Who is a Believer?

[God Conquers]

Catalyst:

Read your Bible... Jesus speaks through it:

LUKE 20: 37-38

Those who have faith in Christ and covenant with God are not dead but ALIVE IN HIM through the Resurrection.

So, no believer is ever truly dead.... didn't you know you live forever... in one place or another?

How can a Christian worship the dead? Not possible I say.

Besides... we don't worship (the saints).

Ever ask your friends for prayers? Well I do too... except my friends are in Heaven, and right tight with that Holy Trinity. The more people praying the better.

Listen... I love people. I work to bring them salvation through Christ. I want them to have all good things. I am NOT stopping that work when I die. I'm gonna work my but off and pray hard in heaven, while worshiping at the throne of God, asking Him to aid those whom I (and He) loves.

Did Jesus break commandments? Is he talking to dead people here?

MATTHEW 17: 1-6

Listen... I follow Christ's example. He talked it up with the prophets. He was sinless. So if asking a saint for prayers is sinful, then Jesus was sinful. He wasn't... He's the Son of God.

Peace.

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='Catalyst' date='Nov 3 2004, 10:03 PM']Its is good only to revere God, He is the only one worth of reverence. You put mary in your prayers, say things like shes full of grace...Jesus' grace is His willingness to work in our lives even tho none of deserve it. Does Mary do things for you? [/quote]
Hello Catalyst and welcome,

I wanted to comment regarding your concern about Mary ("You put mary in your prayers, say things like shes full of grace").

This quote is taken directly from the Gospel of Saint Luke. He is quoting the Archangel Gabriel:
[quote name='Luke 1:28 (Douay Rheims)']And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, [b]full of grace[/b], the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.[/quote]

This is a faithful translation of St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate:
[quote name='Luke 1:28 (Latin Vulgate)']et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit have [b]gratia plena [/b]Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus.[/quote]

In protestant translations, the wording is usually "highly favored," based on Greek sources.

In my mind, Mary is both full of grace and highly favored. And, she is blessed among women.

[quote name='Catalyst' date='Nov 3 2004, 10:03 PM']You think praying for a person while theri dead is gonna help them? theyve made their choices in life, their test is over. I place the word made flesh in High regards..no man or woman...making statues of them and filling your churches with them...having jesus stuck on that cross when He's not on it...stop misleading people and misrepresnting the Lord who died for your sins...everyone put him up there on the cross and you waste your time with dead people....blunt but true...[/quote]

There are really two Christian practices here: prayer for the benefit of those in Purgatory and intercessory prayer to the Saints.

[b]Purgatory[/b]

Here's a brief intro to Purgatory. Purgatory is where those who are saved are purified before entering heaven. Purgatory is for those who are in a state of grace (i.e. a friendship with God). Just to be clear: if a soul dies without being in a state of grace, there's really nothing that our prayers can do for that soul.

Catholics believe that souls can only enter heaven when they are perfect (Rev. 21:27). At the same time, souls (in a state of grace) can be "unclean" for a few reasons:

1) There is sin (i.e. venial) that does not kill our soul. (1 John 5:16-17)
2) Even when we are in a state of grace, we have a fallen nature.
3) Even after God has forgiven us for our actual sins, the "wounds" of the sins on our souls still exist. A good metaphor for this is to think about our soul as a fence and our sins as nails hammered into the wood. When the nails (sin) are removed, the holes remain.

At the moment before death, our souls (if we are living in Jesus Christ) are still subject to the three points I mentioned. In heaven, our soul must be perfect. The process that brings us to the perfection necessary to enter heaven is called Purgatory. I suspect that most (if not all) Christians understand that such a transformation must take place in the saved soul...non-Catholics just don't associate the name "Purgatory" with the process.

