Things That Protestants Don't Understand About The Church - The Mass & The Eucharist

Well, here we have another two for one special because the Mass and the Holy Eucharist are so intertwined that I cannot discuss one without the other.  Unfortunately, this means that this post will be somewhat longer than the others in this series, but, I promise you it will be one that I am proud, pleased, and passionate to write about.  So, put on your seatbelts and let us begin. 

One of the things that we Christians do and are famous for is that we gather on Sunday, the Lord's Day, to worship our God.  We worship on Sunday because it commemorates that day when Jesus defeated the arch-enemy of mankind (to include womankind LOL) death by rising from the dead.  So, in accordance with the commandment to keep holy the sabbath day we gather together to sing the Lord's praises.  We pray for one another, for the Church and we sing hymns and we hear the written word of God, the Bible. Sunday should be a day of joy for all Christians.  Sunday is such a joyful day that it is not counted in the forty days of Lent so that any Lenten disciplines you may have assigned yourself can be foregone on Sunday.  So, for Christians, Sunday is a special day indeed.  In the Catholic Church, members are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday and on certain specific Holy Days.  It is considered a sin if you miss Mass without good cause. That is how important we Catholics consider our worship. 

At the Protestant services, I have attended it appears to me that they go something like this.  First, there is some singing, followed by an opening prayer, and then perhaps a Bible reading followed by a half an hour or so where the minister preaches his(or her) sermon. There may follow a Lord's Supper service where crackers and grape juice are passed around and people remember the Last Supper of Jesus. Then there may be more singing and finally, a benediction (blessing) and everyone departs for home.  Some Protestant denominations have the Lord's Supper once a month, others have it four times a year.  It generally does not form a very important part of the weekly service. 

For a Catholic Christian, the Mass follows pretty much the same pattern.  As the priest enters, we sing a song. The priest or deacon leads us in a prayer of repentance and we next express our joy by singing or reciting a prayer called the Gloria in which we praise God for being God. After an opening prayer, we sit and hear a reading taken from the Old Testament.  We then recite or sing one of the Psalms of David and then we hear a reading from the New Testament, the Epistles of Paul for example.  Then we rise from our seats and sing a hearty Alleluia and then the priest of deacon reads to us from the Gospel.  After the reading, the priest or deacon will spend five or ten minutes explaining the reading and helping us to integrate them into our lives. Next, we recite the Nicene Creed which is familiar to many denominations, it spells out what we believe.  We next pray for each other in a prayer called "The Prayer of the Faithful."  In this prayer, we pray for the Church, for our country, for fellow Christians, for our friends, and any other special intentions.  It is at this point where the normal Protestant service and the Catholic Mass part ways.  At this point, all of the things done at a normal Protestant service have been accomplished.  At the Catholic Mass, there is more, much more to follow. 

The first part of the Catholic Worship Service, aka the Mass, is called the Liturgy of the Word.  It extends from the beginning of the Mass to the end of the Prayer of the Faithful.  What follows next is the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is Holy Communion.  It begins with the collection of gifts, the basket is passed around and we place money into the basket for the upkeep of the church and its ministries. The money collected is placed into one large container and a member of the congregation brings it up to the altar where it is accepted by the priest and placed before the altar.  Behind this gift of temporal things are members of the congregation that brings up the bread and wine that will be consecrated by the priest.  There are some preparations that the priest makes including making sure that there are enough hosts (pieces of bread) and wine to distribute to the congregation.  Then he symbolically washes his hands and invites us to pray.  He says:

"Pray brothers and sisters that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father."  The congregation responds; May God accept the sacrifice at your hands for our good and for the good of His holy church."

Here I see the first real bone of contention between Catholics and Protestants.  How can we Catholics sacrifice Jesus again and again and again and again on the cross when he died once to save us?  Good point, and I am glad you asked.  Catholics call their worship the "Sacrifice of the Mass" not because we sacrifice Christ over and over again on the cross, no, we rather present again the sacrifice Jesus made once to the Father, and the Father who see this finds this pleasing. 

At this point after a preliminary prayer, we raise our voices in song with the angels and saints in heaven and sing the hymn that we find in the book of Revelations, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Your Glory, hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest."   The most sacred part of the Mass follows.  The priest prays the prayer of consecration, using the words that Christ spoke at the Last Supper.  "Take this all of you and eat of it, for this is My Body."  The priest then raises the host so everyone can see it and we worship it because we believe it has been transubstantiated, that is changed, into the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.  Now stay with me here.  Next, he raises the chalice filled with wine and says the words of Christ, "Take and drink for this is the chalice of my Blood which has been shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in memory of me."  The priest then raises the chalice which now contains not wine, but the very blood of Christ.  The priest then invites us to recite the Mystery of Faith.  We respond with one of four possible formulas, the one that is used on most Sundays is; "When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death O Lord until you come again."  We are then invited to come forward and receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Holy Eucharist that was consecrated by the priest.  We approach the communion minister and he or she will say "Body of Christ." and we will respond, "Amen."  This "amen" means a whole lot more than you might think.  It means: I believe that this is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.  I believe Christ is physically present in me as I consume this sacred meal."   

I hear some Protestant's gasping in unbelief that we Catholics could be so ignorant as to think that a small round piece of bread and some common wine could contain the God of the Universe!  That's okay, let's finish Mass and we will discuss the Eucharist in some detail.  If you were at a Catholic Mass you would see some people taking only the bread while others take both the bread and wine.  The ones that don't take the wine, therefore, are not receiving the body and blood of Christ, they are receiving just His body.  Well, that sounds logical but it is not.  If you separate someone's body and blood you have what is known as a corpse and the Eucharist is a living thing, not a dead thing.  It is the Resurrected Christ as He is now, today, in Heaven.  

At this point in the Mass, we spend a few moments in silent prayer. Then the priest gathers all of our prayers together in a closing prayer and he gives us God's blessing.  The deacon tells us to go and spread the Good News.   We sing a closing hymn as the priest leaves the altar and then, some would say, all too soon we depart and go back into our mundane world.   So that is what the Catholic Mass is.  As you can see, you cannot separate it from the Eucharist. The Eucharist is considered so important that leftover hosts are kept in the tabernacle for those that are too sick to come to Mass. The Church dispatches ministers of communion to homes, nursing homes, and hospitals in the area to serve the Catholics that could not attend.   There must be a reason why Catholics consider the Eucharist so important.  Let's talk about the very Bread of Life next. 

