'Earnestly contending for the faith,' (Jude 3 ) as well as sharing encouragement and hope through Scripture (Romans 15:4), and through the poems and posts that I write. One of many voices on the Internet warning Christians of the importance of testing the teachings of men (and women) against the unchanging truth of God's Word. (Acts 17:11) I 'warn you with tears' through much of what I write, to 'be on guard against the savage wolves that will come in among us who will distort the Word of God' as God's Word warns us about in Acts 20:26-31
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This post was written as a response to a request that I received from a dear sister-in-Christ who wanted me to write something regarding the Carmelite order of priests and nuns. She had watched a few minutes of a YouTube video and was saddened to see their devotion to “Mary” and how their whole existence is to Mary. She also asked, “How did this Carmelite order ever come to be?”
In answer to your question, dear sister, I came to discover this very troubling information that clearly shows without a doubt that the Catholic church sadly does not believe that Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice was sufficient to pay the debt for all of our sins in full. It also shows their emphasis on unbiblical Contemplative, mystical, spirituality. In part, this is what it says in the quick capture above:
“They live an austere life of penance and renunciation to make reparation for the sins of us all and to implore God’s pardon. They ask heaven’s blessing upon our lives, and they continually beg for the salvation of our souls.”
SOURCE – To continue reading the above article, click HERE
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At the 11:36 minute mark in the video directly above, you will hear:
“As a sign of membership to the carmel, the scapular is also a sign of belonging to Maria [Mary] to express the devotion to this mother and the gathering of the followers to the Carmelite family. It expresses the conviction of the member to live consecrated to Mary and under her protection. It reminds whoever uses it [the scapular] the commitment to live their own Marian dimension that is characterized in a life of similarity with Mary in prayer, humility, and imitation of her riches inviting the intimate union with God and to the generous duty of fellow men and of the church.”
At the12:19 minute mark
“With her maternal love, Mary takes care of her Son’s brothers still pilgrims in the middle of danger and difficulties until they reach their celestial Father. The scapular, so intense, defines for us the maternal spirituality of Mary who protects life, saves during death, and intervenes after death.”
We are only to have our faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for the assurance of salvation; we are never to place our trust in any object such as the scapular! Precious Catholics need to think for themselves and read their Bibles so that by the power of the Holy Spirit they may come to understand all that Jesus Christ accomplished for us all by His once for all sacrifice when He died in our place on the cross for our sins and satisfied God the Father’s just demands for sins –in full!! What joy filled my heart that day when I read the little Catholic New Testament Bible that I was given and came to understand the true Biblical gospel that I never heard once in the 12 years of Catholic schooling that I had! Neither did I hear it during the thousands upon thousands of masses that I attended during the many years that I was a Catholic. Instead I heard the priest calling Jesus Christ a “Victim” when in actuality He was — and is — the Victor over sin and death!!
In the series that I recently presented here regarding the Catechism Of The Catholic Church, I shared many instances with all of you where their Tradition (man-made teachings in Catholicism that are put on the same level of authority as the Bible itself; Para 82 CCC), clearly distorts, conflicts with, and oftentimes completely contradicts the truth that can be found in God’s Word, the Bible. In the following video that I added to give you more information regarding the religious order of Mount Carmel, you will see another example of how Catholic “Tradition” distorts the very Word of God and oftentimes elevates Mary to a place of prominence that belongs to Jesus Christ alone! At the 1 minute mark it is said that the small cloud that the prophet Elijah saw that arose from the sea is an image of the Madonna (the virgin Mary) who, carrying Jesus in her womb, gave life to the world. This is clearly adding to Scripture, which is something that is strongly warned against!! (Read Deuteronomy 12:32, Proverbs 30:5,6, Revelation 22:18,19).
Please, precious Catholic, begin reading your Bibles and ask God to reveal His love and truth to you! Begin reading through the gospel of John, and I also encourage you to also read through Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, 1,2, and 3 John, and Hebrews. Do not be led astray by the Traditions and teachings of the Catholic church that contradict the truth of God’s Word! Come to Jesus just as you are and place your faith and trust in all that He already did for you through the sinless life that He lived that you and I could never live, His brutal death by crucifixion when He died in your place and mine, taking upon Himself the full wrath of God that was intended for you and I because of all of our sins, His burial, and His glorious resurrection from the dead in bodily form three days later! There is no purgatory; no second chance after death!
Whether you are a Catholic — or whatever your beliefs may be — where you will spend eternity when your life comes to an end depends solely upon what you choose to believe about Jesus Christ. Do you believe that He was just a good teacher or a prophet? Or do you believe as the Bible reveals and declares Him to be, and as Jesus Christ Himself claimed to be: that he was/is God in the flesh?
Hell is real and is a place of eternal torment filled with fire that was created not for mankind but for the devil and his angels (read Matthew 25:41). It will be one’s choice of rejecting Jesus Christ that will be why anyone ends up in hell!
I pray that each of you will seek the truth regarding Jesus Christ because your eternal destiny is truly at stake!!
Thank you very much for stopping by today.
God Bless You
~Mary Dalke – Living4His Glory – Reflecting His Glory Photography And Acrylic Art
UPDATE:
As I mentioned in at least one of my previous posts, the Lord amazingly provided a childcare job for me and I started the first week of January! Due to the fact that I will also be painting and preparing to take part in some art and craft shows here in the northwest suburbs of the Chicago area starting this spring, my free time will now be extremely limited in order to write any more in depth posts. However, if I see the need to write something when time allows, Lord willing, I will do so!
Before I begin, I want to make it very clear to everyone that my reason for writing this post is the same reason that I have for writing every post. That reason has always been and will always be: to emphasize to everyone the extreme importance of testing everything that you see, hear, and read against Scripture to see if it agrees or disagrees with the truth presented in God’s Word. God’s Word — not the teachings/traditions of any man, woman, or religion — must be our sole authority when it comes to judging what is true or not regarding spiritual matters. What we believe about Jesus Christ will determine our eternal destiny, so we must make sure that what we choose to believe is the truth!
Another reason for writing this post is that I am a former Catholic (who attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended CCD classes, made my First Communion, was confirmed, and attended thousands upon thousands of Catholic “Masses” not only on Sundays and “Holy Days of Obligation,” but also before school started every day when I was in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, and prayed hundreds, if not thousands of rosaries). Because I am a former Catholic, I have a deep love and concern for precious Catholics and desire for them to also come to truly understand just how much Jesus Christ, the second Person in the Trinity, already accomplished for us by His “once for all” sacrifice. I was filled with awe and amazement and deep gratitude when I began reading the little Catholic New Testament Bible that was given to me because, as I read it, God’s Holy Spirit helped me to begin to truly understand just how perfect and complete Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross actually was! I also came to realize that Jesus was and is not a continual “Victim” as He is referred to by each priest during every “Sacrifice of the Mass.” (See also Para 1367, 1371, in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church). Jesus willingly came to our sin-filled world (Hebrews 10:5-8) and He gave His life willingly. (John 10:17,18) He lived a sinless, perfect life that we could never live so that He could become the perfect sacrifice for our sins; Jesus was crucified on the cross in our place, taking upon Himself the full wrath of God, His Father, that we deserve for our sins. Jesus’ death in our place completely satisfied God’s just demands and full wrath that He has towards us because of our sins. No more sacrifices for sins are needed! And God, the Father, raised Him from the dead to show that He accepted the horrific, torturous death of Jesus Christ as being sufficient to pay for all sin –in full! That is the good news of the Biblical gospel!
Let’s begin:
In the Roman Catholic church, the month of May is devoted to the virgin Mary, the woman whom God had chosen to be the mother of Jesus Christ in His humanity. Although we should all have a deep respect for Mary for her humble obedience to God’s request to become the mother of Jesus Christ, we are not to go beyond having respect and admiration for her to the point of praying to her as Catholics are taught to do.
In the video below you will hear what Lucia, (the eldest of the three children who allegedly saw apparitions of the virgin Mary back in 1917), shared with a Mexican priest by the name of Father Augustin Fuentes. Before you either watch the video below or watch the short slideshow below the video that I put together with quick captures of what she claimed to have heard Mary say to her, I would like to share the following Scriptures with you so that you are aware of what God’s Word has to say regarding certain issues in order for you have the truth fresh in your mind before you hear some of the things that Mary allegedly said to Lucia. It is my prayer that you will see that these messages do not line up with the truth of God’s Word but instead they oftentimes contradict it. The true Mary of the Bible would never have said or requested some of these things! Here is just one example in light of the truth of God’s Word:
“Jesus therefore said to them again: Amen, amen I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All others, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers: and the sheep heard them not. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved: and he shall go in, and go out, and shall find pastures. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. (John 10:7-10 – Douay Rheims Catholic Bible) (Emphasis in bold print is mine).
Lucia: “Then, there is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, holding her as the seat of mercy, goodness, and pardon and the sure door to enter heaven.”
SCRIPTURES TO KEEP IN MIND AS YOU HEAR OR READ WHAT LUCIA SAID THAT CLEARLY SHOW JESUS SHOULD BE OUR FOCUS, NOT MARY
“For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil.”(John 3:16,17 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“By so much is Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And the others indeed were made many priests, because by reason of death they were not suffered to continue: But this, for that he continueth for ever, hath an everlasting priesthood, Whereby he is able also to save for ever them that come to God by him; always living to make intercession for us. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, in offering himself. For the law maketh men priests, who have infirmity: but the word of the oath, which was since the law, the Son who is perfected for evermore.” (Hebrews 7:22-28 – Douay Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Now the grace of our Lord hath abounded exceedingly with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. A faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. But for this cause have I obtained mercy: that in me first Christ Jesus might shew forth all patience, for the information of them that shall believe in him unto life everlasting. Now to the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. “(1 Timothy 1:14-17 – Douay Rheims Catholic Bible)
“BEING justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: “(Romans 5:1 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Christ died for us; much more therefore, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. And not only so; but also we glory in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation. ” (Romans 5:9-11 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Beware lest any man cheat you by philosophy, and vain deceit; according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“But when the goodness and kindness of God our Savior appeared: Not by the works of justice, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost; Whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Savior: That, being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of life everlasting. “(Titus 3:4-7 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
REGARDING PRAYING THE ROSARY:
“And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him ” (Matthew 6:7,8 – Douay Rheims Catholic Bible)
Many people who are part of certain pagan religions pray using beads: Buddhists, Hindus, etc.. God’s Word, however, tells us that if we believe the good news of the Biblical gospel (that Jesus is God in the flesh, who died in our place on the cross, was buried, and arose from the dead in bodily form three days later), we can now boldly (but reverently and humbly) come before the very throne of God in our time of need:
“For by him we have access both in one Spirit to the Father.” (Ephesians 2:18 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Having therefore a great high priest that hath passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God: let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest, who can not have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace: that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable aid. ” (Hebrews 4:14-16 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ; A new and living way which he hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, And a high priest over the house of God: Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering (for he is faithful that hath promised)” (Hebrews 10:19-23 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
REGARDING SACRIFICES – GOD’S WORD CLEARLY STATED THEY ARE NO LONGER NECESSARY WHICH RENDERS THE ‘SACRIFICE OF THE MASS’ UNNECESSARY AND THEREFORE BLASPHEMOUS IN GOD’S SIGHT BECAUSE THEY SIGNIFY THAT JESUS’ ‘ONCE FOR ALL’ SACRIFICE WAS INSUFFICIENT TO PAY THE DEBT FOR ALL SIN
“By so much is Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And the others indeed were made many priests, because by reason of death they were not suffered to continue: But this, for that he continueth for ever, hath an everlasting priesthood, Whereby he is able also to save for ever them that come to God by him; always living to make intercession for us. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, in offering himself. For the law maketh men priests, who have infirmity: but the word of the oath, which was since the law, the Son who is perfected for evermore.” (Hebrews 7:22-28 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
The Catechism Of The Catholic Church states in Para 1367 that Jesus is offered in an unbloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass, but God’s Word clearly states that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins:
“But Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, that is, not of this creation:Neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption.For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? And therefore he is the mediator of the new testament: that by means of his death, for the redemption of those trangressions, which were under the former testament, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament, the death of the testator must of necessity come in. For a testament is of force, after men are dead: otherwise it is as yet of no strength, whilst the testator liveth. Whereupon neither was the first indeed dedicated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been read by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, Saying: This is the blood of the testament, which God hath enjoined unto you. The tabernacle also and all the vessels of the ministry, in like manner, he sprinkled with blood. And almost all things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood: and without shedding of blood there is no remission. It is necessary therefore that the patterns of heavenly things should be cleansed with these: but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others: For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment: So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation.” (Hebrews 9:11-28 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Then said I: Behold I come: in the head of the book it is written of me: that I should do thy will, O God. In saying before, Sacrifices, and oblations, and holocausts for sin thou wouldest not, neither are they pleasing to thee, which are offered according to the law. Then said I: Behold, I come to do thy will, O God: he taketh away the first, that he may establish that which followeth. In the which will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once. And every priest indeed standeth daily ministering, and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God, From henceforth expecting, until his enemies be made his footstool. For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost also doth testify this to us. For after that he said:
And this is the testament which I will make unto them after those days, saith the Lord. I will give my laws in their hearts, and on their minds will I write them:
And their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Now where there is a remission of these, there is no more an oblation for sin.” (Hebrews 10:8-18 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
INSTEAD WE ARE TO OFFER SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES AND SACRIFICES OF PRAISE
“Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” (1 Peter 2:5 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise always to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips confessing to his name.” (Hebrews 13:15 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and made honourable by God: Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. ” (1 Peter 2:4,5 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
Jesus — not Mary — is the only Mediator between God and mankind, and He is the only way and only name under heaven by which we can be saved:
“For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.” (1 Timothy 2:5,6 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“LET not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be. And whither I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.“ (John 14:1-6 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them: Ye princes of the people, and ancients, hear: If we this day are examined concerning the good deed done to the infirm man, by what means he hath been made whole: Be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him this man standeth here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:9-12 – Douay Rheims Catholic Bible)
(All emphasis in bold print are mine).
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God’s Word clearly reveals to us that the only remedy to save the world that God has provided for us is found in placing one’s full and complete trust in Jesus Christ and all that He already accomplished for us for the forgiveness of sins. He is our only remedy and we cannot save ourselves as another one of her alleged messages states above.
“He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“And we have seen, and do testify, that the Father hath sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.” (1 John 4:14 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
In spite of what is said in another message allegedly given by Mary, God’s Word warns us about giving our devotion to anyone other than to Jesus Christ. We are also warned about accepting another gospel and another Jesus:
“I the Lord, this is my name: I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to graven things. “
“For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God. For I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted, and fall from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Christ, whom we have not preached; or if you receive another Spirit, whom you have not received; or another gospel which you have not received; you might well bear with him.” (2 Corinthians 11:2-4)
“I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:6-9 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
In closing, I prayerfully and humbly ask every precious Catholic, and those of you who do not yet truly know all that Jesus Christ accomplished on your behalf, to please consider reading the Bible and ask God to reveal His truth to you. Begin reading the Gospel of John, and consider reading through Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, 1, 2, and 3 John, and Hebrews, especially Chapters 7 through 10. I urge you to compare what you read against what the Catholic church has taught you, and..
I am still doing research for the third installment in the series regarding the alleged apparitions of the virgin Mary, and I have also been very busy doing many other things. Next week I have an interview for a childcare job, so I would appreciate prayers for God to have His way in this and will continue to place my trust in Him regardless of the outcome of the interview. Thank you for your prayers and patience.♥
There are two very important reasons why I felt compelled to write this series of posts, and I’d like to briefly share these reasons with you now before I go any further:
1) Since I am a former Catholic who is very aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church because I attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended Catechism classes, made my First Holy Communion, was Confirmed, and faithfully attended Mass not only every Sunday for many years, but also before school began for three years (as required by the school that I attended at the time), and who came to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ truly is and what He actually accomplished for us by reading a Catholic New Testament Bible exactly like the one pictured above, I decided to write this series with the hope of reaching precious Catholics so that they can not only come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is as His Word, the Bible, declares Him to be, but also so they can see by reading God’s Word that they can have complete forgiveness, lasting joy, true peace, and the assurance of salvation if they choose to believe God’s Word and place their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Also, since many Catholics do not realize everything that the Catholic church actually teaches (as I once did not realize until after doing research and reading the CCC), I thought that it was extremely important to share this information to make Catholics aware of many things that are quite disturbing, as you will all soon become aware of as this series continues.
2) This series of posts is also being written with the intention of helping those of you who are born-again, Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ who have no idea of what the teachings of Catholicism are so that you can become aware of their teachings and be prepared to offer hope and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ to Catholics based solely upon the truth that is recorded in God’s Word.
As we continue on in this series together comparing Scriptures in the Catholic New Testament to teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must keep these important thoughts in mind:
When it comes to our eternal destination — heaven or hell — we must be certain that we place our trust in solid truth and not in speculation or in the traditions of men. The Catholic church claims to be the “one true Church.” Therefore, it stands to reason that their teachings must line up with God’s Word and not contradict it since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8), and His Word stands firm forever. (Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24,25) If a contradiction is found it must be rejected because God’s Word is our plumb line by which we must measure (or test) the teachings of every religion to see if it lines up or not. If it is off in one point we can be certain that it will lead us further and further away from Biblical truth and lead us into spiritual deception.
This series will cover many different subjects ranging from what does the Catholic Church teach about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, priests, the pope, sin, forgiveness of sins, salvation, prayer, and what must a Catholic believe in order to receive eternal life. Some of these teachings will shock even many Catholics when they learn what their church actually teaches!
Lord willing, I hope to share at least one post every month with you in this new series until I have covered all the most important teachings that need to be brought to your attention. The main goal that I have in writing this series is to present the Word of God to Catholics — and to every person — in order to point everyone to Jesus Christ, who is our only hope and ‘the only name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)
Dear Catholic, please take a minute now to sincerely pray; ask God to open your mind to the Scriptures and to reveal the truth to you –whatever that may be.
Because only God can reveal the truth to you, I will refrain from making any comments unless I find it completely necessary. Since God’s Word is truth I trust that He will not only give you eyes to see the truth, but also I trust that He will give you the courage to respond to His leading. However, each one of you will find yourself having to answer this question when you come to many points that I present to you in these posts after realizing that there are oftentimes extreme differences between what the Word of God says and what Catholicism teaches, and the question that you will have to answer is:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God or the word of man?”
For those of you who are not Catholic, and are taking the time to read these posts in order to learn what Catholicism actually teaches, please keep in mind that every time you see the word “church” spelled with a capital c they are referring to the Catholic church, since they believe that the “Catholic Church” alone is the “one true Church.”All of the information that I will be sharing with you I have obtained from the following sources:
1) CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (pictured above) – Imprimi Potest – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) – Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2) THE WORD OF GOD – THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION – IMPRIMATUR JOHN FRANCIS WHEALON, ARCHBISHOP OF HARTFORD, APRIL 15, 1971 SIGNED AND SEALED BY BISHOP JOSEPH B. BRUNINI, DIOCESE OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
3) Occasionally when I share a Scripture with you from the Sacred Heart League (SHL) Catholic New Testament and notice that it lacks depth and clarity, I will then follow it with the same verse but in the King James Version in order to give you a better understanding of what is being said, and so that you can see what is missing from the SHL translation.
4) Very briefly in this series, when it is necessary to quote from the Old Testament, I will also be quoting from THE CATHOLIC DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION OF THE BIBLE – in which you will find the following statements:
“EXCERPT FROM ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE:
“The God of all Providence, Who in the adorable designs of His love at first elevated the human race to the participation of the Divine nature, and afterwards delivered it from the universal guilt and ruin, restoring it to its primitive dignity, has in consequence bestowed upon man a splendid gift and safeguard–making known to him, by supernatural means, the hidden Mysteries of His divinity, His wisdom, and His mercy. For although in Divine revelations there are contained some things which are not beyond the reach of unassisted reason, and which are made the objects of such revelation in order “that all may come to know them with facility, certainty, and safety from error, yet not on this account can supernatural Revelation be said to be absolutely necessary; it is only necessary because God has ordained man to a supernatural end.” This supernatural revelation according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, “being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.” (Page ix)
“Wherefore it must be recognised that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession. His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in the renewing of the decree of Trent, declares its “mind” to be this–that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.” (Page xvii)
“Wherefore the first and dearest object of the Catholic commentator should be to interpret those passages which have received an authentic interpretation either by the sacred writers themselves, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as in many places of the New Testament), or from the Church, under the assistance of the same Holy Spirit, whether by her solemn judgment or her ordinary and universal magisterium –to interpret those passages in that identical sense, and to prove, by all the resources of science that sound hermeneutical laws admit of no other interpretation. In the other passages, the analogy of faith should be followed, and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.” (Page xviii)
“For although the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should nevertheless, bear well in mind–as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages –that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Page xix)
As I have mentioned in some previous posts in this series, in order to get this entire series finished in a timely manner, I have tried to keep my comments very brief and mainly made them in the introduction and closing sections of these posts, which I also tried to do (for the most part) in this last post, although, as you will soon see, the section which contains my closing comments is extra lengthy because it is a summary of the very troubling contrast between some Catholic teachings that:
• Are based on Scriptures that are taken out of context.
• Are based on Catholic “Tradition” that has been added to Scripture which distorts and even changes the true meaning of the text that God intended to present to us.
• Outright contradict Scripture and the gloriously good news of the Biblical gospel that is so clearly presented in their very own Scriptures, which prevents precious Catholics from ever coming to the knowledge of all that Jesus Christ truly accomplished for us through His sinless life, His death in our place on the cross, His burial, and His glorious resurrection from the dead in bodily form three days later.
Although I tried very hard to limit each post in this series to no more than 5000 words, some of the teachings that I came across in the CCC were so shocking and troubling that it made it rather difficult at times to stick to a limit when these teachings needed to be exposed or further information needed to be added so that you could see the spiritual danger of these teachings in light of God’s freeing and wonderful truth as revealed in His Word. I did, however, continue to keep the main focus on Scripture in this final post, which is where it should be.
For those of you who have busy schedules and do not have the time to read lengthy posts, I have highlighted just some of the many troubling things in turquoise, the extremely troubling things are highlighted in red, where the Catholic church has added to Scripture with their teachings based on Catholic Tradition I have highlighted in amethyst, and some things that are Biblical I have highlighted in blue in order to quickly bring these things to your attention. [NOTE: Emphasis on certain words that I have put in bold print throughout this post is mine.]
INTRODUCTION TO PART 23
In this next section in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church we will be covering the last half of page 701 and we will continue on through until the end of page 756 which will finally bring us to the very end of the book. The focus of this section is a continuation on prayer, mainly on the Hail Mary, a prayer that is prayed by Catholics to Mary, and the Our Father.
As you read through this last post in this series, please note the unbiblical emphasis that the Catholic church, once again, puts on the virgin Mary in their teachings by how much they focus on her, (especially in this last section of the CCC), and how they add to and twist Scripture and elevate her to positions that the Mary of the Bible never claimed to have. As an important side note, you will, however, hear the entity who claims to be the ‘Virgin Mary’ in all of the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary (most of which have been approved by the Catholic church), say these types of things which you will find in Catholic teachings, such as referring to Mary as the: Mother of all Peoples, Mediatrix of all Graces, Co-Redemptrix, Queen of Heaven, etc. (To learn more and when time allows, please consider reading THIS SERIES regarding the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary that I hope to finish writing in March or April of this year –Lord willing.
