wanting to cry out that there is a monumental problem still out there that needs to be addressed and if we confine the problem to the Catholic Church, we have abandon the majority of victims. There are millions of children who suffer psychological problems their entire lives because of childhood sexual abuse who continue to need a voice.

Don't let the problem be "solved" with the Catholic church reform! Please God, don't! Because that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Most of my life, as a Seventh-day Adventist, I was aware of the huge problem within Adventism of sexual abuse. It was rampant and tragic. Half of all the kids I knew had been sexually molested by a SDA parent or family member or SDA leader of some kind--a teacher, pastor or Sabbath school leader. It is actually quite well-known within Adventist circles and no one really wants to discuss it.

While an Adventist, I tried to expose the problem. Adventist sociologists at several universities were well aware that the occurrence of incest and child sexual abuse is far higher in the SDA church than anywhere else, but no one ever wanted to address the problem in any other way than just shaking their head in shame.

Finally there is stirrings of this at the GC and good for them. And I am certain the exposé of the Catholic Church sent a thunderbolt of warning to all other Christians. Get your own house clean!

We absolutely need to keep pounding on the fact that this isn't a Catholic problem, not to take up for Catholics but so that we can shine the light of truth so that other churches can start healing the victims.

The Feb. 2004 Sexual Abuse in Social Context: Catholic Clergy and Other Professionals states the following:

"The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Systems was developed by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Human Services in partnership with the States to collect annual statistics on child maltreatment from State child protective services agencies. For the year 2001, it was found that approximately 903,000 children were victims of child maltreatment, 10 percent of whom (or 90,000) were sexually abused. It also found that 59 percent of the perpetrators of child abuse or neglect were women and 41 percent were men."

The studies reported the following statistics.

Sexual Perpetrators:

28% family friends

25% teachers molesting girls

18% male relatives: cousins, uncles outside immediate family

16% other children

15% teachers molesting boys

12% stepfathers

10% male siblings

10% biological fathers

9% mother's boyfriends

7% grandfathers and step-grandfathers

4% strangers

Sexual Abuse of Minors according to Profession

82.2% of HS gradate girls report sexual harassment by faculty, teacher or principal during their years in school.

17. 7% of HS graduate boys report sexual harassment by faculty, teacher or principal during their years in school

3-12% of psychologists have had sexual contact with patients (stats on child molestation not available.)

2-3% Protestant Clergy (Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 50 and 81.)

2% athletic coaches have a criminal record of sexual offenses in children

1-1.8 % of Catholic priests have had charges of sexual abuse made against them. Almost all those accused admit they are homosexual. And 90% of all charges are with adolescent teenager boys, not small children.

1-2% Jewish clergy seems to be at the same rate as the Catholic priests. (Rabbi Arthur Gross Schaefer, “Rabbi Sexual Misconduct: Crying Out for a Communal Response,” www.rrc.edu/journal, November 24, 2003.) See www.theawarenesscenter.org/clergyabuse.

The problem is that when we are searching out victims of sexual abused as minors, we need to be smart. It is usually going to be a family member or friend, the next is a teacher. Only a very small fraction of abusers are clergy of any kind. Parents need to keep a careful eye on their children and for goodness sake ask them about their day. Ask them if anyone made them feel uncomfortable. Ask them if anyone touched them inappropriately. Open up that means of communication so that a child will feel comfortable telling you. It is hard for children to tell when they have been molested, they are frightened.

This is a huge problem today. Our kids are being taken advantage of and its time that we expose the problem in all professions--teachers, counselors, clergy.... and even family and friends. This isn't a just Catholic problem.

The Joys of Humility

2011-09-07T08:18:00.003-04:00

Little Sister Kathryn Ann told me she was praying for me, that I was filled with pride.

That struck me deeply. She had no idea what she was talking about. My entire life had been satiated with tormenting insecurities and self-hatred. How dare she judge me? She didn’t know me. To rise to the occasion, I forgave her. After all, she was Catholic and I was Protestant and she didn’t know better.

I had joined RCIA, the adult education classes for those inquiring about Catholicism--and I was there just to verify if what some of my Catholic friends were telling me--no more. The elderly old woman had been chosen for my sponsor and things didn’t start out well. I wasn’t especially grateful that this nun took time out of her extremely busy schedule as teacher to sit next to me in all the classes with her head bowed praying for me. I didn’t understand the point. And then to insult me? Yeah, I was so not impressed with Catholicism at that moment.

I had entered purgatory and my life would never be the same. And I am not talking about theology.

***********

What I have been learning ever since is that as weird as it may seem, as counterintuitive, pride and self-hatred are mated together. Pride and insecurities feed off each other and are always found together for pride is parasitic.

Psychiatrists and counselors wouldn’t dare breathe the truth about the matter--if they are aware of it. Society recognizes the self-esteem catastrophe within our youth and have ingrained in all the teachers' training courses how to build children’s self-confidence. When, in the end, it is impossible to teach people to love themselves. They cannot do it.

As Christians, our response is that we can learn to love ourselves when we experience and know how much Christ loves us. But often, those words don’t plunge deep enough to repair us, for it is not just a head knowledge, but a heart knowledge that cannot be forced by mantras or worship.

I found worth in the strangest place. Totally unexpected.

We can’t get at at self-acceptance without going through the eye of the needle, or maybe I should say the fires of purgation.

The last two years, God has shown me that Sister Kathryn Ann was right. I have been full of pride. I wrestled with God over this one, for there hasn’t been a day in my life that I didn’t hurt dreadfully because I felt I wasn’t good enough, that I needed to try and impress everyone around me, for fear I would be lost in a cosmic nothingness. I had to dress nicely, put myself out there with singing and being involved, leading, accomplishing. All for fear that if I was quiet, I’d disappear.

Somehow with all this fear, pride slipped in and began leeching off this need to be noticed, this need to be pretty, this need to be better. The vampire of pride drains you and dehydrates you of true love for self and others and even God.

There is no self-help book or advice that is going to work. No classes, no Stuart Smalley mental repetitions of, "I'm good enough I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me," and no Zig Ziglar is going to repair the inherent sin of self-hatred. Humility is the only healer.

*******

Catholicism has done a great deal to humiliate me. It hasn’t felt good to know that I have been wrong my whole life. Catholicism has forced me to my knees in confusion and brokenness. It has shown me that I have my place and I need to humbly submit to it. It has ripped away my self-confidence and shredded my feelings of control.

That isn’t easy.

But attached to all these subconscious and internal safeguards I was clinging to, was pride and the terror of self-doubts. Not to say they are totally healed as this is a process I am sure will take the rest of my life. But my insides have been gutted by God and a new person is emerging that I simply don’t recognize.

There is a rich, intense and mysterious peace that comes from humility. A security I had never expected.

For the first time in my life, I am letting compliments saturate me instead of flinging them off with pride. I believe and trust that others are telling me the truth, while before I thought so little of other’s opinions. My opinion was the only one worth trusting.... and I hated myself because I didn't look like Lana Turner and that was that.... I wasn't Heddy Lamar so I was nothing.

As counterintuitive as it appears, pride keeps one from feeling worthy. Self-confidence is a huge lie.

When we humbly submit to God and recognize that He is in charge--when we sacrifice our self-esteem and rights and understanding at the foot of the Cross---when we accept that He is ruler and Lord and we are but mere servants who obey Him, all of a sudden, the gift comes. The gift of grace that flows heavenly upon a soul parched from pride.

Instead of looking at women more beautiful than me and feeling defeated, unloved, I can now look upon them with such admiration. Beauty is a wonderful gift from God, even in other women. It was pride that made me hate them. Their beauty killed my self-esteem. Now, I can see the beauty in myself. God has shown it to me. And somehow through His eyes, I can see it!

Now, I don’t compare myself with others, I lavish and enjoy the gifts God has given them. I love that others are successful and smart. Their success, their intelligence doesn’t make me fear anymore.

I only write this because I know hundreds of young girls out there feel just as I have. I don’t want them to learn this when they are gray-haired. I want so badly to spare them years of heartbreaking searching for self-esteem and self-worth.

God is the answer. You must learn to let go of trying to be better, prettier, smarter, more successful than other people. Not just in praying for God to show you how great you are. You aren’t going to learn it through bucking yourself up. You will learn it through humility, through submissive obedience to God and the knowledge that He is the only opinion you can trust.

Prepare yourself. Wrenching pride and self-hatred from your soul is going to hurt. I'm sorry about that, but I can tell you when you are on the other side of humility--it is going to feel better than you can imagine. For it is only when the veil of pride is ablaze and we can see clearly the goodness of God, we can see ourselves. And that is going to shock and awe you.