There is one reason that I would never forsake the Catholic Church. That is because when I go to Mass, I receive the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist.  "Yeah, sure, that is what you believe, but just believing in something does not make it true.  "Excellently spoken. grasshopper! it shows you are a person that thinks things through."  I have scant minor proof to show you that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus.  I have the words of Jesus, I have the words of Paul, I have the words of the first century Christians, I have the fact that the reality of the Presence was believed by all Christians, everywhere, for the first fifteen centuries of Church history.  

The first task is to consider just who this Jesus was.  For that let us go to the beginning of the Gospel of John, 

John 1: 1-5
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through Him, and without him, nothing came to be. What came to be through Him was life and this life was the light of the human race and the light shines in the darkness.

We know from the above passage that Jesus, the Word of God is God, the maker of all things.  It is He that made the universe and set all things into motion. In His time outside of his immediate family he was recognized as the Promised One by John the Baptist: 

John 1:29
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World."

There are more passages where Jesus proves his bona fides, but I think we can see from these two passages that Jesus was and is the Son of God, the Savior promised to us.  As God, He is all-powerful and can do anything. Need more proof?  Well let's look at the following: 


John 6: 16-21

16 When it was evening, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 embarked in a boat, and went across the sea to Capernaum. It had already grown dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea * and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid. 20 But he said to them, "It is I. * Do not be afraid." 21 They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.

The Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake approximately 33 miles around, 13 miles long and 8 miles wide.  At 209 meters below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake in the world and only the only body of water that is lower is the Dead Sea, which is a saltwater lake.  Jesus and his companions were about in the middle of the lake when the storm blew up and they saw Jesus walking on the water. They thought it was some sort of ghost.  He told them to not be afraid and suddenly the boat was on the other shore.  Jesus can control the nature of objects, i.e. he can walk on water and he can control motion because they immediately arrived at the other shore.  So we can see Jesus has many powers. 

 
We next move to Jesus in arguably the most important chapter in the Bible, John, Chapter 6.   First, we have the feeding of the multitude.

John 6: 1-14

1 After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee (of Tiberias). 2 A large crowd followed him because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish feast of Passover was near. 5 When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" 6 He said this to test him because he himself knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip answered him, "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little ( a bit)." 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, 9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?" 10 Jesus said, "Have the people recline." Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. 12 When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, "Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted." 13 So they collected them and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat. 14 When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, "This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world." 15 Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king. He withdrew again to the mountain alone.

Do you remember the story of the wedding feast at Cana? Recall how Jesus changed water into wine and not just ordinary wine but the finest vintage and not just a little, he produced gallons of the stuff so that the party could continue.  This was the first sign that Jesus was the messiah promised because it was believed that when the messiah came that there would follow an abundance of food and wine.  When Jesus fed the multitude he fed them not just a little bit, he fed them abundantly and there were twelve baskets full of leftovers.  The symbolism is easy to interpret, the twelve baskets represented the twelve tribes of Israel, or more exactly, everyone! Jesus was showing that He would be able to feed everyone abundantly! 

We now move to the heart of the matter. Jesus is asked for a sign so that the crowd would believe in Him.  

John 6: 30-35

30 So they said to him, "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? 31 Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" 32 So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 So they said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." 35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

The crowd sees something good here.  Food forever, drink forever, they could quit work and rest and play forever.  They ask for this bread and Jesus says HE is the bread of life.  The crowd now says what is he talking about?  Jesus does not retreat.

John 6 49-69

49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; 50 this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." 52 The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?" 53 Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." 59 These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 60 Then many of his disciples who were listening said, "This saying is hard; who can accept it?" 61 Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? 62 What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. 65 And he said, "For this reason, I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father." 66 As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. 67 Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" 68 Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

Jesus tells the crowd that they have to eat the flesh of the Son of Man or they will not have eternal life.  The crowd shrinks back and are sickened by what He told them.  There is no way Jesus is speaking figuratively here.  The word being used for "eat" is the word that means "chew, or rip, or tear flesh."  That is why the crowd was taken aback. Then we have the saddest verse in all of the scriptures, John 6:66, "As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him."  Jesus did not call them back saying, I am only speaking figuratively.  He let them go.  He then asked His apostles if they too wished to leave.  Peter answered for them all and answered by saying "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy one of God." 

I have often wondered if Protestant pastors cringe when they read this passage?  One of the tenets of Protestantism is the Bible above all. Here the Bible says we must eat the flesh of Jesus and drink His Blood or we will not have life within us.  I would imagine that most Protestant pastors skip this passage.  

Finally, let's look at the Last Supper. Did Jesus really give us His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity then?  Did he also make it possible for His apostles to imitate Him and do this time after time through the ages?   Recall what the Last Supper was recalling.  It was the prescribed ritual that the Hebrew people practiced to recall the Exodus where God saved them from the Egyptians.  At this meal, they ate lamb. That lamb had to be spotless, have no imperfections and it was sacrificed at the temple.  The lamb had to be roasted without any of the bones being broken.  They ate this meal standing with their staff in hand and ready to travel. Along with the lamb , they ate unleavened bread and wine.  Four cups of wine were to be consumed at this meal. The feast went along following the ritual right up until the third cup wine. It was then that Jesus took bread and passed it around and told His apostles to eat it as it was His body.  Then he passed the wine around and told them it was His blood.  He then told them to do this in remembrance of Him.  The important word in that sentence is the word "this."  The word refers to the actions that Jesus had just performed.  He had given the Passover meal a new and permanent meaning.  They then sang a Psalm which was supposed to be followed by the fourth and final cup of wine.  But they did not drink that fourth cup.  Instead, they all left and went out into the night, to the Garden.  The fourth cup of wine was never drunk. The Passover was never finished.  Later that evening, Jesus was arrested and eventually after being tried, convicted, tried, found innocent, tried and found guilty, he was taken and scourged with a cruel whip tipped with bone. He then carried his cross, was crucified.  It was a tradition that those who were to be crucified were offered a cup of wine with a bit of incense in it.  It was thought to dull the senses and thought to be a mercy.  It did not do much but mostly the criminals drank what was given to them.  When this cup was offered to Jesus, he refused it.  That was very surprising because he had nothing to eat or drink since the previous evening.  He was then crucified and He did fare well on the Cross.  Remember, he had been cruelly scourged by Pilate in a bid to capture the sympathy of the crowd so that Pilate could let Jesus go.  This plan failed because Jesus was just too big of a thorn in the heel of the high priest.  Right before the end, Jesus cried out, "I Thirst."  Very funny! He was there to die not to drink.  But one man lifted up a sponge soaked in wine to Jesus, and this time Jesus took the wine and then in a loud voice, it was not possible to shout when you were nailed to a cross but in spite of this irrefutable fact of human physiology, he yelled, "It is finished." He had concluded the new Passover, he had drunk the fourth cup. 