Also, please note the mystical, sometimes sensual, experiential and completely unbiblical language that is sometimes used (divinize, real presence, rhythms of praying, interior prayer, silent love, contemplate God, becoming other Christs, etc.), as well as the emphasis that is placed on Lectio Divina and especially Contemplative Prayer, which are forms of prayer based on Eastern meditation practices that make these types of praying entirely unbiblical and not Christian at all!
Let’s begin:
ARTICLE 2
THE WAY OF PRAYER
Para 2663
“In the living tradition of prayer, each Church proposes to its faithful, according to its historic, social, and cultural context, a language for prayer: words, melodies, gestures, iconography. The Magisterium of the Church(15) has the task of discerning the fidelity of these ways of praying to the tradition of apostolic faith; it is for pastors and catechists to explain their meaning, always in relation to Jesus Christ. (15 – Cf. DV 10).
Prayer to the Father.
Para 2664
There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ. Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to the Father only if we pray “in the name” of Jesus. The sacred humanity of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God our Father.
“Come, Holy Spirit”
Para 2670
“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”(21) Every time we begin to pray to Jesus it is the Holy Spirit who draws us on the way of prayer by his prevenient grace. Since he teaches us to pray by recalling Christ, how could we not pray to the Spirit too? That is why the Church invites us to call upon the Holy Spirit every day, especially at the beginning and the end of every important action.
If the Spirit should not be worshiped, how can he divinize me through Baptism? If he should be worshiped, should he not be the object of adoraton?(22) (21 – 1 Cor 12:3). (22 – St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 31, 28: PG 36, 165).
In communion with the Holy Mother of God
Para 2673
In prayer the Holy Spirit unites us to the person of the only Son, in his glorified humanity, through which and in which our filial prayer unites us in the Church with the Mother of Jesus.(27 – Cf. Acts 1:14)
Para 2674
Mary gave her consent in faith at the Annunciation and maintained it without hesitation at the foot of the Cross. Ever since, her motherhood has extended to the brothers and sisters of her Son, who “still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties.”(28) Jesus, the only mediator, is the way of our prayer; Mary, his mother and ours, is wholly transparent to him; she “shows the way” (hodigitria), and is herself “the Sign” of the way, according to the traditional iconography of East and West. (28 – LG 62).
Para 2675
Beginning with Mary’s unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first “magnifies” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings;(29) the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused. (Cf. Lk. 1:46-55).
Para 2676
This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria.
Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel’s greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. “Rejoice…O daughter of Jerusalem…the Lord your God is in your midst.”(31) Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is “the dwelling of God…with men.“(32) (31 – Zeph 3:14, 17a). (32 – Rev 21:3).
Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. After the angel’s greeting, we make Elizabeth’s greeting our own. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary “blessed.”( 33) “Blessed is she who believed…”(34) Mary is “blessed among women” because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word. Abraham, because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth. Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is God’s own blessing: Jesus, the fruit of thy womb.”(33 – Luke 1:41,48) (34 – Luke 1:45)
Para 2677
Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”(36) Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can trust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: “Let it be to me according to your word.”(37) By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: “Thy will be done.”(36 – Luke 1:43). (37 – Luke 1:38).
Pray for us sinners,now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the “Mother of Mercy,” the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives, and our trust broadens further, already at the present moment to “surrender the hour of our death” wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son’s death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing(38) to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise. (38 – Cf. John 19:27)
Para 2679
Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus’ mother into our homes, for she has become mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her.The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.(40 – Cf. LG 68-69).
Para 2682
Because of Mary’s singular cooperation with the action of the Holy Spirit, the Church loves to pray in communion with the Virgin Mary, to magnify with her the great things the Lord has done for her, and to entrust supplications and praises to her.
ARTICLE 3
GUIDES FOR PRAYER
A cloud of witnesses
Para 2683
The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom,(41) especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. They contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were “put in charge of many things.”(42) Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world. (41 – Cf. Heb 12:1). (42 – Cf. Mt 25:21).
Servants of prayer
Para 2687
Many religious have consecrated their whole lives to prayer. Hermits, monks, and nuns since the time of the desert fathers have devoted their time to praising God and interceding for his people. The consecrated life cannot be sustained or spread without prayer; it is one of the living sources of contemplation and the spiritual life of the Church.
Para 2690
The Holy Spirit gives to certain of the faithful the gifts of wisdom, faith, and discernment for the sake of this common good which is prayer (spiritual direction). Men and women so endowed are true servants of the living tradition of prayer.
According to St. John of the Cross, the person wishing to advance toward perfection should “take care into whose hands he entrusts himself, for as the master is, so will the disciple be, and as the father is so will be the son.” And further: “In addition to being learned and discreet a director should be experienced…if the spiritual director has no experience of the spiritual life, he will be incapable of leading into it the souls whom God is calling to it, and he will not even understand them.”(47 – St. John of the Cross,The Living Flame of Love, stanza 3, 30, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross eds K. Kavanaugh OCD and O. Rodriguez OCD (Washington DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979), 621.
Places favorable for prayer
Para 2691
The Church, the house of God, is the proper place for the liturgical prayer of the parish community. It is also the privileged place for adoration of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
–For personal prayer, this can be a “prayer corner” with the Sacred Scriptures and icons, in order to be there, in secret, before our Father.(48 – Cf. Mt 6:6).
CHAPTER THREE
THE LIFE OF PRAYER
Para 2698
The Tradition of the Church proposes to the faithful certain rhythms of praying intended to nourish continual prayer. Some are daily, such as morning and evening prayer, grace before and after meals, the Liturgy of the Hours. Sundays, centered on the Eucharist, and kept holy primarily by prayer. The cycle of the liturgical year and its great feasts are also basic rhythms of the Christian’s life of prayer.
Para 2699
The Lord leads all persons by paths and in ways pleasing to him, and each believer responds according to his heart’s resolve and the personal expressions of his prayer. However, Christian Tradition has retained three major expressions of prayer: vocal, meditative, and contemplative.
ARTICLE 1
EXPRESSIONS OF PRAYER
II. MEDITATION
Para 2705
Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of creation, and that of history–the page on which the “today” of God is written.
Para 2708
Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. This mobilization of faculties is necessary in order to deepen our convictions of faith, prompt the conversation of our heart, and strengthen our will to follow Christ. Christian prayer tries above all to meditate on the mysteries of Christ, as in lectio divina or the rosary. This form of prayerful reflection is of great value, but Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with him.
III. CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
Para 2709
What is contemplative prayer?St. Teresa answers: “Contemplative prayer [Oración mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.”(6)
Contemplative prayer seeks him “whom my soul loves.”(7) It is Jesus, and in him, the Father. We seek him, because to desire him is always the beginning of love, and we seek him in that pure faith which causes us to be born of him and to live in him. In this inner prayer we can still meditate, but our attention is fixed on the Lord himself. (6 – St. Teresa of Jesus, The Book of Her Life, 8, 5 in the Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, tr. K. Kavanough, OCD, and O. Rodriguez, OCD (Washington DC Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1976), I. 67. (7 – Song 1:7; cf. 3:1-4).
Para 2710
The choice of the time and duration of the prayer arises from a determined will, revealing the secrets of the heart. One does not undertake contemplative prayer only when one has the time: one makes the time for the Lord, with the firm determination not to give up, no matter what trials and dryness one may encounter. One cannot always meditate, but one can always enter into inner prayer, independently of the conditions of health, work, or emotional stress. The heart is the place of this quest and encounter, in poverty and in faith.
Para 2711
Entering into contemplative prayer is like entering into the Eucharistic liturgy: we “gather up” the heart, recollect our whole being under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, abide in the dwelling place of the Lord which we are, awaken our faith in order to enter into the presence of him who awaits us. We let our masks fall and turn our hearts back to the Lord who loves us, so as to hand ourselves over to him as an offering to be purified and transformed.
Para 2714
Contemplative prayer is also the pre-eminently intense time of prayer. In it the Father strengthens our inner being with power through his Spirit “that Christ may dwell in (our) hearts through faith” and we may be “grounded in love.”(10 – Eph 3:16-17)
Para 2715
Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus, “I look at him and he looks at me” : this is what a certain peasant of Ars in the time of his holy curé used to say while praying before the tabernacle. This focus on Jesus is a renunciation of self. His gaze purifies our heart; the light of the countenance of Jesus illumines the eyes of our heart and teaches us to see everything in the light of his truth and his compassion for all men. Contemplation also turns its gaze on the mysteries of the life of Christ. Thus it learns the “interior knowledge of our Lord,” the more to love him and follow him.(11 – Cf. St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 104).
Para 2717
Contemplative prayer is silence, the “symbol of the world to come”(12) or “silent love.”(13) Words in this kind of prayer are not speeches; they are like kindling that feeds the fire of love. In this silence, unbearable to the “outer” man, the Father speaks to us his incarnate Word, who suffered, died, and rose; in this silence the Spirit of adoption enables us to share in the prayer of Jesus. (12 – Cf. St. Isaac of Nineveh, Tract myst. 66). (13 – St. John of the Cross, Maxims and Counsels, 53 in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, tr. K. Kavanough, OCD, and O. Rodriguez, OCD (Washington DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979),678.
Para 2718
Contemplative prayer is a union with the prayer of Christ insofar as it makes us participate in his mystery. The mystery of Christ is celebrated by the Church in the Eucharist, and the Holy Spirit makes it come alive in contemplative prayer so that our charity will manifest it in our acts.
ARTICLE 2
THE BATTLE OF PRAYER
Para 2725
Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, from union with God.
I. OBJECTIONS TO PRAYER
Para 2726
In the battle of prayer, we must face in ourselves and around us, erroneous notions of prayer. Some people view prayer as a simple psychological activity, others as an effort of concentration to reach a mental void. Still others reduce prayer to ritual words and postures. Many Christians unconsciously regard prayer as an occupation that is incompatible with all of the other things they have to do: they “don’t have the time.” Those who seek God by prayer are quickly discouraged because they do not know that prayer comes also from the Holy Spirit and not from themselves alone.
II. HUMBLE VIGILANCE OF HEART
Para 2729
The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. It can affect words and their meaning in vocal prayer; it can concern more profoundly, him to whom we are praying, in vocal prayer (liturgical or personal), meditation, and contemplative prayer. To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart; for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve.”(16 – Cf. Mt 6:21, 24).
III. FILIAL TRUST
Para 2736
Are we convinced that “we do not know how to pray as we ought”?(23) Are we asking God for “what is good for us”? Our Father knows what we need before we ask him,(24) but he awaits our petition because the dignity of his children lies in their freedom. We must pray, then, with his Spirit of freedom, to be able truly to know what he wants.(25) (23 – Rom 8:26). (24 – Cf. Mt 6:8). (25 – Cf. Rom 8:27).
Para 2737
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”(26) If we ask with a divided heart, we are “adulterers”;(27) God cannot answer us, for he desires our well being, our life. “Or do you suppose that it is in vain that the scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit which he has made to dwell in us?’ “(28) That our God is “jealous” for us is the sign of how true his love is. If we enter into the desire of his Spirit, we shall be heard.
Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask him; for he desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to him in prayer.(29)
God wills that our desire should be exercised in prayer, that we may be able to receive what he is prepared to give.(30) (26 – Jas 4:3; cf. the whole context: Jam 4:1-10; 1:5-8; 5:16). (27 – Jas 4:4). (28 – Jas 4:5) (29 – Evagrius Ponticus, De oratione) (30 – St. Augustine, Ep 130, 8, 17: PL 33, 500).
Para 2741
Jesus also prays for us–in our place and on our behalf. All our petitions were gathered up, once for all, in his cry on the Cross and, in his Resurrection, heard by the Father. This is why he never ceases to intercede for us with the Father.(32) If our prayer is resolutely united with that of Jesus, in trust and boldness as children, we obtain all that we ask in his name, even more than any particular thing: the Holy Spirit himself, who contains all gifts. (32 – Cf. Heb 5:7; 7:25; 9:24).
ARTICLE 3
THE PRAYER OF THE HOUR OF JESUS
Para 2749
Jesus fulfilled the work of the Father completely; his prayer, like his sacrifice, extends until the end of time.
SECTION TWO
ARTICLE 1
“THE SUMMARY OF THE WHOLE GOSPEL”
Para 2763
All the Scriptures –the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms–are fulfilled in Christ.(10) The Gospel is the “Good New.” Its first proclamation is summarized by St. Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount;(11) the prayer to our Father is at the center of this proclamation. It is in this context that each petition bequeathed to us by the Lord is illuminated.(10 – Cf. Lk 24:44). (11 – Cf. Mt 5-7).
ARTICLE 2
“OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN”
Para 2782
We can adore the Father because he has caused us to be reborn to his life by adopting us as his children in his only Son: by Baptism, he incorporates us into the Body of his Christ; through the anointing of his Spirit who flows from the head to the members, he makes us other “Christs.”
God, indeed, who has predestined us to adoption as his sons, has conformed us to the glorious Body of Christ. So then you who have become sharers in Christ are appropriately called “Christs.”(34 – St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. myst. 3, 1: PG 33, 1088A).
Para 2783
Thus the Lord’s Prayer reveals us to ourselves at the same time that it reveals the Father to us.(36)
O man, you did not dare to raise your face to heaven, you lowered your eyes to the earth, and suddenly you have received the grace of Christ: all your sins have been forgiven. From being a wicked servant you have become a good son…Then raise your eyes to the Father who has begotten you through Baptism, to the Father who has redeemed you through his Son, and say: “Our Father…” But do not claim any privilege. He is the Father in a special way only of Christ, but he is the common Father of us all, because while he has begotten only Christ, he has created us. Then also say by his grace, “Our Father,” so that you may merit being his son.(37) (36 – Cf. GS 22 § 1) (37 – St. Ambrose, De Sacr. 5, 4, 19: PL 16:450-451).
Para 2791
For this reason, in spite of the divisions among Christians, this prayer to “our” Father remains our common patrimony and an urgent summons for all the baptized. In communion by faith in Christ and by Baptism, they ought to join in Jesus’ prayer for the unity of his disciples.(50 – Cf. UR 8; 22).
Para 2798
We can invoke God as “Father” because the Son of God made man has revealed him to us. In this Son, through Baptism, we are incorporated and adopted as sons of God.
Para 2813
In the waters of Baptism, we have been “washed…sanctified…justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”(79).
By whom is God hallowed, since he is the one who hallows? But since he said, “You shall be holy to me; for I the LORD am holy,” we seek and ask that we who were sanctified in Baptism may persevere in what we have begun to be.(81) (79 – 1 Cor 6:11). (81 – St. Cyprian,De Dom,orat. 12: PL 4, 527A; Lev 20:26).
NOTE: In context, let’s take a look at the verse that they cite as their basis for teaching that a person is sanctified in Baptism –1 Corinthians 6:11:
“Surely you know that the wicked shall not receive God’s Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral, or worship idols, or adulterers, or homosexual perverts, or who rob, or are greedy, or are drunkards, or who slander others, or are thieves–none of these will receive God’s Kingdom. Some of you were like that. But you have been cleansed from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – Sacred Heart League Catholic New Testament – SHLCNT)
Here is the same passage of Scripture in the Douay-Rheims Catholic Version:
“Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – DRV)
In their proper context we see that there is no mention of baptism or water. The truth in this verse clearly speaks for itself; we are sanctified/cleansed from sin through Jesus Christ, and not by baptism as Catholic Tradition teaches.
Let’s take a look at some verses in the Word of God that clearly show us how we become sanctified. As you read them, please note the completeness and finality of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice:
“First he said, “You neither want nor are you pleased with sacrifices and offerings, or with animals burned on the altar and the sacrifices to take away sins.” He said this even though all these sacrifices are offered according to the Law. Then he said, “Here I am, God, to do what you want me to do.” So God does away with all the old sacrifices and puts the sacrifice of Christ in their place. Because Jesus Christ did what God wanted him to do, we are all made clean (sanctified) from sin by the offering that he made of his own body, once and for all. (Hebrews 10:8-10 – SHLCNT)
Here is the same passage of Scripture in the Douay-Rheims Catholic Version:
“In saying before, Sacrifices, and oblations, and holocausts for sin thou wouldest not, neither are they pleasing to thee, which are offered according to the law. Then said I: Behold, I come to do thy will, O God: he taketh away the first, that he may establish that which followeth. In the which will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once.” (Hebrews 10:8-10 DRV)
Here is another passage of Scripture that clearly shows it is by the blood of Jesus — by fully placing our trust in His once for all sacrifice — that we become sanctified:
“The Jewish High Priest brings the blood of the animals into the Most Holy Place to offer it as a sacrifice for sins; but the bodies of the animals are burned outside the camp. For this reason Jesus also died outside the city gate in order to cleanse (sanctify) the people from sin with his own blood.” (Hebrews 13:11,12 – SHLCNT)
Here is how the above passage of Scripture reads in the Douay-Rheims Catholic Version:
“For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the holies by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate.
Let’s continue:
II. THY KINGDOM COME
Para 2820
By a discernment according to the Spirit, Christians have to distinguish between the growth of the Reign of God and the progress of the culture and society in which they are involved. This distinction is not a separation. Man’s vocation to eternal life does not suppress, but actually reinforces, his duty to put into action in this world the energies and means received from the Creator to serve justice and peace.(93 – Cf. GS 22; 32; 39; 45; EN 31).
Para 2821:
This petition is taken up and granted in the prayer of Jesus which is present and effective in the Eucharist; it bears its fruit in the new life in keeping with the Beatitudes.(94 Cf. Jn 17:17-20; Mt 5:13-16; 6:24; 7:12-13).
III. THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Para 2824
In Christ, and through his human will, the will of the Father has been perfectly fulfilled once for all. Jesus said on entering into this world, “Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.”(99) Only Jesus can say: “I always do what is pleasing to him.”(100) In the prayer of his agony, he consents totally to this will: “not my will but yours be done.”(101) For this reason Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.(102) And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (99 – Heb 10:7; Ps 40:7). (100 – Jn 8:29). (101 – Lk 22:42; cf. Jn 4:34; 5:30; 6:38). (102 – Gal 1:4).
NOTE: They may profess that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all, but in their continual offering of the sacrificeof the Mass (which they say is truly propitiatory), they completely deny the sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice.
Continuing on:
Para 2827
“If anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.”(110) Such is the power of the Church’s prayer in the name of her Lord, above all in the Eucharist.Her prayer is also a communion of intercession with the all-holy Mother of God(111) and all the saints who have been pleasing to the Lord because they willed his will alone. (110 – Jn 9:31; cf. 1 Jn 5:14). (111 – Cf. Lk 1:38; 49).
Para 2832
As leaven in the dough, the newness of the kingdom should make the earth “rise” by the Spirit of Christ.(119) This must be shown by the establishment of justice in personal and social, economic and economic relations, without ever forgetting that there are no just structures without people who want to be just.” (119 – Cf. AA 5).
Para 2835
There is a famine on earth, “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”(124) For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life: The Word of God accepted in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist.(125) (124 – Amos 8:11) (125 – Cf. Jn 6:26-58)
Para 2837
“Daily” (epiousios) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Taken in a temporal sense, this word is a pedagogical repetition of “this day”(128) to confirm us in trust “without reservation.” Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for subsistence. (129) Taken literally (epi-ousios: “super essential”), it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the “medicine of immortality,” without which we have no life within us.(130) Finally in this connection, its heavenly meaning is evident: “this day” is the Day of the Lord, the day of the feast of the kingdom, anticipated in the Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come. For this reason it is fitting for the Eucharist liturgy to be celebrated each day.
The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food makes it a bond of union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his Body and made members of him, we may become what we receive…This also is our daily bread: the readings you hear each day in church and the hymns you hear and sing. All these things are necessities for our pilgrimage.(131) The Father in heaven urges us, as children of heaven, to ask for the bread of heaven. [Christ] himself is the bread who, sown in the Virgin, raised up in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, reserved in churches, brought to altars, furnishes the faithful each day with food from heaven.(132) (128 – Cf. Ex 16:19-21) (129 – Cf. 1 Tim 6:8). (130 – St. Ignatius of Antioch Ad Eph. 20, 2: PG 5, 661; Jn 6:53-56) (131 – St. Augustine, Sermo 57, 7: PL 38, 389). (132 – St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 67: PL 52, 392; cf. Jn 6:51).
V. “AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US”
Para 2839
With bold confidence, we began praying to our Father. In begging him that his name be hallowed, we were in fact asking him that we ourselves might be always made more holy. But though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new petition, we return to him like the prodigal son and, like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before him.(133) Our petition begins with a “confession” of our wretchedness and his mercy. Our hope is firm because, in his Son, “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”(134) We find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of his Church.(135) (133 – Cf. Lk 15:11-32; 18:13). (134 – Col 1:14; Eph 1:7). (135 – Cf. Mt 26:28; Jn 20:23).
Para 2845
The communion of the Holy Trinity is the source and criterion of truth in every relationship. It is lived out in prayer, above all in the Eucharist.(148 – Cf. Mt 5:23-24; 1 Jn 3:19-24).
VI. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION
Para 2846
This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to “lead” us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and “do not let us yield to temptation.”(150) “God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.”;(151) on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil. We ask him not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin. We are engaged in the battle “between flesh and spirit”; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength.
Para 2852
“A murderer from the beginning…a liar and the father of lies,” Satan is “the deceiver of the whole world.”(165) Through him sin and death entered into the world and by his definitive defeat all creation will be “freed from the corruption of sin and death.”(166) Now “we know that anyone born of God does not sin, but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.”(167) (165 – Jn 8:44; Rev 12:9). (166 – Roman Missal Eucharistic Prayer IV. 125). (167 – 1 Jn 5:18,19).
Para 2853
Victory over the “prince of this world” was won once for at the Hour when Jesus freely gave himself up to death to give us his life. This is the judgment of this world, and the prince of this world is “cast out.”(170) “He pursued the woman”(171) but had no hold on her: the new Eve, “full of grace” of the Holy Spirit, is preserved from sin and the corruption of death (the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God,Mary, ever virgin). “Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring.”(172) Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: “Come, Lord Jesus,”(173) since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One. (170 – Jn 12:31; Rev 12:10). (171 – Rev 12:13-16). (172 – Rev 12:17). (173 – Rev 22:17,20).
This brings us to the end of the Catechism Of The Catholic Church. Throughout this series I have tried to clearly point out to you how the Catholic church does not place their emphasis on Jesus Christ and the sufficiency of His once for all sacrifice that paid the debt for all sin in full in their teachings.
I have also tried to show you from their own teachings how they twist and distort God’s Word by adding to Scripture instead of basing their teachings on the clear truths presented in Scripture, and how they oftentimes back up their teachings by sharing quotes from Catholic mystics of the past and mystical teachings of monks, known as the desert fathers.
Throughout this series, regarding the Catechism Of The Catholic Church, you have seen how terms such as Contemplative Prayer, Lectio Divina, desert fathers, spiritual director, silent prayer along with “saints”/people such as St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius of Loyola, etc., have been mentioned quite innocently. But as I have tried to document for you throughout this series, these terms and people will lead Catholics and others (who are not aware of the spiritual dangers of Contemplative prayer and what these “saints” and desert fathers believed, taught, and experienced), slowly into the world of the occult!
To refresh your memory, and for those of you who may not have read any previous posts in this series, here is some information on Contemplative Prayer, St. John of the Cross, and St. Teresa of Avila, and more:
INFORMATION ON THE UNBIBLICAL NATURE OF SACRED RHYTHMS AND CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OT THE TRANSFORMING CENTER, RUTH HALEY BARTON, WHO PROMOTES THIS, AMONG MANY OTHER PROFESSING CHRISTIAN LEADERS:
Below is a quick capture of some information regarding St. John of the Cross in which you can see that he promoted Contemplative Meditation and unionwith God, terms that can both be found in Eastern religions, not Biblical Christianity. His writings, such as, ‘The Ascent Of Mount Carmel’ and ‘Dark Night Of TheSoul,’ promote mysticism.