Journey Home - 08-29-2011 - Revert - Marcus Grodi with Keith Major

2011-09-02T16:47:00.000-04:00

The New Dark Ages

2011-09-02T12:09:00.004-04:00

This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

My mouth just dropped open when I watched this. My husband and I have been whispering this back and forth between us for a couple years, but I couldn't believe anyone had the courage to actually SAY it!

Candidly Speaking.....

2011-08-26T09:04:00.001-04:00

I wrote this my other blog, but thought I would link to it instead of reposting it.

It's Okay NOT to be a Seventh-day Adventist: Candidly Speaking.....: Sometime in 14th-century England, a red-blooded Anglo Saxon must have been drinking beer at a pub, when he spotted a noble dabbing his nos...

Shameless Popery: The Liturgy of St. James on the Eucharist

2011-08-20T07:50:00.000-04:00

Shameless Popery: The Liturgy of St. James on the Eucharist: Yesterday, I talked about how helpful it is to learn from both the Early Church Fathers (the theologians of their day), and the early Liturg...

Adventist Baptism

2011-08-20T07:46:00.000-04:00

Humm....

Several different blogs have been talking about this, so this is going to be a bit redundant.

I just spoke with a young girl converting from the Seventh-day Adventist faith to Roman Catholicism and she told me that her bishop would have to baptize her because the RCC doesn't recognize Adventist baptism. Which is what I was told when both my husband and I converted and were baptized into the Roman Catholic faith.

However, my two sons were not baptized when they converted. Anyone know anything about this? I have read that it was about the SDA view of the Trinity, but I would think then it would be a consistent baptism policy for all converts.

Dion's Conversion Story

2011-08-16T06:35:00.003-04:00

Intercessory Prayer

2011-08-11T08:38:00.004-04:00

Do you pray for your loved ones or do you intercede for them? I have been mulling around the idea lately, that interceding is different from praying.

When you pray for those you love, or even your enemies, you are asking God to take care of them, their spiritual needs, physical needs, etc. In a regular prayer you are releasing the responsibility totally to Him, Christ.

Intercessory prayers seem to be something different. You are asking God if you can take responsibility of the person's sins. You are saying as did Moses on Mt. Sinai when he was grieving over the sins of Israel,

But now, if You will, forgive their sin-and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written ! Ex. 32: 32

Sounds like a threat at first glance. But God did not rebuke Moses but was pleased and forgave the people because of Moses. Scripture, numerous times, tells us God forgave Israel for the sake of David.

Perhaps intercessory pray is placing the guilt of the other persons sins upon yourself and absorbing the punch of sin into your own soul.

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Gal. 6: 2

You are becoming a type of Christ for those you love.

Before you recoil in horror over that statement, as I do realize that Christ’s blood and atonement is fully sufficient to save us and that we cannot redeem anyone with our personal sacrifice, but as Catholics, don’t we believe that we are Christ’s body on earth and don’t we still believe in a royal priesthood in the order of Melchizedek? Intercession is not a symbolic act for Catholics.

Are we not, in a sense, taking on another's sins when we forgive them? We are allowing the punishment fall dead at our feet. We take the hit of the affects of someone's offense against us and let the ripple effect of the sin go no further.

As Catholics isn’t it our faith that intercedes for our children when we baptize them, and we, as parents, receive the guilt for our small children’s sins?

The idea that we may intercede for others does have support in scripture.

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed . The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5: 16

Perhaps that is one of the main reasons we are supposed to become saints while on earth. Because the prayers of a righteous man availeth much. The holier we become, the more intercessory prayers we are able to handle, the more powerful our weapons are against the demonic forces trying to take our loved ones out.

When we become intercessors through prayer are we not coming against the powers of evil and aren’t we promised that even the gates of hell themselves cannot prevail against it? In the battle armaments of Ephesians six that God has given us, and in His power we are saying to the Devil, “you will get this person over my dead body!”

Maybe intercessory prayer is the one way we can storm the gates of hell and it cannot prevail against us.

If I am way off on this, please let me know....

My Dearest and Most Honored Mother asked me to post this:

2011-08-07T11:05:00.002-04:00

The discussion began on Facebook when my mother posted that she wanted polygamist Warren Jeffs to be put away forever.

"Jeffs, the polygamist was found guilty. Punishment sentencing coming. There is no punishment that would be appropriate for what he has done. How did a man like this get away with what he did for so long? SHOCKING!"

My mother is a liberal Seventh-day Adventist whose worldview is seeped in Christian relativism. She believes that there is no such thing as absolute truth (that we as humans can be sure of, anyway) and we all should just tolerate each other's views and be good. Sincerity of conscience is what she believes to be important in the long run. There is some merit to that way of thinking, indeed. Sincerity is a very good thing and God will be merciful to those who, by no fault of their own, sincerely believed a lie.

However, in the course of my ongoing discussion with her about Christian relativism, the following ensued (this is edited as several people other than my mother made comments) after her post about Warren Jeffs.

I responded:

Oh boy, we have a HUGE problem here. What do we do with clashing religious values because this is what it comes down to? Islam allows for arranged marriages between girls as young as nine and grown men. This is a cultural tradition that has been going on for centuries. The Bible allowed for polygamy....

Some early American cultures allowed marriages to girls as young as 12. If you read early American laws, you will find a slow and steady stream of laws against marriage to very young girls creep across America in the 18th century.

We have to look at this problem with more than a microscope. We have to look at it with a historical perspective and ask ourselves some VERY difficult questions.

America has always stood for religious freedom. But at the same time we have had our fixed "truth" upon the Judeo-Christian morals. Right now ALL of our values are being tested and when you remove the fixed "truth." All you have is unrestricted religious freedom that can claim polygamy, sodomy, pedophilia, bestiality, group marriages, incest ANYTHING as their religious freedom.

We must, as Americans, ask what is now our fixed mark of truth? For if it is not clearly the Judeo-Christian tradition, then we cannot impose one religious sexual preference over the other.

What do we do with all of Europe and even some parts of America where Sharia laws are being used? If we are now a pluralistic secular government, we have to take into consideration ALL religious beliefs--even when they severely clash with our own. That is the foundation of American religious freedom.

BUT, we are also a culture based upon the traditions of Christianity. Our worldview, or interpretation of the U.S. Constitution is Judeo-Christian.

If we don't figure out what our worldview is going to be in the future, it isn't going to be so easy as to say it is decided. Maybe in this one specific case--but I am speaking of a dramatic shift in our culture.

This is going to turn into a basic--who is America 101? Today we call it rape of a minor--tomorrow it is going to be called "right of sexual education of minors."

I am saying that we have as an American culture shifted our "truth" or cultural cornerstone of what used to be Jude-Christians beliefs based upon Western traditions to an Enlightened Relativism.

When you open up truth to "whatever" is the opinion of the person, basing it on their sincerity and their personal truth--then you LOOSE the ability to have ANY fixed marks to say what is authoritatively and authentically wrong. Each culture claims IT is the correct one and some are willing to fight to the death over it.

We need to clearly stand up as Christians and say WHY Jeffs is wrong and needs to be put away forever. We need to clearly express WHY pedophilia is wrong. We can't go around anymore saying truth is in the eye of the beholder. Its not because it seems icky or wrong in our eyes... it is because IT IS wrong... we have a fixed mark as Christians and we can't rely on people's opinions or sincerity of belief. THAT Is my point.

Relativism is KILLING our culture.

I totally agree with you. I was asking a broader, philosophical question about our culture and the extreme trouble we are in when facing such questions as Jeffs. Upon what are we basing our assessment.

I was actually attempting to sound the ALARM BELL--we have a much, much bigger problem than Jeffs as a person. Put him away forever and let's discuss the underlying problem of our culture and its future. THAT is where I was going....

Christian relativism as a position is untenable. Christian relativism is going to be the ultimate fall of our society because it does not have a fixed mark of truth and when you base a society's morals upon people's religious feelings--no matter HOW sincere--then in the end, the mark moves--Voila! Christian relativism.

Upon WHAT does my we base anger at Jeffs? It is upon the Christian worldview that pedophile and polygamy is SINFUL and wrong.

Our culture is in a mighty struggle over a Christian worldview and a secular worldview. What are we going to be? If we don't figure that out--as a society--and we don't stand up REALLY firmly and soon--we are about to default into the secular humanistic side.
So, I AM agreeing with you. I just want my mother to see that she cannot be a relativist AND claim Jeffs should be hung.

My Mother responded:

"I really appreciate your comments on the pedophile Jeffs. I found them well-organized and very analytical. Thank you for your insights. I think you should copy them and put them on your blog."

In the end, my mother did not understand what I was saying. So I wrote back:

Okay, I am going to try to get at this another way.

America CLAIMS to be a place of religious tolerance. It CLAIMS to be a place where anyone can come and practice their beliefs, follow their sincere conscience. America CLAIMS to be a place of separation of church and state.