The evidence for the Real Presence is strong. Paul cautions us to not receive the Body of the Lord in vain.  Would he do that if the bread and wine were just a mere memorial?  Would Jesus have let followers walk away if he wasn't serious?  Why did Jesus not finish the Passover the night before He died? How can millions of Protestants ignore the evidence right in front of their eyes in John Chapter Six?  

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a rich source of information on Catholic belief and it is available for free, online.  If you want to burn down the Catholic Church and all she stands for then why not do it with her own words?  People that hate the Catholic Church do so because they hate what they think the Catholic Church is, not what she actually is.  Our beliefs, our doctrine have not changed from the beginning of the church until now.  Why are there so many denominations?  Is God a god of confusion?  Argue from a position of strength.  You will be surprised once you read what we believe and why we believe it how intelligent and logical our beliefs are. 

A New Day In America (?) Let's Wait and See

I was at the doctor's office when Donald John Trump placed his hand on the Bible and took the oath of office making him the forty-fifth president of the United States.  In my sixty plus years on this earth, I have seen presidents come and go.  The first president I remember caring anything about was John F. Kennedy.  Everyone was excited when he was elected president.  Of course, I lived on the Southwest side of Chicago so the fact that he was a Catholic AND a democrat made him the perfect man to be president of the United States.  In Chicago you were democrat and if you lived on the Southwest side of Chicago, you were most likely Catholic.  I remember the day he was killed.  The nuns ushered us into the church where we prayed for him, to no avail, as he died anyway.  Next came LBJ who I think was really glad to take over. LBJ did not work out so well and Nixon next infested the White House.  He did get us out of Viet Nam, the place that Kennedy and Johnson got us into but beyond that, he was a bully and as the tapes revealed he suffered from a potty mouth.  He resigned and Ford stumbled into office, did not do a whole lot and was followed by Jimmy Carter.  In my opinion, Jimmy Carter was the most honest president that served during my lifetime. He was a bit of a bungler and was in the White House during the Iran Hostage Crisis.  He lasted just four years when an actor turned politician Ronald Regan entered the White House.  Many have good thoughts about him but I am still waiting for some of the trickle-down to trickle-down to me. Then came Bush the Elder, followed by Bill Clinton a sex maniac who almost achieved fame at becoming the first president to be impeached. Billy did win reelection and turned his office over to George Bush the Younger who got us embroiled in the Middle East. George moved out of the White House and Barack Obama moved in and for the next eight years presided over a legislative branch that blocked him at every turn.  He did get his health care initiate passed and spent the rest of his time chipping away at religious freedom.  Mandating that religious groups would have to go against the conscience and supply contraception through their insurance plan.  While he was in office it almost became against the law to be a Christian or to support Christian values.  Those that did were accused of promoting hate speech. The democratic policy during the eight years of Obama deserted the working people of the land.  Instead, it pulled its support from those whose agenda contained traditional American values and gave their support whose beliefs included abortion on demand, gay rights, gay marriage, and mandated every sort of thing the Christian working man was against.  Obama was a good orator.  I admired his ability to turn a phrase.  Unfortunately, I believe that that is all he was good at, speaking. I do not think that he had a clue what the working class Americans were thinking.  It was his blindness to the needs of the common person that cast the democrats into the cold at the mid-term elections and finally gave the GOP power in both houses. That brings us up to today.

Today we have a president in office that is different than any other president that we have had in modern times.  He is a president who does not necessarily follow the beliefs of the GOP in full.  He is a man that is used to winning, a businessman who likes the thrill of the deal.  He is not so much of the diplomat but is rather more of a man filled with thunder and bombast.  I have not made up my mind about Donald John Trump yet.  In his first days, he and his vice president have done things to promote Life.  The president himself mentioned the Walk for Life and challenged the press to cover it and the vice president actually gave a speech at the event, the first time that has happened, ever.!  He also has recognized that the Syrian Christians are being slaughtered for their faith and has said that they will receive preference in immigration matters.   In this respect, DJT is a breath of fresh air for those of us concerned with the sanctity of life from conception to natural death and for those of us concerned about the Christians being martyred in the Middle East. For eight years under Obama, we had to watch while abortion was touted under the name "women's health care" and the family and the law of God was trampled upon under the guise of "equality.  Marriage in America will never be the same, it has been changed forever with the legalization of same-sex "marriages."  We saw under Obamacare the mandate that even the Little Sisters of the Poor would have to provide contraception to their employees in spite of their religious views opposing it.  DJT will disable this clause and help build up the right of a Christian to be a Christian.

Donald also has some things on his agenda that are downright silly.  The so-called wall between Mexico and the United States is dumb.  I believe that we should keep illegal aliens out of our nation. My grandparents, on both sides of my family, immigrated to the United States and were admitted legally.  They were honest, hard-working people who obeyed the law.  There was one minor incident when my grandmother was told to stop making bathtub gin, she was turned in by her best friend.  Other than that, they all learned the language and became naturalized American citizens.  For those who are here and are undocumented, DJT proposes to round up the ones who are criminals, are in gangs, who are violent, and to send these illegals back to where they came from.  I support this idea but I do not support deporting families that are here that are working to make something of themselves, who are obeying the law.  These are the types of people we need to have in America.

DJT also wants to make sure that the Muslim immigrants granted entrance to America are vetted to make sure that they pose no threat.  These immigrants are coming from lands that have been traditionally hostile to America.  I see nothing wrong with this. America gathers its strength and power from its diversity. Every one of us here (except Native Americans) are the result of people who left their homes and came to America to embrace life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We do not need people who are radically opposed to our ideals and who would resort to violence to attempt to bring their radical form of Islam to the forefront.