Very troubling information on mystic, Teresa of Avila, can be seen in the following video starting at the 24:55 minute mark and ending at the 34:14 minute mark. However, the entire video is well worth watching.
Now I’d now like to share some information with you from a tract that was written by a former Roman Catholic priest, Bartholomew F. Brewer, PH.D., regarding the central focus of Catholicism –the Sacrifice of the Mass. Back in 1980, right after I just became a Christian, I sent away for some information from Mission To Catholics International Inc., and this was one of many tracts that I received.
Although the information in this tract is deeply rooted in Scripture, some Catholics who read this may find what he has to say to be rather harsh. However, when your eternal destiny is at stake regarding what you choose to believe and to place your trust in for the forgiveness of your sins, the truth is what’s most important, and he clearly shares the truth based on the Word of God regarding some of the troubling teachings of Catholicism that denies the sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice to pay the debt for all sin –in full!
NOTE: The following information has been added for documentational purposes only and is not necessarily an endorsement of Bart Brewer since I am not aware of all his beliefs and whether they all line up with Scripture or not.]
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
The sacrifice of the Mass is the very heart of Roman Catholic faith. It is the most beautiful, the most sacred part of Catholic worship. “It is the secret of her holiness and vitality.” Saint Francis De Sales said it is “the mainspring of devotion.” According to Pope Urban, if the angels could envy man anything, it would be his power to offer the Holy Sacrifice. Cardinal Newman called it “the greatest action that can be on earth.”
OFFICIAL CATHOLIC TEACHING
The Church of Rome teaches –(1) that at the Last Supper, Christ instituted the Mass, a true, visible, sacrifice…; (2) that Christ bequeathed the Mass to His Church…to be of avail for the remission of sins and the punishment due them, and the benefit of the living and the dead; (3) that Christ established a special priesthood for its celebration; (4) that Christ, through the ministry of His priests, offers Himself in the Mass as He offered Himself on the cross; but that, whereas He offered Himself in a bloody manner on the cross, He offers Himself in an unbloody manner in the Mass; (5) that, this difference apart, the sacrifice of the Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the cross, for there is the same Priest, the same Victim and the same Offering. Rome teaches that just as the sacrifice of Calvary was prefigured in the Jewish sacrifices, so it is continued in the Mass in its essentials as a sacrifice. Catholic doctrine teaches that through the sacrifice of the Mass a friend of God receives the appeasement of God’s anger, the extinction of the debt of temporal punishment and the reception of blessings, which include an increase of Sanctifying Grace, Through the Mass, one’s acts of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, atonement, satisfaction and petition receive a new and special efficacy. In the sacrifice of the Mass one is said to receive, more surely that through any other means, the grace of contrition in the hour of need, the grace of more perfect sanctity, and all temporal blessings not in conflict with one’s spiritual well-being.
FIFTH ARTICLE OF THE CREED OF POPE PIUS IV
“I profess likewise that in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. And that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially the blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion of the Catholic Church calleth Transubstantiation. I also confess that under either kind alone Christ is received whole and entire, and a true sacrament.”
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
The canons of the Council of Trent on this subject passed in session xxii. cap. ii are as follows:
1. “If any one shall say, that in the Mass there is not offered to God a true and proper sacrifice, or that what is offered is nothing else than Christ given to be eaten, let him be anathema.”
2. “If any one shall say that in those words, This do in remembrance of Me, Christ did not make the apostles priests, or did not ordain that they themselves and other priests should offer His body and blood, let him be anathema.”
3.”If any one shall say that the sacrifice of the Mass is only of praise and thanksgiving, or a bare commemoration of the sacrifice performed on the cross, but not propitiatory; or that it is of benefit only to the person who takes it, and ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be accursed.”
4. “If any one shall say that a blasphemy is ascribed to the most holy sacrifice of Christ performed on the cross by the sacrifice of the Mass, or the latter derogates from the former, let him be accursed.”
PRONOUNCEMENT FROM VATICAN II
“At the Last Supper…our Saviour instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood. He did this in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross…” p. 154, The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S. J.
CATHOLIC PROOF – TEXTS EXPLAINED
Malachi 1:11: “From the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering.”
Roman Catholic authorities claim that this prophecy is fulfilled in the sacrifice of the Mass. However, a close look at the meaning of this verse indicates not a literal, external offering, but a spiritual, internal offering. David declared in Psalm 51:17 that “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” Peter admonished the people of God to offer up spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5), praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (v. 9). The author of Hebrews speaks of spiritual sacrifices as praise, thanksgiving and alms-giving (13:15,16). The Christians in Rome were admonished to present their bodies (i.e. their whole being) as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). Catholic authorities say that the Hebrew word for offering (mincha) refers to the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass, but in 1 Samuel 2:17 the word mincha is used in reference to a bloody sacrifice and in Isaiah 66:20 the company of God’s people constitutes the mincha. One cannot, therefore, use this verse to substantiate evidence in favor of the sacrifice of the Mass.
Romans 15:16b: “…that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost…”
Again the offering of the Gentiles was a spiritual, internal sacrifice, that of obedience in word and deed (v. 18).
Genesis 14:18: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was a priest of the most high God.”
One cannot assume that this verse speaks of a sacrifice offered to God. Melchizedek was a priest of God and he brought bread and wine, not for a sacrifice but for the refreshment of Abram and his men returning from battle. Cyprian was the earliest of the post-apostolic fathers to teach that Melchizedek was a sacrificer but there is no Biblical reference of Melchizedek offering sacrifice (see Hebrews 7).
1 Corinthians 11:24b: “This do in remembrance of me.”
Catholics are taught that in this verse Jesus was, in effect, saying, “As I have now offered My body and blood under the appearances of bread and wine as a sacrifice, so must you offer in sacrifice My body and blood in every celebration of this sacrament.” Rome teaches that with these words Jesus made the apostles priests and gave Himself as a perpetual victim whom they were to sacrifice daily. It is estimated that there are more than 200,000 sacrifices offered on Roman altars around the world each day of the week. What a perversion of the common expression “this do” which in this context simply means that God’s people are to partake of the bread and wine as a reminder (not a perpetuation) of Christ’s atonement.
John 19:30: “It is finished.”
According to a Roman Catholic priest, Richard W. Grace, in his book, “The Sacrifice of Christ,” “These words do not declare that His sacrifice was finished, but that He had finished His former, normal, earthly life and was now fixed in the state of a victim…He then began His everlasting career as the perpetual sacrifice of the New Law.”
According to Rome, the sacrifice of Christ was completed on Calvary, but not finished, i.e. He must be perpetually sacrificed in the Mass. However, it is not the blood sacrifice of the Cross that is repeated, but the so-called unbloody sacrifice of the upper room, the sacrifice of His flesh and blood under the appearance of bread and wine. It was the shedding of Jesus’ blood that brought remission of sin. That sacrifice was finished as He said and Hebrews 9:22 later tells us that apart from the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Therefore, what took place in the upper room was not a sacrifice but an explanation of the sacrifice that was to take place and since admittedly, there is no blood in the sacrifice of the Mass, it cannot be a sacrifice for sin.
John 6:54-55: “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Meat is to satisfy hunger and in verse 35 Jesus said “he that cometh to me shall never hunger.”
Therefore, to come to Him is to eat. To drink is to satisfy thirst and again in verse 35 Jesus said “he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” Therefore, to believe is to drink. No one can say that here Jesus was establishing the eating and drinking of a sacrifice for sin, especially not after what he said in verse 63: “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In Levitical law, not only was the blood never eaten, but the sin offering was never to be eaten. Yet Catholics believe that they really eat Christ’s body and drink His blood in their communion. If they insist on a literal meaning in this verse, then they must take literally the whole statement and also believe that all who receive their communion are saved (will live forever) and they do not believe that. Without doubt, to consistently literalize this passage involves some impossible interpretation for the Catholic.
Matthew 26: 26 and 28: “This is my body…this is my blood.”
No one can deny that here we have figurative language. Jesus did not say, touto gignetai (this has become or is turned into) but touto esti (this signifies, represents or stands for). In another passage he said “this cup is the new testament.” For one thing, “the cup” refers to its contents and certainly neither the cup nor its contents constitutes the new covenant, but symbolizes it. Throughout Scripture we find similar metaphorical language: Jesus referred to Himself as “the door,” “the vine,” “the light,” “the root,” “the rock,” “the bright and morning star” as well as “the bread.” If I were to show someone a photograph of my son and say, “this is my son,” they would not take these words literally. The Scripture is written with such common language that it is obvious to any observant reader that the Lord’s Supper was intended primarily as a memorial and in no sense a literal sacrifice. In taking Biblical statements literally, we must be sure that doing so is consistent with the context and not in contradiction to other clear teaching.
THE FINALITY OF CHRIST’S SACRIFICE
The Bible teaches that the priesthood of Jesus Christ is unique:
“Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 7:17); “but this man, because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable priesthood (i.e. it cannot be transferred to another)” (Hebrews 7:3b and 24); “there is…one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
There is an obvious superiority in Jesus Christ, the one who is approachable and can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). The human sacrificing priesthood was weak and unprofitable being made up of “many priests” and men of infirmity, but Christ was holy, undefiled and separate from sinners (Hebrews 7:23 and 28). Roman Catholicism teaches that her priests discharge the priesthood of Jesus Christ, that they are other Christs (Alter Christus). This explains the extravagant adulation and exaltation heaped upon the Roman priest. The French Catholic saint, J. B. M. Vianney said that
“Where there is no priest there is no sacrifice, and where there is no sacrifice there is no religion…Without the priest the death and passion of our Lord would be of no avail to us…See the power of the priest!” By one word from his lips, he changes a piece of bread into a God! A greater feat than the creation of a world.”
He also said:
“If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I would salute the priest before saluting the angel. The angel is a friend of God, but the priest holds the place of God…Next to God Himself, the priest is everything!”
What humiliation for Jesus Christ (the one who is to have preeminence in all things). All mankind must say with John the Baptist:
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
The epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the once for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross, not a daily sacrifice on altars. It cannot be argued exegetically that the Mass is a real and true sacrifice of reconciliation and that Christ still sacrifices Himself daily by the hands of the priest (Council of Trent) as the Bible repeatedly affirms in the clearest and most positive terms that Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary was complete in that one offering. And that it was never to be repeated is set forth in Hebrews, chapter 7, 9, and 10. There we read:
“Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the peoples: for this he did once, when he offered up himself (7:27).
“…by his own blood he entered in once, into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (9:12).
“…and without shedding of blood is no remission…Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself…So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (9:22-28).
“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every high priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin: But this man, after he had offered onesacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (10:10-14).
Dr. Loraine Boettner, in his classic book “Roman Catholicism,” asks the reader to:
“Notice that throughout these verses occurs the statement ‘once for all,’ which has in it the idea of completeness, or finality, and which precludes repetition. Christ’s work on the cross was perfect and decisive. It constituted one historic event which need never repeated and which in fact cannot be repeated. The language is perfectly clear: ‘He offered one sacrifice for sins forever’ (Hebrews 10:12). Paul says that ‘Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more’ (Romans 6:9); and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that ‘By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified’ (10:14)…We are told that Christ has sat down as token that His work is finished. Depend upon it. He never descends from that exalted place to be a further sacrifice upon Rome’s altars or on any other; for of such sacrifice there is no need. …Thank God that we can look back to what our Lord did on Calvary and know that He completed the sacrifice for sins once for all, and that our salvation is not dependent on the whim or arbitrary decree of any priest or church. Any pretense at a continuous offering for sin is worse than vain, for it is a denial of the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on Calvary.”
PAGAN ORIGIN
It is shocking for Roman Catholics to learn that the proposal of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice was first made by a Benedictine monk, Radbertus, in the ninth century and was the subject of many fierce verbal battles by the bishops until Pope Innocent III declared it an official Roman doctrine in 1215 A.D. The very principles found in the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass as it is in the church of Rome today can be traced back through the labyrinth of paganism to the fountain of idolatry, ancient Babylon. Rome’s most blasphemous and massive religious fraud originated in Chaldean idol worship and will continue until the time of the end when, according to Revelation 17 and 18, amid the wonder and admiration of the world, Rome will be judged with violence and be thrown down and shall be found no more at all, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
HAS THE MASS REALLY CHANGED?
Today many are expressing hope that Rome is turning toward Scriptural Christianity. Many are thrilled with her changes while failing to realize that they are only superficial. For example, the Church of Rome will never reject the sacrifice of the Mass–just streamline it enough to fool the unlearned in the Scriptures (the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth). Pope John XXIII made it clear that his church is bound “to all the teachings of the Church in its entirety and preciseness, as it still shines forth in the Acts of the Council of Trent and First Vatican Council…” (The Documents of Vatican II, Abbott, S.J.)
CONCLUSION
Based on the authority of the Bible, we must conclude that the Roman Catholic sacrifice of the Mass is a mockery, a deception, a fraud, an abomination before God. As we have shown, it is not the same sacrifice as that of Calvary, regardless of what the priests may say. Yet, under the threat of eternal condemnation, Catholics are, forced to believe what their church teaches, even though it contradicts the Scriptures and reason. The Bible says to “come now, let us reason together,” but Rome demands that her people accept as true that which they know to be false and practice traditions of men which can never bring them to salvation.
Because there are thousands of nominal Roman Catholics who do not believe all that their church requires, we are pleased to announce that they are not Roman Catholics at all, for according to Pope Paul VI, no one may claim to be a member of the Roman Catholic church if he does not maintain fidelity to the churches’ magisterium (teaching authority). On August 24, 1977 he said:
“People who say they are part of the Church and yet are not faithful remain outside.”
Our earnest prayer and expectation is that our beloved Roman Catholic friends will study the Scriptures with an honest desire to know and obey God’s Word to us. The Holy Spirit will then convict them with truth and give them the courage and integrity to separate from false teaching (John 12:46, 1 Timothy 6:3-5, II Timothy 3:5, II Corinthians 6:14-17, Ephesians 5:11, II John 10, Revelation 18:4) and join fellowship with the truly born-again believers in Bible teaching, Christ honoring churches where they can grow in grace and in the knowledge of our wonderful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. [End of tract.]
HERE IS A LIST OF SOME CATHOLIC TEACHINGS BASED ON TRADITION, NOT ON SCRIPTURE
• Transubstantiation (the teaching that the priest was given the power by Jesus Christ to transform the bread and the wine into the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ) was first made an official doctrine of the Catholic church at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 A.D.
• Purgatory was made an official doctrine of the Catholic church in 1274 A.D.
• Immaculate Conception (Mary proclaimed to be sinless) – 1854 A.D.
• Papal Infallibility (In matters of faith and morals) – 1870 A.D.
• The Assumption of Mary – (Mary taken body and soul into heaven) – 1950 A.D.
BRIEF LIST OF SOME MAIN TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH REFUTED BY THE TRUTH CLEARLY REVEALED IN THE WORD OF GOD
PURGATORY (PARA 1472 CCC) REFUTED
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3 – DRV)
“And you, employing all care, minister in your faith, virtue; and in virtue, knowledge; And in knowledge, abstinence; and in abstinence, patience; and in patience, godliness; And in godliness, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity. For if these things be with you and abound, they will make you to be neither empty nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he that hath not these things with him, is blind, and groping, having forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.” (2 Peter 1:5-9 – DRV)
THE SUFFICIENCY OF JESUS CHRIST’S ONCE FOR ALL SACRIFICE
“And so he is able, now and always. to save those who come to God through him, because he lives forever to plead with God for them. Jesus, then, is the High Priest that meets our needs. He is holy; he has no fault or sin in him; he has been set apart from sinful men and raised above the heavens. He is not like other high priests; he does not need to offer sacrifices every day for his own sins first, and then for the sins of the people. He offered one sacrifice, once and for all,when he offered himself.” (Hebrews 7:25-27 – SHLCNT)
“When Christ went through the tent and entered once and for all into the Most Holy Place, he did not take the blood of goats and calves to offer as sacrifice; rather he took his own blood and obtained eternal salvation for us. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of the burnt calf are sprinkled on the people who are ritually unclean, and make them clean by taking away their ritual impurity. Since this is true, how much more is accomplished by the blood of Christ! Through the eternal Spirit he offered himself as a perfect sacrifice to God. His blood will make our consciences clean from useless works, so that we may serve the living God.” (Hebrews 9:12-14- SHLCNT)
“Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God. In the same manner, Christ also was offered in sacrifice once to take away the sins of many. He will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:27,28 – SHLCNT)
“Every Jewish priest stands and performs his services every day and offers the same sacrifices many times. But these sacrifices can never take away sins. Christ, however, offered one sacrifice for sins, an offering that is good forever, and then sat down at the right side of God. There he now waits until God puts his enemies as a footstool under his feet. With one sacrifice, then, he has made perfect forever those who are clean from sin. And the Holy Spirit also gives us his witness. First he says, “This is the covenant that I will make with them in the days to come,”says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and write them on their minds.” And then he says, “I will not remember their sins and wicked deeds any longer.” So when these have been forgiven, an offering to take away sins is no longer needed. We have, then, brothers, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain–that is, through his own body. We have a great priest in charge of the house of God. Let us come near to God, then, with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been made clean from a guilty conscience, and bodies washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:11-22- SHLCNT)
The same verse as above in the Douay-Rheims Bible:
“And every priest indeed standeth daily ministering, and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God, From henceforth expecting, until his enemies be made his footstool. For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. And the Holy Ghost also doth testify this to us. For after that he said:
And this is the testament which I will make unto them after those days, saith the Lord. I will give my laws in their hearts, and on their minds will I write them:
And their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.
Now where there is a remission of these, there is no more an oblation for sin. Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ; A new and living way which he hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, And a high priest over the house of God: Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water.” (Hebrews 10: 11-22 – DRV)
One more verse for you regarding the sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice:
For Christ himself died for you; once and for all he died for sins, a good man for bad men, in order to lead you to God.” (1 Peter 3:18 – SHLCNT)
Here is how the same verse above is presented in the Douay-Rheims Catholic Version which strengthens, emphasizes, and clarifies the contrast between Jesus Christ (the just) and sinful humanity (the unjust):
“Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18 DRV)
THE SUFFICIENCY OF JESUS CHRIST’S ONE SACRIFICE TO EVEN CLEANSE OUR CONSCIENCES
“But Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, that is, not of this creation: Neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:11-14 – DRV)
MARY AS OUR MEDIATRIX (MEDIATOR) REFUTED
“For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due time.” (1 Timothy 2:5,6 – DRV)
SACRIFICE OF THE MASS REFUTED
“For Jesus is not entered into the holies made with hands, the patterns of the true: but into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holies, every year with the blood of others: For then he ought to have suffered often from the beginning of the world: but now once at the end of ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment: So also Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; the second time he shall appear without sin to them that expect him unto salvation.” (Hebrews 9:24-28 – DRV)
Here are just a few thoughts that I’d like to share with you regarding what I have learned as I reflect back to the time when I was a Catholic in light of the joyous thoughts and deep appreciation that I now have after coming to the knowledge of the true Biblical gospel and understanding all that Jesus Christ accomplished for each one of us after I started reading the little Catholic New Testament Bible that was given to me back in the spring of 1980:
Catholicism plays upon the emotions and senses of its people with its rich traditions: the ringing of bells, the incense, images and icons, the mystical idea of the bread and wine literally becoming Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity, the worship of the wafer known as Eucharistic Adoration, processions in which a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is carried into Catholic churches and crowned with a wreath made of flowers, etc., etc. The beauty and amazing truth of the Biblical gospel is veiled by their Catholic Traditions and it is never prominent in their teachings; all that Jesus Christ accomplished for us through His sinless life, His death on the cross in our place, His glorious resurrection from the dead in bodily form three days later showing that God accepted His death as completely satisfying God’s full wrath that He has towards us because of our sins, is never clearly taught. Instead, He is depicted as still hanging on the cross (in most Catholic churches) and He is continually being sacrificed over and over again during every mass, at every altar, in every Catholic church throughout the world! The way to God the Father is never revealed as being coming to Him through Jesus Christ alone as God’s Word says (John 14:6, 1 Timothy 2:5). Instead, precious Catholics are also taught to pray to Mary or one of many different saints telling them that they will intercede before God for their needs; in one breath they speak the truth declared in God’s Holy Word, and in the next they contradict it!
Yes, the Catholic church does indeed teach many Biblical things such as Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, born of a virgin, fully God and fully Man, came to die on the cross for our sins, arose from the dead three days later, the triunity of God (the Biblical concept of the Trinity), but what they add to their teachings and leave out of their teachings causes most, if not all, precious Catholics to place their trust in the Catholic Church to save them instead of Jesus Christ alone, as the Word of God clearly declares; it leads them to wrongly trust in the Catholic Church’s sacramental system and their good works to make them righteous in the sight of a thrice Holy God, which is completely impossible! (Titus 3:4,5, Galatians 2:21, Isaiah 64:6)
Dear reader, no matter what religion or spiritual beliefs you have chosen to adhere to, what truly matters — if one desires to follow the one and only true God, the God of the Bible — are these important questions that I urge you to prayerfully reflect upon and answer:
• Can you honestly say that everything you have been taught can be backed up with Scripture without adding to Scripture or Scripture being taken out of context?
• Have you ever had doubts about something that you have been taught because God’s Word says something completely different, but you choose to push your doubts aside and accept your church’s interpretation of a certain passage of Scripture?
• Do you merely accept everything that you are taught without questioning anything?
• Have you been taught anything that has no Scriptural support whatsoever, but merely based on tradition or supposed new revelations?
These are very important questions to ponder because if you are prone to simply believe whatever you are taught and don’t stop to question things or test things against the truth of God’s Word, you will most likely be deceived and will never come to the knowledge of the truth. A very frightening thought that could be your reality if you ignore this warning.
When people come to faith in Jesus Christ many think that everyone in Christian leadership can be trusted and that everything they say can be believed. However, God’s Word is filled with warnings about spiritual deception in the last days, warnings about false teachers, some even rising from among us (Acts 20:26-31), mysticism, and doctrines of demons. God’s Word also warns us of the fact that the traditions of men nullify God’s Word. (Mark 7:13). Therefore we should always be on guard against false teachings that attempt to distort God’s Word and the Biblical gospel in order to defend their false beliefs.
Please begin to use your critical thinking skills, and, above all, please ask God for discernment and test everything that you are being taught against the truth of the Word of God. I pray that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit the eyes of many precious Catholics, as well as other precious people who truly think that what they believe is true, will have the blinders removed from their eyes as they seek God in His Word — not in the teachings of any religion — and see the gloriously good news of the Biblical gospel regarding everything that Jesus Christ has already done for each one of us, and I pray that many will choose to place their trust in Him alone for the forgiveness of their sins –every last one of them, no matter how horrific of a sin that it may be!