Now, what do we do when someone comes here--into our Christian worldview and say, "Whew! Glad I am here in the good ol' US of A. I sincerely believe it is super okay with God that I am a polygamist and marry little girls." ?? (And they, with a proud patriotic glance at the flag sing God Bless America, wiping from the corner of their eyes a tear of gratitude for religious freedom.)

What do we do with non-christian world views that come here and claim religious freedom? This is surely NOT a hypothetical problem. We are being bombarded with this daily.

When we claim a separation of church and state-- what our Deist founding fathers of the Enlightenment era REALLY meant was that in Protestant America--OUR worldview will hold supreme. They were speaking from a Judeo-Christian worldview that saw certain things as OBVIOUS and intrinsically true and right. "Self-evident" is the words they used.

So we actually have come to a GREAT crisis of foundations. Now that different non-Christian world views are finding their way here en masse (or are locally grown)-- expecting religious freedom from a totally different perspective--where sodomy is not against their conscience, polygamy isn't against their conscience, abortion isn't against their conscience--WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?

Do we revert back to the foundation of : All get an equal religious right to do whatever they wish. Every sincere person gets to follow their conscience.

OR

Do we revert back to the foundation of: There are self-evident truths based on Judeo-Christian values of justice, morality, marriage, murder, fidelity...

What I see are people burying their head, putting their fingers in their ears, and humming loudly. NO ONE (hardly) wants to face the crisis of foundations we are at.

IS AMERICA A SECULAR STATE WHERE ALL RELIGIOUS VIEWS--ALL sincere consciences are allowed to practice moral and religious freedom as they see fit?

OR

IS AMERICA A CHRISTIAN STATE WHERE Traditional Judeo-Christian values will remain and we live under a worldview that certain things are intrinsically evil and intrinsically good whether or not we personally agree and no matter how sincere the believer?

So, I have posted our discussion. My dearest Mother is the one who instilled in me immovable truths of honestly, justice, compassion. She is the human cornerstone of all my thoughts and analysis AND Christian worldview. The summation of it all is that you, oh brilliant and honorable mother, seared into each of your six children an unquenchable drive to discover what is true.

Knights of Columbus and the Battle For Our Culture

2011-08-06T15:34:00.002-04:00

Facing the White Noise

2011-08-05T16:25:00.001-04:00

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” 2 Cor. 3: 18

Occasionally I start to feel white noise in the background of my soul. I drown the spiritual static by listening to music, talk radio, television--I just keep myself busy to avoid thinking and feeling.

Through the years, I have come to recognize this distracted spiritual agitation as God trying to get me to unearth and confront a sin in my life. The months of unconsciously avoiding this needed repentance, repair and reconciliation between God and I is due to the extreme pain it is going to cause--like pulling a huge embedded sticker from my heart. It means some deep, tedious, reflecting analysis of my actions and why I am behaving in such a way. It is time consuming and laborious work--Dorian Grayish.

I HATE when I notice the white noise.... Ah, that is why it can go on for so long, ignored, like a little background dripping you get used to.

The other day, my husband came home and didn’t want to watch Netflix or Real Catholic TV or EWTN. He just sat there quietly and that is when I felt it, the unsettled white noise. I started to cry. Might as well get a head start on the tears as I knew this was the beginning of the suffering.

“AHH! Can’t I just be perfect already? Why can’t I just skip over this earthly purgatory.... Man!” I sighed and just pleaded with God not to make it too bad. What did I need to face and heal?

This time I discovered something I didn’t expect at all. I am hoping that my discovery will help those of you out there or I wouldn’t mention it.

That white noise in my soul, that pain of inner reflection scrambling my thinking, was there when I needed to see the bad in me--- but also--- to my surprise-- the good.

Did you realize that it is just as painful for us to face God’s love for us, our lovableness, as it is to face our un-acceptableness to God? It may sound weird but, in the end, we find that once we endure the full impact of our pride, arrogance and wickedness, which we as Christians expected-- that we then cannot endure the discovery of the depths of being loved.

My purgatory that evening was to walk through the fires of God’s passionate love for me and to let it purify me in a new way--to accept that I am good, that there is something noble and magnificent inside me placed there by God and He gets tired of my self-hatred. (And I wasn’t even aware of my self-hatred.) In fact, He commanded me to fully accept His love.

Did you know that God’s love is so great that it hurts us when we receive it? So we subconsciously avoid the power of His love. I had no idea....

I guess we as humans avoid the extremes and prefer the comfort of living lukewarm. We do not enjoy being stripped bare of our protective facades, either of being not so good or not so bad.

When we are shown our similarities to the Devil and our similarities to God we look away, it is just too dark and too bright. But God wants us to gaze upon both--for it is when we do that we can fall at His feet and live in His glory.

The Power of Sin, Love and Forgiveness

2011-08-01T10:06:00.001-04:00

This is based upon a true stories.

Tom could hardly see the long country road, as it was the middle of the night and the dust was kicking up in front of the car’s headlights. His wife had been taken suddenly ill during a vacation and he decided to drive her home. Their young daughter was asleep in back and had not been too disappointed about abruptly ending the vacation, as she had lots of plans with her girlfriends that summer.

The road ended with a sudden, violent impact on the passengers side which tossed and rolled them into the fields.

Tom groggily awoke in the hospital to the devastating news that a teenage boy (whose girlfriend had just broken up with him) had set out that black night on an unsuccessful 110 mile-an-hour suicide attempt. The boy would recover from the serious injuries he sustained, but both Tom’s wife and little girl had been killed.

*************

Being out of a job for six months, debt was mounting for Patrick. His desperate prayers seemed miraculously answered when a dream job (he was way under-qualified for) opened up. Then as the months passed at this new job, it was dawning upon him that he was being set up. He had been hired to be the fall guy for the company’s fraud. He had to do some serious scrambling to keep from being thrown in jail.

***************

We all experience humiliating and agonizing injustices in life. Even if not as dramatic as the stories above, we encounter small injustices daily in the forms of insults, being misrepresented, ignored or patronized. As Christians we are asked to do the impossible, the supernatural. We are asked to forgive the unforgivable.

The natural man is programed for justice. From infancy, we all have an innate requirement for wrongs to be righted. We simply cannot deal with a world where the perpetrator doesn’t get his just reward and the victim isn’t defended. That is good. Justice is right.

So when Christ tells us to turn the other cheek and forgive our enemies, He is not telling us that He is unjust and the bad guy wins. Jesus tells us to forgive because He claims all acts of retribution as His.

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord. Romans 12: 19 (See also Hebrews 10: 30 and Deuteronomy 32: 35)

It is against all our instincts, our logic and our emotions to forgive premeditated acts of injustice. Everything inside us screams out in righteous pain to God that sin should not be allowed to go unpunished--punishment where WE can view it, now, so it doesn’t eat at us forever. Life doesn’t make sense when we must absorb the injustice.

And as unjust as it is; that is exactly what Christ calls His follower to do.

The Power of Sin

We don’t really take the time to analyze sin. There is no such thing as private sin. All sin sets in motion a chain reaction that continues like a wave, sometimes dying out in smaller and smaller ripples, but sometimes the actions of sin build and the ripples turn to waves and then to tsunamis.

As Christians we are asked to be like little Christs and stand up against the waves and absorb the impact of sin so that it cannot affect anyone else. We are asked, no commanded by God, to stand in the gap and allow the injustice to crash against us with all its force.

J.RR. Tolkien seemed to understand this as he wrote the scene in the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf the Grey, to protect his friends from the fiery dragon Balrog, ordered Frodo, Samwise and the rest, to cross the bridge. Gandalf drew the sword to allow the others safe passage and the demonic wrath fell upon him. Gandolf’s immortal declaration to the monstrous adversary, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” is exactly what we are called to do, even to the most seemingly trivial and daily transgressions.

When our spouse hurts us, instead of flinging the pain back in sarcasm or a biting remark or even quietly held resentment, we must absorb the pain through forgiveness. We actually bear the flaming arrow of the offense and allow it to burn us instead of passing it on to another. It is a gift of supreme self sacrifice to take upon ourselves the effects of the wrongdoing and let it die there.

In today’s culture of rights, taking on the scalding effects of another’s sin, especially when we are the innocent victims, screams “injustice” and the searing unfairness of life. Mercy and forgiveness in the vast majority of cases seems to us as wrong, illegal, sinful. After all, we have rights!

The call by God to stand down against our fellow man and lift our sword against the real enemy, the supernatural dark forces that are trying to destroy our lives, our families, our communities and our nation is difficult. And to write difficult is the understatement of the century. It is impossible.

Yet, we are called as Christians to willingly take the impact and return love for hatred, and charity for those who spitefully use us.

