Friday, April 13, 2007

Keep coming home

Mark Shea points out someone who proclaims to have the Truth. She asks us Catholics, Can you handle the truth?
Mr. Truth Teller meets Mr. Duped

Truth Teller was walking down the street, and somehow gets into a conversation with a seemingly nice person. The topic of eternal salvation comes up. This seemingly nice person claims to be a fellow believer, yet he starts describing rituals and traditions that are not in the Bible, but are the opposite of what the Bible says in many places.

Truth Teller tries to alert this duped person to the fact that mere man is duping him, and shows him from the Bible what the truth is. Mr. Duped takes offence.

“How dare you be so hateful of me? You hater! You are putting down my religion, you horrible person you!”

Who’s the real hater here? Truth Teller, who is trying to help Mr. Duped? No. Truth Teller is warning Mr. Duped, out of LOVE. But apparently Mr. Duped hates it. :-(

If you’re a Roman Catholic, you may very well be duped. I’m going to warn you about it, and you can call me all the names you wish, but I’m going to shout out the truth anyhow.
One commentor rightly pointed out some misunderstandings in your notion of infallibility. But there is another point I must draw your attention too.

You refer often to the teaching of God versus the teaching of man. Meaning you find the teaching of God in the Bible while the Catholic Church follows the teaching of man.

Then I ask, how do you know the Bible is true? And where did you get it from? The KJV was sanctioned by King James (a man), was it not? And how do you know the Bible has been handed onto you without error? I assume no one is going to claim Jesus handed them their Bible personally.

Some institution of 'man' has preserved that Bible and translated it into the tongue of the people for 1500 years before another MAN came along and decided he knew better than history and the Holy Spirit guided Church.

But when some of the comments here point out that they disagree with some other Protestants and the different sect such as Mormons, then you must stop to think, who is following the tradition of man? And where is the Truth?

Sure, the Church has many warts. God chose to use man to save his people from sin. The big difference is that Jesus did not have sin. All of us, Catholic and otherwise are subject to sin. Hence we fall short.

But before you dismiss the "rituals" of the Catholic Church, read Revelations and then stop by a Mass sometime. You will see prayers right out of Revelations. The Holy, Holy, Holy for example. And on Sunday Mass, you will hear 4 readings from the Bible! And these readings are picked from the Old Testament, Psalms, Epistles and Gospel. And guess what, they are chosen because they relate.

That is the wonder of the Catholic Church. It has been around for 2000 years protecting the Bible, the faith and the teachings of the Apostles.

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