I am not going to tell you whom I voted for in the past election. It is my business and I will allow you to conjecture on your own.  For now, I have to say that I am going to take a wait and see approach to our new president.  I am going to pray for him and our country.  I am going to wish him good health and a clear mind.  To do otherwise would be like wishing the pilot of the airplane you are riding in to crash the plane.  There are interesting times ahead for Americans.  By the way that is an old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Things That Protestants Don't Understand About The Church - Confessing to A Priest

One of the greatest gifts that we have received in the Catholic Church is the gift of the sacrament of reconciliation, or as it is sometimes called the sacrament of confession.  When I am conscious of having offended God in some way, I make my way to my local Church and enter a small room.  In this room, there is a kneeler with a screen behind which sits my pastor.  I cannot see him, he cannot see me.  If I want to I can kneel down on the kneeler and confess my sins anonymously.  I would tell him what sins I had committed since my last confession.  He will listen to me and when I am done, he will give me some advice help me live out a better Christian life.  I will then express my sorrow for the things that I had done that had become between me and God, assign me a penance to help me make up for what I had done, and then pronounce the words of absolution;

"God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of your son, you have reconciled the world to yourself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.  Through the ministry of the church may God grant you pardon and peace.  And I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. "

There are no words that are so pleasant to the ear than these.  These words remove the stain of sin from souls and bring those who were living in darkness back into the light.  Woe!  Hold it!  Calm yourself.  I know that only God can forgive sin.  No, I am not spouting hearsay here.  Please continue reading. 

A friend of mine, a good Christian, but not a Catholic, told me that she finds it strange that Catholics confess their sins to a priest.  She said that when she realizes that she has done something that may have offended God, she goes directly to Him and asks for forgiveness and thus bypasses the human connection.  She also says that she feels that she is forgiven.  Praying to God for the forgiveness of sins is a good thing to do, and it is a brilliant first step in coming back to God after doing something that has injured your relationship with Him.  When my friend goes directly to God for forgiveness, does she receive it?  If she expresses perfect contrition for the sin and firm purpose to never commit the sin again I cannot imagine that God would not forgive her.  The most important thing here is to have "perfect contrition" for the sin.  Perfect contrition means that you are sorry not because you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar and you are sorry that you are going to be punished.  No, perfect contrition would be that you were sorry that you were offending the very goodness of God.  It pre-supposes that you love God above all things and you do not want to offend Him just because He is God.   Perfect contrition is very hard to come by in our ordinary human life.  Peter, the first Pope, was forgiven for his treachery on Good Friday by Christ when Jesus asked him three times if Peter loved Him.  Jesus asked him if he loved with agape love, that is love for love's sake.  Peter answered twice that He loved Jesus in a natural human way.  The third time Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him in a natural human way and Peter told Jesus that he did.  That was enough for Christ to forgive Peter.  In confession, we go through a similar process. Normal, natural, human love is sufficient to attain forgiveness because the priest is not acting as a priest but actually in the person of Christ when he utters those beautiful words of absolution. 

But how do we Catholics come up with a ritual that supposedly forgives sin?  Didn't Jesus die once on the Cross to save us from sin? Are you Catholics saying it wasn't enough for Him to die?  

The sacrament of confession, or penance, or reconciliation, is very Biblical in its origins and was, like all of the sacraments instituted by Christ to give grace. We read in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20 and verses 19 to 23; "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them and whose sins you retain, they are retained"" 

God breathes on human beings twice in recorded history.  The first time was at creation and this is the second time.  Jesus breathed the power of the Holy Spirit into the Apostles. They now had authority to forgive sins.  We see also that they were not obligated to forgive all sins because they could retain them as well.  This begs the question, how are they going to know what sins to forgive and which sins to retain unless the penitent tells them their sins?  Verbal recitation of sins to a priest is, therefore mandatory for forgiveness. 

But this sounds like nonsense to me.  When I sin, I sin against God, not against a priest.  Only God is offended by my sin, not my neighbor.  Well, I hear you and I have to say that at one time I would have agreed with you.  At one time I thought the Sacrament of Confession was not needed, that I could and should go directly to God since I offended Him.  Sin is never a private thing.  When we sin we sin against God, of course, but we also sin against the Body of Christ.  We are the Body of Christ.  We need to ask for forgiveness for injuring the unity of the Body of Christ, in other words, even the most private of sins, committed while alone, in darkness, offends the Body of Christ and needs to be forgiven by the Body of Christ.  The ordinary way the Lord has given to us is the Sacrament of Confession. 

When Jesus gave the power to bind and loose to his Apostles, he knew human nature.  After all, Jesus was both fully human and fully Divine when he was on earth. He went through life feeling the warm sun on his back.  He heard the children playing their games.  He felt love for his mother and father.  He worked and earned his bread by the sweat of His brow.  He felt joy when his followers understood a truth he labored to give them and he felt disappointment when his discourse failed to persuade. So Jesus knew what it was like to be a human.  He also knew that we could make a case for anything that we did.  As a human, He knew that we could talk ourselves into any position and that included the power to turn what was wrong into something that was right.  This is one reason we are called in the Book of James to confess our sins to one another. In confession, we take ownership of those things that we have done.  We lay them on the table and with the priest who is in persona Christi, we admit our faults and promise to work hard to avoid this sin in the future. Then, we are forgiven, as the priest, acting as Christ, formally forgives us in the name of the Church, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We do not have to guess if we had perfect contrition for our sins, they are forgiven by the power of the Divine Judge Himself through our priest. 

In the book James, Chapter 5 verse 10  we read; 
Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” – James 5:16


I hear some of you saying that on such and such a date at such and such a time, I answered the altar call and made Jesus my personal God and Savior. From that time on I was saved and once saved, always saved! Really? That is not what the Bible says. Recall please Matthew, Chapter 25 to 36 where those that fed Jesus, clothed Him, and visited Him was brought into heaven and those that did not do these things were marched off to hell. Both of the groups had one thing in common. They both knew that the Lord was God and had accepted Him as their savior. In spite of this, those that did not do the His will are taken out of his sight forever. So, once saved, always saved does not really work.


The Sacrament of Confession is a very important sacrament. It is the ordinary way we receive forgiveness of the sins we commit every day. Confessing keeps us honest and humble. I have to say that I think that in my generation and after the sacrament has fallen into disfavor with the congregation. When I was a boy, we went to confession almost every Saturday. At my parish, there were four priests that heard confessions and there was a line at each of the confessional boxes. Today, my parish has one priest and is able to fit all of the people who want to go to confession into a one hour slot on Saturday afternoon. It is possible that perhaps sin is on a downward trend and that people are really not as sinful as they used to be. Or it may just be the fact that they are afraid and uncomfortable to go to confession. That feeling of fear and discomfort about confessing has a technical name, it is called "conscience." I go to confession once a month. I am never comfortable doing it. When I am sitting there with my Pastor and he is carefully listening to me recite the errors of my ways I am very uncomfortable. When I hear those wonderful words of forgiveness, that free me from my sins, the discomfort is displaced by joy in my heart. Besides the Eucharist, I believe that the Sacrament of Confession is this most powerful of the gifts that Jesus gave to his Apostles that have been passed down to us through the ages.