In my opinion, the imagery of "flames" is appropriate for two reasons. First, flames are easily associated with purification. For example, water can be placed over a flame to kill any harmful bacteria. Second, flames are painful. In this life, leaving behind our sinful habits is can be an extremely painful experience, because we get so attached to our vices. To [i]want [/i]heaven is to leave behind every sin and every desire to sin. It's pretty tough stuff!

Here's a little more on Purgatory:
[url="http://www.catholic.com/library/Purgatory.asp"]http://www.catholic.com/library/Purgatory.asp[/url]

[b]Intercessory Prayer:[/b]

I assume that you ask other Christians to pray for you, correct? If so, do you think that this practice (in any way) challenges the unique position of Jesus Christ as intercessor between God and man? Is it Biblical?

If we can agree on the usefulness of asking other Christians to pray for us, the only subject left to discuss is the question of who is in the Mystical Body of Christ. Faithful Christians living a life of grace on earth can certainly (at least from the perspective of Catholics) intercede for us if we ask. In addition, we Catholics believe that the saints in heaven are not dead; instead, they are alive in Jesus Christ! They are actually more perfectly joined to the body of Christ when they reach heaven--which really is basically just the state of being in the presence of God.

Here's a little more on praying to the saints:
[url="http://www.catholic.com/library/Praying_to_the_Saints.asp"]http://www.catholic.com/library/Praying_to_the_Saints.asp[/url]

God bless!

[D0RK4JP2]

[quote name='Balthazor' date='Nov 4 2004, 03:04 PM'] hey dork!!
I like your accent.
Are you from down under?
I'm from "up nort"
Balthazor [/quote]
lol,

Yeh, im australian. my accent....crums, can you tell on a forum .

Ahhhh, where is 'up nort'? Do you mean like nth hemisphere or nth like bundy and cairns and stuff?

JMJ

[Balthazor]

up in da' nort woods of wisconsin
in the area commonly known around here as "up Nort"

yeah your accent shows on the forum....lol

if you want to recognize someone from Wisconsin it is really easy....we end our sentences with prepositions, ya know?

[yiannii]

Hey DORK4JP2,

Did you go to Adore 04 in Melbourne?

[yiannii]

On election day (in Aust) I was handing out how to vote cards and standing next to me was this "AOG" Christian handing out how to vote cards for the Family First party.

So we were chatting about general things and as soon as he found out that I was Catholic the next few words to come out of his mouth were: "Oh, yeah, well, there are a lot of things that Catholics do that I don't agree with!"

I don't know, but I just thought that it was rude! I mean we had only been talking for just over five minutes. Later on he proceeded to tell me where Catholicism is wrong and all this stuff about the Bible etc etc. Oh and he tried to tell me that I wasn't a Christian.

I was caught off guard and didn't really know what to say in defence of my faith - so I tried to keep the conversation focussed on what we had in common, you know, being brothers in Christ and all.....

But seriously, I know I am supposed to love everyone, but GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

OK I'm over it.

[D0RK4JP2]

Gday,

Yianni, this is rather scary...this is very rather scary .

1stly, i did go to adore04. i was one of those poor chumps who had to give a sharing; and for my humility...on purity . Will you be at the nxt one in sydney? I'm definetly going .

Aite aite aite, i was handing out how to vote cards too for the election, and i was handing out for the nationals and i was standing next to some family first people to. I was at salisbury for the moreton electorate. I was the roudy one at our election - voicing my very audible oppinion on all the other party's pro-death policies (i was not popular that day )

I live in Brisbane.

JMJ.

[yiannii]

LOL!!! I was handing out how to vote cards for the Greens cuz they are so cool....




NOT!!!!



Nah I was handing out for the Liberal Party so we were on the same side.


About Adore in Syd - yeah I plan to go but we will see what happens. Are the same people organising it?

P.S. I'm from Melbourne... oh and nice to meet you by the way!