Yes, it is impossible. But God does and will do the impossible in us as we lift up all the injustices to Him; as we become the conduit of mercy and pass on our pain to Christ. Our faith tells us that God will one day make all things right. We must then live that faith in our everyday lives and God will make us the heroes in many spiritual battles. For the battle Paul talks about in his letters is not allegorical, it is a real. Oh, if our eyes could see the forces of the demonic and angelic around us, we would not hesitate to allow our faith to work and work hard for the cause of Christ.

We are called to be Christ to our spouse, our parents, our children, our friends and our world. We are called to intercede, to connect heaven and earth with our very bodies and absorb the catastrophic injustices and humiliations and lift them upward as an offering of love to Christ. And through Christ all things are possible.

Power of Love

Tom’s reaction to hearing that the life of his wife and daughter had been killed by such an unthinking selfish act, made his body so violent towards the youth that he laid a plan to find out where the boy was, to sneak away from his hospital bed and murder the perpetrator. Vengeance, he felt, could not be left with the corrupt American justice system.

Then, the second powerful blow of that day. The doctor, in a compassionate whisper, related that the boy, lying a few doors down who had hit his car, was Tom’s son. Tom’s eldest child had stayed home from the family vacation because of his girlfriend.

Over the next few hours, Tom’s violent righteous anger and determination for justice turned inward and he suffered the agony of the situation in behalf of his son.

It was only through love of his son that Tom was able to forgive such a monstrous, horrifying act. He took the hit, the impact of the sin into his own heart, for love of his son.

You see, in the end, Christ knew that only love was powerful enough to forgive the unforgivable. It is only the miraculous power of love that can freely give mercy and pardon. That is why Christ told us to love our enemies.

Through a working faith, we are connected with a God who promises to make all things just and right in the end. And it is only through a faith-filled connection to God that the power of love can work its miracles.

Hang on for a little while, hang on and let faith, through love win out in your every day life. For Christ hung on for you. When you need the strength to absorb the impact of each sting and disappointment, look to the Cross, place upon Him your suffering and your offerings of forgiveness for others.

God is calling us to be the miracle of forgiving love.

Because I Am Going To the Father.....

2011-07-30T08:45:00.003-04:00

It had been a very hard day, amidst a very hard month that blurred from a very, very difficult year and the year had not been so different from the decade. It was a rough time on many levels and my life was a daily struggle.

Kneeling that evening in the dark, on a warm wood floor in Texas, my prayer was aloud--there was no human there to hear it, as my husband had always preferred a nocturnal career and at the moment was a traveling salesman gone five or six days a week.

So I was alone. Alone.... I was always alone .. and excruciatingly lonely. I looked across the bed from on my knees. Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to have his big, hot, snoring, covered body to crawl in bed with instead of facing another endless silent night, struggling to sleep so that I could have the energy to be a good mother and father to my three little ones.

Crying and pleading with the Lord, I asked for strength to get through this dark depression.

For years, one of my prayers had been that God would send an angel to me, to salve my loneliness, fears, confusion and unhappiness. I couldn’t understand why He didn’t send me a little miracle so that I could have the heart to face another day. Not for myself but for my children.

And in general, my prayers had collapsed from a full-scale heavenly rescue, complete with winning lottery ticket, limo, helicopter, distant exotic island, fully staffed mansion and catered meals to a whimpering ...”just a hug”. GOD!! JUST A HUG! I could survive life if God would just give me a hug.

That night, I had slumped to the floor, feeling the agony of rejection from my husband and God, when I heard a voice. Looking back it might have been audible. Honestly, I don’t know but there it was.

“Teresa, I have given Arthur’s arms to hold you.”

The shock of those words made me writhe in additional disappointment as my absent husband (when actually home) was distant, secretive with dark, dismal moods. HIM? Lord, you cannot be serious, he’s the reason I need the hug!

For years I had sought help for my tanking life from pastors, friends, family members and Christian counselors. Their ubiquitous answer was diametrically opposed to what I just heard. They all told me to pray, to seek solace from God. They were so busy pointing to the heavens that it never occurred to them that they could give me a hug.

Christians were handing God the problem and God was handing it back.

Those are very distant years and since becoming Catholic I finally understand what God meant that night.

When God said that the church was His Body on earth, He wasn’t meaning it allegorically.

From the beginning we have been asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and since the beginning God has been telling us... YES! He told us in the story of the good samaritan and the separation of the sheep and goats and all His parables of the Kingdom of Heaven. WE ARE HIS BODY!

When someone asks God for a miracle, we are supposed to be that miracle. As Catholics who receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord, when God is needed we are to be there as Him. We are to sacrifice and listen, share and share again, for to the world we act as God on earth.

Not just as individuals for that would be too great a responsibility. But as a church, we are to be personally responsible for each and every person out there who is lonely, confused, sick with sin. We are His Body and that is an awesome and awe-filled privilege.

When Catholics see someone in need, they do not send them to God, wash their hands of the problem and walk merrily by (or at least they are not supposed to). When Catholics see a problem, they know, as the Body of Christ, they should and they MUST become personally involved. For God’s primary way of changing the world is through us, His Church. God has given us the grace to do miracles in His name, not with a magic wand, but with sacrifice and sometimes painful self-giving of our time, energy and sweat.

We are not to run from the messiness of life. Indeed God gives us a mop and commands us to go to it. He then infuses us with the grace to do it in His name.

Of course God regularly uses the supernatural, but if you look at the history of His people, His preference is to allow US, His Body, to become like Him, doing His works. And isn’t that just what He promised us, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14: 12

From The Coming Home Network International Publications

2011-07-29T07:06:00.000-04:00

http://chnetwork.org/2011/07/arthur-and-teresa-beem-from-prophetess-to-pope/

Not my best picture.... but doesn't my hubbie look sweet ?

Arthur and Teresa Beem – From Prophetess to Pope

July 7, 2011

From Prophetess to Pope

Arthur and Teresa Beem

Arthur

In silent horror, I listened to my Seventh-day Adventist pastor’s mini-sermon as I watched blood trickle down the little Boy Scout’s leg. After crashing his bicycle, the boy had timidly approached our picnic table. In a weak, shaky voice he begged, “I lost my group. Could you catch me up to my group?” Seeing this as a “teachable moment” my pastor responded to the young lad by gently putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Saturday is the Sabbath,” the pastor said with an enlightened smile and began a short homily explaining why the fourth¹commandment kept us from helping him. However, he offered to pray for him. To this day, I am baffled as to why the pastor refused the Boy Scout, unless it was the Adventist taboo of riding bikes on Sabbath. That experience symbolized my frustrations growing up in the SDA church.

As a cradle Adventist, there were so many unexplainable taboos I had grown up with. On the Sabbath we couldn’t play with the neighbors, swim, go to the store or mall; no television or radio. A sampling of the list I’ll entitle, Adventist’s Iniquities, (any day of the week) included dancing, drinking, smoking, going to the theater, eating meat, drinking coffee or anything with caffeine in it, and wearing jewelry. Drinking root beer was our family’s version of walking on the wild side (it contains no caffeine but it looks like Coke).

However, Adventists evidently believe God sanctioned imitations of evil. Adventists are well-known for their substitute meats. My mother would spend hours in the kitchen making a gray, gelatinous mass of whole-wheat gluten as fake beef. My parents would drink a hot, black liquid substance called Postum, which kids would tease was “bad to the last drop.” Any jewelry dangling from your ear or wrist or neck was scandalous, but if it could be pinned onto your blouse it was endorsed.

Adventism, to me, was not only confusingly hypocritical but scary. Some Adventist doctrines are based on the visions supposedly given by an angel to a 19th-century prophetess and one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist church, Ellen White. According to my childhood church, heaven opened up to her a crucial new addition to the Gospel—called the “Everlasting Gospel.” In fact, White calls it the most important message of all time². According to her Revelation 14 prophecy, Adventists are the sole remnant of God and the 144,000. They are then given the task of proclaiming the three angels’ message (vs. 6-12).

First and foremost, they must warn the world that Christ’s Second Coming is imminent (which they have been broadcasting since 1844.) After that, the Sabbath issue dominates their doctrines. Ellen White’s messages, affectionately dubbed “The Spirit of Prophecy,” teach that very soon laws will be enacted that will force a great crisis between those who only profess to be Christians and genuine Christians. God’s dramatic test between His false and true people pivots upon which day of the week you go to church. Those who fall prey to the antichrist’s strong delusion and receive the mark of the beast are those who worship onSunday. Truly obedient Christians will become Seventh-day Adventists who attend church on the authentic Sabbath—Saturday.