The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains in easy to understand detail both what the Church believes and why the Church believes it. This resource is available for free for everybody online. I heartily recommend that both those that love the Church and those that do not reference this resource and use the Church's own words to bolster your arguments. It is a funny thing but once you start reading this book you begin to see that it all coalesces into a very neat package that provides both the what and the why and the Biblical source for beliefs. This is why I recommend this book to those that hate the Catholic Church. What better source than the Church's own writings to bring her down? The writings Lorraine Bittner and Jack Chick are filled with half-truths and outright lies about the Church. Using them to bolster arguments against the Church only serve to perpetuate lies and ignorance. Get the straight dope, go to the source.



Below are 21 reasons to go to confession. I copied them from the Aggie Catholic Blog.


21 Reasons To Go To Confession
God commanded we confess our sins to one another in the Bible. (James 5:16)
It is the ordinary way to have our sins forgiven.
We receive grace to resist sin through the Sacrament, as well as forgiveness.
We learn humility by having to confess to another person.
There is built-in accountability.
Our relationship with the rest of the Church is healed.
We receive counsel from the priest.
We can be comforted hearing the words of absolution.
All are sins are wiped away.
Helps give you the strength to forgive others.
It doesn’t cost anything.
We may not be positive that we have “perfect” contrition without it.
Helps us go deep within and think about how we can improve.
It feels good emotionally.
When we realize (again) we are sinners, it is easier to be patient with others.
Always confidential – what is said in the confessional stays in the confessional.
No more guilt.
We are better prepared to receive the Eucharist.
Forgiveness is a necessary part of growing in holiness.
Our consciences can be better formed.
If we have mortally sinned, then Confession brings us back into the family of God – The Church as well as restores sanctifying grace in our souls

Things Protestants Don't Understand About The Church - Call No Man Father

"And call no man your father on earth for you have one Father who is in Heaven." 

Matthew Chapter 23 verse 9 is used by anti-Catholics to show that the Catholic Church is not scriptural.  I have to admit that at first blush you may have stumbled upon something that the Catholic Church has gotten wrong. When I greet my pastor, I will say; "Hello Father Joe." An aside here, when I was a boy, in the pre-Vatican Two church, we never called priests by their first name.  For example, back then my pastor was named "Father Shannon."  I never knew his first name!  But we Catholics do call our priests father and it would appear that this is against what is said in the passage quoted above.   As I said, this is at first blush. When we take the time to analyze the passage in light of its context we find a whole different meaning altogether. 

First of all, we have a bit of a problem in that if we apply the teaching exactly as it is written, we have no title for the husband of our mother.  We call that individual by the title of, you guessed it, Father. Well, wouldn't this be an exception?  If we apply the teaching using the fundamentalist point of view then there is no room to call any man father.  Jesus did not make any allowance for this. 

Obviously, something is wrong here.  One of the ten commandments reads; "Honor thy father and mother."  The author of the ten commandments, God Himself, recognizes the existence of a father in human life. 

What Jesus is teaching here is profoundly simple.  He is saying that God, the Heavenly Father, is the ultimate source of all authority.  You cannot just clip this sentence out of context and use it to condemn anything.  You have to review what is being said with this verse as part of the whole. 

Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples,  "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat;  so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.  They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.  They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,  and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues,  and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.  But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren.  And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ.  He who is greatest among you shall be your servant;  whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

Jesus says we are not to be called rabbi or teacher or father or master. So if a protestant minister is called a good teacher, well we've violated this saying of Jesus.  Actually, Jesus is not condemning these titles per se. He is condemning the attitudes that the scribes and Pharisees clung to while assuming these titles.  He says that they create burdens for the common person that they themselves will not move.  He says that they are hypocrites.  To take away simply that a title should not be used robs this passage of all of its meaning and strength and wisdom. 

The first-century church had no issue with calling priests father or rabbis teacher. Neither did Jesus!  In the story of the rich man and poor Lazarus Jesus calls Abraham Father Abraham.  Paul had no issue with the term father either because he writes in First Corinthians chapter 4 verse 15; "I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel."  

If "call no man father" is all of the ammunition that you have to prove that the Catholic Church is not Biblical, well, your proof fails.  Authors such as Lorraine Bittner and Jack Chick are masters at creating issues where there are no issues.  Critics of the Catholic Church argue from a position of weakness because in many cases they are using nonsense generated by people stuck in "that old time religion" who have an ax to grind against the Church but only consult research providers afflicted with the same blindness such as Bittner and Chick

If you truly hate the Catholic Church and want to bring Her crashing to the ground then step out of your ignorance and get the evidence against her directly from Her published teachings.  Hang her with her own rope! The Catechism of the Catholic Church is THE authoritative source to see what Catholics believe and why we believe what we do.  Ignorance can be cured but you have to want to cure it. Of those that hate the Catholic Church there are probably only a handful of people who hate her for what she is.  The rest hate her because of what they THINK she is.  I encourage you to learn more about the Church through the Catechism.  It is amazing with truth can do for a person's soul.  

Things Protestants Don't Understand About the Catholic Church - Worshipping Mary

C A T H O L I C S   D O   N OT   W O R S H I PM A R Y 

W E   N E V E R   H A V E   A N D   W E   N E V E R  W I L L 

I wanted to get the main point of this post out of the way very early on, and in a very clear manner, so that even those of the most limited attention span would have time to grasp what this post is all about.  To reprise, Catholics do not worship Mary.  This would be offensive to God, to Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit.  It would be offensive to Mary herself and so we do not do it.  Mary is a created creature, like ourselves, except in one very important aspect which is discussed below. 

Mary was a very pious young lady in an age where piety reigned.  To look at her you would see nothing special.  She was a normal person, perhaps just a bit happier than most but her

outward appearance was normal. 

Inwardly, Mary was very special indeed. She had been chosen from all creation to be the Mother of God.  She had been chosen by God as early as in the Garden of Eden when God Himself set her and her offspring as enemies of evil.  

To understand what made Mary different from any other created creature on earth we have to understand a little bit about the very nature of God.  God is all good, all loving, all knowing. God is not surprised by anything.  He does not live in time.  He sees and is present in what we consider the past, the present, and the future all at the same time.  He is all powerful. I believe He COULD create a rock that he could not move simply because he would will it so.  He would then, of course, will it out of existence because it would be a nuisance in his living room!  I do not think that any of my Protestant friends would disagree so far with my very brief description of the attributes of God.  Let's add Mary to the mix. 