Now that we have finally come to the end of this series, I ask you to please prayerfully reflect on what’s most important –the truth of the Word of God. The reason being that on the day when you find yourself standing before the Lord, the only thing that will truly matter is if you placed your trust in the only way that God has provided for us to be reconciled to Himself, and that is by placing your complete trust in the once for all sacrifice that Jesus Christ willingly offered in our place on the cross of Calvary. Jesus lived the sinless, perfect life that we could never live to become the perfect sacrifice; Jesus took upon Himself the full wrath of God, His Father, that was intended for us because of our sins, and He died in our place. He was buried, and three days later He gloriously arose from the dead in bodily form showing that God, His Father, indeed accepted His death as paying the debt for every one of our sins — in full! No more sacrifices or punishment is required or needed! Now that is the good news of the Biblical gospel!! In contrast, the gospel of Catholicism teaches that more sacrifices for sin is required (Sacrifice of the Mass) and temporal punishment for sins is still due which requires being sent into the purifying fires of a place that the Roman Catholic church calls purgatory where it is taught that one remains there after death to suffer and to be purged from sin for an undetermined amount of time until they are made acceptable to enter heaven. However, remember as I shared with you earlier, the Word of God says in Hebrews 1:3 and 2 Peter 1:5-9 that Jesus purged us from our sins.
If a person ceases from trusting in their good works as the means to obtain God’s forgiveness and chooses instead to place their full trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice, their sins will be washed away, and will be as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), cast into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:18,19), never to be remembered again (Romans 4:7,8, Hebrews 8:12, 10:17), and they will be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 61:10)
Dear Catholic, for the last time I present the following question to you:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God (Scripture), or the word of man (Catholic Tradition)?
Your response will truly reveal where you have placed your trust for the forgiveness of your sins and will most certainly have eternal consequences. I pray that you will get a Bible and spend time reading it and comparing the teachings of the Catholic church to your own Bible. If you do, you will see for yourself the gloriously good news of the Biblical gospel regarding all that Jesus Christ truly accomplished for us! Jesus Christ has the power to set you free and to fill you with true peace and joy –if you choose to believe it and to fully place your trust in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ as being completely sufficient to pay the debt for every one of your sins in full!
Thank you very much for stopping by today.
God Bless You
Mary Dalke – Living4HisGlory
NOTE: All Scriptures from the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible were found on: https://biblehub.com/
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT, AS I HAVE STATED IN MY ‘COMMENT POLICY,’ COMMENTS ON ALL POSTS CLOSE ONE MONTH AFTER THEY ARE PUBLISHED. THANK YOU.
RELATED VIDEOS
NOTE: The Counterfeit Christianity videos that I added above are for informational purposes only, and not an endorsement of all the speakers. As always, be sure to test everything you hear or read against Scripture as we are shown to do in Acts 17:11.
NOTE: This post was updated on Feb. 27th at 10:30 A.M.
UPDATE:
I will be taking some time off to try and start an online business with my photography because I need to try something to bring in some extra money, and I do not want to monetize this site. Your prayers would truly be appreciated at this time! Thank you.
There are two very important reasons why I felt compelled to write this series of posts, and I’d like to briefly share these reasons with you now before I go any further:
1) Since I am a former Catholic who is very aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church because I attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended Catechism classes, made my First Holy Communion, was Confirmed, and faithfully attended Mass not only every Sunday for many years, but also before school began for three years (as required by the school that I attended at the time), and who came to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ truly is and what He actually accomplished for us by reading a Catholic New Testament Bible exactly like the one pictured above, I decided to write this series with the hope of reaching precious Catholics so that they can not only come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is as His Word, the Bible, declares Him to be, but also so they can see by reading God’s Word that they can have complete forgiveness, lasting joy, true peace, and the assurance of salvation if they choose to believe God’s Word and place their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Also, since many Catholics do not realize everything that the Catholic church actually teaches (as I once did not realize until after doing research and reading the CCC), I thought that it was extremely important to share this information to make Catholics aware of many things that are quite disturbing, as you will all soon become aware of as this series continues.
2) This series of posts is also being written with the intention of helping those of you who are born-again, Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ who have no idea of what the teachings of Catholicism are so that you can become aware of their teachings and be prepared to offer hope and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ to Catholics based solely upon the truth that is recorded in God’s Word.
As we continue on in this series together comparing Scriptures in the Catholic New Testament to teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must keep these important thoughts in mind:
When it comes to our eternal destination — heaven or hell — we must be certain that we place our trust in solid truth and not in speculation or in the traditions of men. The Catholic church claims to be the “one true Church.” Therefore, it stands to reason that their teachings must line up with God’s Word and not contradict it since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8), and His Word stands firm forever. (Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24,25) If a contradiction is found it must be rejected because God’s Word is our plumb line by which we must measure (or test) the teachings of every religion to see if it lines up or not. If it is off in one point we can be certain that it will lead us further and further away from Biblical truth and lead us into spiritual deception.
This series will cover many different subjects ranging from what does the Catholic Church teach about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, priests, the pope, sin, forgiveness of sins, salvation, prayer, and what must a Catholic believe in order to receive eternal life. Some of these teachings will shock even many Catholics when they learn what their church actually teaches!
Lord willing, I hope to share at least one post every month with you in this new series until I have covered all the most important teachings that need to be brought to your attention. The main goal that I have in writing this series is to present the Word of God to Catholics — and to every person — in order to point everyone to Jesus Christ, who is our only hope and ‘the only name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)
Dear Catholic, please take a minute now to sincerely pray; ask God to open your mind to the Scriptures and to reveal the truth to you –whatever that may be.
Because only God can reveal the truth to you, I will refrain from making any comments unless I find it completely necessary. Since God’s Word is truth I trust that He will not only give you eyes to see the truth, but also I trust that He will give you the courage to respond to His leading. However, each one of you will find yourself having to answer this question when you come to many points that I present to you in these posts after realizing that there are oftentimes extreme differences between what the Word of God says and what Catholicism teaches, and the question that you will have to answer is:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God or the word of man?”
For those of you who are not Catholic, and are taking the time to read these posts in order to learn what Catholicism actually teaches, please keep in mind that every time you see the word “church” spelled with a capital c they are referring to the Catholic church, since they believe that the “Catholic Church” alone is the “one true Church.”All of the information that I will be sharing with you I have obtained from the following sources:
1) CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (pictured above) – Imprimi Potest – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) – Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2) THE WORD OF GOD – THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION – IMPRIMATUR JOHN FRANCIS WHEALON, ARCHBISHOP OF HARTFORD, APRIL 15, 1971 SIGNED AND SEALED BY BISHOP JOSEPH B. BRUNINI, DIOCESE OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
3) Occasionally when I share a Scripture with you from the Sacred Heart League (SHL) Catholic New Testament and notice that it lacks depth and clarity, I will then follow it with the same verse but in the King James Version in order to give you a better understanding of what is being said, and so that you can see what is missing from the SHL translation.
4) Very briefly in this series, when it is necessary to quote from the Old Testament, I will also be quoting from THE CATHOLIC DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION OF THE BIBLE – in which you will find the following statements:
“EXCERPT FROM ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE:
“The God of all Providence, Who in the adorable designs of His love at first elevated the human race to the participation of the Divine nature, and afterwards delivered it from the universal guilt and ruin, restoring it to its primitive dignity, has in consequence bestowed upon man a splendid gift and safeguard–making known to him, by supernatural means, the hidden Mysteries of His divinity, His wisdom, and His mercy. For although in Divine revelations there are contained some things which are not beyond the reach of unassisted reason, and which are made the objects of such revelation in order “that all may come to know them with facility, certainty, and safety from error, yet not on this account can supernatural Revelation be said to be absolutely necessary; it is only necessary because God has ordained man to a supernatural end.” This supernatural revelation according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, “being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.” (Page ix)
“Wherefore it must be recognised that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession. His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in the renewing of the decree of Trent, declares its “mind” to be this–that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.” (Page xvii)
“Wherefore the first and dearest object of the Catholic commentator should be to interpret those passages which have received an authentic interpretation either by the sacred writers themselves, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as in many places of the New Testament), or from the Church, under the assistance of the same Holy Spirit, whether by her solemn judgment or her ordinary and universal magisterium –to interpret those passages in that identical sense, and to prove, by all the resources of science that sound hermeneutical laws admit of no other interpretation. In the other passages, the analogy of faith should be followed, and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.” (Page xviii)
“For although the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should nevertheless, bear well in mind–as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages –that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Page xix)
[As I have mentioned in some previous posts in this series, in order to get this entire series finished in a timely manner, from now on I will be trying to keep my comments very brief and will mainly be making them in the introduction and closing sections of these posts. I will, however, continue to keep the focus on Scripture which is where it should be. I am also trying very hard (but not succeeding) to limit these posts to no more than 5000 words which makes it rather difficult sometimes. For those of you who have busy schedules and do not have the time to read lengthy posts, I will continue to highlight just some of the many troubling things in turquoise, the extremely troubling things I will highlight in red, and some things that are Biblical I will highlight in blue in order to quickly bring these things to your attention. Emphasis on certain words that I have put in bold print throughout this post is mine.]
INTRODUCTION TO PART 18
In Part 18 of this series we will begin PART 3 in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church book, which is entitled, Life In Christ. We will begin on page 471 and continue on until page 525. In this particular section many Biblical things are presented, such as:
Man’s freedom to choose; man was created with a free will
Man has a conscience
A person is culpable for the evil they commit
Human virtue; faith, hope, charity
Gifts of the Spirit
However, serious problems begin to arise when the topic of sin is presented (Pages 504-510 CCC) as you will soon see.
What I also found to be extremely troubling is their section regarding human society in which socialism is gently woven into their teachings as you will also see. (Pages 511-525 CCC)
I have included additional information for you below to clearly document this for you, as well as a first hand account of what happened to me and my family when I was a little girl and attended the Catholic school across the alley (as we would say in the city). (Also, be sure to watch video of former Dominican priest of 22 years, Richard Bennett, who presents some documented evidence on this at the end of this post).
Let’s begin:
PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST
Para 1692
“Coming to see in the faith their new dignity, Christians are called to lead henceforth a life “worthy of the gospel of Christ.” (4 – Philippians 1:7) They are made capable of doing so by the grace of Christ and the gifts of his Spirit, which they receive through the sacraments and through prayer.”
Para 1696
The way of Christ “leads to life”; a contrary way “leads to destruction.” The Gospel parable of the “two ways,” remains ever present in the catechesis of the Church; it shows the importance of moral decisions for our salvation: “There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two, there is a great difference.”(21 – Didache 1, 1:SCh 248,140.)
ARTICLE 3
MAN’S FREEDOM
Para 1730
God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. “God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel,” so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.”(26 – GS 17; Sir 15:14).
“Man is rational and therefore like God: he is created with free will and is master over his acts.”(27 – St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4, 4, 3:PG 7/1, 983).
Para 1734
Freedom makes man responsible for his acts to the extent that they are voluntary.
Para 1738
Freedom is exercised in relationships between human beings. Every human person, created in the image of God, has the natural right to be recognized as a free and responsible being. All owe the duty to each other the duty of respect. The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of the human person. This right must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order.(32 – Cf. DH 2 §7 )
II. HUMAN FREEDOM IN THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION
Para 1739
Freedom and sin.Man’s freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God’s plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin.
Para 1740
By deviating from the moral law man violates his own freedom, becomes imprisoned within himself, disrupts neighborly fellowship, and rebels against divine truth.
Para 1741
Liberation and salvation. By his glorious Cross Christ has won salvation for all men. He redeemed them from the sin that held them in bondage.
Para 1745
Freedom characterizes properly human acts. It makes the human being responsible for acts of which he is the voluntary agent. His deliberate acts properly belong to him.
ARTICLE 6
MORAL CONSCIENCE
I. THE JUDGMENT OF CONSCIENCE
Para 1777
When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.
Para 1778
Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed. In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right. It is by the judgment of his conscience that man perceives and recognizes the prescription of the divine law.
Para 1781
Conscience enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed.
Para 1782
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.” (53 – DH 3 § 2).
II. THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE
Para 1785
In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,” we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advise of others, and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.
IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT
Para 1790
A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were to deliberately act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
Para 1791
This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” (59 – GS 16). In such cases the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
ARTICLE 7
THE VIRTUES
I. THE HUMAN VIRTUES
Para 1807
Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.
The virtues and grace
Para 1811
Christ’s gift of salvation offers us the grace necessary to persevere in the pursuit of the virtues. Everyone should always ask for this grace of light and strength, frequent the sacraments, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, and follow his calls to love what is good and shun evil.
II. THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
Faith
Para 1814
Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself.
Para 1815
The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it.(80 – Cf. Council of Trent (1547); DS 1545).
Para 1816
Service of and witness to the faith are necessary for salvation.
Para 1821
We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere “to the end”(93 – Mt. 10:22; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1541) and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God’s eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ.
ARTICLE 8
SIN
I. MERCY AND SIN
Para 1846
The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners.(113) The angel announced to Joseph: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (114) The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”(115) (113 – Cf. Luke 15) (114 – Mt.1:21) (115 – Mt. 26:28)
Para 1848
Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thus in this “convincing concerning sin” we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler.(120 – Pope John Paul II, DeV 31 § 2).
[MY NOTE: If conversion requires “convincing of sin” as stated above, then it is impossible for a baby to be born again by the sacrament of Baptism as Catholic doctrine teaches since they are unable to yet sin or be convinced of sin.]
II. THE DEFINITION OF SIN
Para 1849
Sin is an offence against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”(121 – St. Augustine, Contra Faustum 22: PL 42, 418; St. Thomas Aquinas, StH I-II, 41, 436).
Para 1850
Sin is an offence against God: “Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.” (122) Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. (122 – Psalm 51:4)
IV. THE GRAVITY OF SIN: MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN
Para 1862
One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.
Para 1863
Venial sin weakens charity; it manifests a disordered affection for created goods; it impedes the soul’s progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us little by little to commit mortal sin. However venial sin does not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace it is humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and consequently eternal happiness.”(134 – Pope John Paul II RP 17 § 9).
NOTE: It is extremely important to stop right now and point out to you what the Word of God has to say regarding sin. All sin separates us from God –no matter what it may be; minor or extremely serious! Only by placing one’s faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ — the sinless life that he led, the price that He paid when He died in your place and in mine on the cross to satisfy God’s just demands for sin, and His glorious resurrection from the dead in bodily form — can one have “friendship with God” and “eternal happiness” in heaven.
“All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6 – Doua-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“But now God’s way of putting men right with himself has been revealed, and it has nothing to do with law. The Law and the prophets gave their witness to it: God puts men right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: all men have sinned and are far away from God’s saving presence. But by the free gift of God’s grace they are all put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. God offered him so that by his death he should become the means by which men’s sins are forgiven, through their faith in him. God did this in order to demonstrate his righteousness.” (Romans 3:21-25a SHLCNT)
“Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death spread to the whole human race, because all men sinned. There was sin in the world before the Law was given; but where there is no law, no account is kept of sins. But from the time of Adam to the time of Moses death ruled over all men, even over those who did not sin as Adam did by disobeying God’s command. Adam was a figure of the one who was to come. But the two are not the same, because God’s free gift is not like Adam’s sin. It is true that many men died because of the sin of that one man. But God’s grace is much greater, and so is his free gift to so many men through the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And there is a difference between God’s gift and the sin of one man. After the one sin came the judgment of “Guilty”; but after so many sins comes the undeserved gift of “Not guilty!” It is true that through the sin of one man death began to rule, because of that one man. But how much greater is the result of what was done by the one man, Jesus Christ! All who receive God’s abundant grace and the free gift of his righteousness will rule in life through Christ. So then, as the one sin condemned all men, in the same way the one righteous act sets all men free and gives them life. And just as many men were made sinners as the result of the disobedience of one man, in the same way many will be put right with God as the result of the obedience of the one man. Law was introduced in order to increase wrongdoing, but where sin increased, God’s grace increased much more. So then, just as sin ruled by means of death, so also God’s grace rules by means of righteousness, leading us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 5:12-21 – SHLCNT)
“For sin pays its wage–death; but God’s free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 – SHLCNT)
“What human nature does is quite plain. It shows itself in immoral, filthy, and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft. People become enemies, they fight, become jealous, angry and ambitious. They separate into parties and groups; they are envious, get drunk, have orgies, and do other things like this. I warn you now as I have before: those who do these things will not receive the Kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21 – SHLCNT)
As I had previously stated, the Catholic church classifies sin into two categories; venial sin and mortal sin. I was taught that venial sins are things such as lying and disobeying one’s parents, whereas mortal sins are grave sins, such as murder. However, if precious Catholics believe this particular teaching about venial sins and place their trust in all that they have been taught in the Catholic church for their salvation they will find out how wrong they were when it’s too late. I say this because the Word of God classifies all liars along with murderers and other sinners:
“But the cowards, the traitors, and the perverts, the murderers and the immoral, those who practice magic and worship idols, and all liars–the place for them is the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8)
” I did not see a temple in the city, because its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God shines on it, and the Lamb is its lamp. The peoples of the world will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their wealth into it. The gates of the city will stand open all day; they will never be closed, because there will be no night there. The greatness and the wealth of the nations will be brought into the city. But nothing that is impure will enter the city, nor anyone who does shameful things or tells lies. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of the living will enter the city.” (Revelation 21:22-27)
This is what the Word of God has to say about those who put their complete trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice on the cross as full payment for their sins –no matter how sinful they may have been in the past:
“Surely you know that the wicked will not receive God’s Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral, or worship idols, or are adulterers, or homosexual perverts, or who rob, or are greedy, or are drunkards, or who slander others, or are thieves–none of these will receive God’s Kingdom. Some of you were like that. But you have been cleansed from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – SHLCNT)
Let’s continue on:
ARTICLE 2
PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL LIFE
Para 1902
Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner, but must act for the common good as a “moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility.”(21 – GS 74 § 2).
Para 1903
Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it.
II. THE COMMON GOOD
Para 1908
Second, the common good requires the social well-being and development of the group itself.
III. RESPONSIBILITY AND PARTICIPATION
Para 1917
Participation begins with education and culture.
Para 1925
The common good consists of three essential elements: respect for and promotion of the fundamental rights of the person; prosperity or the development of the spiritual and temporal goods of society; the peace and security of the group and its members.
Para 1927
It is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil society. The common good of the whole human family calls for an organization of society on the international level.
ARTICLE 3
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Para 1928
Society ensures social justice when it provides the conditions that allows associations or individuals to obtain what is their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority.
II. EQUALITY AND DIFFERENCES AMONG MEN
Para 1934
Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity.
Para 1936
On coming into the world, man is not equipped with everything he needs for developing his bodily and spiritual life. He needs others. Differences appear tied to age, physical abilities, intellectual or moral aptitudes, the benefits derived from social commerce, and the distribution of wealth.” (41 Cf. GS 29 § 2).
Para 1937
These differences belong to God’s plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular “talents” share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods; they foster the mutual enrichment of cultures:
I distribute the virtues quite diversely; I do not give all of them to each person, but some to one, some to others…I shall give principally charity to one; justice to another; humility to this one, a living faith to that one…And so I have given many gifts and graces, both spiritual and temporal, with such diversity that I have not given everything to one single person, so that you may be constrained to practice charity towards one another…I have willed that one should need another and that all should be my ministers in distributing the graces and gifts they have received from me.”(43 – St. Catherine of Sienna, Dial. I 7).
[My Note: The quote above, as stated, was given by “Saint Catherine of Sienna. It is said that she had a dialogue with God the Father and when she was in a state of ecstasy she dictated what she was allegedly told and her secretaries wrote it down. Therefore these teachings that the Catholic church is presenting are clearly unbiblical because they go beyond what is recorded in Scripture. The canon is closed; no other words are necessary. Jesus Christ was God’s final Word. (Hebrews 1:1 – See further below for this Scripture in context.]
Here is a quick capture of some information on Catherine of Sienna, who claims to have had a mystical marriage with Jesus Christ:
What I found to be the most troubling was the portion that says the following:
“The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that such a wedding ceremony “is but the accompaniment and symbol of a purely spiritual grace,” and that “as a wife should share in the life of her husband, and as Christ suffered for the redemption of mankind,the mystical spouse enters into a more intimate participation in his sufferings.”
It has also been said that during this alleged mystical marriage with Jesus, the ring he gave her was made from “the foreskin from his circumcision.”
Upon doing some further research I discovered that mystic, Catherine of Sienna, reportedly received the stigmata; the wounds upon her body that Jesus Christ had when He was brutally crucified on the cross to pay the debt for all of our sins –in full. This may be what is referred to in the highlighted portion of the quick capture above where it states that “the mystical spouse enters into a more intimate participation in his sufferings.”
As disturbing as all of this is to share with all of you, my intention in doing so was to show you more examples of how Catholicism focuses on mysticism. (Many more examples will be given to document my claim in future posts). The most troubling thing, though, is the implication that Catherine of Siena participated in Jesus Christ’s sufferings! This is adding to Scripture and denying that Jesus Christ alone suffered for our sins and paid the debt in full!
The Word of God says the following:
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. He is the one through whom God created the universe, the one whom God has chosen to possess all things at the end. He shines with the brightness of God’s glory; he is the exact likeness of God’s own being, and sustains the universe with his powerful word. After he had made men clean from their sins, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power.” (Hebrews 1:1-3 Sacred Heart League Catholic New Testament – SHLCNT)
Here is this passage of Scripture in the King James Version which uses emphatic language showing that Jesus Christ alone purged us from our sins:
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;” (Hebrews 1:1-3 KJV)
Let’s continue:
III. HUMAN SOLIDARITY
Para 1940
Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work.
Para 1941
Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this.
Para 1947
The equal dignity of human persons requires the effort to reduce excessive social and economic inequalities. It gives urgency to the elimination of sinful inequalities.
CLOSING COMMENTS AND SOME MORE ADDED INFORMATION
The basis for our faith must be built upon the truth of God’s Word and not on traditions of men and mystical experiences. When a teaching cannot be validated with Scripture but instead contradicts it, then it must be completely rejected.
As I had mentioned in the INTRODUCTION to this post, I have a personal experience that I would like to share with you regarding what happened to me and my family many years ago and how it relates to socialism and the common good spoken of quite frequently in this section of the Catechism Of The Catholic Church. My dear Mom shared the detailed account with me a year or so before she died to refresh my mind regarding all that had happened when this topic came up one evening during our nightly phone conversations. Wanting to make sure that I would present the facts accurately I took notes knowing that it was something important that needed to be presented at some point in this series in order to show the unscrupulous tactics that the Catholic church sometimes uses to get what they want. Here now is that account:
My family owned an apartment building that was located in the city of Chicago directly across the street from the Catholic school that we were attending and in between the rectory (the building where the Catholic priests lived) and the convent (the building where the Catholic nuns lived). One day when my Dad was out in front of our building doing some painting, a man approached him and asked if he would be interested in selling the building. My Dad paused for a moment and then told the man that he would consider selling it to the church before he would consider selling it to anyone else. Well, a short time later (maybe a month or so), my parents received a letter in the mail informing them that our property, (along with a few other apartments surrounding us), was going to be purchased by the church in order to build their new school building. It was at this point that my parents realized who that man was that approached our Dad that day asking if he would consider selling our apartment building. Although cities buy up property all the time in order to create highways or to make other changes, in my humble opinion that was not a very honest or Christ-like way for leaders of a church to go about demanding requesting to purchase someone’s home.
We were given approximately nine months to vacate the premises which wasn’t very much time at all considering that we not only had to find a place to live but also we had to pack up all of our belongings! When the time was up we were forced to leave even though we still had some of our things inside. It was mid November. My parents, along with my three sisters, one brother and I, stood across the street and watched as the wrecking ball came crashing through the walls. I remember my dear Mom, four months pregnant at the time with number six, looking on and expressing the deep sorrow that was within her heart. Thankfully we had already found a new place to live, but the church did not pay us near the amount of money that our apartment building was worth. For a church to force out families from their homes in order to build an extravagant new school — complete with wall to wall carpeting and central air — was not done for the common good of all concerned, but only for the good of those who ran this particular Catholic church and the people who were a part of this parish. None of us became bitter from what we experienced, because we never would have met the wonderful people that came into our lives after moving from that area if we had stayed there.