The disturbing and bizarre twist to their prophecy is that Christians who attend church on Sunday³ will become the Whore of Babylon, seize national power, and enact laws that force all people to attend church on Sunday. Then in a drunken madness this spiritual prostitute will track down, torture, and kill Adventists who do not succumb to her demands of worshipping on the false Sabbath. Guess who the Adventist church claims will spearhead this coming barbarity against them? The Catholic Church. Adventists earnestly work and pray for the pitiful souls who have been deceived by Rome⁴.

Our SDA Bible teachers showed pictures of the pope and pointed out the “pagan-inspired, Devil’s horns of his mitre.” Using only denominationally published theology books, they warned of the dangers of stepping outside of the church. When I finally was old enough to ask a coherent question about our doctrines, I received no biblically backed answers that made sense without quoting Ellen White.

Once, on a rainy day, my neighborhood non-Adventists (but Christian) friends invited me to go bowling with them. Excited, I naively asked my mother if I could go. She shot my dad a deflecting glance, “well, ask your father.” Giving the same answer I am sure my dad was given by his parents, he responded, “I don’t think that is something we want to do.” To my inquiry of why, his answer was typical, “Ellen White speaks against it.” That was no real answer, but I had been taught to respect, or at least obey, anything she wrote. Even if my dad had personal concerns himself, which I doubt he did, he would never have breathed them aloud. He was the principal of the SDA church school I attended and not only would spend thirty years of his life as a teacher, principal and eventually an Educational Superintendent, he also would become an ordained minister of the Adventist gospel.

With my upbringing, I could easily have become like many of my SDA friends: bitter and angry. I had a total lack of spiritual intimacy with God or a church. Although I had never gotten an accurate description of who God was, in my heart I was holding out for a God of love.

Our Blessed Lord decided to teach me about selfless, passionate, intense love when I met my stunning wife in an Adventist boarding school in south Texas. He gave me the love of my life to teach me of His love for me. But it was going to take a while for God to get through. The beginning of marriage was tough. I was unbelievably selfish. But the Lord worked through my patient wife who was the consummate pantomime of the Lord’s sacrificing love. Yet still remaining in spiritual confusion, one Saturday I just stopped going to church. In fact for a while I told my wife I did not know if I could even believe in God.

In my thirties, I finally came to my own personal age of enlightenment. I had gotten to the point that I wanted some answers, not just for myself but for my young children that were looking to me as their father and priest of the family. And, like before, I received none through the SDA church.

My uncle David founded a Biblical Research Institute that recorded eschatology studies on audio tape. At the time I was doing sales on the road and would listen to several of the tapes each week. Some of his research was truly profound and listening to these tapes showed me that there might be another way of reading the Bible. Ellen White just may not have known what she was talking about. In one tape, “The Law,” David’s systematic explanation of God’s law in Scripture was the first time I realized it was based in love. God’s law was not a tool to kill you with but a tool He fulfilled to save you. I was struck like a lightning bolt. I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was weeping so profusely.

After this lightning bolt, I started to read C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of Man. I never knew that there was flesh on those old dry bones of religion. For the first time, between my uncle David, Lewis, and Tozer I earnestly studied spirituality. It was like these writers poured the wine of the Eucharist upon my tortured mind and it exploded to life. As God’s grace was transforming me, my wife had reached the same point but from a completely different direction.

Teresa

It was as if, until that moment, I had been a merry, floral-crowned damsel tossing rose petals through the air as I skipped through my Pre-Raphaelite, bucolic life—when I was hit by a Mack truck. In shock, with my emotions plowed into the ground, I pondered how my whole life had been a lie. But then the thoughts turned even darker; my parents’ lives had also been based in fiction. Then the circle grew wider—my grandparents, my teachers, my pastors. Oh, it was just too painful to even think about.

You see, I loved serving my precious Jesus through the Seventh-day Adventist church. My family had been part of this church for so many generations we were not sure when they had been converted. In fact, we had become cultural Adventists or cafeteria Adventists—who would pick and choose the doctrines and rules we personally believed and roll our eyes at the rest.

Our family were the “cool” Adventists. We openly drank Dr. Pepper to the gasps of the orthodox, and watched Disney movies—in the movie theaters. (I was told by my teachers that I would be in trouble if I mentioned that fact in school.) You would see our family eating out at a restaurant every Sabbath. Though we wouldn’t have thought of leaving the church, our family had proudly thrown off the shackles of what we considered silly, hypocritical teachings. Oh, I don’t want to mislead you. I still believed that Jesus was coming soon and looked for evidence of it in every newscast. Sincerely and earnestly I had wanted to be obedient to Christ and I assumed keeping Saturday as Sabbath was keeping His commandments. With all its blemishes, I was proud to be one of God’s chosen people, part of the remnant spoken of in Revelation. After all, it made one feel special to know that one’s denomination was God’s elite.

Because I was an “enlightened” Adventist, I saw myself as the future of the church and was devotedly active. I sang in the choirs, wrote for its publications, taught in its schools and Sabbath morning study groups. Then, in the mid 1990’s, life had become busy as a homeschooling mother of three and time with the Lord in prayer and Bible study had dwindled. For the first time in my life, new temptations doggedly pursued me. I felt God calling me back to Scripture, but once there, the illusion of my life and my worldview of truth was shattered. There wasn’t a shred of biblical evidence to support Adventist unique doctrines. Adventists had woven texts into Ellen White’s prophecies, rather than build doctrine upon the Bible alone. It wasn’t that I hadn’t read the Bible before; indeed, I could win any biblical trivia game I played. It was confusing. I stomped the ground in a tantrum to God and reminded Him that as a good Protestant I knew Scripture by heart. I knew Scripture… I knew Jesus, He was my best friend! “Don’t change the rules on me now.” Yet knowing my yearning for truth, God lifted the veil from my eyes and showed me that I had been living in delusion. I could see for the first time how Adventist doctrine was not just wrong, but even spiritually dangerous.

No matter how painful it was to tear myself from my culture and indoctrination, I knew I could no longer support a church—as sweet and well-meaning as it was—that taught beliefs that were not based in authentic history or Scripture, that taught spiritual fear and elitism. So, I went to my husband to break what I thought would be horrifying news.

Arthur and Teresa

Sitting staring at each other, we both were thinking the same thing, “How do I say: ‘Honey, I don’t think I’m an Adventist anymore.’” God gave us the grace to tear off our religious facade and words began to pour. We had never spoken so candidly about our spiritual life. We went from parallel paths to one miraculously united with Christ.

In 2001 we formally placed our resignation letter on the desk of our pastor. As we left his church office, Arthur’s hand steadied me for I felt a bit faint. My life had just fizzled away quietly like a wet fire cracker. There was no wake, no funeral, and no public grieving for my loss. Yet, in that moment Christ ignited a new spark that would later turn into a bonfire of joy.

Arthur felt pleased we had made a gracious and respectful break. Even more, he was startled at his feelings of exhilaration—like fleeing a dry desert for the ocean. Since we lived in an Adventist community Arthur did detect some guilt thrust in his direction by the condemning gaze of Ellen White in the eyes of some church members. He missed by inches the brushes that were attempting to paint a “scarlet A” (in this case meaning “apostasy”) on his chest. In apologetic desperation, I stayed close to my family and friends vainly attempting to prove to them we had a basis for leaving.

Soon we were eagerly worshipping and studying with other Protestant denominations, so happy to be awash in our newfound brothers and sisters in Christ. Within a few months we began to discover a real problem in choosing our own church. Oh, it’s easy if all you are looking for is an inspirational service. There are so many wonderful, joyful, and fulfilling communities of Christ to which you can feel like you belong. (I just left one!) The problem comes when you want your church to be based in biblical truth. We had spent a lifetime dedicated to a church who had indoctrinated us into fiction, so we were understandably hesitant to repeat that same mistake. Fearing deception, we spent years grilling pastors about their doctrine.

Every single denomination out there claims its beliefs are the most Bible-based. One pastor proof-texts infant baptism, while the pastor down the road proof-texts adult baptism—quite confusing. Theologians dueled with the original languages claiming that really, if we could read Greek, the Once-Saved-Always-Saved position would be ridiculously clear or just ridiculous—depending on which scholar we asked. One pastor with two Ph.D.’s in theology insisted that if we could, “acquiesce to neo-orthodoxy’s ontological and soteriological exegesis of justification through the feminist theological worldview we would become at peace with our post-modern epistemological quest.”

I looked at Arthur and whimpered, “what?” Then we went home and sent off for applications to all the different US seminaries. We decided, in order not to be deceived we had to be able to read the Scriptures in their original form. Arthur and I became consumed with theology. It seemed the more we knew, the more we realized that it would take every second of every waking hour in theological study for the rest of our lives to begin to know all this stuff. …Wait… I had to take a shower …and fix dinner… and phone my mother…I was running out of time! It was devastating to realize that to really avoid deception and know truth, we would have to be… God.

