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[quote:3cr0imvb]Whoa! I never denied about dinosaurs, where did you get that from?
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My mistake. I reviewed the site you posted again. There is another Sola Guy on another board who denies that dinos ever existed, I got you guys confused as you use the same anti-catholic rhetoric and source materials.
I do think that the whole literal seven 24 hour day and the world is only 6000 years old is bunk, but then again as a Catholic, I am required to believe that God created the Universe and all that by His own power He did so out of nothing, I must admit that He could have done so in seven 24 hour periods of time. Which I do admit freely that He could have done, but I don’t buy that the Bible is a Science textbook and feel the stories of creation are allegorical.
[quote:3cr0imvb]You have not shown any of my aticles to be false. [/quote:3cr0imvb]
(Others and ) I have pointed out some areas we find unacceptable and in error, or contradictory to what Christians have beleived from the founding of the Church by Jesus to today. When I am back up to full energy I may tackle some more points. The fact you reject what other people post here does not mean that someone has not replied or shown where we find fault in your articles.
[quote:3cr0imvb]WHy do you tell me about the love of Jesus yet you deny that we are cleaned by His Blood shed at Calvary’s cross? [/quote:3cr0imvb]
Enough of false statements from you Ronald. False Witness is contrary to the Bible, Catholic and Protestant. The only person who says that Catholics deny that we are cleansed by the Blood shed by Christ Jesus on Calvary’s cross is you. Catholics do not deny it, where we do differ is how the Graces of the cross are applied to us. For two thousand years Chritians have held what the Apostles taught (based on what they heard from Jesus Himself) that the process of salvation is thus. When an adult person has Faith, which he only has through supernatural grace from God he submits himself to the will of God by accepting baptism. In baptism, the graces won for us by Christ on the Cross are infused into the soul, all past sins, and Original sin are forgiven, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, and become adopted sons and daughters of God with all the rights and responsibilities inherent in the adoption. All of this is not though our own will or power, nor through the will or power of the minister but through Christ who is the primary person who acts in the Sacraments by the merits of his suffering and death, as well as his resurrection. From the days of the Apostles, infants and children where baptized and it was the parents or sponsors who supplied the intention for the infants and children.
Having been weakened by original and actual sin, we do even after our conversion fall prey to the tempting of the devil. Our Lord, being true God and true Man aware of our weakness provided for us another means of grace, in penance we find assurance of forgiveness. Just as He comissioned the Apostles to do as He did, and gave them the authority that He as God had, (Whoever’s sins you forgive they are forgiven…) we are given this assurance, and the authority given to priests is not of their own, nor based on their worthiness, but on the redemtive acts on the Cross by Christ Jesus. The Primary priest, our high priest works through his earthly minister the priest who absolves not on his own authority, but as the formula for aboslution says…
[b:3cr0imvb](1) “May the Almighty God have mercy on you, and forgiving your sins, bring you to life everlasting. Amen.” Then, lifting his right hand towards the penitent, the priest continues: “May the Almighty and Merciful God grant you pardon, absolution, and remission of your sins”.
(2) “May Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you, and I, by His authority, absolve you from every bond of excommunication [suspension, in the case of a cleric only] and interdict as far as I can and you may need.”
(3) “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” [/b:3cr0imvb]
I see in the prayers above that the priest is very clear that God forgives their sins, and that any absolution the priest may grant is based on God’s power, and any authority that the priest claims to forgive sin is based on God’s power and authority not based on the priest or his own personal powers.
In the Holy Eucharist, we see fulfilled Christ’s promise that He will give us a bread that when we eat it we will never hunger. When we recieve communion on a regular basis with the proper disposition, we are strengthened spiritually, our spiritual hunger is quenched. The Scriptures tell us about our Lord admonishing the jews who asked how hard it was to believe that we must eat His body and drink His blood. Unlike in the parables, when someone would misunderstand, and he would rephrase or explain away the misunderstanding, He did not back away but reaffirmed that if we do not eat His body and drink His blood we would have no life within us. While at Mass the priest is the minister that Christ uses, it is Jesus Himself who is the chief priest and the sacrificial victim at each Mass.