Mary was a created creature. She was different from you and me because the stain of original sin never touched her soul.  She was immaculately conceived in the womb as a special gift of God to her.  Please understand that Mary, as a human, needed a savior.  As she was going to be the mother of Jesus, she was saved by Jesus in a very special and wonderful way.  God, in his mercy, applied the merits of the Cross to her before she was born so that the devil had no hold what-so-ever on her.  I can hear you asking how can this be?  Well, God, who is all-knowing and is not hampered by time saw the obedience of His Son and acted accordingly.  Here is an example of what was done.  For you and me, when we were born, we had the sin of Adam and Eve on our soul.  We were an enemy of God.  We were cast into a pit and Jesus came and drew us out of the pit by his saving death on the cross.  Mary too was saved by Christ.  In her case, she was carried over the pit and her soul never was touched by the original sin of Adam and Eve.  This special favor is what is called The Immaculate Conception of Mary.  She was born in the furnace of human love between her mother and father and was saved from original sin by the merits of Jesus.  Just for the record, Martin Luther believed in the Immaculate Conception and perpetual virginity of Mary.  

Mary in the Gospels does not speak often but when she does she says a whole lot in just a few words.  Can you remember the wedding feast at Cana?  Wedding feasts went on for days back then.  The feasting and drinking often went on for days as the community celebrated the birth of a new family.  The couple in this case either did not buy enough wine or the guests were making merry at a much higher rate than was expected for they ran out of wine.  This was a disaster for the young couple and there was not much that they could do about it.  Mary felt their pain and called to her Son and told Him the tail of woe.  He said to her that it wasn't time for Him to start his ministry yet. Mary looked deeply into His eyes and turned to the head waiter and told him to "Do whatever He tells you."  He had some stone vessels filled to the brim and told the servants to bring a ladle full to the head waiter.  When the head waiter tasted it he realized that this was the most magnificent wine that he had ever tasted.  He sent his staff out to fill the cups of the thirsty revelers and approached the bridegroom.  He asked him why he had saved the good wine for last?  Because he knew that at most parties the best wine was served first because the guests would enjoy it more and then when their pallets were dulled by the alcohol they would not notice that a lesser vintage was being served.   The point here is that Mary, all through scripture, never points to herself.  She always points to Jesus.  She knew who her Son was. 

Catholics do not worship Mary, as good as she is, as sinless as she is, she is but a creature.  We do venerate her.  She has a very special place in salvation history.  She is the mother of Jesus.  Jesus made special provision for her when he was dying on the Cross because he knew that a woman without a man to take care of her would be in desperate straits.  From the Cross he told John, "Here is your mother" and to His mother, He said,"Mother, here is your son."  The Bible tells us from that moment on John took her into his house and cared for her.  Jesus was not only giving Mary to John, he was giving her to us to be our spiritual mother. 

I think we all can agree that Jesus led a perfect life.  He fulfilled the Law without any of slips that we call sin.  His life was perfection indeed.  The ten commandments were followed perfectly by Him.  One of the commandments tells us to "Honor our Father and Mother."  Jesus did this perfectly throughout his whole life.  He committed no sin. So, if Jesus did this and we are to imitate his life in what we do then we too as adopted sons and daughters of God should honor our Mother in heaven.  It would not offend God that we honor the new Eve, the new Ark of the Covenant.  Catholics do just that.  We honor our mother.  

We honor Mary in various ways.  As the greatest saint in heaven, we pray to her and ask her to pray to Jesus for us.  Remember please, for a Christian, life is changed and not ended when we die so Mary can pray for us and is pleased to do so.  

But Jesus is the mediator between God and man.  Does praying to Mary asking for her intercession mean she is taking the place of Jesus and as such is forbidden?  No, not at all.  We are told in scripture to pray for one another.  We pray for our friends that the surgery goes well, or that the problems in their marriage heal.  When we pray for another we are acting as an intercessor for them and yet scripture commands us to pray for one another so it cannot be wrong.  So, if for a Christian life is not ended but changed then the saints in heaven, of which Mary is the greatest, can pray for us just like your best friend can here on earth. 

I want to touch on the apparitions of Mary on Earth.  It is widely believed that Mary has appeared in certain places at certain times.  The Catholic Church believes that public revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle.  All of the apparitions, both those that are approved by the Church, such as Fatima and Guadalupe and unapproved ones fall into the category of private revelation.  The approval of the Church does not certify the apparition as a dogma of the Church, it only certifies that Christians are free to believe in the apparition or not as their conscience dictates as there is nothing contrary to the faith being taught.  The amazing thing about all of the approved apparitions is that in none of them is Mary commanding anything for herself.  She is always pointing to her Son and recommending prayer and repentance.  

Mary is revered by Catholics.  No Catholic who is knowledgeable about their faith would consider worshipping Mary.  Have there been excesses? Yes, I would say that there have been.  Some Catholics in ignorance can go off half cocked when it comes to Mary.  But, the mainstream Catholic knows who Mary is and knows how she wants to be considered by her adopted children. 

This is a very complicated subject and the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is available online for free treats this subject much better than I can.  If you are going to criticize the Catholic Church, I would recommend you do so from a position of strength using her official teachings which can be found easily online.  The funny thing is that once you read the real teachings of the Church and see the Biblical origins you might have to take writers such as Bittner and Jack Chic to task as to why they spend so much of their time lying about the Church and what she believes.  Ignorance is a curable disease.  God bless you. 

 

Things Protestants Don't Understand About the Church - Praying to Statues and Praying For the Dead

Today, we have a two for one sale.  We will discuss both "praying to statues" and praying for the dead. 