The thought terrified us. My Protestant friends all told us to relax, all we needed to understand Scripture was the Holy Spirit. Yet, we knew there were false prophets (Ellen White!). As sincere Christians, how could we guarantee that we would not fall prey to false doctrine again? Had God abandoned us to correctly, infallibly interpret Scriptures with nothing but our average IQs?

God sent a Catholic friend to introduce a revolutionary idea. He cut through our despairing cloud of confusion with a new inquiry. “Perhaps you are asking the wrong question. Maybe, just maybe, instead of finding what you think is perfect theology, try looking for the church God set up as His authority.” That haunting statement changed our lives as we took it to Christ in prayer and study.

For years, we had watched an online Catholic-Protestant discussion group, but we had dismissed the Catholics’ defense of their faith because it was too biblical. We thought it was just another plot of deception. We had been warned about online Jesuit plants—tricky papist spiders—drawing the web into their ultimate antichrist designs. We purchased a Catechism to find out if the tricky papists were lying about what Catholics believe. After all, what they were saying wasn’t what we had been taught they believed. Yet there they were! Catholic beliefs! Just as the Catholics claimed—in the Catechism, the Catholic Encyclopedia, history books, and everything else we could get our hands on to read. So Arthur and I immersed ourselves in our new quest of discovering real Catholicism.

As my husband and I began reading the early Church Fathers, we were shocked at how Catholic they were. Could it be Catholic corruption had already been trickling in before the Apostles died? But that cannot be right, can it? These early writings were not just by any convert; these were writings by bishops who had been taught by, anointed by, and chosen by the Apostles themselves to lead the churches they started. That just didn’t seem to make sense that they would have become apostate so soon. If God had abandoned His Church so quickly after its inception, then we really have a problem because we can’t trust the Trinity doctrine, the canon of Scripture, or the divinity of Christ because these were the men (and later Fathers) who defined these doctrines and who attested to which writings were by the apostles and which were forgeries.

So we either had to believe God protected His Church’s theology, or we have to cut the Church off right after its birth. Is it possible that these godly men, who were martyred for their faith, could have gotten it that wrong? In the end, we had to admit, that their writings didn’t actually conflict with Scripture; their writings were in conflict with our personal interpretation of Scripture, or rather I should say, the way we had been taught to interpret it.

After acknowledging Adventists had disseminated error about Protestants, it was not impossible to accept the idea that Protestants disseminated error about Catholics. Christ was now opening up a frightening, exciting, new worldview of Christianity for us.

It was about this time that Arthur and I published a book called, “It’s Okay Not to be a Seventh-day Adventist” (Amazon.com). It lays out the history and doctrine of the Adventist church, comparing and contrasting it with Scripture and supporting former SDAs in transitioning into mainstream Christianity. After leaving that church, we had been contacted by numerous hurting Adventists who needed someone to whom they could talk. Many were terrified of Ellen White’s last-day prophecies and were afraid to go to other churches for fear of being deceived. Since we had been down that same road, we could sympathize. So God handed us a ministry for them.

As the book was announcing to the SDA world that we had left Adventism, we had a new announcement they would find even more horrifying. We had finished the RCIA program and now, after intense study, we were entering the Catholic Church. Not that we understood the doctrines perfectly, but we began using an acronym, BEAU, believing that if every other doctrine within Catholicism wasn’t true, it just didn’t matter if they got these things right. (Now, we are discovering all the other doctrines, including Marian Dogmas are not only breathtakingly true, but biblical.)

BEAU (the French male form for “beautiful”—apropos for Christ):

BIBLE: We were shocked to discover that for 1600 years the Bible was more extensive; that Reformers took out unwanted books. Contrary to Protestant teaching, the Catholic Church protected Scripture with her life, copied, translated and transmitted it. We realized that Sola Scriptura was not biblical but was a Protestant tradition and that the Bible actually points to the apostles and the Church as the foundation of truth (Eph. 2:20, I Tim. 3:15).

EUCHARIST: We eagerly embraced the clearest scriptural meaning that God’s body was actually miraculously present in the Holy Communion endowing us with special grace. Coming before Him at mass, experiencing the love at the cross, becoming one with Christ through the Eucharist, we delighted in knowing these things are not figurative, not just a symbol, but really living the Kingdom of God.

AUTHORITY: As we analyzed our culture, we saw the crumbling of western society because of the lack of authority. The rebelliousness of children, divorce, sexual promiscuity, abortion—at the root, all are a rejection of God’s sovereignty. Nature attests to a hierarchy of leadership; Israel was structured around their appointed authorities; is it possible we had missed this in the New Testament? Again, we had been blind to an obvious part of Scripture. Repeatedly the apostles command Christians to submit to God’s appointed authorities even when they were less than perfect.

UNITY: Finally, as we read Jesus’ fervent desire that His disciples remain unified, we recognized there was something distinctly unscriptural about all the different denominations. Scriptures did not allow for sects. Christ stresses unity more than many doctrines Protestants deem “essentials.” Indeed, unity is an essential of faith. We had to ask ourselves if Protestants had a biblical basis to break with the Church. The answer was no.

It is difficult to express our duality of grief and exhilaration in the first two years of being Catholic. We have learned obedience to Christ brings unfathomable joys. There is no honor in heaven or earth like giving undying fealty and faithful love to the Savior and His Bride. It is thrilling to be a part of this historical, triumphant Church.

God has given us many surprises. Becoming Catholic has improved our marriage. Through participating in the Eucharist, we have gained a penetrating insight of the privilege of sacrificing for our spouses. As Christ broke Himself for us, we then also give of ourselves, fully, unreservedly, tenderly to our spouses. Our rights fade away in the glory of offering ourselves to each other.

We have understood our own irreplaceable importance to God as we study the Catholic Church’s doctrines on life and birth control. No longer are we, as we felt in Protestantism, an army of one. We find great relief as we drink from a vast two-thousand year reserve of living water from the immovable Rock that Christ founded upon Peter and the Apostles. We relish the safety of the Church’s treasury of faith and communion of saints. We delight in knowing that God is changing us from glory to glory and erasing the original sin that stained our souls. Pain no longer elicits confusing questions of offending God: now we lift up our sorrows in redemptive suffering. We no longer fear other Christians nor do we see ourselves pridefully as God’s elite.

And yet our decision to follow Christ into the Catholic Church has left our Adventist families heart-broken, fearing for our sanity and with some, even worse, believing we are traitorous to the Gospel. We humbly ask your prayers that one day our families’ hearts will be open to this blessed of all faiths. For truth heals the deep pains of false beliefs. We thank each one of you who faithfully prays for unity and for little straying lambs, like we were, to find our way home into the Roman Catholic Church.

Arthur and Teresa Beem were both raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and attended their schools from elementary through the University level. Arthur is a travel nurse and Teresa writes as she travels with him. Their three college-age children are on the East Coast, way too far from their parents who are currently in the state of Washington. The Beems attend the beautiful St. James Cathedral in downtown Seattle. They run a ministry for former Adventists and would someday love to be involved in the RCIA program helping other Protestants to understand the beauties of the Roman Catholic church.

The Joys of Monotheism

2011-07-28T07:59:00.001-04:00

I AM A MONOTHEIST!! (giggle, clap, smile, "yeah!")

Finally! Whew.

I had no idea how this had weighed on me all these years. Cognitive dissonance doesn't usually red flag itself in your subconscious. It is like a strange pain you get used to and ignore. Then one day you take an Advil and realize that you feel GREAT! You weren't even aware you had been carrying this pain around until it is gone.

Hallelujah! Beethoven you have given me a song to sing.

Several people have explained the Trinity doctrine lately in comparison to the doctrine I had grown up with. And I don't know if the Seventh-day Adventist church taught me wrong or I just wrongly understood their doctrines. But I have always thought deep down that Christians were really polytheists and wouldn't admit it.

When my husband and I had decided to be missionaries to Egypt, (right before 9-11 and the state department discouraged us from going) I was trying to figure this subject out. This is a huge issue with both Jews and Muslims. They consider Christians polytheists and I needed to know how to explain it so it made sense. Well, I couldn't. It didn't make sense. We were polytheists and just trying to excuse it.

BUT NO MORE!! I'm not saying I totally understand how God can be three in one. I am not there yet. I have, however, stepped up into a place where I CAN see the Catholic Dogma of the Trinity and understand it so much better than I ever did in my former religion. Wish there was a way I could express it in written words. God is one, expressed in three forms--all the same substance. I had always seen them as three separate beings, not truly united in one, but like three family members who thought alike.

No, that was not right. The Trinity is more Spirit than form, symbolized in the Cherubim angels. Not fully represented by the unity of man and woman physically in marriage, but their spiritual union. Yes, hard to explain and I am doing a terrible job.