In the following video, former Roman Catholic priest of twenty-two years, the late Richard Bennett, presents God’s view of wealth and human responsibility and the Roman Catholic’s view on economics. He also shares some of Pope Francis’ teachings on wealth that can be found in the Vatican’s official documents.
Below you will see a few quick captures of some quotes from the following video. I have highlighted the most troubling things in turquoise. which shockingly includes the approval of stealing to meet one’s needs and denying that it is thievery/robbery:
“Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute and untouchable: On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.” -Compendium Of The Social Doctrine Of The Church, Section 177
“In cases of need, all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it common. …it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another’s property by taking it either openly or secretly, nor is this, properly speaking, theft and robbery…” Thomas Aquinas, The Suma Theologica, 11-11, 7th article
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RICHARD BENNETT – WORSE THAN MARX – POPE FRANCIS’ DOGMA ON ECONOMICS
NOTE: This is neither an endorsement of Paul Flynn of Megiddo Radio nor is it an endorsement of Richard Bennett. I have always had a deep respect for Richard Bennett and his ministry to reach precious Catholics, but I reject the Calvinism and Reformed Theology that he embraced. This video is solely for documentation purposes.
The teachings of the Catholic church may deny the right to private property, attempt to justify stealing, and emphasize mystical experiences, but the Word of God has this to say about these things, which includes the fact that although God does desire for us to help those who are in need, He is not against people owning property/private possessions:
“But there was a man names Ananias, whose wife was named Sapphira. He sold some property that belonged to them, but kept part of the money for himself, as his wife knew, and turned the rest over to the apostles. Peter said to him, “Ananias, why did you let Satan take control of your heart and make you lie to the Holy Spirit by keeping part of the money you received for the property? Before you sold the property it belonged to you, and after you sold it the money was yours. Why, then, did you decide in your heart that you would do such a thing? You have not lied to men–you have lied to God!” (Acts 5:1-4 – SHLCNT)
“Remember how it was with you in the past. In those days, after God’s light had shone on you, you suffered many things, yet were not defeated by the struggle. You were at times publicly insulted and mistreated, and at other times you were ready to join those who were being treated in this way. You shared the sufferings of prisoners, and when all your belongings were seized you endured your loss gladly, because you knew that you still had for yourselves something much better, which would last forever.” (Hebrews 10:32-34 – SHLCNT)
Jesus Christ, Himself, said,
“The poor you will always have with you.” (Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7)
From this verse alone we can see that the responsibility of Christians is not to eradicate poverty as the social gospel teaches. Instead we are to preach the good news of the Biblical gospel and urge people to be reconciled to God. (Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15 2 Corinthians 5:19,20)
No matter what the Catholic church may say, to take something that belongs to someone else — even if one is in need — is called stealing, and it is clearly a sin.
“Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his.” (Exodus 20:15, 17 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible Version)
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife: nor his house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his.” (Deuteronomy 5:21 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible Version)
“They see vain things, and they foretell lies, saying: The Lord saith: whereas the Lord hath not sent them: and they have persisted to confirm what they have said.” (Ezekiel 13:6 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible Version)
“The Spirit says clearly that some men will abandon the faith in later times; they will obey lying spirits and follow the teachings of demons.” (1 Timothy 4:1 – SHLCNT)
“I have to boast, even though it doesn’t do any good . But I will now talk about visions and revelations given me by the Lord I know a certain Christian man who fourteen years ago was snatched up to the highest heaven (I do not know whether this actually happened, or whether he had a vision–only God knows). I repeat, I know that this man was snatched to Paradise (again, I do not know whether this actually happened, or whether it was a vision–only God knows), and there he heard things which cannot be put into words, things that human lips may not speak.” (2 Corinthians 12:1-4 – SHLCNT)
“The Spirit says clearly that some men will abandon the faith in later times; they will obey lying spirits and follow the teachings of demons. These teachings come from the deceit of men who are liars, and whose consciences are dead, as if burnt with a hot iron.”(1 Timothy 4:1,2 – SHLCNT)
“My dear friends: do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere.” (1 John 4:1 – SHLCNT)
“This is how you disregard God’s Word to follow your own teaching. You hypocrites! How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you! “These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me. It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach man-made commandments as though they were God’s rules.” (Matthew 15:7-9 – SHLCNT)
“See to it, then, that no one makes a captive of you with the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by men, and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ.” (Colossians 2:8 – SHLCNT)
Dear Catholic, once again I present you with this question that ultimately you must give an answer to which will affect your eternal destination depending upon if you place your trust in Jesus Christ or in the Catholic church for the forgiveness of your sins:
Are you going to believe the Word of God –the Bible– or the word of man – Traditions of the Catholic church?”
Dear reader — no matter what your beliefs may be — I pray that you will realize the seriousness of this matter and seek God in His Word for the truth while there is still time for you to do so.
Thank you very much for stopping by today.
God Bless You
~Mary Dalke – Living4HisGlory
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Below is a quick capture from Channel ABC 7 News article that follows. I just came across this article on Facebook that was published on Sunday, October 4, 2020 which clearly shows you a present day push towards socialism.
Lord willing, I am hoping to complete this series by the end of this year, or early January 2021. After taking time to divide up the remaining pages of the CCC that still need to be covered, it appears that there will only be five more sections to go through. With God’s help, and if time permits, this can be accomplished! When this series is finally finished, Lord willing, I hope to then be able to complete the series, Apparitions Of The Virgin Mary Or Demons In Disguise – Examining The Evidence In Light Of Scripture.
There are two very important reasons why I felt compelled to write this series of posts, and I’d like to briefly share these reasons with you now before I go any further:
1) Since I am a former Catholic who is very aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church because I attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended Catechism classes, made my First Holy Communion, was Confirmed, and faithfully attended Mass not only every Sunday for many years, but also before school began for three years (as required by the school that I attended at the time), and who came to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ truly is and what He actually accomplished for us by reading a Catholic New Testament Bible exactly like the one pictured above, I decided to write this series with the hope of reaching precious Catholics so that they can not only come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is as His Word, the Bible, declares Him to be, but also so they can see by reading God’s Word that they can have complete forgiveness, lasting joy, true peace, and the assurance of salvation if they choose to believe God’s Word and place their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Also, since many Catholics do not realize everything that the Catholic church actually teaches (as I once did not realize until after doing research and reading the CCC), I thought that it was extremely important to share this information to make Catholics aware of many things that are quite disturbing, as you will all soon become aware of as this series continues.
2) This series of posts is also being written with the intention of helping those of you who are born-again, Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ who have no idea of what the teachings of Catholicism are so that you can become aware of their teachings and be prepared to offer hope and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ to Catholics based solely upon the truth that is recorded in God’s Word.
As we continue on in this series together comparing Scriptures in the Catholic New Testament to teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must keep these important thoughts in mind:
When it comes to our eternal destination — heaven or hell — we must be certain that we place our trust in solid truth and not in speculation or in the traditions of men. The Catholic church claims to be the “one true Church.” Therefore, it stands to reason that their teachings must line up with God’s Word and not contradict it since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8), and His Word stands firm forever. (Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24,25) If a contradiction is found it must be rejected because God’s Word is our plumb line by which we must measure (or test) the teachings of every religion to see if it lines up or not. If it is off in one point we can be certain that it will lead us further and further away from Biblical truth and lead us into spiritual deception.
This series will cover many different subjects ranging from what does the Catholic Church teach about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, priests, the pope, sin, forgiveness of sins, salvation, prayer, and what must a Catholic believe in order to receive eternal life. Some of these teachings will shock even many Catholics when they learn what their church actually teaches!
Lord willing, I hope to share at least one post every month with you in this new series until I have covered all the most important teachings that need to be brought to your attention. The main goal that I have in writing this series is to present the Word of God to Catholics — and to every person — in order to point everyone to Jesus Christ, who is our only hope and ‘the only name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)
Dear Catholic, please take a minute now to sincerely pray; ask God to open your mind to the Scriptures and to reveal the truth to you –whatever that may be.
Because only God can reveal the truth to you, I will refrain from making any comments unless I find it completely necessary. Since God’s Word is truth I trust that He will not only give you eyes to see the truth, but also I trust that He will give you the courage to respond to His leading. However, each one of you will find yourself having to answer this question when you come to many points that I present to you in these posts after realizing that there are oftentimes extreme differences between what the Word of God says and what Catholicism teaches, and the question that you will have to answer is:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God, or the word of man?”
For those of you who are not Catholic, and are taking the time to read these posts in order to learn what Catholicism actually teaches, please keep in mind that every time you see the word “church” spelled with a capital c they are referring to the Catholic church, since they believe that the “Catholic Church” alone is the “one true Church.”All of the information that I will be sharing with you I have obtained from the following sources:
1) CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (pictured above) – Imprimi Potest – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) – Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2) THE WORD OF GOD – THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION – IMPRIMATUR JOHN FRANCIS WHEALON, ARCHBISHOP OF HARTFORD, APRIL 15, 1971 SIGNED AND SEALED BY BISHOP JOSEPH B. BRUNINI, DIOCESE OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
3) Occasionally when I share a Scripture with you from the Sacred Heart League (SHL) Catholic New Testament and notice that it lacks depth and clarity, I will then follow it with the same verse but in the King James Version in order to give you a better understanding of what is being said, and so that you can see what is missing from the SHL translation.
4) Very briefly in this series, when it is necessary to quote from the Old Testament, I will also be quoting from THE CATHOLIC DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION OF THE BIBLE – in which you will find the following statements:
“EXCERPT FROM ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE:
“The God of all Providence, Who in the adorable designs of His love at first elevated the human race to the participation of the Divine nature, and afterwards delivered it from the universal guilt and ruin, restoring it to its primitive dignity, has in consequence bestowed upon man a splendid gift and safeguard–making known to him, by supernatural means, the hidden Mysteries of His divinity, His wisdom, and His mercy. For although in Divine revelations there are contained some things which are not beyond the reach of unassisted reason, and which are made the objects of such revelation in order “that all may come to know them with facility, certainty, and safety from error, yet not on this account can supernatural Revelation be said to be absolutely necessary; it is only necessary because God has ordained man to a supernatural end.” This supernatural revelation according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, “being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.” (Page ix)
“Wherefore it must be recognised that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession. His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in the renewing of the decree of Trent, declares its “mind” to be this–that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.” (Page xvii)
“Wherefore the first and dearest object of the Catholic commentator should be to interpret those passages which have received an authentic interpretation either by the sacred writers themselves, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as in many places of the New Testament), or from the Church, under the assistance of the same Holy Spirit, whether by her solemn judgment or her ordinary and universal magisterium –to interpret those passages in that identical sense, and to prove, by all the resources of science that sound hermeneutical laws admit of no other interpretation. In the other passages, the analogy of faith should be followed, and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.” (Page xviii)
“For although the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should nevertheless, bear well in mind–as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages –that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Page xix)
[As I have mentioned in some previous posts in this series, in order to get this entire series finished in a timely manner, from now on I will be trying to keep my comments very brief and will mainly be making them in the introduction and closing sections of these posts. I will, however, continue to keep the focus on Scripture which is where it should be. I am also trying very hard (but not succeeding) to limit these posts to no more than 5000 words which makes it rather difficult sometimes. For those of you who have busy schedules and do not have the time to read lengthy posts, I will continue to highlight just some of the many troubling things in turquoise, the extremely troubling things I will highlight in red, and anything that is Biblical I will highlight in blue in order to quickly bring these things to your attention.]
INTRODUCTION TO PART 16
Part 16 will focus on The Sacrament of Extreme Unction/Anointing of the Sick as well as the Sacrament of Holy Orders/Priesthood. We will begin on page 417 and go all the way through until the first half of page 446 of the Catechism Of The Catholic Church.
Again, I want to remind you that grace, as taught by the Catholic Church, is something that can be received through their sacramental system and lost as a result of sin. Grace, according to the Bible, however, is unmerited favor; something given freely and not earned. It’s like the grace period extended to someone in certain business transactions, or the grace period given to someone who didn’t return their library book by the date that it was due, but returned it within the time allowed before a fine was required to be paid.
Let’s begin with some Scriptures so that you can keep the truth of God’s Word in your mind (especially regarding what God has to say in the New Testament about priests and sacrifices and how because of what Jesus Christ has already accomplished for us through His once for all sacrifice we can now come directly before God the Father through Jesus Christ, the Son) while you are reading through Part 16 of this series in which we are comparing Scriptures in a Catholic New Testament to many teachings that can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
These Scriptures are taken from:
THE WORD OF GOD THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION
Imprimatur: John Francis Whealon, S.T.L., S.S.L
Archbishop of Hartford
April 15, 1971
“So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us, I make this appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer.” (Romans 12:1)
“When anyone is joined to Christ he is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends, and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making friends of all men through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins against them, and he has given us the message of how he makes them his friends. Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were appealing to you through us: on Christ’s behalf, we beg you, let God change you from enemies to friends” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)
“Come to the Lord, the living stone, rejected as worthless by men, but chosen as valuable by God. Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. For the Scripture says,
“I chose a valuable stone, which now I place for the cornerstone in Zion; and whoever believes in him will never be disappointed.”
This stone is of great value for you that believe, but for those who do not believe:
The very stone which the builders rejected turned out to be the most important stone.”(1 Peter 2:4-7)
“But you are the chosen race, the King’s priests, the holy nation, God’s own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you from the darkness into his own marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
“In union with him, and through our faith in him, we have the freedom to enter into God’s presence with all confidence.” (Ephesians 3:12)
“Here, then, is my receipt for everything you have given me–and it has been more than enough! I have all I need, now that Epaphroditus has brought me all your gifts. These are like a sweet smelling offering to God, a sacrifice which is acceptable and pleasing to him.”(Philippians 4:18)
“See to it, then, that no one makes a captive of you with the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by men, and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ. For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, and you have been given full life in union with him. He is supreme over every spiritual ruler and authority. In union with him you were circumcised, not with the circumcision that is made by men, but with Christ’s own circumcision, which consists of being freed from the power of this sinful body. For when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and in baptism you were also raised with Christ through your faith in the active power of God, who raised him from death. You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins, and because you were Gentiles without the Law. But God has now brought you to life with Christ; God forgave us all our sins. He cancelled the unfavorable record of our debts, with its binding rules, and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross. And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities; he made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession. ” (Colossians 2:8-15)
“Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great high priest who has gone into the very presence of God–Jesus, the Son of God. Our high priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy with our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a high priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us be brave, then, and come forward to God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)
Now let’s begin Part 16:
ARTICLE 5.
THE ANOINTING OF THE SICK
I. ITS FOUNDATION IN THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION
Heal the sick…”
Para 1505
On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the “sin of the world,”(112) of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross, Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion.
Para 1509
“Heal the sick!”(120) The Church has received this charge from the Lord and strives to carry it out by taking care of the sick as well as by accompanying them with her prayer of intercession. She believes in the life-giving presence of Christ, the physician of souls and bodies. This presence is particularly active through the sacraments, and in an all together special way through the Eucharist, the bread that gives eternal life and that St. Paul suggests is connected with bodily health. (120 – Mt. 10:8) (121 – Cf. Jn. 6:, 58, 1 Cor. 11:30.)
IV. THE EFFECTS OF THE CELEBRATION OF THIS SACRAMENT
Para 1521
Union with the passion of Christ. By the grace of this sacrament the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ’s Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior’s redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus.
Para 1522
An ecclesial grace. The sick who receive this sacrament “by freely uniting themselves to the passion and death of Christ” “contribute to the good of the People of God.” (137) By celebrating this sacrament the Church, in the communion of saints, intercedes for the benefit of the person, and he, for his part, through the grace of this sacrament, contributes to the sanctification of the Church and to the good of all men for whom the Church suffers and offers herself through Christ to God the Father. (137 – LG 11 § 2)
Para 1523
A preparation for the final journey The anointing of the sick completes our conformity to the death and Resurrection of Christ, just as Baptism began it. It completes the holy anointings that mark the whole Christian life: that of Baptism which sealed the new life in us, and that of Confirmation which strengthened us for the combat of this life. This last anointing fortifies the end of our earthly life like a solid rampart for the final struggles before entering the Father’s house. (139 – Council of Trent (1551): DS 1694.)
V. VIATICUM, THE LAST SACRAMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN
Para 1524
In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. [Note: Viaticum – Last Communion received near death, the literal meaning of the word “travel.” Source – Wiki
ARTICLE 6
THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS
Para 1536
Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry.
II. THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS IN THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION
The priesthood of the Old Covenant
Para 1539
A special rite consecrated the beginnings of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. The priests “are appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.”(8 – Heb. 5:1; cf. Ex 29:1-30; Lev 8.)
Para 1545
The redemptive sacrifice of Christ is unique, accomplished once for all;yet it is made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Church. The same is true of the one priesthood of Christ; it is made present through the ministerial priesthood without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood: “Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers.”(19 – St. Thomas Aquinas, Hebrews 8, 4.)
In the person of Christ the head
Para 1548
In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth. This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis:(23 – Cf. LG 10; 28; SC 33 CD 11; PO 2; 6)
It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).(24 – Pope Pius XII, encyclical Mediator Dei: AAS, 39 (1947) 548.)
Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ.(25 – St. Thomas Aquinas STh III. 22, 4c.)
Para 1549
In the beautiful expression of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the bishop is typos tou Patros:he is like the living image of God the Father. (27 – St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad. Trall. 3, 1: SCh 10, 96; cf. Ad Magn. 6, 1: SCh 10, 82-84.)
Para 1550
This presence of Christ in the minister is not to be understood as if the the latter were preserved from all human weaknesses, the spirit of domination, error, even sin.
III. THE THREE DEGREES OF THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS
Para 1554
Let everyone revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, the bishop as the image of the Father, and the presbyters as the senate of God and the assembly of the apostles. For without them one cannot speak of the Church.(33 – St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Trall 3, 1: SCh 10, 96.)
Para 1566
“It is the Eucharist cult or in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful (synaxis) that they exercise in a supreme degree their sacred office; there, acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming his mystery, they unite the votive offerings of the faithful to the sacrifice of Christ their head, and in the sacrifice of the Mass they make present again and apply, until the coming of the Lord, the unique sacrifice of the New Testament, that namely of Christ offering himself once for all a spotless victim to the Father.”(49) From this unique sacrifice their whole priestly ministry draws its strength.(50) (49 – LG 28; cf. 1 Cor. 11:26.) (50 – Cf. PO 2.)
Para 1567
The promise of obedience they make to the bishop at the moment of ordination and the kiss of peace from him at the end of the ordination liturgy means that the bishop considers them his co-workers, his sons, his brothers and his friends, and that they in return owe him love and obedience.
VII. THE EFFECTS OF THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY ORDERS
The grace of the Holy Spirit
Para 1588
With regard to deacons, “strengthened by sacramental grace, they are dedicated to the People of God, in conjunction with the bishop and his body of priests, in the service of the liturgy, of the Gospel, and of works of charity.”(81 – LG 29.)
Para 1589
[Who then is the priest? He is] the defender of truth, who stands with angels, gives glory with archangels, causes sacrifices to rise to the al-tar on high, shares Christ’s priesthood, refashions creation, restores it in God’s image, recreates it for the world on high and, even greater, is divinized and divinizes. (82) And the holy Curé of Ars: “The priest continues the work of redemption on earth…If we really understood the priest on earth, we would die not of fright but of love…The Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” (83) (82 -St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 2, 71, 74, 73: PG 35, 480-481.) (83 – St. John Vianney, quoted in B. Nodet, Jean-Marie Vianney, Curé de’ Ars, 100.)
CLOSING COMMENTS:
Regarding the sacrament of Extreme Unction/Anointing of the Sick:
Yes, God’s Word does tell us in James 5:14:
“Is there anyone who is sick? He should call the church elders, who will pray for him and rub oil on him in the name of the Lord.” (SHLCNT)
However, it is completely blasphemous for the Catholic Church to say that our physical suffering:
“…becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus.” (CCC Para 1521 – See further above for full context).
This is adding to the already completely sufficient work of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice and thus presenting a false gospel and robbing Jesus Christ of the glory due to Him and to Him alone for all that He accomplished to pay the debt for every single one of our sins!
Regarding priests:
Dear Catholic, priests were needed in the Old Testament in order to offer sacrifices for their own sins and for the sins of the people. (Please read through the Book of Hebrews). They would mediate between a holy God and sinful mankind. However, if you took the time to read the Scriptures that we opened up this post with, then you should now realize that those who choose to put their faith and trust in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ (when He willingly went to the cross and bore the full wrath of God, His Father, that we deserve for our sins, died in our place, was buried, and arose from the dead three days later), are now considered to be priests.
The wall of sin that separated us from a thrice holy God was removed and we can now enter in before His very throne; there is no need for any more sacrifices, thus no need for priests! The only sacrifices that are spoken of in the New Testament are spiritual sacrifices and the sacrifice of praise that we offer to God who is so worthy to be praised!! (Hebrews 13:15) If this truth becomes as clear to you as it became to me, then the need for the Sacrifice of the Mass as well as the sacramental system of the Catholic church should crumble before your very eyes as you come to realize all that Jesus Christ accomplished for you and for me to provide for our salvation!
Jesus Christ is neither a babe in the arms of Mary as He is often depicted in Catholic art, nor is He a victim as the Catholic Church refers to Him during the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church! He is in fact the Victor over sin and death and He is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, in heaven and He also intercedes for us! (Mark 16:19, Acts 2:33, Colossians 3:1, 1 Peter 3:22, Romans 8:34). To say that the bread and wine literally becomes the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ (CCC Para 1374) as the priest says the words over the host, and that the Eucharist is an actual sacrifice (Para 1365, Para 1366) that is truly propitiatory (CCC Para 1367), is to deny the sufficiency of His once for all sacrifice! Dear Catholic, once again I pose this question to you that you must answer before God:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God (The Bible), or the word of man (Catholic Tradition)?”
Your eternal destination truly does depend upon whom you place your trust in; will you place your trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins? Or will you choose to reject the truth that is so clearly revealed in Scripture and continue to cling to those teachings of the Catholic Church that contradict the truth of God’s Word? The choice is yours to make. I pray that you will choose to place your trust in Jesus Christ and that you will take the time to not only read and study His Word, but I pray that you will also take the time to test everything that you have ever been taught (during the many years that you have been a Catholic) against the truth of God’s Word and seek God for the truth! If you choose to place your trust in Jesus Christ alone, by the truth revealed in God’s Word I promise you that you will find true forgiveness and assurance of heaven as well as His joy, peace, and strength to help you face whatever heartache or trial that may come your way as you walk down this road called life.
There are two very important reasons why I felt compelled to write this series of posts, and I’d like to briefly share these reasons with you now before I go any further:
1) Since I am a former Catholic who is very aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church because I attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended Catechism classes, made my First Holy Communion, was Confirmed, and faithfully attended Mass not only every Sunday for many years, but also before school began for three years (as required by the school that I attended at the time), and who came to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ truly is and what He actually accomplished for us by reading a Catholic New Testament Bible exactly like the one pictured above, I decided to write this series with the hope of reaching precious Catholics so that they can not only come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is as His Word, the Bible, declares Him to be, but also so they can see by reading God’s Word that they can have complete forgiveness, lasting joy, true peace, and the assurance of salvation if they choose to believe God’s Word and place their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Also, since many Catholics do not realize everything that the Catholic church actually teaches (as I once did not realize until after doing research and reading the CCC), I thought that it was extremely important to share this information to make Catholics aware of many things that are quite disturbing, as you will all soon become aware of as this series continues.