My mother, her name was Violet, passed away many years ago.  I still carry her memory in my heart and I carry a picture of her when she was in the full bloom of her youth in my wallet.  I sometimes will look at that picture and think of all the times she showed her love to me.  I remember her feeding me ice chips when I had my tonsils out at age seven.  I remember how when I was having a problem in school and felt downtrodden and the least of the least, she told me to hold my head up high and be proud of who I am.  I remember during her last sickness, I sat beside her as she lay in the hospital bed, just holding her hand, not saying a word.  The warmth of our hands together sharing the love of a mother to a son and a son to a mother.  All of these memories come flooding back to me because of a little scrap of paper with an image of a person on it.  It is almost a miracle. I bet you thought this paragraph was going to address praying for the dead, but no, this paragraph deals directly with the use of statues in the Catholic Church.  A statue is no more or less than that picture of my mother.  As a Catholic, when I look at a statue, I know I am looking at a piece of carved wood, or molded plaster, or maybe even a plastic Jesus on the dashboard of my car. (You remember the old song, "I don't care if it rains or freezes, as long as I got my plastic Jesus, Sitting on the dashboard of my car.)  As a Catholic Christian, I know that the image has no power to save me because as the Psalms tell us; "They have ears but do not hear. They have mouths but do not talk." (Psalm 115)  
I look at the statue and it brings to mind the story of the saint that is represented.  (See my previous post regarding the communion of saints.) I then pray to the saint asking him or her to pray to Jesus for me just as I might ask you or my pastor or another friend to pray for me. Are there Catholics that actually pray TO statues? I would imagine that there are but these unfortunates are not stable and may be feeble minded. In their case, I am sure God takes that into consideration. A Catholic grounded in his or her faith does not pray to a statue but addresses all prayers to God, sometimes asking the help of a person already enjoying the Beatific Vision. 

It is a fact of life that someday we will inhale our last breath and when we exhale we will next breath the air of eternity.  Of course, I mean this figuratively because a soul does not need to breathe.  So when we die we Catholics believe that we will enter one of three places.  First, we may enter heaven, or purgatory or we may choose hell.  If after death we enter heaven or if we choose hell there is no need for prayer for us.  Heaven, of course, is our ultimate goal, the place that was created for us where we can continue our friendship with God in His august presence.  Hell, is the place we will go to if we have rejected the love of God, preferring our own way to His way and declaring us to be His enemy.  Enter the gates of hell and you are outside the presence of God for all eternity just as you wanted.  No amount of prayer will do you any good because you do not want it, you hate God, and as bad as the suffering is you prefer to be without God.  

The second place is where many of us will choose to go, that is to Purgatory.  Is purgatory in the Bible?  Not by name but it is there all the same. It is for these Poor Souls that we on earth pray for.  We pray for them because they are unable to help themselves.  They need the prayers of the faithful on earth to help them get out of Purgatory.  In 2 Maccabees we find that certain dead soldiers were found to be wearing an idol under their tunics.  The living among them turned to prayer to God and beseeched Him to forgive the sins of those who died.  

But where do we find any teaching about purgatory in the New Testament? As I said the word "Purgatory" is not found in scripture but the principle behind it is clearly mentioned by Paul.  But is a purgatory really necessary or is it an invention to make the Catholic clergy rich?  

You have a friend, his name is Mark.  You and Mark spent your whole life being friends until one day you found out that Mark had stolen your pencil in second grade.  It was a wonderful pencil with red lead on one side and blue on the other.  You loved that pencil.  Sixty years after the event you confront Mark about the pencil.  He confesses to you that he indeed did take the pencil from you when you were not looking.  He asks for your forgiveness and you tell him that you will never forgive him and you walk away.  A few years later Mark dies. You do not go to his funeral, you do not comfort his widow, as a matter of fact, you are happy that the sneak thief is out of your life forever.  Mark for his part, confessed his sinfulness and spent the rest of his life working for the Kingdom of God and following the counsels of Jesus in that he fed the hungry, visited the sick and imprisoned, clothed the naked, and he prayed for you every day.  When he died he was turned completely to God and was welcomed into heaven by the angels and saints and was ushered into the very presence of Jesus.  

You too lived a worthy life, you did all that Jesus commanded just as your friend Mark did but on the day you died, you carried the resentment of the stolen pencil to the grave with you. You began to approach heaven and as you got closer you realized that you were not ready to enter heaven.  What would happen if you met Mark in heaven while you were carrying the resentment about the pencil with you?  You could not greet him as a fellow saint because you had this burden on your soul.  As you got closer and closer to God in heaven, the pain became too great and you knew that the sin on your soul would have to be removed before you could get close to God.  You turned yourself around and chose to enter Purgatory.  There you would remain until the imperfection was cleared away. 

The above is a nice story but isn't that all that it is, a story?   To be honest with you, it is not a story, it is a parable based on Biblical truth.  First of all, in Revelation we read that we must be perfectly holy to enter heaven because; "Nothing unclean shall enter it."  That is found in Revelations Chapter 21 Verse 27.  Saint Paul, himself, tells us in 1st Corinthians that "Each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.  If any man's work is burned up he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only through fire."

So, now for the reason we Catholics pray for the dead.  Those in Purgatory cannot help themselves.  The time to repent and to make up for the evil we do is while we are on earth.  Once we die, our fate is set in stone.  Those in purgatory depend on our prayers and sacrifices for them so that they can be raised from their state to the state of sainthood in heaven. 

But then, what is the difference between Purgatory and hell if they are both places of suffering?  The difference is huge.  Those in purgatory, although suffering, are happier than anyone on earth can imagine because they know that they will see God.  The pain of purgatory is the pain of the soul longing for God and not being able to see Him.  The pain is temporary and the Poor Souls know this.   The souls in hell, on the other hand, suffer torments that are unimaginable and their separation from God is permanent and they are without any hope.

This subject is a complicated one and I would direct anyone who has questions to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is available online for free and the specific cure for ignorance about the Catholic Church.  It is well written and Biblically based. 

Things Protestants Don't Understand About the Church - The Communion of Saints

The Communion of Saints

When Jesus Christ founded His Church, He founded it on the principle that it was a kingdom. A kingdom has a king.  In this case. of course, Jesus is the king. When we are born again in the cleansing waters of Baptism we become citizens of this kingdom.  Actually, we become more than that we become adopted sons and daughters of the King, in reality, we become princes and princesses in the household of God.  No one can take this identity from us but we are free to abandon it using our free will.  God for His part will stand and watch for us to come back. The merest whisper on our part and we will be welcomed back as the Prodigal Son was. Now, for the most part, my Protestant friends would be able to agree pretty much with all that said above, although they might take umbrage at my saying we can cast off our citizenship using our free will because of the scary and dangerous belief in once saved, always saved.  Be that as it may, let us continue. 

So, we go through life as an adopted son or daughter of God and then comes the day we are called home, we die, we are on this earth no more. What happens to us after we die?  Catholic belief is that life continues in a marvelous new form. If we die in the friendship of God and are fully committed to Him and His kingdom and we have demonstrated it by following the counsels of Jesus, we will be welcomed into heaven and forever enjoy the beauty of the beatific vision.  If we lived a righteous life but still have sins on our soul we ourselves when we recognize fully the holiness of God will choose to purge ourselves of those sins and attachments in Purgatory, (Stay with me Protestants, there will be another blog entry that specifically addresses Purgatory. For now, just think of it as what Catholics believe as this belief does not really affect the big picture I am trying to paint.)  We Catholics believe, therefore, that our membership in the Church continues after death.  We believe that the Church consists of the members on earth, the Church Militant, the members in Purgatory, the Church Penitent, and the members in heaven, the Church Triumphant.  All together these three groups form the Communion of Saints.  