Most Protestants disavow themselves of the Mass, as they hold a narrow view that the Sacrifice which was complete at Calvary cannot be repeated, and they claim that Catholics are trying to repeat or augment the Cross. That is the last thing that the Mass does, Christ being God can trancend time and space, in His resurrected and glorified body He is not bound by the same limits as we are. Therefore He can be present after the consecration and He can transform the bread and wine into His own body and blood. From the time of the Apostles it has been held that when the minister of Christ (a bishop or priest in the case of the Eucharist) does and says what Jesus did and said at the Last Supper, that Christ Jesus using the man who has been authorized, anointed and approved by Him through His Church changes the bread and wine into His own body and blood. Just as He brought salvation to the world by coming in the flesh, He uses His own creation to come to us, just as in following His instructions to do what He commanded we reach up to Him. As His brothers and sisters by adoption and as the sons and daughters of the Father by adoption we embrace our Father and He us.
Now these and the other sacraments are empowered by the Sacrifice of Christ to give us grace and to help us “Run the Good Race” as St. Paul tells us. It is true that baptism alone will not save us, we still have to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling” and we cannot do it on our own, but only through the Graces won for us by Christ. The merits and works that we will be judged by (as the Scritures tell us) are not based on our own actions, but on our actions that are preformed out of the love of God, and in union with His grace. When actions or works are done simply to make us feel good, in a manner that is boastful and proud, or devoid of giving honor to God, they are useless. The good done by the Saints would have been useless if it had not been for the fact that they did so by using God’s creation to honor God, rather than simply using it out of any selfish or self seeking. Non-beleivers do good things all the time, but the fact is they get their merit and reward here, as they do not do it for the glory and honor of God. Beleivers sometimes are rewarded here, because their intentions are selfish, but those who advance in the spirtual life, and utilize the graces God freely gives us warrent rewards in heaven because their actions are motivated by the Love of God.
In summary, but not in the least as the final word on the subject, (as it is very comprehensive and we don’t have the bandwidth nor do I have the time or energy just now.) Any graces we receive through the Sacraments, any graces we derive through our actions are worthless if we do not incorporate into them the merits of Christ on the Cross, because it is He who empowers and sustains the sacraments, not us. Our salvation is based not on just one thing, baptism, or communion alone, but on our complying with the will of God, doing what He instructed us to do, (Be baptized, eat his body drink his blood, be ye perfect as My Father in heaven is perfect….) when we fall into sin recover through the means he gave us, and continue to advance tward Him until our last breath.
Why is this not all spelled out in the Bible? Jesus never commanded that a word of the New Testament be written, He did command that the Apostles and the seventy go out and preach the good news of salvation, and baptize all nations. He told the Apostles that He was authorizing them to forgive sins. He told them that as He had just done, to take bread and wine and to recount what He did when He said THIS IS MY BODY, and THIS IS MY BLOOD. The fact is that we do have the Bible, and we do consider it to be the word of God. That He did establish a Church against which the gates of hell could not prevail. He did take a man who had denied him, a man named Simon, and change his name to Peter the rock and as in his may parables where he speaks of a steward of the Master who is responsible when the master goes away, or when He spoke of the servants who are given talents, and are asked what they did with them when the Master returns, we are given Simon who was changed by Jesus to Peter and his successors to be the Steward, or Vicar who could rule in the name of the Master until He returned. Someone who’s office we can depend on when questions arise and decisions need to be formally made. Not based on our own merits or authority, but by the authority an merits of Christ.
The Sacraments rather than being a denyal of what Christ did on the Cross are the means Christ uses to apply those merits to us at times and places far removed from that awsome day on Calvary. They bring Christ and His merits to us individually and as an adopted family. They glorify what happened at Calvary and bring Calvary to us so we can stand mystically at the foot of the cross and look to Jesus and Say, “My Lord and My God, I believe, help my unbelief.”