2) This series of posts is also being written with the intention of helping those of you who are born-again, Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ who have no idea of what the teachings of Catholicism are so that you can become aware of their teachings and be prepared to offer hope and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ to Catholics based solely upon the truth that is recorded in God’s Word.
As we continue on in this series together comparing Scriptures in the Catholic New Testament to teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must keep these important thoughts in mind:
When it comes to our eternal destination — heaven or hell — we must be certain that we place our trust in solid truth and not in speculation or in the traditions of men. The Catholic church claims to be the “one true Church.” Therefore, it stands to reason that their teachings must line up with God’s Word and not contradict it since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8), and His Word stands firm forever. (Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24,25) If a contradiction is found it must be rejected because God’s Word is our plumb line by which we must measure (or test) the teachings of every religion to see if it lines up or not. If it is off in one point we can be certain that it will lead us further and further away from Biblical truth and lead us into spiritual deception.
This series will cover many different subjects ranging from what does the Catholic Church teach about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, priests, the pope, sin, forgiveness of sins, salvation, prayer, and what must a Catholic believe in order to receive eternal life. Some of these teachings will shock even many Catholics when they learn what their church actually teaches!
Lord willing, I hope to share at least one post every month with you in this new series until I have covered all the most important teachings that need to be brought to your attention. The main goal that I have in writing this series is to present the Word of God to Catholics — and to every person — in order to point everyone to Jesus Christ, who is our only hope and ‘the only name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)
Dear Catholic, please take a minute now to sincerely pray; ask God to open your mind to the Scriptures and to reveal the truth to you –whatever that may be.
Because only God can reveal the truth to you, I will refrain from making any comments unless I find it completely necessary. Since God’s Word is truth I trust that He will not only give you eyes to see the truth, but also I trust that He will give you the courage to respond to His leading. However, each one of you will find yourself having to answer this question when you come to many points that I present to you in these posts after realizing that there are oftentimes extreme differences between what the Word of God says and what Catholicism teaches, and the question that you will have to answer is:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God, or the word of man?”
For those of you who are not Catholic, and are taking the time to read these posts in order to learn what Catholicism actually teaches, please keep in mind that every time you see the word “church” spelled with a capital c they are referring to the Catholic church, since they believe that the “Catholic Church” alone is the “one true Church.”All of the information that I will be sharing with you I have obtained from the following sources:
1) CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (pictured above) – Imprimi Potest – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) – Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2) THE WORD OF GOD – THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION – IMPRIMATUR JOHN FRANCIS WHEALON, ARCHBISHOP OF HARTFORD, APRIL 15, 1971 SIGNED AND SEALED BY BISHOP JOSEPH B. BRUNINI, DIOCESE OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
3) Occasionally when I share a Scripture with you from the Sacred Heart League (SHL) Catholic New Testament and notice that it lacks depth and clarity, I will then follow it with the same verse but in the King James Version in order to give you a better understanding of what is being said, and so that you can see what is missing from the SHL translation.
4) Very briefly in this series, I will also be quoting from THE CATHOLIC DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION OF THE BIBLE – in which you will find the following statements:
“EXCERPT FROM ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE:
“The God of all Providence, Who in the adorable designs of His love at first elevated the human race to the participation of the Divine nature, and afterwards delivered it from the universal guilt and ruin, restoring it to its primitive dignity, has in consequence bestowed upon man a splendid gift and safeguard–making known to him, by supernatural means, the hidden Mysteries of His divinity, His wisdom, and His mercy. For although in Divine revelations there are contained some things which are not beyond the reach of unassisted reason, and which are made the objects of such revelation in order “that all may come to know them with facility, certainty, and safety from error, yet not on this account can supernatural Revelation be said to be absolutely necessary; it is only necessary because God has ordained man to a supernatural end.” This supernatural revelation according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, “being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.” (Page ix)
“Wherefore it must be recognised that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession. His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in the renewing of the decree of Trent, declares its “mind” to be this–that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.” (Page xvii)
“Wherefore the first and dearest object of the Catholic commentator should be to interpret those passages which have received an authentic interpretation either by the sacred writers themselves, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as in many places of the New Testament), or from the Church, under the assistance of the same Holy Spirit, whether by her solemn judgment or her ordinary and universal magisterium –to interpret those passages in that identical sense, and to prove, by all the resources of science that sound hermeneutical laws admit of no other interpretation. In the other passages, the analogy of faith should be followed, and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.” (Page xviii)
“For although the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should nevertheless, bear well in mind–as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages –that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Page xix)
[As I have mentioned in some previous posts in this series, in order to get this entire series finished in a timely manner, from now on I will be trying to keep my comments very brief and will mainly be making them in the introduction and closing sections of these posts. I will, however, continue to keep the focus on Scripture which is where it should be. I am also trying very hard (but not succeeding) to limit these posts to no more than 5000 words which makes it rather difficult sometimes. For those of you who have busy schedules and do not have the time to read lengthy posts, I will continue to highlight just some of the many troubling things in turquoise, and anything that is Biblical I will highlight in blue in order to quickly bring these things to your attention.]
Part 15 will focus on The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation and cover pages 396 to the beginning portion of page 417.
First I would like to begin this post by sharing many Scriptures with you in order to make it very clear to you that on the basis of the truth of God’s Word we can have complete assurance of the forgiveness of sins because of everything that Jesus Christ has already done for us. There is no need for us to confess our sins to a priest or to anyone other than to God and God alone. If a person accepts the free gift of salvation paid with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, there is no punishment for sin that remains; Jesus Christ’s “once for all sacrifice” completely satisfied the just demands of a fully Holy God.
Even though the Catholic church does teach that Christ alone expiated our sins once for all (See below – Para 1460 in the CCC), their teachings of “purgatory,” “indulgences,” and “the Sacrifice of the Mass” nullify the truth of God’s Word by these “Traditions” (Matthew 15:3-9) of men that they put on the same level as Scripture. Sadly, many of the teachings that the Catholic church presents to precious Catholics do not allow them to discover the sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice. Instead they add man-made teachings to the truth of God’s Word, and the simplicity and joyously good news of the Biblical gospel remains hidden from them.
Keep the truth of the following Scriptures in mind as you take the time to read through Part 15 of this series in which we are continuing to compare Scriptures in a Catholic New Testament Bible to many teachings that can be found in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church not only to show precious Catholics the importance of testing what they are being taught in the Catholic church against the truth of God’s Holy Word, but also to inform Bible believing Christians what their precious Catholic friends believe because of what they are being taught:
“I am, I am he that blot out thy iniquities for my own sake, and I will not remember thy sins.” (Isaiah 43:25)
“I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist: return to me, for I have redeemed thee.” (Isaiah 44:22)
“You must not be called ‘Teacher,’ because you are all brothers of one another and have only one Teacher. And you must not call anyone here on earth ‘Father’ because you have only the one Father in heaven.” (Matthew 23:8,9)
“Jesus was preaching the message to them, when a paralyzed man, carried by four men, was brought to him. Because of the crowd, however, they could not get the man to Jesus. So they made a hole in the roof right above the place where Jesus was. When they had made an opening, they let the man down, lying on his mat. Jesus saw how much faith they had, and said to the paralyzed man, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” Some teachers of the Law who were sitting there, thought to themselves, “How does he dare talk against God like this? No man can forgive sins; only God can!” (Mark 2:2b-7, Luke 5:17-24 )
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will never have life, but God’s wrath will remain on him forever.” (John 3:36 – SHLCNT)
Now look at how the same verse above reads in the Catholic Douay-Rheims Version below. Note the troubling difference between the two translations, the SHLCNT version above translates it as “whoever disobeys the Son will never have life, whereas the Douay-Rheims version (along with many other versions), shows that if anyone chooses not to believe in the Son they do not have life, and God’s wrath remains upon them:
“He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
Continuing on with a few more verses that reveal God’s truth to us on these important eternal matters:
“A man who works is paid; his wages are not regarded as a gift, but as something that he has earned. But the man who has faith, not works, who believes in the God who declares the guilty to be innocent, it is his faith that God takes into account in order to put him right with himself. This is what David meant when he spoke of the happiness of the man whom God accepts as righteous, apart from any works:
“Happy are those whose wrongs God has forgiven, whose sins he has covered over! Happy is the man whose sins the Lord will not keep account of!” (Romans 4:4-8 – SHLCNT)
“He was given over to die because of our sins, and was raised to life to put us right with God.” (Romans 4:25 – SHLCNT)
“For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked, at the time that God chose. It is a difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may be that someone might dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves us; it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us! By his death we are now put right with God; how much more, then, will we be saved by him from God’s wrath. We were God’s enemies, but he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life! But that is not all; we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, who has now made us God’s friends.” (Romans 5:6-11 – SHLCNT)
“And there is a difference between God’s gift and the sin of one man. After the one sin came the judgment of “Guilty”; but after so many sins comes the undeserved gift of “Not guilty!” It is true that through the sin of one man death began to rule, because of that one man. But how much greater is the result of what was done by the one man, Jesus Christ! All who receive God’s abundant grace and the free gift of his righteousness will rule in life through Christ. So then, as the one sin condemned all men, in the same way the one righteous act sets all men free and gives them life.”(Romans 5:16-18 – SHLCNT)
“Surely you know that the wicked will not receive God’s Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral, or worship idols, or are adulterers, or homosexual perverts, or who rob, or are greedy, or are drunkards, or who slander others, or are thieves–none of these will receive God’s Kingdom. Some of you were like that. But you have been cleansed from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – SHLCNT)
“When anyone is joined to Christ he is a new being; the old has gone, the new has come. All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends, and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making friends of all men through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins against them, and he has given us the message of how he makes them his friends. Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were appealing to you through us: on Christ’s behalf, we beg you, let God change you from enemies into friends.”(2 Corinthians 5:17-20 – SHLCNT)
“God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would bring us to himself as his sons–this was his pleasure and purpose. Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son! For by the death of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God, which he gave to us in such large measure!” (Ephesians 1:5-8a – SHLCNT)
“For there is one God, and there is one who brings God and men together, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself to redeem all men.” (1 Timothy 2:5,6 – SHLCNT)
“For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times. ” (1 Timothy 2:5,6 – Douay-Rheims)
“I write you this, my children, so that you will not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have Jesus Christ, the righteous, who pleads for us with the Father. And Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of all men.” (1 John 2:1,2 – SHLCNT)
Now let‘s begin Part 15.
Please take a moment to pray, asking God for discernment before you begin reading:
CHAPTER TWO
THE SACRAMENTS OF HEALING
Para 1421
The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health,(3 – Cf. Mk 2:1-12) has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.
ARTICLE 4
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE AND RECONCILIATION
Para 1422
Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins, and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their conversion.” (4 – LG 11 § 2).
I. WHAT IS THE SACRAMENT CALLED?
Para 1424
It is called the sacrament of confession since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament.
It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent “pardon and peace.”
V. THE MANY FORMS OF PENANCE IN CHRISTIAN LIFE
Para 1435
Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one’s brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one’s cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance. (34 – Cf. Luke 9:23).
Para 1436
Eucharist and Penance.Daily conversion and penance find their source and nourishment in the Eucharist, for in it is made present the sacrifice of Christ which has reconciled us with God.Through the Eucharist those who live from the life of Christ are fed and strengthened. “It is a remedy to free us from our daily faults and preserve us from mortal sins.” (35 – Council of Trent (1551): DS 1638).
Para 1437
Reading Sacred Scriptures, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, and the Our Father–every sincere act of worship or devotion revives the spirit of conversion and repentance within us and contributes to the forgiveness of our sins.
VI. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE AND RECONCILIATION
Para 1440
Sin is before all else an offense against God, a rupture of communion with him. At the same time it damages communion with the Church. For this reason conversion entails both God’s forgiveness and reconciliation with the Church, which are expressed and accomplished liturgically by the sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation.(38 – Cf. LG 11).
Para 1445
Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.
The sacrament of forgiveness
Para 1446
Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as “the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace.”(47 – Terrtullian, De Paenit. 4, 2: PL 1, 1343; cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1542).
Para 1447
During the seventh century Irish missionaries, inspired by the Eastern monastic tradition, took to continental Europe the “private” practice of penance, which does not require public and prolonged completion of penitential works before reconciliation with the Church.
Para 1448
Beneath the changes in discipline and celebration that this sacrament has undergone over the centuries, the same fundamental structures is to be discerned. It comprises two equally essential elements; on the one hand, the acts of the man who undergoes conversion through the action of the Holy Spirit: namely, contrition, confession, and satisfaction; on the other, God’s action through the intervention of the Church. The Church, who through the bishop and his priests forgive sins in the name of Jesus Christ and determines the manner of satisfaction, also prays for the sinner and does penance with him. Thus the sinner is healed and re-established in ecclesial communion.
VII. THE ACTS OF THE PENITENT
Contrition
Para 1452
When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called “perfect” (contrition of charity). Such contrition remits venial sin; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible. (51 – Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1677).
The confession of sins
Para 1456
Confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance.
Para 1458
Without being strictly necessary, confession of every day faults (venial sins) is nevertheless is strongly recommended by the Church. (59 – Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1680; CIC, can. 988 § 2).
Satisfaction
Para 1459
But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationship with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. (62) Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must “make satisfaction for” or “expiate” his sins. This satisfaction is also called “penance.” (62 – Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1712).
Para 1460
It can consist of prayers, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbors, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear. Such penances help configure us to Christ, who alone expiated our sins once for all. They allow us to become co-heirs with the risen Christ, “provided we suffer with him.” (63 – Romans 8:17; Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:1-2; cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1690).
VIII. THE MINISTER OF THIS SACRAMENT
Para 1462
Forgiveness of sins brings reconciliation with God, but also with the [Catholic] Church. (67 – Cf. CIC, cann. 844; 967-969; 972; CCEO, can. 722 §§ 3-4). [NOTE: The word Catholic was inserted by me for clarification and to remind you that every time you see the word church used with a capital C, they are referring to the Catholic Church.]
IX. THE EFFECTS OF THIS SACRAMENT
Para 1468
“The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship.”(73 – Roman Catechism, II, V, 18).
Para 1469
This sacrament reconciles us with the Church.
Para 1470
In this sacrament, the sinner, placing himself before the merciful judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgement to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life. For it is now, in this life, that we are offered the choice between life and death, and it is only by the road of conversion that we can enter the kingdom, from which one is excluded by grave sin. (79 – Cf. 1 Corin. 5:11; Gal 5:19-21; Rev 22:15). In converting to Christ through penance and faith, the sinner passes from death to life and “does not come under judgment.”(80 – Jn. 5:24).
X. INDULGENCES
Para 1471
The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
What is an indulgence?
An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.(82) The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.* *(82 – CIC, can. 944.)
The punishment of sin
Para 1472
To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.”(83 – Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1712-1713; (1563): 1820).
Para 1473
The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.” (84 – Eph. 4:22,24)
In the Communion of Saints
Para 1475
In the communion of saints “a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things.” (86 – Indulgentiarum doctrina, 5). In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishment for sin.
Para 1476
We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church’s treasury, which is not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the ‘treasury of the Church’ is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted , which Christ’s merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their efficacy.” (87 – Indulgentiarum doctrina, 5).
Para 1477
“This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasure, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body.”(88 – Indulgentiarum doctrina, 5.)
Obtaining indulgence from God through the Church
Para 1478
An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishment due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity. (89 – Cf. Indulgentiarum doctrina, 5).
Para 1479
Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishment due for their sins may be remitted.
XI. THE CELEBRATION OF THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE
Para 1480
Like all the sacraments, Penance is a liturgical action. The elements of the celebration are ordinarily these: a greeting and blessing from the priest, reading the word of God to illuminate the conscience and elicit contrition, and an exhortation to repentance; the confession, which acknowledges sins and makes them known to the priest; the imposition and acceptance of a penance; the priest’s absolution; a prayer of thanksgiving and praise and dismissal with the blessing of the priest.
Para 1491
The sacrament of Penance is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent and the priest’s absolution. The penitent’s acts are repentance, confession or disclosure of sins to the priest, and the intention to make reparation and do works of reparation.
Para 1493
One who desires to obtain reconciliation with God and with the Church, must confess to a priest all the unconfessed grave sins he remembers after having carefully examined his conscience. The confession of venial faults, without being necessary in itself, is nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church.
Para 1495
Only priests who have received the faculty of absolving from the authority of the Church can forgive sins in the name of Christ.
Para 1496
The spiritual effects of the sacrament of Penance are:
–reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace;
–reconciliation with the Church;
–remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins;
–remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin;
–peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation;
–an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle
Para 1497
Individual and integral confession of grave sins followed by absolution remains the only ordinary means of reconciliation with God and with the Church.
Para 1498
Through indulgences the faithful can obtain the remission of temporal punishment resulting from sin for themselves and also for the souls in Purgatory.
RELATED VIDEOS ALONG WITH A FEW MORE THOUGHTS
RICHARD BENNETT, FORMER CATHOLIC PRIEST
WALTER MARTIN, FORMER BAPTIST PASTOR AND FOUNDER OF THE ‘BIBLE ANSWER MAN’ RADIO PROGRAM
MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN
In Catholicism, sin is classified into two categories; mortal sin and venial sin. (You will hear a Catholic priest explain this in the video further below). As a young child I was taught that mortal sins are serious sins, such as murder, and venial sins are lesser sins, like fighting with your brothers and sisters, disobeying your parents, and lying. However, God’s Word makes it abundantly clear that all sin is mortal; the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). God’s Word also says that all liars will be thrown into the lake of fire –hell. (Revelation 21:8)
“Then the one who sits on the throne said, “And now I make all things new!” He also said to me, “Write this, because these words are true and can be trusted.” And he said, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To anyone who is thirsty I will give a free drink of water from the spring of the water of life. Whoever wins the victory will receive this from me. I will be his God, and he will be my son. But the cowards, the traitors, and the perverts, the murderers, and the immoral, those who practice magic and those who worship idols, and all liars–the place for them is the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:5-8 – SHLCNT)
Regardless of how minor the sin may appear to us, or how horrific the sin may be, all sin separates us from a completely Holy God and all sin can be forgiven. There is no other way for any of us (Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Muslim, etc., etc.), to be forgiven for our sins and to be reconciled with God except by coming to God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son — the second Person of the Trinity and only Mediator between sinful man and a thrice Holy God — and by receiving the free gift of eternal life by placing our full trust in all that Jesus Christ has already done for us. This is the only way that God has provided for us to be forgiven and to have a relationship with Him. We can neither receive forgiveness for sin by trusting in a sacramental system that is said to impart grace that can be lost again by committing more sin, nor can we receive or earn God’s forgiveness by doing good works or by going to Mass (or any church service). Only by choosing to place our full trust in the “once for all” sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered to God His Father when He willingly took upon Himself God’s full wrath that He has towards us because of our sins after He was nailed to the cross, died in our place, and arose from the dead in bodily form three days later, can we receive His forgiveness. Jesus Christ lived the perfect, sinless life that we could never live; He was the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.
In the following video, this is some of what the priest has to say:
“Venial sin wounds our friendship with God. Mortal sins, as the name implies, deals to our souls a mortal wound. That is to say it destroys the life of grace in us. It ruptures our friendship with God, and, if we have the misfortune to die in a state of mortal sin, why then, we suffer eternal death in hell. Mortal sin is something we can’t simply stumble into by accident…”
‘Hey Father! What is the difference between venial and mortal sin?’
In the following video, Pastor Dan Carpenter answers a caller’s question. He addresses apostolic succession, do priests have the power to forgivesins (as the Catholic church teaches based on John 20:23), and is there any other mediator besides Jesus Christ:
In the following video this pastor makes an excellent point regarding John 20:23 by basically saying that if Jesus truly was giving the apostles the power to forgive sins, the context of this passage of Scripture clearly shows that the apostle Thomas wasn’t present that day, and Jesus certainly wouldn’t have done something so important as that when the apostles weren’t all together.
IN CLOSING:
So much more could be said, and I could share so many more Scriptures with you, but this post is now much longer than I had intended for it to be and I must bring it to a close. I can think of no better way to end this particular post than by sharing this powerful and encouraging Scripture with you that God brought to my attention in the spring of 1980. I was at the point where I was struggling between believing the joyously good news of the Biblical gospel that I discovered as I read that little Catholic New Testament, and what I believed regarding all that I had been taught as a Catholic. As I held my little Catholic New Testament, I cried out to God and asked Him to confirm to me in His Word that what I was reading was really true. To think that Jesus Christ actually paid the debt for all of my sins — in full — and that I didn’t have to burn in purgatory for “temporal punishment still due for sins” as I was taught, just seemed too amazingly good to be true! I opened my little Catholic New Testament and saw this verse in 1 John for the very first time:
“We believe the witness that men give; the witness that God gives is much stronger, and this is the witness that God has given about His Son. So whoever believes in the Son of God has this witness in his heart; but whoever does not believe God has made a liar out of him, because he has not believed what God has said as a witness about his Son. This, then is the witness: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write you this so that you may know that you have eternal life–you that believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:9-13) [NOTE: Emphasis is mine.]
When I first read that verse, the truth about the power and splendor of who Jesus Christ really was — and is — and the reality of all that He truly accomplished for us by His once for all sacrifice on the cross (which led to His death, burial, and glorious resurrection from the dead) became crystal clear to me! I no longer had the fear of death or any doubt remaining about the sufficiency of Jesus’ once for all sacrifice because God’s Word clearly shows us that we can have the assurance of salvation now, as long as our faith and trust are only in all that Jesus Christ already did for us. I pray that your eyes will also be opened to see this amazing truth that can be found in God’s Word and that you also will choose to believe it.
Dear Catholic, (and dear reader, whoever you may be), once again I present you with this important question that I had to answer back in 1980:
Are you going to believe the Word of God (Scripture), or the word of man (Tradition)?
As a former Catholic who also went to twelve years of Catholic school, I have a deep desire to see Catholics come to know the truly good news of the Biblical gospel. If precious Catholics would only test what their church teaches against their own Scriptures they would come to realize (as I did, and as many other former Catholics did) that many of the teachings of Catholicism contradict God’s Word. If they would also do some research they would come to realize that there is no historical evidence to back up the Catholic church’s claim of “apostolic succession.”
Below is a quote taken from Walter Martin’s book that is the focus of the videos below. Walter Martin was a Baptist minister and the former host of The Bible Answer Man radio show:
“The whole foundation of Roman Catholicism admittedly rests upon Peter as the Rock. Once you have shown that Christ is the Rock there is no apostolic succession. There is no authority for the claim of the Roman Catholic Church and there is no basis to their claim that they are the “only true Church of Christ.”
Dear Catholic, (and any Bible believing Christian who desires to reach precious Catholics with the good news of the Biblical gospel), when time allows please consider listening to the following two videos and seek God regarding what His Word truly says in light of what you have been taught during your many years in the Catholic church.
Your eternal destination depends upon the choice you make regarding where you will choose to place your trust for the forgiveness of your sins. If you choose to trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, then you will spend eternity with Him in heaven. If you reject the truth that can be found in your own Scriptures and choose to trust in your good works and the Catholic church’s “sacramental system” to save you, sadly, you will find out when it’s too late that there is no such place as “purgatory” which means there is no second chance.