I think repeating the Nicene Creed has also helped. "Begotten, not made", one in substance, "True God from True God".... these words are making an impact and I love it.

Now God has taken the cognitive dissonance away and I feel as light as air. I feel like I just became a real Christian. But that is not new to me at all. Each day I awake and grab my rosary and pray the Divine Chaplet of Mercy and say the Nicene Creed, I feel like a new Christian.

Man, I LOVE being Catholic.

(Lady Dragon, I think you were one of those people who was discussing the Trinity that helped me. Thanks!)

As a Bride Adorneth Herself For Her Husband....

2011-07-24T18:35:00.001-04:00

Some examples of the casual dress at Sunday Mass in North Carolina.

This is just to show that flip flops are very common, even among older people.

You can't see it, but this shiny gold shirt, worn by an older woman in the choir, has a T back and she has on a black miniskirt.

Jean shorts and tank top blouse, this is NOT a teenager but a woman in her late twenties, early thirties.

This woman, in her late thirties, is a bit casual for church. The spaghetti straps probably would be better at a backyard picnic.

You can see women in capri shorts and sleeveless shirts. Not immodest, but for Sunday Mass?

Yes, she is a teenager, about sixteen, but her parents should not have allowed short, short jeans and a t-shirt.

Another example of the casual dress; grown men without shirts tucked in and shorts. Fine for a baseball game, but what are we saying about our respect for the presence of Christ in the sacrifice of the Mass?

Bishop Burbridge needs to see these pictures. These are pretty tame examples of what we have seen and are by no means the worst. We have seen many college age girls wearing short short jeans and t-back t-shirts with bra straps showing. Women with strapless towel material dresses, like beach wear. Flip-flops, common. Nice shorts on men, okay--but with t-shirts, or shirts not tucked in? This is not just about modestly, it is about what we are saying to the world and our children about the respect we have for Sunday Mass.

I am certainly not upset at these people or necessarily blame them. It is our Protestant American culture that does not have the real presence but only a symbol who have begun this trend in casual attire for church. And that is okay for them, because church is a symbol. However, for Catholics, no way. What are we saying when we come before the King of Kings and Lord of Lord to partake in the holiest act of worship, the holiest consummation of Christ and His Bride with such flippant and unconsidered attire?

Just one more picture to leave you with, an older woman and her daughter, just as they were leaving church.

Idolatry and Symbols

2011-07-23T08:33:00.002-04:00

The Protestant religious worldview is based upon Christian symbols. They suppose themselves to reject rites and rituals, but when it come to things of God, they are all about the symbolic.

To most Protestants:

The Body of Christ is not a tangible, physical organization, but a conceptual fusion of sincere hearts. The Kingdom of God on earth is allegorical, not a organized, connected body--but somehow a blurry, abstract spiritually-connected group. This spiritual connection is not specifically defined but assumed by many to be a belief in sola scriptura and sola fide--or, for the more simple minded--their love for Jesus.

Baptism is nothing more than a symbolic public confession that they have received Christ into their hearts. It has no intrinsic grace. There is no regenerated New Man as the death and resurrection with Jesus at baptism represents more of a legal exchange than an authentic "born again" experience. For a Protestant a person's new birth occurs with an experience--when a person asks Jesus to come into their hearts as Savior.

The Communion Bread/Eucharist is symbolic to a Protestant. And here is where we see the huge difference in worldview which affect our views of each other.

In Protestant corporate worship, they come together to pray, sing praises and to listen to a sermon usually about a Bible text. Many imagine that their assembling together to worship brings a fuller presence of God than in their personal devotions at home. But from those I have encountered, many do not. They believe that God is no more at church, than He is in their private prayers and Bible study.

The very essence of Protestant worship and doctrines are: spiritual symbols, spiritual thoughts, spiritual feelings, spiritual experiences that happen in their heart.

The symbolic even bleeds over to their actions. Many evangelicals and fundamentalists teach that a Christian should not expect any apparent sanctification in their lives. Moral growth and becoming holy is to them, again, symbolic.

So, all that to build my case:

When you see Christianity through the lens of the symbolic; when baptism, the church, spiritual growth and the Eucharist/Communion bread is all allegorical; when your highest form of worship is infused with symbols, then you see idolatry in Catholicism's symbols.

When kneeling to pray to God is a Protestant's highest form of worship, they see idolatry when they see someone kneeling to a statue of Christ or Mary or another saint. They cannot fathom that to a Catholic kneeling is subsidiary to worship. It aids in worship but it is not worship itself, as throughout history and in almost all cultures one would bow to one's king, queen or local lord or even to one's family. The Bible is replete with these examples.

When prayer is the highest form of worship, Protestants see idolatry when they see Catholics praying to saints. They cannot fathom that to a Catholic praying is subsidiary to worship. It aids in worship but is not worship itself, as throughout history and in almost all cultures one would pray (or in today's language: petition) to one's king, queen or local lord. History is replete with these examples.

These actions ARE worship to a Protestant, the fullest expression of what humans do to worship. So when they see others acting in a way which represents their highest and most holy form of worship, they sincerely believe Catholics are idol worshipping.

What they don't realize is two-fold:

1. Catholics highest form of worship is not praying, praising, bowing or even studying God's written word. To a Catholic the sacrifice of the mass is the highest holiest form of human worship. Worship is the re-presentation of Jesus on the Cross to the Father. It is partaking of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist. All other things are worship aids--the music, the rites, the rituals, the candles, the stained-glass windows, the genuflecting and bowing, the reading of scripture, the prayers. All these things are not worship in and of themselves but are done to keep our hearts and minds upon the greatest and most holy act of all time:

Jesus on the Cross.

Coming before Him at the foot of the Cross and joining with Him in the sacrifice for our sins and those of the whole world, participating in the Last Supper with Him and joining our very bodies with Him in eating of His true flesh, that and that alone is the fullness of worship. (And that is why we keep Jesus on the cross in our crucifixes--always reminding us of what Jesus did for us at the Cross.)

Just as holding hands and kissing are not the fullness of marital consummation, but aids to bring two people together in the fullness of human intimacy, so bowing and praying, praising and Bible study are not the fullness of worship. As you can hold hands with your parents and kiss your siblings without committing adultery because you have not reached the fullness of consummation (and it was never a temptation to go there!) So we can pray/petition others, bow to them without even a hint of idolatry.

2. Secondly, what Protestants do not realize is that worship has for all history been participating in sacrificing to idols. The first commandment of God on Mt. Sinai:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them..."

This making of an image and bowing down to serve it means, within the context of Hebrew history, sacrificing a living thing and sharing in a covenant meal with the god, who the pagan believed to be alive. They would bring them food and drink, they would consult the oracles as to what the idol told them to do or to find out predictions of the future.

Pagan worship was not symbolic! It was a true joining with the demonic spirit's soul through a covenant meal offering. They worshipped a piece of stone, or an animal--not by just bowing or even praying to them as symbols. But this "bowing and serving" was known to all as joining themselves to the idol through a corporate sacrifice of a covenant meal. That was why Paul kept bringing up eating meat sacrificed to idols in his letters to the different churches. Joining in a covenant meal with an idol was tantamount to adultery. Please, if you don't believe me, do a Biblical study on what idol worship was in the Old Testament.

Idol worship wasn't symbolic, so Protestants misunderstand true idol worship because they cannot fathom a spirituality that is real, with a real Body of Christ in a real church, a real Eucharist and a baptism of regeneration.

The Fall of the Knights of Columbus

2011-07-20T15:09:00.000-04:00

This is so disappointing to my husband and I. We were so looking forward to his joining the Knights soon.

Being Good

2011-07-16T08:21:00.002-04:00

Little Richard, the fifties rock idol, came to the Dallas First SDA Church when I was a preteen and gave a titillating conversion testimony mostly recalling his wild and exciting fall from grace, which secretly inspired a desire in me to have such a theatrical repentance story.

But then again... I would have to be that bad first! Something seemed wrong to me in the scenario that to have a really good testimony for the Lord, I would have to first ruin my life.

Today, I see the American Christian culture, because of its fear of the “righteousness by works” mindset, concentrate exclusively on the negative salvation formula of: God’s amazing grace saving a “wretch like me.” Of course, all of us find ourselves captive to sin and can rejoice greatly in a gospel that promises, “God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," (Rom. 5:8).

We seem totally oblivious to a positive and less destructive method in which a human can discover the love of God.

It is not only through failing and repenting that one can grow in grace, but it is also through the struggle of winning over sin that we can come to a deep insight into what Christ went through on the cross for us.

Let me give an example. A husband, who has never been such a good guy, commits adultery and is truly repentant. He asks his wife for forgiveness and comes to know Christ’s love for him through his deep sorrow for this wicked act. An understanding seizes upon his soul of what Jesus did to save him from the eternal consequences of sin. And that is wonderful, praise God!

