yeah i'm pretty sure that im catholic and im pretty sure we DO NOT worship Mary we worship God KTHANKS =] dont be stupid and learn something before you post stuff about it ^_~
Why would the Catholics believe that? She was the one who gave Adam the apple. If anything, she sinned "more" by listening to the serpent and giving Adam the apple. That might actually explain why women have always been second-class throughout history...
Let’s stop for a minute. Do you see a pattern emerging here? With every new covenant God is seeking to draw more and more people into his family. God is gradually gathering back into one family his children that have been scattered through sin.
Interestingly enough, this could be used as justification for Islam, which claims to be another covenant God made with his people (to replace both Judaism and Christianity).
The words "Catholic" and "Christian" meant the same thing until the time of the Protestant Reformation when the Reformers could not use the word "Catholic" (since their beliefs where not universal) they clung to the word "Christian."
Second, I think some people who comment on the Catholic Church should be very clear on what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Because that's the only thing that counts to real Catholics.
God had clearly commanded man not to serve or bow down to any graven images or any creature for that matter, not even the cross. (Deut. 5:7-8-11)(Deut. 27:15)Worship and glory God in spirit. (john 4:24) Worship the Creator not the creatures. – like cow, cat, woman, man. (Matt 4:10, Rom. 1:23,25)
So, is worshipping a statue wrong? Yes. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is wrong in line with the Sacred Scriptures as it states in Exodus 20:4-5, “You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them”.
You see, an image is not an idol. There is a difference. That being said…
There are several places in the Bible where God commissions statues and images for religious usage: Exodus 25:10-22
1 Kings 6:23; 7:13-51
Numbers 21:6-9
Judges 17:1-6
Is God sending Two Different Messages?
Not necessarily…keep reading.
God ordered His children to construct these statues and images, but He did not intend for His children to worship them. God was using the images to help them to recall situations, to see places as holy and set apart, and to help them to open their minds and hearts and turn them back to God.
You see, an image is not an idol. There is a difference.
“An image is simply a spiritual ‘visual aid’ that is used by the faithful to increase their spirit of prayerfulness and devotion to God. An idol, on the other hand, is an image that is worshipped by the unfaithful in place of the one true God (i.e., the ‘golden calf’ described in Ex. 32:7-8).”
In the Old Testament, images of God were forbidden because folks had not yet seen God in human form. In the New Testament, God HAS taken on human form…an image that we can see.
“He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God…” – Colossians 1:15
“For in Jesus dwells the whole fullness of the Deity, bodily…” – Colossians 2:9
“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life – for the life was made visible…” – 1 John 1:1-2
When we profess that Jesus Christ is Lord, we must remember that we are professing the Incarnation…that is, that God became flesh…flesh in human form, Who we could see, smell, hear, touch and (through the Eucharist) taste!
When we look upon a statue as we meditate in prayer to God, our senses are illuminated. We are not worshipping the wood, plaster, plastic or paint. The image, though, appeals to our sense of sight, aiding in our visualization and helping us to focus on the pure, consistent and holy life lived by that saint…like the Blessed Virgin Mary, for instance.
Here’s a few more things to keep in mind:
Stained glass windows with images can work in the same way…but most people don’t seem to have a problem with those, because “they’re just pretty”. Images were very important in the early times of our Church’s history, especially when most of the faithful were illiterate, and could not read the word of God on their own. The images helped them recall instances and situations in the Word that they had heard about, but could not read on their own. We put framed pictures of loved ones on mantles and walls of our homes, but that doesn’t mean that we worship them. If I hold my Bible during worship, and hold it close to my heart…am I worshipping the God who inspired and wrote it, or am I worshipping the leather, glue and paper? The weatherman uses a visual aid of maps when forecasting the weather, but couldn’t he just tell us the facts and read the temperatures? Is a Children’s picture Bible that includes animations and drawings throughout it, the worshipping of images? Those are images, too, just not 3-D.
Catholics may pray in front of a statue, but never to a statue…that would be idolatry.
There is only one mediator between man and God and that is Jesus Christ only, not the Pope or bishops, et al. (1Tim 2:5) Jesus is the only High Priest for believers of God. (Heb. 7:24,
The teaching authority of the Catholic Church is entirely dependant upon the person of Jesus Christ. As Catholics, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, fully divine and fully human. This means that Christ shares the same authority to speak truth that God the Father has.
While Jesus was here, he sought to teach us how to live, not with human wisdom, but with the teaching authority of God himself. He also gathered 12 men around him who did everything with him, these 12 were the apostles. During the last days before Jesus’ death, he began to prepare the apostles for what was coming next.