P.P.S. What's news with the bishop of yours? I haven't heard anything for a while - last thing I heard he was trying to sue AD2000 for some article they published....LOL

[yiannii]

oh yeah just found out that i am on the adore website....LOL

[mulls]

"let's get back on topic and reply to my posts please" bump

[Balthazor]

mulls,
I understand your earlier point that not all people that are just because someone says they ar Catholic or Baptist or even just plain Christian that they obviously don't practice or for that matter preach. Some people are just numb.

But I geuss that question in my mind is why do a lot of people of potestan denominations think that Catholicism is something other than Christianity?

It may sound odd to some people, but I know people who have actually treated me like I was not a Christian, like I was not a believer or something.

I am very devoted to my Church and I am active in my parish. I read scripture, I do my best to follow God's word, I pray and probably most importantly I believe.
I don't want this to become about how holy I am, because I am not perfect...but I just wanted to illustrate that I am not one of those "nominal indifferent Catholics" as lumberjack says.
I believe deepley, so when someone questions my devotion just because of my denomination.......well I am taken a back. I just wanted to know why someone would question my belief in Jesus, in God and the Holy Spirit just because I am Catholic...

Balthazor

[mulls]

it's not about questioning your individual faith and sincerity, in my opinion. it's making sure that your church has not taught you posion. i'm sorry to say that the catholic church has lot of flaws and blatantly wrong doctrines in the eyes of many people when compared to scripture.

if somebody questions you, you can try to let them know that you have a deep, personal relationship with God, made possible by the sacrifice of the Son, and you live an active, Spirit-filled life. if you've made that commitment to Christ, and passed from death unto life, then nobody can question your personal faith. as long it's real, legit, sincere.

but they will always question the catholic church, and therefore they will question what you believe. hopefully they're just looking out for you, but often it's out of spite.

that's as nicely as i can put it.

[D0RK4JP2]

mulls,

I agree that salvation is possible to any of the sincere...but any sincere person would become Catholic because God would not deprive anyone of that grace unless there is no way of imposing it on someone - pigmies in the Congo for example; there ain't many Jesuit missionaries travelling through that country .

I've got a question for you, what do you think the 'Church' is? And If the Catholic Church is wrong, which 'Church' is right, and more importantly, which one claims to be the Church that Christ founded on Peter? It's all well and good to say the >'Church'< has defects in it, but what do you mean by >'Church'< there? It's good to distinguish your meaning so it's not taken as a vague generalisation.

JMJ.

Edited November 5, 2004 by D0RK4JP2

[Budge]

Many "protestants" or Christians disagree with Catholic doctrines. I am an ex-Catholic. I do believe there are Catholics who are indeed SAVED as it were, which may surprise some here since I do moderate a board where we discuss Catholic issues and doctrines. If a Catholic has saving faith in Jesus Christ, they will be saved like any other Christian--(I dont believe in hardcore OSAS so this would depend on their relationship to God, perserverance etc) My worry for Catholics is that they are taught to look to the church to save them and taught to receive Jesus in the sacraments rather then being taught that one needs to be saved and born again of the spirit.

[Brother Adam]

Yes Budge, that is a typical Fundamentalist worldview and it completely removes you from not only almost all of Christianity for 2000 years, but removes you from scriptural teaching as well. As a simple answer, Catholics do not believe they are saved by faith in the Church for redemption or saved by faith in the sacraments for regeneration.

The biggest problem with your post is this word "Rather" in your last line. Rather has nothing to do with it. Receiving GRACE in the sacraments and being born again are not mutually exclusive. In fact your belief about removing the faith from the nature of a covenant would be totally absurd to the first Christians.

Consider that all the sacraments are scriptural.
Consider all of the Protestant fathers believed in at least 2 sacraments.
Consider that every single sacrament is typologically biblical and mentioned in scripture as conveying a grace.

I suggest reading "Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments".

Any Catholic who denies personal faith in Jesus Christ, any Catholic who does not believe in Jesus, is no Catholic at all and denies the fundamental teaching of the Church.