But what about the wife who choses to freely forgive? Her agonizing humiliation by receiving back a husband who doesn’t deserve a second chance may be the experience where she gains an even deeper revelation of Christ’s sacrifice. By picking up her cross and following Him, she may grasp a penetrating first-hand cross experience. And what way to identify with another who has been through the fires of hell than by going through them yourself?

Again, I wish to stress, I am not speaking of earning salvation, only becoming aware of Christ’s love for you.

Both the act of selfish sin and the act of selfless love can be used to bring us to the Cross, flooding us with insights into the character of God.

May I suggest being good has gotten a bad reputation by Christians because we run from the idea that we can even be good and the fear of works-righteousness. But in the end, our lives will be a lot less miserable if we can find God in being good.

Climate Change and Christianity

2011-07-14T08:46:00.000-04:00

[The Lord] is about to deprive Jerusalem and Judah of resources and provisions -- all reserves of food, all reserves of water-of hero, warrior, judge ... People will be ill-treated by one another, each by his neighbor; the young will insult the aged, and the low, the respected. For Jerusalem has collapsed and Judah has fallen, because their words and deeds affront Yahweh and insult his glorious gaze. Their complacency bears witness against them, they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not conceal it, all the worse for them, for they have hatched their own downfall. ... O my people, their oppressors pillage them and extortioners rule over them! O my people, your rulers mislead you and efface the paths you ought to follow! Isaiah 3: 1- 9 selected (NJB)

Global warming a myth? Who really knows. But for Christians convinced that they will plunge the world into a new ice age or scalded desert from drinking bottled water, take a look at this text. Maybe it is not our overuse of natural resources that is causing weather catastrophes.

Sounds as if God takes away our resources, not because we don't separate our aluminum from our glass trash for recycling, nor from failing to compost for our organic gardens.

Could global warming be directly related to our complacency? Our sin?

Perhaps the problem stems from that fact that we have disdained God's original command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Satan has twisted our science and used it to promote fear of overpopulation, defying God's instructions to procreate--so now we think we are doing the planet a favor by using contraceptives and murdering our children through abortion?

The world is on the verge of collapse alright, but the earth is groaning and wrenching from its forced ingestion of toxic sin, not toxic waste. True Environmentalists need to break the yoke with which they have joined with Planned Parenthood and the radical left. If you want to save Mother Earth, love your neighbor, respect your parents, appoint judges who will bring justice, that our sins will no longer affront and insult our Holy God. The creation is crying out because of our sins, our complacency. The Creator is hearing.....

3 Characteristics of the Diabolical....

2011-07-07T08:07:00.000-04:00

This is truly interesting:

The video at the bottom of this post is of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It is a fascinating excerpt from a longer video he did, where he analyzes the diabolical (anything of or relating to the Devil), from several different perspectives. In the excerpt I present, he identifies three characteristics of the diabolical by examining the story of the Gerasene demoniac, depicted in the synoptic gospels. Here is the story as Luke presents it:

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places. Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him.. (Luke 8: 26-30)

You will then recall how Jesus drove the demon(s) out and into the herd of swine.

From this story and also based on an insight from a psychiatrist of his time (the talk was given in the mid 1970s), Bishop Sheen sets forth characteristics of the diabolical:

Love of Nudity – For the text says: For a long time this man had not worn clothes.
Violence – For the text says: though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains. Mark 5:4 more vividly adds: For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
Division (Split Personality and divided from others) – for the text says, many demons had gone into him.Mark’s version has the demoniac reply My name is Legion, for we are many. (Mk 5:9). Further all the texts say the demoniac lived apart from others, in solitary places.

So here are three characteristics of the diabolic.

It does not take much analysis to see how these three characteristics of the diabolic are alive and flourishing in the modern world, at least the Western branch of it. Let’s consider them

1. Love of Nudity - This is clearly manifest at several levels. First there is the widespread tendency of immodest dress. We have discussed modesty here before and ought to note that modesty comes from the word “mode” referring to the middle or to moderation. Hence, while we want to avoid oppressively puritanical notions about dress that impose heavy burdens (especially on women) and regard the body as somewhat evil, we must also critique many modern forms of dress at the other extreme. These “fashions” reveal more than is reasonable and generally have, as their intent to draw attention to aspects of the body that are private and reserved for sexual union in marriage. Too many in our culture see little problem parading about in various stages of undress, wearing clothing that are more intended to disclose and call attention to, than to conceal the private areas of the body. This love of disclosure and titillation is surely an aspect of the Evil One’s love of nudity, and he has surely spread his obsession to many in the modern West.

Pornography, though nothing new in this fallen world, has surely reached epidemic proportions via the Internet. Any psychotherapist, counselor or priest will tell you that addiction to pornography is a huge problem among people today. Pornographic sites on the Internet outpace all others tenfold. Multimillion Americans are viewing enormous amounts of pornography and the “industry” is growing exponentially. What was once hidden away in adult bookstores is now one click away on the Internet. And the thought that browsing habits are easily discoverable matters little to the addicts of this latest form of slavery. Many are on a steep slope downward into ever more deviant forms of porn. Many end up at illegal sites before they even know what has happened to them, and the FBI is knoocking on their door. Satan’s love of nudity has possessed many!

The overall sexualization of culture also ties in to Satan’s love of nudity. We sexualize women to sell products. We even sexualize children. Our sitcoms chatter endlessly about sex in a very teenage and immature sort of way. We are, collectively, goofy and immature about sex, and our culture giggles like horny teenagers obsessed with something we don’t really understand. Yes, Satan loves nudity, and everything that goes with it.

2. Violence – We have discussed here before how we, collectively, have turned violence into a form of entertainment. Our adventure movies and video games turn violent retribution into gleeful entertainment and death into a “solution.” Recent Popes have warned us of the culture of death, where death is increasingly proposed as the “solution” to problems. In our culture violence begins in the womb, as the innocent are attacked and it is called “choice” and “rights.” The violence and embrace of death continues to ripple through culture through contraception, violent gang activity, easy recourse to war and capital punishment. The past Century was perhaps the bloodiest ever known on this planet and untold people in the hundreds of millions died in two world wars, hundreds of regional wars and conflicts, horrific starvation campaigns in the Ukraine, in China and elsewhere, genocides in Central Europe, in Africa and Southeast Asia. Paul Johnson, in his book Modern Times estimates that over 100,000,000 died in war and violent ways in the just the first 50 years of the 20th Century. And with every death, Satan did his “snoopy dance.” Satan love violence. He loves to set fires, and watch us blame each other as we burn.

3. Division - Satan loves to divide. Archbishop Sheen says that the word “diabolical” comes from two Greek words dia+ballein, meaning “to tear apart.” My own study of Greek, poor that it is, does not yield this result. Rather dia means “through” or “between” and ballein means “to throw or to cast.” Nevertheless, the Good Archbishop was a learned man and I ask you Greek Scholars to set me straight and defend Bishop Sheen.

But, even still, it is clear that the devil wants to divide us, within our very own psyche and among each other. Surely he rejoices at every division he causes. He “casts things between us” (dia+ballein)! Diabolical indeed. And thus, we see our families divided, the Church divided, our culture and Country divided. We are now divided at almost every level: racial, religious, political, economic. We divide over age, race, region, blue and red states, liturgy, music, language, and endless minutia.

Our families are broken, our marriages are broken. Divorce is rampant and commitments of any sort are rejected and deemed impossible. The Church is broken and divided into factions, so too the State, all the way down to the level of school boards. Though once we agreed on essentials, now even appeals to shared truth are called intolerant.

And within too, we struggle with many divisive drives and forms of figurative and literal schizophrenia. We are drawn to what is good, true and beautiful and yet what is base, false and evil also summons us. We know what is good, but desire what is evil, we seek love, but indulge hate and revenge. We admire innocence but often revel in destroying it or at least replacing it with cynicism.

And Satan dances his “snoopy dance.”

Three characteristics of the diabolic: love of nudity, violence, and division. What do you think? Is the prince of this world working his agenda? Even more important: are we conniving? The first step in over-coming the enemy’s agenda is to know his moves, to name them and then rebuke them in the Name of Jesus.

Thank you Archbishop Sheen. Your wisdom, God’s Wisdom, has never aged.

Pay attention to What the Good Archbishop has to say:

http://blog.adw.org/2011/07/three-characteristcs-of-the-diabolic-and-how-they-are-manifest-in-the-modern-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=three-characteristcs-of-the-diabolic-and-how-they-are-manifest-in-the-modern-world

Written by Msgr. Charles Pope Archdioceses of Washington

My Prediction

2011-07-01T07:07:00.000-04:00

I think that within the next half-century Poland is going to be the country where persecuted Christians from all over the world will flee...