God already did everything necessary to provide a way for you — and for all of us — to be cleansed from all of our sins and guilt so that we could have a relationship with Him, which is by coming to Him through Jesus Christ alone! Please take the time to search these things out for yourselves! If so, you will discover the joyously good news of the depth of the love that God has for us all!
While we were yet sinners He sent His one and only Son into our sin-filled world; Jesus Christ, the second Person in the Trinity, willingly came and lived the perfect, sinless life that we could never live, became the spotless Lamb of God who was nailed to the cross, took upon Himself God’s full wrath that was intended for you — and for me — because of our sins, died in our place, was buried, and arose from the dead in bodily form three days later. Yes, the Catholic church teaches most of these things, but their teachings that are based on the “traditions of men” such as purgatory, the Sacrificeof the Mass, apostolic succession, the sacraments, etc., have hindered you from seeing the truly good news of the Biblical gospel! Please start thinking for yourselves and begin reading God’s Word, the Bible! Ask God to show you the truth, and He will! It will then be up to you to decide if you are going to choose to believe the Word of God — the Bible, or the word of man — traditions/teachings of your church that do not line up with the truth of God’s Word. The first choice will lead you to experience God’s joy and peace now, the latter will lead you to deep regret and eternal torment in the fires of hell. That may sound harsh, but it’s the truth.
“Being justified therefore by faith, let us have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access through faith into this grace wherein we stand: and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God. And not only so: but we glory also in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience trial; and trial hope; And hope confoundeth not: because the charity [love] of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost who is given to us. For why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, die for the ungodly? For scarce for a just man will one die: yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die. But God commendeth his charity [love] towards us: because when as yet we were sinners according to the time. Christ died for us. Much more therefore, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son: much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. And not only so: but also we glory in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:1-11 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
“By this hath the charity [love] of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him. In this is charity [love]: not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:9,10 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
“Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
“Be it known to you all and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him, this man standeth here before you, whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10-12 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
“For there is one God: and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.” (1 Timothy 2:5,6 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
“If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, which is greater, because he hath testified of his Son. 10He that believeth in the Son of God hath the testimony of God in himself. He that believeth not the Son maketh him a liar: because he believeth not in the testimony which God hath testified of his Son. And this is the testimony that God hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath not life.These things I write to you that you may know that you have eternal life: you who believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:9-13 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
“He that believeth in the Son hath life everlasting: but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life: but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36 – Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible)
Thank you very much for stopping by today.
God Bless You
~Mary Dalke – Living4HisGlory – Reflections Of His Glory Photography
UPDATE:
Now that my central air problem has been repaired I can finally get back to writing and finishing my next post in the series in which we are comparing many of the teachings that can be found in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church to Scriptures in a Catholic New Testament Bible out of my desire to show precious Catholics that Jesus Christ’s “once for all” sacrifice was completely sufficient to pay the debt for all of our sins — in full ! I pray that many Catholics will take the time to read the posts in this series so that they will come to realize, (by reading the truth of God’s Word that I share in these posts), that they can have the assurance of entering heaven as soon as they die —ifthey will choose to place their full trust only in what Jesus Christ has already accomplished and not try to earn their way to heaven by their good works, church attendance, receiving the sacraments, etc. As much as I wanted to finish writing the next post in this series, it was just too hard to sit and write for that many hours when the temperature in my home was oftentimes in the high 80s and low 90s! 😦
In Catholicism, the month of May is dedicated to the virgin Mary. I had planned on writing at least one post in which I was going to share every Scripture with you where Mary is even mentioned, and then share many of Catholicism’s teachings regarding Mary with you, as well, in order to show you how almost every one of these teachings cannot be substantiated by Scripture. However, I no longer find that necessary after listening to the following series, which is ongoing. In this series, Christian writer and former Catholic, Timothy Kauffman, gives an in depth examination of many of the teachings of the Roman Catholic church regarding the virgin Mary and not only tests them against Scripture, but also in light of what many of the early church fathers taught in order to show that many of their teachings are unbiblical and to also show that Catholicism attributes to Mary many things that would even grieve Mary herself! Yes, as Christians we are to appreciate her willingness to submit to God to become the mother of Jesus Christ, but we are never to go beyond Scripture and pray to her or ascribe to her any glory that is due to God alone!
As soon as a new episode is added to this series I will add it to the Playlist below:
Thank you very much for stopping by today.
God Bless You
~Mary Dalke – Living4HisGlory
NOTE:
Although Timothy Kauffman gives an excellent analysis of the teachings of Catholicism regarding Mary in light of Scripture and church history, this is not to be considered as an endorsement of him.
There are two very important reasons why I felt compelled to write this series of posts, and I’d like to briefly share these reasons with you now before I go any further:
1) Since I am a former Catholic who is very aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church because I attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended Catechism classes, made my First Holy Communion, was Confirmed, and faithfully attended Mass not only every Sunday for many years, but also before school began for three years (as required by the school that I attended at the time), and who came to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ truly is and what He actually accomplished for us by reading a Catholic New Testament Bible exactly like the one pictured above, I decided to write this series with the hope of reaching precious Catholics so that they can not only come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is as His Word, the Bible, declares Him to be, but also so they can see by reading God’s Word that they can have complete forgiveness, lasting joy, true peace, and the assurance of salvation if they choose to believe God’s Word and place their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Also, since many Catholics do not realize everything that the Catholic church actually teaches (as I once did not realize until after doing research and reading the CCC), I thought that it was extremely important to share this information to make Catholics aware of many things that are quite disturbing, as you will all soon become aware of as this series continues.
2) This series of posts is also being written with the intention of helping those of you who are born-again, Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ who have no idea of what the teachings of Catholicism are so that you can become aware of their teachings and be prepared to offer hope and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ to Catholics based solely upon the truth that is recorded in God’s Word.
As we continue on in this series together comparing Scriptures in the Catholic New Testament to teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must keep these important thoughts in mind:
When it comes to our eternal destination — heaven or hell — we must be certain that we place our trust in solid truth and not in speculation or in the traditions of men. The Catholic church claims to be the “one true Church.” Therefore, it stands to reason that their teachings must line up with God’s Word and not contradict it since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8), and His Word stands firm forever. (Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24,25) If a contradiction is found it must be rejected because God’s Word is our plumb line by which we must measure (or test) the teachings of every religion to see if it lines up or not. If it is off in one point we can be certain that it will lead us further and further away from Biblical truth and lead us into spiritual deception.
This series will cover many different subjects ranging from what does the Catholic Church teach about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, priests, the pope, sin, forgiveness of sins, salvation, prayer, and what must a Catholic believe in order to receive eternal life. Some of these teachings will shock even many Catholics when they learn what their church actually teaches!
Lord willing, I hope to share at least one post every month with you in this new series until I have covered all the most important teachings that need to be brought to your attention. The main goal that I have in writing this series is to present the Word of God to Catholics — and to every person — in order to point everyone to Jesus Christ, who is our only hope and ‘the only name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)
Dear Catholic, please take a minute now to sincerely pray; ask God to open your mind to the Scriptures and to reveal the truth to you –whatever that may be.
Because only God can reveal the truth to you, I will refrain from making any comments unless I find it completely necessary. Since God’s Word is truth I trust that He will not only give you eyes to see the truth, but also I trust that He will give you the courage to respond to His leading. However, each one of you will find yourself having to answer this question when you come to many points that I present to you in these posts after realizing that there are oftentimes extreme differences between what the Word of God says and what Catholicism teaches, and the question that you will have to answer is:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God, or the word of man?”
For those of you who are not Catholic, and are taking the time to read these posts in order to learn what Catholicism actually teaches, please keep in mind that every time you see the word “church” spelled with a capital c they are referring to the Catholic church, since they believe that the “Catholic Church” alone is the “one true Church.”All of the information that I will be sharing with you I have obtained from the following sources:
1) CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (pictured above) – Imprimi Potest – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) – Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2) THE WORD OF GOD – THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION – IMPRIMATUR JOHN FRANCIS WHEALON, ARCHBISHOP OF HARTFORD, APRIL 15, 1971 SIGNED AND SEALED BY BISHOP JOSEPH B. BRUNINI, DIOCESE OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
3) Occasionally when I share a Scripture with you from the Sacred Heart League (SHL) Catholic New Testament and notice that it lacks depth and clarity, I will then follow it with the same verse but in the King James Version in order to give you a better understanding of what is being said, and so that you can see what is missing from the SHL translation.
4) Very briefly in this series, I will also be quoting from THE CATHOLIC DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION OF THE BIBLE – in which you will find the following statements:
“EXCERPT FROM ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE:
“The God of all Providence, Who in the adorable designs of His love at first elevated the human race to the participation of the Divine nature, and afterwards delivered it from the universal guilt and ruin, restoring it to its primitive dignity, has in consequence bestowed upon man a splendid gift and safeguard–making known to him, by supernatural means, the hidden Mysteries of His divinity, His wisdom, and His mercy. For although in Divine revelations there are contained some things which are not beyond the reach of unassisted reason, and which are made the objects of such revelation in order “that all may come to know them with facility, certainty, and safety from error, yet not on this account can supernatural Revelation be said to be absolutely necessary; it is only necessary because God has ordained man to a supernatural end.” This supernatural revelation according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, “being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.” (Page ix)
“Wherefore it must be recognised that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession. His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in the renewing of the decree of Trent, declares its “mind” to be this–that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.” (Page xvii)
“Wherefore the first and dearest object of the Catholic commentator should be to interpret those passages which have received an authentic interpretation either by the sacred writers themselves, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as in many places of the New Testament), or from the Church, under the assistance of the same Holy Spirit, whether by her solemn judgment or her ordinary and universal magisterium –to interpret those passages in that identical sense, and to prove, by all the resources of science that sound hermeneutical laws admit of no other interpretation. In the other passages, the analogy of faith should be followed, and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.” (Page xviii)
“For although the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should nevertheless, bear well in mind–as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages –that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Page xix)
[In order to get this entire series finished in a timely manner, from now on I will try to keep my comments very brief and will mainly be making them in the introduction and closing sections of these posts. I will, however, continue to keep the focus on Scripture which is where it should be. I am also trying very hard (but not succeeding) to limit these posts to no more than 5000 words which makes it rather difficult sometimes. For those of you who have busy schedules and do not have the time to read lengthy posts, I will continue to highlight certain portions within these posts in order to quickly bring the most important and troubling things to your attention.]
In PART 14 we will be covering pages 385-395 in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church (which will be referred to as CCC from this point on). The focus of this portion of the CCC continues to be on the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass.
As you read through this post please note the focus on the mysterious and mystical way that they present their teaching regarding communion which they refer to as the Eucharist. Please note also how grace is not taught as it is in God’s Word, which is something that is free and cannot be earned, merited, or lost. In Catholicism, grace can be lost because of sin and then earned back again through their sacramental system which is where precious Catholics mainly place their trust in instead of trusting in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice that is to be remembered, not reenacted or re-presented.
Let’s begin:
PARA 1377
Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.(205 – Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1641.)
PARA 1378
Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession.” (206 – Pope Paul VI, MF 56.)
PARA 1379
The tabernacle was first intended for the reservation of the Eucharist in a worthy place so that it could be brought to the sick and those absent, outside of Mass. As faith in the real presence of Christ in his Eucharist deepened, the Church became conscious of the meaning of silent adoration of the Lord present under the Eucharistic species. It is for this reason that the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the church and should be consecrated in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
PARA 1380
It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us “to the end,” (207 – Jn. 13:1)even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, (208 -Cf. Gal 2:20.) and *he remains under signs that express and communicate this love:
The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease. (209 – Pope John Paul II Dominicae cenae, 3.)
*[Note: The Word of God says in Matthew 8:12, Matthew 12:39, Matthew 16:4, Luke 11:29, that “a wicked and [spiritually] adulterous generation seeks after a sign.”
Here is what God’s Word says in Matthew 12:38-40:
“Then some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees spoke up. “Teacher,” they said, “we want to see you perform a miracle.” “How evil and godless are the people of this day!” Jesus exclaimed. “You ask me for a miracle? No! The only miracle you will be given is the miracle of the prophet Jonah. In the same way that Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of the big fish, so will the Son of Man spend three days and nights in the depths of the earth.”) (SHLCNT)
Here is the same passage of Scripture in the Catholic Douay-Rheims Translation:
“Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying: Master, we would see a sign from thee. Who answering said to them: An evil and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was in the whale’s belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.”
The Word of God shows us that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the greatest sign that we could ever hope for because it proves to us that God accepted all that Jesus Christ did on our behalf as being sufficient to pay the debt for our sins –in full, and to satisfy the just demands of a completely Holy God.
The Word of God shows us in John 14:15-26 that Jesus would send His Holy Spirit to be with us so that we wouldn’t be alone:
“If you love me, you will obey my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, the Spirit of truth, to stay with you forever. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and lives in you. “I will not leave you alone; I will come back to you. In a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me; and because I live, you also will live. When that day comes, you will know that I am in my Father, and that you are in me, just as I am in you. “Whoever accepts my commandments and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. My Father will love him who loves me; I too will love him and reveal myself to him.” Judas, (not Judas Iscariot) said, “Lord, how can it be that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “Whoever loves me will obey my message. My Father will love him, and my Father and I will come to him and live with him. Whoever does not love me does not obey my words. The message you have heard is not mine, but comes from the Father, who sent me. “I have told you this while I am still with you. The Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and make you remember all that I have told you.” (SHLCNT)
“If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father: and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever: The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him. But you shall know him; because he shall abide with you and shall be in you. “I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know that I am in my Father: and you in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot: Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard is not mine; but the Father’s who sent me. These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. But the *Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.” *[Note: Paraclete: along side of; helper.] (Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
Let’s continue:
Para 1381
“That in this sacrament are the true Body of Christ and his true Blood is something that cannot be apprehended by the senses,” said St. Thomas, “but only by faith, which relies on divine authority.” For this reason, in a commentary on Luke 22:19 (“This is my body which is given for you.”), St. Cyril says: ‘Do not doubt whether this is true, but rather receive the words of the Savior in faith, for since he is the truth, he cannot lie.'(210 – St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 75 1; cf. Pope Paul VI, MF 18; St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Luc. 22, 19: PG 72, 912; cf. Pope Paul VI MF 18.)
VI. THE PASCHAL BANQUET
PARA 1382
To receive communion is to receive Christ himself who has offered himself for us.
PARA 1383
The altar, around which the Church is gathered in the celebration of the Eucharist, represents the two aspects of the same mystery: the altar of the sacrifice and the table of the Lord. This is all the more so since the Christian altar is the symbol of Christ himself, present in the midst of the assembly of his faithful, both as the victim offered for our reconciliation and as food from heaven who is giving himself to us. “For what is the altar of Christ if not the image of the Body of Christ? (212 – St. Ambrose, De Sacr. 5, 2, 7: PL 16, 447C.) asks St. Ambrose. He says elsewhere, “The altar represents the body [of Christ] and the Body of Christ is on the altar.”(213 – St. Ambrose, De Sacr. 4, 2, 7: PL 16 437D.) The liturgy expresses this unity of sacrifice and communion in many prayers. Thus the Roman Church prays in its anaphora:
We entreat you, almighty God, that by the hands of your holy Angel this offering may be borne to your altar in heaven in the sight of your divine majesty, so that as we receive in communion at this altar the most holy Body and Blood of your Son, we may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace.(214 – Roman Missal, EP 1 (Roman Canon) 96: Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus: iube haec perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum, in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae; ut, quotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii Corpus et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur.)
“Take this and eat it, all of you”: communion
PARA 1384
The Lord addresses an invitation to us, urging us to receive him in the sacrament of the Eucharist: “Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”(215 – John 6:53)
PARA 1389
The Church obliges the faithful to take part in the Divine Liturgy on Sundays and feast days and, prepared by the sacrament of Reconciliation, to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, if possible during the Easter season.(221) But the Church strongly encourages the faithful to receive the holy Eucharist on Sundays and feast days, or more often still, even daily. (221 – Cf. OE 15; CIC, can. 920.)
PARA 1390
Since Christ is sacramentally present under each of the species, communion under the species of bread alone makes it possible to receive all the fruit of Eucharistic grace.
The fruits of Holy Communion
PARA 1391
Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”(223 – John 6:56) Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet.
Para 1392
What material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life. Communion with the flesh of the risen Christ, a flesh “given life and giving life through the Holy Spirit,”(226) preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism.This growth in Christian life needs the nourishment of Eucharistic Communion, the bread for our pilgrimage until the moment of death, when it will be given to us as viaticum. (226 – PO 5.) [Note: viaticum is a term used -especially in the Catholic Church- for the Eucharist (also called Holy Communion), administered with or without Anointing of the Sick (also called Extreme Unction), to a person who is dying; viaticum is thus a part of the Last Rites. (SOURCE)
PARA 1394
As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins.(228 – Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1638.)
PARA 1400
Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, “have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharist mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders.”(236) It is for this reason that, for the Catholic Church, Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible. However, these ecclesial communities, “when they commemorate the Lord’s death and resurrection in the Holy Supper…profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and await his coming in glory.”(237) (236 – UR 22 S3.) (237 – UR 22 S 3.)
VII. THE EUCHARIST–“PLEDGE OF THE GLORY TO COME”
PARA 1404
The Church knows that the Lord comes even now in his Eucharist and that he is there in our midst. However, his presence is veiled.
PARA 1405
There is no surer pledge or clearer sign of this great hope in the new heavens and new earth “in which righteousness dwells,”(245) than the Eucharist. Every time the mystery is celebrated, “the work of our redemption is carried on” and we “break the one bread that provides the medicine of immortality, the antidote for death, and the food that makes us live for ever in Jesus Christ.” (246 – LG 3; St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad. Eph. 20, 2: SCh 10, 76.)
PARA 1407
The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church.
PARA 1409
The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.
PARA 1410
It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the New Covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
PARA 1413
Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent DS: 1640, 1651).
PARA 1414
As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered as reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
PARA 1415
Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.
PARA 1416
Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant’s union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins, and preserves him from grave sins.
PARA 1418
Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. “To visit the Blessed Sacrament is…a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord” (Pope Paul VI, MF 66)
CLOSING COMMENTS
As depicted above, sadly, Catholicism presents Jesus as being confined and basically imprisoned within the tabernacle hoping for some faithful Catholics to come and visit Him. This makes Jesus Christ look weak and helpless. However, according to the Word of God (Romans 8:34), Jesus Christ now sits at the right hand of God the Father in glory! His work to pay the debt for all our sins has been accomplished; our sins have been paid in full and God’s wrath against sin has been satisfied. God’s Word also says that He is now interceding for us (Hebrews 7:25); for those who have made the choice to place their full trust in His completed work on the cross and see no need for any more sacrifices. To say that these sacrifices must continue is to say that what He has already accomplished was not enough. This is utter blasphemy! This particular teaching was the main reason why I left the Catholic church back in 1980!
I sincerely do not want to offend any of you who may be Catholic because once I also truly believed that the host and the wine really did literally become the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ as I was taught. However, after I started to read Scripture it quickly became clear to me that what Jesus truly accomplished for us was and is much more glorious and amazing than these teachings are about the “real presence” which are not based on Scriptures in their proper context, but rather on the misinterpretation of Scriptures (such as in the Gospel of John Chapter 6 verses 25-63 where Jesus is speaking figuratively, and the truth of what He is really saying is found in verse 63), as well as on the teachings of men such as St. Thomas Aquinas, St.Cyril of Alexandria, St. Ignatius of Antioch, etc., as shown above in this particular post. (Para 1381, Para 1405)
Please take time to seriously think about this matter and to seek God for the truth in His Word! It may sound very special and intimate to believe that Jesus would come to us and unite with us in this mystical way, but it is not Biblical; we must look into God’s Word and see what He has already accomplished for us and what He truly did do for us so that we would not be alone. And that one special thing that He did do so that we would not be alone was to send His Holy Spirit to be with us —if we choose to place our full trust in all that He has already accomplished for us.
I pray that you are now beginning to see that Catholicism presents many teachings that are rooted in mysticism –not in Biblical truth. (Lord willing, at some point I will be writing a few posts that will focus in great detail on mysticism in the Catholic church). Adding to — or taking away from — God’s Word is warned against and is strictly forbidden! To do so one pays the highest of prices –their name will not be found in the Book of Life. Instead they will be separated from God and cast into the lake of fire for all eternity:
“You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“What I command thee, that only do thou to the Lord: neither add any thing, nor diminish.” (Deuteronomy 12:32 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“Every word of God is fire tried: he is a buckler to them that hope in him. Add not any thing to his words, lest thou be reproved and found a liar.”(Proverbs 30:5,6 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible)
“For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book.And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from these things that are written in this book. ” (Revelation 22:18,19 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible) [NOTE: Although this Scripture pertains specifically about adding to or taking away from the words in the Book of Revelation, it should be a frightening warning to alert us to just how serious God takes protecting and guarding His Holy Word from being corrupted in any way!]
Once again, dear Catholic, I must ask you this question:
Are you going to believe the Word of God (the Bible) or the word of man (Catholic Tradition and the teachings of the Catholic church?
If you would seek God and ask Him to show you the truth as you take the time to read His Word, you will discover that the truth of God’s Word is very clear. Even though there is a lot of truth in Catholicism (the virgin birth, the deity of Jesus Christ, acknowledgement of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ), many of the Traditions and teachings of the Catholic Church completely contradict God’s Word and nullifies the truth set forth in Scripture! Please take some time to think about these things and to seek God for the truth regarding what is truly only necessary for the forgiveness of sins and to have assurance of entering heaven one day before it’s too late!
There are two very important reasons why I felt compelled to write this series of posts, and I’d like to briefly share these reasons with you now before I go any further:
1) Since I am a former Catholic who is very aware of the teachings of the Catholic Church because I attended twelve years of Catholic school, attended Catechism classes, made my First Holy Communion, was Confirmed, and faithfully attended Mass not only every Sunday for many years, but also before school began for three years (as required by the school that I attended at the time), and who came to the knowledge of who Jesus Christ truly is and what He actually accomplished for us by reading a Catholic New Testament Bible exactly like the one pictured above, I decided to write this series with the hope of reaching precious Catholics so that they can not only come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ truly is as His Word, the Bible, declares Him to be, but also so they can see by reading God’s Word that they can have complete forgiveness, lasting joy, true peace, and the assurance of salvation if they choose to believe God’s Word and place their trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Also, since many Catholics do not realize everything that the Catholic church actually teaches (as I once did not realize until after doing research and reading the CCC), I thought that it was extremely important to share this information to make Catholics aware of many things that are quite disturbing, as you will all soon become aware of as this series continues.
2) This series of posts is also being written with the intention of helping those of you who are born-again, Bible believing followers of Jesus Christ who have no idea of what the teachings of Catholicism are so that you can become aware of their teachings and be prepared to offer hope and assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ to Catholics based solely upon the truth that is recorded in God’s Word.
As we continue on in this series together comparing Scriptures in the Catholic New Testament to teachings found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we must keep these important thoughts in mind:
When it comes to our eternal destination — heaven or hell — we must be certain that we place our trust in solid truth and not in speculation or in the traditions of men. The Catholic church claims to be the “one true Church.” Therefore, it stands to reason that their teachings must line up with God’s Word and not contradict it since God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Hebrews 13:8), and His Word stands firm forever. (Psalm 119:89, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Peter 1:24,25) If a contradiction is found it must be rejected because God’s Word is our plumb line by which we must measure (or test) the teachings of every religion to see if it lines up or not. If it is off in one point we can be certain that it will lead us further and further away from Biblical truth and lead us into spiritual deception.