Jesus said that all authority had been given to him by the Father (Luke 10:22), and that he has told the apostles everything that his Father has revealed to him (John 15:15/John 17:8). Jesus said that the apostles were being sent just as Jesus was sent into the world (John 17:18), and that whoever accepts the apostles are accepting Christ and whoever rejects the apostles are rejecting Christ (John 13:20). Jesus also made promises to the apostles: he said that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide them to all truth (John 14:26/John 16:12-15), and that the “Gates of the Netherworld” would not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:16-18), which means that the Church would be preserved no matter what sort of adversity it faces.
Upon this rock I will build my Church. So, what does all of this mean? If you look at the mission of Christ, to teach us how to live and to save us from our sins, and if you look at the fact that God sent his Son into the world to be a physical, tangible revelation of the Father to his people, it looks as though Jesus is passing on this chain of authority to the apostles. Jesus is essentially telling the apostles that they will be the continuation of what he has done in the world: Just as the Father sent me into the world, I now send you into the world, to teach in my name and to safeguard the truth that I have revealed to you. The apostles were going to be the continuing presence of God’s teaching authority.
This becomes even more clear when we look at the Gospel of Matthew: In chapter 16:13-20, Jesus is asking the apostles who people say that he is. The apostles respond that some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the Prophets, but Jesus asks them, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter speaks up and says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus’ response is extremely important. He says, “Blessed are you Simon…for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” When he says “flesh and blood” has not revealed this to you, Jesus is saying that it wasn’t Simon Peter who came up with this on his own, but that God the Father had revealed this truth to Peter. Jesus then changes Simon’s name to Peter (which means “rock”) and says that “upon this rock I will build my Church…I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” There is a lot packing into this statement of Jesus. So let’s look at it carefully.
…upon this rock? Which rock? The first thing that we need to realize is that the Church that Christ is going to build is going to be his Church, not Peter’s or anyone else’s. However, Jesus says that his Church is going to be built upon Peter. Why? Not because of anything special about Peter, but because Christ chose and appointed him for the position.
Jesus then says that stuff about binding and loosing. Now, when we read this 2000 years after the fact, we don’t immediately understanding this because this isn’t language that we use in our everyday speech. But for the Jews, this phrase “to bind and loose” represented the ability to teach authoritatively. And so, when Jesus tells Peter that whatever he binds shall be bound in heaven and whatever he looses shall be loosed in heaven, he is telling Peter that whatever he teaches to be true shall be true. Why? Because it will not be Peter who teaches, but Jesus who teaches through Peter. Remember, Jesus told the apostles that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth, and that he was sending them into the world just as his heavenly Father had sent him into the world. How was Jesus sent into the world? With the power and authority to teach in the name of God.
The apostles, with Peter as there head, would be the leaders of the Christ’s Church, endowed with the power to teach with the authority of God, and protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching falsehood. They were going to be the continuation of Christ’s mission in the world. The “keys” are a symbol of this authority (see Isaiah 22:22 and Revelation 3:7), and the fact that Jesus says that he will give these keys to Peter is a physical sign of this passing on of authority.
Jesus is the one with all authority, and after his resurrection and ascension, the apostles are given the special role of continuing his saving and work in the world, through teaching and safeguarding the truth that has been handed down to them from Jesus himself. This chain of authority from Christ to the apostles and from the apostles to the current leaders in the Church (the Pope and the Bishops) is called “apostolic succession”, and the authority to teach without error in the name of Christ is called “infallibility”.
Marriage and baptism should be for free not even donations are accepted, unlike the Vatican which ordered that EVERY ceremony must have its services paid, making money out of religion. (Matt 10:8)
I have never heard that before. Could you please point out a valid Catholic document that verifies that?
Baptism is for of age who can understand why they are being baptized and not for babies who don’t know good nor evil yet. (heb. 5:13)
Until the Protestant Reformation (the 16th Century – when Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church), baptizing infants was the universal practice of the Church. The writings of the early church show that the practice was sanctioned by the Apostles themselves.
The New Testament mentions entire households being baptized (see Acts 16.33) which may well have included infants and small children. And St. Peter tells us that the promise of salvation encompasses children too (Acts 2.39).
To understand why we baptize infants, we need to understand the notion of covenant found throughout the Old Testament. A covenant is a sacred family bond. Remember, God (the Trinity) has existed from all time as a life giving communion of persons…or family (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). God is not just any family; he is THE family of love. It is no accident that our own humanity exists within families; our families bear the image of God and are meant to reveal an essential truth about who God is. And so, God chose the covenant to be the way in which He would incorporate humanity into His own family.
...baptism is just the beginning of our life with Christ. The first covenant that God made with humanity was with Adam and Eve, and it takes the form of a marriage (the foundation of family). After Adam and Eve, the next major covenant was with Noah, and it included his whole family (his wife, his sons, and their wives). After Noah, Abraham entered into a covenant with God; this covenant included not only Abraham, his wife, and his family, but also many other families living under his authority (Abraham was a chieftain with as many as a thousand people under him).
