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| Democrat trashAfter the cheering crowds left the Democrat convention, thousands of American flags were found on the ground along with all the other trash left behind. A worker collected them and they will be RECYCLED and used at a McCain rally. Note the similarity between these pictures, both courtesy of Democrat politics:
 
If you can't tell, that's a bag of aborted babies, found in a dumpster behind an abortion mill. Note the little one in the bottom left corner. A "mass of tissue"?? I hardly think so.....
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| The gates of hell will not prevailOne of the bolder claims the Catholic Church makes about itself is the gift of infallibility - not that the Pope and the Magisterium (the Church's teaching body), as individuals, never make an error, but that in matters of faith and morals, the Holy Spirit protects the Church from error. Consider just these 2 instances of God's clear protection of the teaching of the Church:
Sheldon Vanauken is the author of a very well-known book, "A Severe Mercy," and a lesser-known book, "Under the Mercy." The latter book is not so much a story as the evolution of his thoughts on various topics: the writing of "A Severe Mercy," feminism, the four loves (a la CS Lewis and done in a more understandable way, frankly), and his conversion to the Catholic Church. Among the reasons for his conversion is the logical evidence of the Church's protection from doctrinal error throughout the centuries.
One of the evidences he offers is the bad popes. Out of 266 popes over the last 2 millenia, there have been about a dozen bad ones. But as Vanauken points out, "not a one of them altered the doctrine of the Church." He writes, "In the very year that Henry VIII's obedient Parliament named him head of the English church, Pope Paul III went through the streets of Rome in sackcloth and ashes for the sins of his predecessors -- but not for their errors in doctrine. That is the significant fact: not what the good popes did, but what the bad ones didn't do."
And today I heard a second evidence presented that can only be the work of the Holy Spirit in the teaching of the Church. Prior to 1930, every Christian denomination taught that artificial contraception was a grave moral evil. Beginning with the Anglican church, one by one, Christian denominations have caved on this issue, allowing for couples to use contraception if they feel it is the right thing to do.
The Pill came along. Scientists believed that the Pill worked by blocking ovulation: no egg, no baby. In the turbulent 1960's, tremendous pressure was brought to bear on the Catholic Church to change its teaching on contraception, to "get with the times." The pressure came both from within and without the Church.
Imagine the shock and dismay among many Catholics, religious and lay, when, in 1968, Pope Paul VI produced the encyclical "Humanae Vitae." Everyone expected him to cave in, but he did not. He held that the Church's teaching has always been and would always be that sexuality must be open to life and to do otherwise is to thwart the intent of God.
What an uproar ensued! And to this day, many Catholics simply ignore the teaching of the Church to their own moral peril.
The very interesting fact is this: The Church has always taught that life begins at conception. Scientists taught that the Pill prevented conception, so what's the big deal?? The Holy Spirit, though, knew that not only does the Pill usually prevent ovulation, but that it sometimes fails to do so. That means that a woman on the Pill can still get pregnant! A new life can be created. BUT, the Pill also makes the lining of the uterus unable to sustain life and so the new life is spontaneously ABORTED. This bit of scientific fact has only recently been discovered.
Pope Paul VI, protected by the Holy Spirit, prevented the Church from teaching error. Once again, the gates of hell did not prevail. | | |
| Is God like government? Are his laws as arbitrary and fickle as the
government's? You would say NO, but most people behave as if it is YES.
The law says the speed limit is 40 miles per hour, but we push it a
bit. 45 is OK, isn't it? Business write-offs? Most anything that might
work is made to work. Rules in schools (hey I'm a poet) are the most
unenforced and unenforceable, relying as they do on the co-operation of
children who have NOTHING to fear. What we do in the dark, what
government can't see, we try to get away with constantly.
What is the purpose of government laws? If you said "to restrain evil,"
I would say you are correct. Gov't doesn't try to get us to do good.
That in itself is a good thing. Would you want gov't defining what is
"good"? Given today's liberal abortion laws, I would say "Absolutely
not!"
But God's laws? Yes, for the most part, the Big 10 do restrain evil,
but to what end? So that we might have life, an abundant life. Read the
Sermon on the Mount which includes the beautiful Beatitudes in Matthew
chapters 5-7. These are lofty goals for living a very good life.
So, why do we treat God's laws as if they were gov't laws, written by
some ignorant bureaucrat, out for his own aggrandizment, trying to
control an evil population? God's laws are for our good. We ought not
try to skirt them, get around them, or rationalize them, as we are only
hurting ourselves and our society.
One of the many reasons I believe that the Catholic Church is the
church founded in the beginning by Jesus Christ is its unwavering
stance on these particular moral evils: contraception, abortion, and
divorce. In 1930, EVERY Christian church declared these behaviors to be
evil. Today, to the best of my knowledge, every church except the
Catholic Church has folded on one or more of these issues. Does truth
change? Do God's laws change?
If a cop's not in sight, you can get away with going 45 in a 40, but
you are always in God's sight and His laws are good and right and
life-giving. You do yourself no good to disobey Him. Give thanks that
He cares so much for us that He has given us guidelines that lead to an
abundant life.
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| The end of a long journey.....It's hard to get started describing the Easter Vigil Mass because what I received and how it felt is somewhat beyond words. Bottom line is that I have ceased to be a part of the Protestant churches, all 30,000 of them, and have been received into the Church founded by Christ on Peter, the Rock, and which has existed continuously for 2000 years, the visible Church of Christ on earth with a visible head, Benedict, and a visible structure. I received the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Communion. I received the True Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ and all the grace that attaches to these Sacraments. I have been given power from on high, and graces to which I had imperfect access before. And as strength is needed, the Body of Christ is now available to me every day of the week. Heavenly food. I have a system of Christian doctrine which has been perfected for 2000 years which I no longer need to figure out on my own. (I tried that. Scripture alone is simply not enough information. If it were, there would be one Protestant church - not 30,000. That's simply logic.) It's no longer just 'me 'n Jesus,' but I recognize that I have the host of Heaven, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the saints, and the angels in my life. I participate in a beautiful, reverent time of worship, the Mass, in which the focus is on Christ and not my emotions. I have a full Bible, all 73 books in the original, not missing the 7 books removed by Martin Luther. What more could I want?
I thank God for bringing me home at last!
"This is My Body; this is My Blood..."
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| “I never approved of a schism, nor will I approve of it for all eternity. . . . That the Roman Church is more honored by God than all others is not to be doubted. St, Peter and St. Paul, forty-six Popes, some hundreds of thousands of martyrs, have laid down their lives in its communion, having overcome Hell and the world; so that the eyes of God rest on the Roman church with special favor. Though nowadays everything is in a wretched state, it is no ground for separating from the Church. On the contrary, the worse things are going, the more should we hold close to her, for it is not by separating from the Church that we can make her better. We must not separate from God on account of any work of the devil, nor cease to have fellowship with the children of God who are still abiding in the pale of Rome on account of the multitude of the ungodly. There is no sin, no amount of evil, which should be permitted to dissolve the bond of charity or break the bond of unity of the body. For love can do all things, and nothing is difficult to those who are united.”
Martin Luther to Pope Leo X, January 6, 1519
more than a year after the Ninety-Five Theses
quoted in The Facts about Luther, 356 | | |
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