This series will cover many different subjects ranging from what does the Catholic Church teach about the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, priests, the pope, sin, forgiveness of sins, salvation, prayer, and what must a Catholic believe in order to receive eternal life. Some of these teachings will shock even many Catholics when they learn what their church actually teaches!
Lord willing, I hope to share at least one post every month with you in this new series until I have covered all the most important teachings that need to be brought to your attention. The main goal that I have in writing this series is to present the Word of God to Catholics — and to every person — in order to point everyone to Jesus Christ, who is our only hope and ‘the only name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved.’ (Acts 4:12)
Dear Catholic, please take a minute now to sincerely pray; ask God to open your mind to the Scriptures and to reveal the truth to you –whatever that may be.
Because only God can reveal the truth to you, I will refrain from making any comments unless I find it completely necessary. Since God’s Word is truth I trust that He will not only give you eyes to see the truth, but also I trust that He will give you the courage to respond to His leading. However, each one of you will find yourself having to answer this question when you come to many points that I present to you in these posts after realizing that there are oftentimes extreme differences between what the Word of God says and what Catholicism teaches, and the question that you will have to answer is:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God, or the word of man?”
For those of you who are not Catholic, and are taking the time to read these posts in order to learn what Catholicism actually teaches, please keep in mind that every time you see the word “church” spelled with a capital c they are referring to the Catholic church, since they believe that the “Catholic Church” alone is the “one true Church.”All of the information that I will be sharing with you I have obtained from the following sources:
1) CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (pictured above) – Imprimi Potest – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict) – Interdicasterial Commission for the Catechism of the Catholic Church
2) THE WORD OF GOD – THE NEW TESTAMENT OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IN TODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION – SACRED HEART LEAGUE EDITION – IMPRIMATUR JOHN FRANCIS WHEALON, ARCHBISHOP OF HARTFORD, APRIL 15, 1971 SIGNED AND SEALED BY BISHOP JOSEPH B. BRUNINI, DIOCESE OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
3) Occasionally when I share a Scripture with you from the Sacred Heart League (SHL) Catholic New Testament and notice that it lacks depth and clarity, I will then follow it with the same verse but in the King James Version in order to give you a better understanding of what is being said, and so that you can see what is missing from the SHL translation.
4) Very briefly in this series, I will also be quoting from THE CATHOLIC DOUAY RHEIMS VERSION OF THE BIBLE – in which you will find the following statements:
“EXCERPT FROM ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR HOLY FATHER BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE LEO XIII ON THE STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE:
“The God of all Providence, Who in the adorable designs of His love at first elevated the human race to the participation of the Divine nature, and afterwards delivered it from the universal guilt and ruin, restoring it to its primitive dignity, has in consequence bestowed upon man a splendid gift and safeguard–making known to him, by supernatural means, the hidden Mysteries of His divinity, His wisdom, and His mercy. For although in Divine revelations there are contained some things which are not beyond the reach of unassisted reason, and which are made the objects of such revelation in order “that all may come to know them with facility, certainty, and safety from error, yet not on this account can supernatural Revelation be said to be absolutely necessary; it is only necessary because God has ordained man to a supernatural end.” This supernatural revelation according to the belief of the universal Church, is contained both in unwritten Tradition, and in written Books, which are therefore called sacred and canonical because, “being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and as such have been delivered to the Church.” (Page ix)
“Wherefore it must be recognised that the sacred writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His Word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher. St. Irenaeus long since laid down, that where the charismata of God were, there the truth was to be learnt, and that Holy Scripture was safely interpreted by those who had the Apostolic succession. His teaching, and that of other Holy Fathers, is taken up by the Council of the Vatican, which, in the renewing of the decree of Trent, declares its “mind” to be this–that “in things of faith and morals, belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.” (Page xvii)
“Wherefore the first and dearest object of the Catholic commentator should be to interpret those passages which have received an authentic interpretation either by the sacred writers themselves, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost (as in many places of the New Testament), or from the Church, under the assistance of the same Holy Spirit, whether by her solemn judgment or her ordinary and universal magisterium –to interpret those passages in that identical sense, and to prove, by all the resources of science that sound hermeneutical laws admit of no other interpretation. In the other passages, the analogy of faith should be followed, and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.” (Page xviii)
“For although the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should nevertheless, bear well in mind–as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages –that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture and never attain its pith.” (Page xix)
[In order to get this entire series finished in a timely manner, from now on I will try to keep my comments very brief and will mainly be making them in the introduction and closing sections of these posts. I will, however, continue to keep the focus on Scripture which is where it should be. I am also trying to limit these posts to no more than 5000 words which makes it rather difficult sometimes. ]
In PART 13 we will be covering pages 368-384 in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church (which will be referred to as CCC from this point on). The focus of this portion of the CCC is on the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass which are considered Dogma/the main essential teachings in Catholicism that one must believe if they claim to be Catholic.
For those of you who have very busy schedules and thus very little time to read long articles such as these, I have highlighted some of the many statements that I found to be quite troubling in turquoise in order to quickly draw your attention to them with the hope of also saving you some time. I have also highlighted portions of certain Scriptures in blue to emphasize the Biblicaltruth that is presented in these verses in order to expose the unbiblical things that are taught in Catholicism.
Let’s begin:
ARTICLE 3
THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST
Para 1323
“At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his body and blood. This he did in order to *perpetuate the sacrifice of the cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet ‘in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.’ (133 – SC 47.) *(perpetuate – to continue indefinitely).
I. THE EUCHARIST–SOURCE AND SUMMIT OF ECCLESIAL LIFE
Para 1324
The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” (134 – LG 11) The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.” (135- PO 5)
Para 1325
“The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being.” (136 – Congregation of Rites instruction, Eucharisticum mysterium, 6.)
PARA 1327
In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: “Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.”(138 – St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres 4, 18, 5: PG 7/1, 1028.)
PARA 1330 The memorial of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection.
The Holy Sacrifice, because it makes present the one sacrifice of Christ, the Savior and includes the Church’s offering. The terms holy sacrifice of the Mass, “sacrifice of praise,” spiritual sacrifice,pure and holy sacrifice are also used,(148) since it completes and surpasses all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant. We speak of the MostBlessed Sacrament because it is the Sacrament of sacraments. (148 – Heb. 13:15; cf. 1 Peter 2:5; Psalm 116:13,17; Mal. 1:11.)
PARA 1331
Holy Communion, because by this sacrament we unite ourselves to Christ, who makes us sharers in his Body and Blood to form a single body. (149 – Cf. 1 Cor 10:16,17.)
PARA 1332
Holy Mass (Missa), because the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished concludes in the sending forth (missio) of the faithful, so that they may fulfill God’s will in their daily lives.
III. THE EUCHARIST IN THE ECONOMY OF SALVATION
The signs of bread and wine
PARA 1333
At the heart of the Eucharist celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ’s Body and Blood.
PARA 1336
“The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. “Will you also go away?” : the Lord’s question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has “the words of eternal life” (160) and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself. (160 – Jn 668)
PARA 1337
In order to leave them a pledge of this love, in order never to depart from his own and to make them sharers in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and Resurrection, and commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return; thereby he constituted them priests of the New Testament.” (162 – Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740.)
PARA 1340
By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning. Jesus passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the Church in the glory of the kingdom.
“Do this in memory of me”
PARA 1341
The command of Jesus to repeat his actions and words “until he comes” does not only ask us to remember Jesus and what he did. It is directed at the liturgical celebration, by the apostles and their successors, of the memorial of Christ, of his life, of his death, of his Resurrection, and of his intercession in the presence of the Father.” (165 – cf. 1 Cor 11:26.)
IV. THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST
The Mass of all ages
PARA 1345
As early as the second century we have the witness of St. Justin Martyr for the basic lines of the order of the Eucharistic celebration. They have stayed the same until our own day for all the great liturgical families. St. Justin wrote to the pagan emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) around the year 155, explaining what Christians did:
On the day we call the day of the sun, all who dwell in the city or country gather in the same place. The memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets are read, as much as time permits. When the reader has finished, he who presides over those gathered admonishes and challenges them to imitate these beautiful things. Then we all rise together and offer prayers* for ourselves…and for all others, wherever they may be, so that we may be found righteous by our life and actions, and faithful to the commandments, so as to obtain eternal salvation. (the text before the asterisk (*) is from chap. 67)
PARA 1350
The presentation of the offerings (the Offertory).
Then, sometimes in procession, the bread and wine are brought to the altar; they will be offered by the priest in the name of Christ in the Eucharistic sacrifice in which they will become his body and blood. It is the very action of Christ at the Last Supper–“taking the bread and a cup.” The Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator, when she offers what comes forth from his creation with thanksgiving.” (175)
PARA 1353
In the epiclesis,theChurch asks the Father to send his Holy Spirit (or the power of his blessing 178) on the bread and wine, so that by his power they may become the body and blood of Jesus Christ and so that those who take part in the Eucharist may be one body and one spirit (some liturgical traditions put the epiclesis after the anamnesis).
In the institution narrative , the power of the words and the action of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, make sacramentally present under the species of bread and wine Christ’s body and blood, his sacrifice offered on the cross once for all. (178 – Cf. Romans Missal, EP I (Roman Canon) 90.)
PARA 1354
In the intercessions, the Church indicates that the Eucharist is celebrated in communion with the whole Church in heaven and on earth, the living and the dead, and in communion with the pastors of the Church, the Pope, the diocesan bishop, his presbyterium and his deacons, and all the bishops of the whole world together with their Churches.
PARA 1355
Because this bread and wine have been made Eucharist (eucharisted,” according to an ancient expression), we call this food Eucharist, and no one may take part in it unless he believes that what we teach is true, has received baptism for the forgiveness of sins and new birth, and lives in keeping with what Christ taught.”(180 – St. Justin, Apol. 1, 66, 1-2: PG 6, 428.)
V. THE SACRAMENTAL SACRIFICE: THANKSGIVING, MEMORIAL, PRESENCE
PARA 1357
We carry out this command of the Lord by celebrating the memorial of his sacrifice. In so doing, we offer to the Father what he has himself given us: the gifts of his creation, bread and wine which, by the power of the Holy Spirit and by the words of Christ, have become the body and blood of Christ. Christ is thus really and mysteriously made present.
PARA 1364
In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present: the sacrifice Christ offers once for all on the cross remains ever present.(183) As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed’ is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out.”(184) (183 – Cf. Heb 7:25-27) (184 – LG 3; cf. 1 Cor 5:7)
PARA 1365
Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice.(185) In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”(186) (185 – Luke 22:19-20) (186 – Mt. 26:28)
PARA 1366
The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:
[Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.(187 – Council of Trent (1562): DS 1740; cf. 1 Cor 11:23; Heb 7:24,27.)
PARA 1367
The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner…this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”(188 – Council of Trent (1562) Doctrina de ss. Missae sacrificio, c. 2: DS 1743; cf. Heb 9:14,27)
PARA 1368
The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, suffering, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value, Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.
PARA 1369
The whole church is united with the offering and intercession of Christ. Since he has the ministry of Peter in the Church, the Pope is associated with every celebration of the Eucharist, wherein he is named as the sign and servant of the unity of the universal Church.
PARA 1370
To the offering of Christ are united not only the members still here on earth, but also those already in the glory of heaven. In the communion with and commemorating the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, the Church offers the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the Eucharist the Church is as it were at the foot of the cross with Mary, united with the offering and intercession of Christ.
PARA 1371
The Eucharistic sacrifice is also offered for the faithful departed who “have died in Christ but are not yet wholly purified,”(191) so that they may be able to enter into the light and peace of Christ:
Put this body anywhere! Don’t trouble yourselves about it! I simply ask you to remember me at the Lord’s altar wherever you are.(192)
Then, we pray [in the anaphora] for the holy fathers and bishops who have fallen asleep and in general for all who have fallen asleep before us, in the belief that it is a great benefit to the souls on whose behalf the supplication is offered, while the holy and tremendous Victim is present.
(191 – Council of Trent (1562): DS 1743.) (192 – St. Monica before her death, to her sons, St. Augustine and his brothers; Conf. 9,11, 27: PL 32, 775.)
PARA 1374
The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as the “perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.”(199) In the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.“(200)”This presence is called ‘real’–by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God, and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (201)(199 -St. Thomas Aquinas STb III, 73, 3c.) (200 – Council of Trent (1551): DS 1651) (201 – Pope Paul VI, MF 39.)
PARA 1375
It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. The Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion. Thus St. John Chrysostom declares:
It is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself. The priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered. (202 – St. John Chrysostom, prod. Jud. 1:6: PG 49, 380.)
Para 1376
The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. The change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”(204 – Council of Trent (1551): DS 1642; cf. Mt. 26:26 ff.; Mk 14:22 ff.; Lk 22:19 ff.; 1 Cor 11:24 ff.)
CLOSING COMMENTS
There is so much more that I could say, but this post has already exceeded well over 6000 words, so it’s time for me to bring this post to a close. So, dear Catholic and dear reader, whomever you may be, if you took the time to read through this whole post you either already know or now see that the main teachings of the Catholic church are built upon the belief that what Jesus said at the time of the Last Supper as He gathered with his disciples was spoken in a truly literal sense. However, if you will take the time to read the Word of God in context you will see that Jesus Christ was speaking figuratively –not literally. I pray that every precious Catholic would pick up a Bible and read through John Chapter 6 so that they can see Scripture in context. If they are seeking the truth God will use His Word to open their eyes so that they will come to understand all that Jesus Christ truly accomplished for us and they will then be able to grasp the truly good news of the Biblical gospel!
When Jesus Christ said, “I am the door/gate,” (John 10:9), do you truly believe that He was saying He was made of wood with a knob or handle of some sort? Of course not. The same can be said regarding when Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World,” (John 8:12), and, “I am the True Vine.” (John 15:1) Jesus was not saying that He was the sun or a huge spotlight giving light to the world, or that he was a vine with leaves. He was speaking figuratively in order to present spiritual truths. With all of that in mind, let’s take a look at some Scriptures that the Catholic church bases their teachings upon in order to try and establish their claim that the bread and wine literally become not only the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but also His soul and divinity.
Keeping in mind the verses above and their spiritual — not literal — meaning, please take a moment now to pray; ask God to give you understanding and discernment as you read through John Chapter 6:
“I tell you the truth: he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died. But the bread that comes down from heaven is such that whoever eats it will not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live. This started an angry argument among the Jews. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you will not have life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him to life on the last day. For my flesh is the real food, my blood is the real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him. The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way, whoever eats me will live because of me. This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate, but then died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.” Jesus said this as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum. Many of his disciples heard this and said, “This teaching is too hard. Who can listen to this?” Without being told, Jesus knew that his disciples were grumbling about this; so he said to them, “Does this make you want to give up? Suppose, then, that you should see the Son of Man go back up to the place where he was before? What gives life is God’s Spirit; man’s power is of no use at all. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. Yet some of you do not believe.” (Jesus knew from the very beginning who were the ones that would not believe, and which one would betray him.)” (John 6:47-64)
The preceding verses in Chapter 6, (mainly verses 25-35) give clarity to the spiritual truth that Jesus was presenting to the crowd of people that had gathered, and that was: coming to Him was equivalent to satisfying one’s hunger, and believing in Him was equivalent to drinking and satisfying one’s thirst –both being presented in a spiritual sense:
“When the people found Jesus on the other side of the lake they said to him, “Teacher, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth: you are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my works of power. Do not work for food that spoils; instead, work for the food that lasts for eternal life. This food the Son of Man will give you, because God, the Father, has put his mark of approval on him.” So they asked him, “What can we do in order to do God’s works?” Jesus answered, “This is the work God wants you to do: believe in the one he sent.” They replied, “What sign of power will you perform so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, just as the scripture says, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said. “What Moses gave you was not the bread from heaven; it is my Father who gives you the real bread from heaven. For the bread that God gives is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they asked him, “give us this bread always.” “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Now, I told you that you have seen me but will not believe.”
There is no second chance to be purified of sins after death; there is no such place called purgatory. After we die we immediately stand before God. (Hebrews 9:27) Also, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, in light of the fact that they declare that the Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in an unbloody manner (CCC Para 1367), then according to the Word of God (Hebrews 9:22) it is impossible for it to bring about the forgiveness of sins!
God’s Word is clear:
“Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God.” (Hebrews 9:27) (SHLCNT)
“Indeed, according to the Law, almost everything is made clean by blood; and sins are forgiven only if blood is poured out.” (Hebrews 9:22) (SHLCNT)
So, dear Catholic (or dear reader, whomever you may be), simply take God at His Word. Believe that Jesus Christ’s once for all sacrifice on the cross was totallysufficient to pay the debt for every single one of our sins — no matter how horrific that may be! Trust in the words that Jesus Christ shouted out loud on the cross in victory right before He died, “It is finished!”
To continue offering the ‘Sacrifice of the Mass‘ and participating in it and believing that every ‘Mass’ “is truly propitiatory,“(Para 1367 CCC) is to say that all the sufferings that Jesus Christ endured on our behalf and all the blood that He shed was not sufficient to pay for our sins in full! Accept the free gift of salvation that was paid with the costly precious blood of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, and rejoice and praise Him for all that He did to provide the only way for you to have your sins forgiven and the only way for you to have a relationship with God, the Father, and that is by coming to Him through Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who willingly became man to live the sinless, perfect life that we could never live to become the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.
Once again, dear Catholic, you must decide between believing the truth that is revealed in God’s Word or the Traditions of the Catholic Church:
“Are you going to believe the Word of God, or the word of man?”
RELATED SCRIPTURES
“We believe the witness that men give; the witness that God gives is much stronger, and this is the witness that God has given about his Son. So whoever believes in the Son of God has this witness in his heart; but whoever does not believe God has made a liar out of him, because he has not believed what God has said as a witness about his Son. This, then, is the witness: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.I write you this so that you may know that you have eternal life–you that believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:9-13) (SHLCNT)
“The Jewish High Priest goes into the Holy Place every year with the blood of an animal. But Christ did not go in to offer himself many times; for then he would have had to suffer many times ever since the creation of the world. Instead, he has appeared once and for all, when all ages of time are nearing the end, to remove sin through the sacrifice of himself. Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God. In the same manner, Christ also was offered in sacrifice once to take away the sins of many. He will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are waiting for him.” (Hebrews 9:25-28) (SHLCNT)
“Every Jewish priest stands and performs his services every day and offers the same sacrifices many times. But these sacrifices can never take away sins. Christ, however, offered one sacrifice for sins, an offering that is good forever, and then sat down at the right side of God.” (Hebrews 10:11,12) (SHLCNT)
“I do not reject the grace of God. If a man is put right with God through the Law, it means that Christ died for nothing!”(Galatians 2:21) (SHLCNT)
“See to it, then, that no one makes a captive of you with the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by men, and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ.” (Colossians 2:8)
“You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins, and because you were Gentiles without the Law. But God has now brought you to life with Christ; God forgave us all our sins. He cancelled the unfavorable record of our debts, with its binding rules, and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross. And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities; he made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession.” (Colossians 2:13-15)(SHLCNT)
“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spend our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. It was not because of any good works that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us through the washing by which the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and new life. God poured out the Holy Spirit abundantly on us, through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that by his grace we might be put right with God and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for. This is a true saying.” (Titus 3:3-8a)(SHLCNT)
“For you know what was paid to set you free from the worthless manner of life you received from your ancestors. It was not something that loses its value, such as silver or gold; you were set free by the costly sacrifice of Christ, who was like a lamb without defect or spot.”(1 Peter 1:18,19)(SHLCNT)
“Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers: But with theprecious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.” (1 Peter 1:18,19 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Version)
“For Christ himself died for you; once and for all he died for sins, a good man for bad men, in order to lead you to God.”(1 Peter 3:18) (SHLCNT)
“Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that he might offer us to God…” (1 Peter 3:18 – Douay-Rheims Catholic Version)
“For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18 – King James Version)
[NOTE: Emphasis in bold print is mine.]
RELATED VIDEOS
DOCTRINE OF THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS – COUNCIL OF TRENT – 1562
CHAPTERS 1 AND 2
CHAPTERS 3 – 6
CHAPTERS 7 – 9
THE MASS AND CANONS
SOME OF THE ANATHEMAS (CURSES) SPOKEN BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AGAINST THOSE WHO WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES:
Desiring for God to use all that I have been through in life, I decided to start my first blog, living4hisglory.wordpress.com, in order to write poems about some of those experiences to bring glory to God, as well as to share them with others with the hope of encouraging those of you who have been broken and shattered by life's circumstances and hurt by those who were supposed to have loved you rather than abuse you in some way.
Also, because of some pastors and teachers today who seem to be abandoning Biblical Christianity and instead seem to be either seeking to build their own empires and promoting their own agendas, and at times even leading the people in their churches into unbiblical, 'mystical practices' without some people even realizing it, I saw the importance and necessity to begin writing poems and posts in order to inform Christians, as well as to make Christians realize the extreme importance of testing what people say (who claim to speak for God) against the truth of God's Word, (Acts 17:11) so that they will not be deceived. It has never been -- nor shall it ever be -- my intention to bash any particular pastor or teacher; my sole purpose in bringing attention to false teachings is to make Christians realize that we are to be followers of Jesus Christ, and not to be followers of any man (or woman) and his (or her) ministry. I hope that you will be blessed -- as well as challenged -- by the things that I write.
NOTE: COMMENTS ON ALL POSTS CLOSE ONE MONTH AFTER THEY ARE PUBLISHED.
Thank you for stopping by and taking time to read some of my posts and poems.
God Bless You
~Mary - Living4HisGlory
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Mary K. Dalke and Living4HisGlory Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
NOTE: Any adds that may be displayed on my blog have not been chosen or approved by me; I can't even see any adds that WordPress chooses to post here.
Desiring for God to use all that I have been through in life, I decided to start my first blog, living4hisglory.wordpress.com, in order to write poems about some of those experiences to bring glory to God, as well as to share them with others with the hope of encouraging those of you who have been broken and shattered by life's circumstances and hurt by those who were supposed to have loved you rather than abuse you in some way.
Also, because of some pastors and teachers today who seem to be abandoning Biblical Christianity and instead seem to be either seeking to build their own empires and promoting their own agendas, and at times even leading the people in their churches into unbiblical, 'mystical practices' without some people even realizing it, I saw the importance and necessity to begin writing poems and posts in order to inform Christians, as well as to make Christians realize the extreme importance of testing what people say (who claim to speak for God) against the truth of God's Word, (Acts 17:11) so that they will not be deceived. It has never been -- nor shall it ever be -- my intention to bash any particular pastor or teacher; my sole purpose in bringing attention to false teachings is to make Christians realize that we are to be followers of Jesus Christ, and not to be followers of any man (or woman) and his (or her) ministry. I hope that you will be blessed -- as well as challenged -- by the things that I write.
NOTE: COMMENTS ON ALL POSTS CLOSE ONE MONTH AFTER THEY ARE PUBLISHED.
Thank you for stopping by and taking time to read some of my posts and poems.
God Bless You
~Mary - Living4HisGlory
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Mary K. Dalke and Living4HisGlory Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
NOTE: Any adds that may be displayed on my blog have not been chosen or approved by me; I can't even see any adds that WordPress chooses to post here.
(SOURCE)
Mary Dalke - Living4HisGlory
Living4HisGlory 