Let’s stop for a minute. Do you see a pattern emerging here? With every new covenant God is seeking to draw more and more people into his family. God is gradually gathering back into one family his children that have been scattered through sin.
O.K. Back to the covenants. After Abraham, God made a covenant with Moses which included not just one tribe (as with Abraham), but with the twelve tribes of Israel. And then, under David, these tribes are formed into a national kingdom which entered into a covenant with God. Now, what would be the next step in this progression? Through the covenant established by Jesus Christ, God unites himself to the entire world (an international or universal kingdom). Through Christ, God has formed a covenant with all people, inviting people of every time, place, race, and sex into one family of God. As St. Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28).”
In considering the old covenants, which were a prelude to the catholic (universal) covenant of Christ, we see that children from the time of Abraham and Moses were included. And if the logic of the covenant is to be consistent, then the new covenants have to include everyone that the previous covenants had included. Under Abraham, infants were incorporated into the covenant through circumcision and a naming ceremony (if the children were girls). St. Paul tells us in Colossians 2.11-12 that baptism replaced circumcision as the means of entry into the covenant (family of God). Since circumcision was administered to infants, and since baptism takes it place, it is logical to assume that baptism is meant for infants also.
Some people object to infant baptism because they say that the child must make a free choice to accept Christ into their life, and of course infants are incapable of making a conscious decision for Christ. But we need to remember that baptism is just the beginning of our life with Christ. It is our life of obedience and faith after baptism that gets us to Heaven. And the grace that is given in baptism, never forces us to follow Jesus or to love God and our neighbor. The choice to accept Christ into our live must be made everyday of our lives. God has simply provided a way for us to receive the grace of divine son-ship (or daughter-ship) from the early moments of our childhood. And this grace can only help us remain faithful to our covenant relationship with God throughout the rest of our life. So why would we not establish the relationship of grace between God and our children as soon as we can?
Catholicism made people believe that Christ was born on December 25th and that there were 3 kings who visited young child Jesus, wherein the Bible did not mention any 3 kings but wise men only. (Matt 2:1-2)
Apparently, unless I'm reading this wrong, you can be a Jew and be a Buudhist.
Most of the references in the Wiki lean toward a spiritual leader of some type, and the chapters they come from aren't always very precise about when or what. And there are verses in the OT talking about the death of the Messiah.
Just throwing those out there. I'm going to go do something in a few, and don't want to spend my time doing so much typing.
Nose-On! Spray directly up your nose! (May cause blindness, hives, or immediate death. Do not take if...)
All Jews believe in God. You're not a Jew if you're an atheist.
Yes, there are some Jews who believe in a Messiah like Jesus (in fact, there are some Jews who believe Jesus was the Messiah don't call themselves Christians), but the prophecies referred to a military and religious leader in the same sense that the Pope is the leader of the Catholics. Very few Jews are expecting a semi-deity, and I doubt any of them expect a Messiah who is going to unite all of mankind. The Jews are concerned with the Jews and no one else.
well for the majority.. but for the minority who believes in God, they are waiting for the prophecy to be fulfilled..that God will send his Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ that will unite mankind in the religious aspect.
matt.13:16 But blesssed are your eyes for they see:and your ears, for they hear.
Yes, but the majority of Jews were looking for a military leader who would unite them against the Romans and create a Jewish monarchy again. Jesus may have been of the line of David, but he wasn't going to rid the Jews of the Romans any time soon.
We're talking about the Jewish idea of the Messiah. Not the Christian idea.
thanks for the thread. uhm, the Messiah is the annointed one, right (as what you were trying to point out in the thread)? jesus Christ is the descendant of David. the word Christ means the Annointed One = Messiah.
matt.13:16 But blesssed are your eyes for they see:and your ears, for they hear.
The Messiah is supposed to be a temporal military leader. Someone who will unite the Jews under one crown. Claiming to be God's son is not part of the job description and, in the Jewish mind, is clear blasphemy.
the Messiah means the Saviour. the word Christ means the anointed one that was prophecied by the prophets of Christ's coming on earth to save man from sins.
matt.13:16 But blesssed are your eyes for they see:and your ears, for they hear.
The Messiah is supposed to be a temporal military leader. Someone who will unite the Jews under one crown. Claiming to be God's son is not part of the job description and, in the Jewish mind, is clear blasphemy.
I mean, come on. You can't seriously expect people to believe someone who comes and says that they've been doing it all wrong for the past couple thousand years, especially when God himself told them to do it.
Much of Judaism and those prophesies is focused on a Messiah, and presuming as we are that Jesus was said figure, it makes more sense that they should change.
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the minority of the population a.k.a Christians (those with NOah)
I guess i missed the history lesson where they explained about teh flood and everything, would you kindly point out when in the last 2006 years since the birth of christ did it take place? And if you also happened to miss that lesson like most of us probably did, would you tell me how people came about being christian before christ was born.
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