Protestants find fault with Catholics praying to saints.  They seem to think that these prayers somehow infringe on the sovereignty of God in that all prayers should be directed to God alone.  I applaud the loyalty that this way of thinking shows to the Trinity and to Jesus in particular for the Bible tells us he is the mediator between God and man. Bravo!  Let me ask you a question.  Have you ever asked a friend or your pastor to pray for you?  Have you ever prayed for someone at their request?  Well, then you are acting as a mediator between God and man and taking the place of Jesus.  We know that this is not true because we are counseled in the Bible to pray for one another. So if we pray for one another in accordance with Holy Writ it cannot be wrong.  

This is where the communion of saints comes in.  For Christians, life is not ended but changed. With this in mind, it follows that we are allowed to pray for one another no matter what state we are in, alive on earth or alive in heaven and since we are all addressing the prayers to Jesus and asking for His intercession.  This is all well and good, but what if I address a prayer to St. Paul, the Apostle? Am I in danger of offending God?  Hardly! When a Catholic prays to a saint he or she is asking the saint to pray to God for us.  The prayer chain which began on earth where we are commanded to pray for each other continues in heaven.  

There is much more that I can write on this subject but there is a source that is much more erudite than I am and it lays down the real beliefs of the Catholic Church in well reasoned, scripturally based, writing.  This source is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is a free resource available online.  Many of the people that hate the Catholic Church do so out of sheer ignorance.  This Catechism is the cure for ignorance and I heartily recommend it.  Here is just one sentence culled from this magnificent gift to the people of God: 

:

"We believe in the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church; and we believe that in this communion, the merciful love of God and his saints is always [attentive] to our prayers" (CCC 962) 

What The Protestants Don't Understand About The Catholic Church # 1 of a Series

Maybe the title of this post is just a bit too broad.  The truth be told there is a lot of things that the Protestants do not understand about the Catholic Church in general.   I don't want you to think that this post is going to serve as a general condemnation of those who are outside of the Catholic Church, far from it. Those entrapped in Protestant denominations are there because their parents were Protestants and their parents before them, going down a long line until we arrive in the 1500's when a Roman Catholic monk and priest tore asunder the unity of the Church and in doing so stepped outside of the will of God as expressed to us by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Martin Luther made a huge mistake when he decided to carve up God's kingdom on earth.  For 1500 years there was, as Jesus wanted, unity in the Church. There were no questions about the things that we were to believe because in the face of controversy there was an authority to bring these issues to for final determination.  That authority was the Pope.  But, Jesus never did create an office of Pope, that is not in the Bible!  Jesus did create a leader for His Church and that leader was Peter.  In later years we began to call the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.  It is a title that differentiates the Bishop of Rome from all of the other bishops. While he is a man and as a man is capable of sinning and of making mistakes, it is Catholic belief, backed up by scripture, that the Pope when teaching on faith or morals from the chair of Peter, that he is protected from teaching error.  For two thousand years, there has never been a pope that has taught error or heresy. And please note that I am including the bad popes, the ones who are most likely teaching religion to Judas and bin Laden in the deepest, hottest, and most forlorn regions of hell.  These bad popes had no time to bother about religion.  They spent their time engaging in pursuits of the flesh and making money and keeping their power and so they never taught heresy or error, they never taught anything. 

But why do we need a pope at all?  Martin Luther and other reformers taught that the Word of God could be understood by the simplest person with the help of the Holy Spirit. Well, when you have a lack of authority you have anarchy. The spirit of anarchy haunts the Protestant church to this day.  If you want proof, just look to history.  Martin Luther cut asunder the Church, which did need some reforms when he did so, there is no doubt about that. If after he did so there remained only the Catholic Church and Luther's creation, then maybe there would be a case for the reformation being decreed by God.  But that did not happen.  Not long after Luther left the Church, some of his fellow reformers found fault with some of his ideas and they broke away and formed another body of believers.  Soon, scripture was interpreted again and there were more splits.  Today, there is the Catholic Church and about forty-thousand denominations.  These denominations owe their birth to forty-thousand different interpretations of scripture. This presents us with a problem.  It is said that the Holy Spirit will help a person interpret scripture. So, my question is simple. Is the Holy Spirit psychotic? Does He keep changing His mind about what the scripture He inspired means?  If something in Scripture is true for the Lutherans, then why is it not true for the Baptists? 

The fact is Jesus knew that questions would come up. Remember that he was fully human, he knows how we think and act.  He was one of us and experienced life just as we do,  He was aware of our limitations.  In his final prayer to the Father, he made it a point to say that we should be one as He and the Father were one.  Earlier he provided us with His solution to the fact that humans would be running His Church.   He appointed Peter as the first leader and gave him the keys to the kingdom.  He was in fact made the prime minister of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.  Secondly, Jesus made it clear that Peter would be endowed with a special charism in that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church of Jesus.  Jesus created an earthly authority and protected that authority by placing it under the protection of the Holy Spirit. 

This authority is exercised by Peter and his successors.  The Bishop of Rome is where the buck stops.  In scripture, we see that when the Church had a problem, such as the discussion of circumcision for non-Jewish converts at the Council of Jerusalem, there was a lively discussion but it ended when Peter stood up and told them it was not right to put this burden on the Gentile converts.  Peter, the chief Apostle, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, made the decision. The others accepted the decision because Peter was the authority.

So, Martin Luther got it wrong. He used an axe and cut the Church into pieces and that division continues today,  So, in conclusion, we humans are walking, talking ego's and we do not like to listen to others especially when it comes to religion.  But Jesus knew how important it would be to have an authority and so He decided to appoint a prime minister for His Kingdom.  He also would protect his minister from teaching error and thus keep his kingdom whole. 

There is much more to say on this subject, but the Church has a document that is much more erudite than I am that goes into greater detail.  It is called the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is available free online and it tells all of the beliefs of the Church along with the scriptural basis for the teachings.  The sad part of it is that many Protestants, especially "evangelicals"  would rather live in ignorance of what the Church really is about because to know the truth would challenge the basis of their faith.