Layers - in the knowledge of God and the path to holiness
Learning about God is like unwrapping a head of lettuce, pealing back one leaf at a time. Always there is another leaf below. We will eventually reach the center of the head of lettuce; but we will never unwrap everthing there is to know about God.
The path to holiness is like pealing an onion. God shows us what is sinful and convicts us that we have sinned. No matter how sweet the onion, there are always tears in the peeling. No matter how sweet the grace of repentence, there are always the pain of letting go of the sin. As the peeling of the onion reveals another layer, so God shows us what we lack in holiness, drawing us ever closer to "be(ing) perfect even just as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48
What I Believe
Why I am and always will be a Catholic. "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, 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; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. Tthe living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever." John 6:53-58 The words and actions of man cannot sanctify. Only the priest, empowered by his ordination, can invoke the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into Jesus so we can receive Him - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity into our bodies and souls. This is the core of the Catholic Church; without this there is no purpose or meaning to the Catholic Church. There are other ways to holiness, to grow in grace; there is no better way than union with Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Doctrine
“It is not true just because it is Catholic doctrine; it is
Catholic doctrine because it is true.”
Scott Hahn Swear to God
We look at Catholic Doctrine and see it as a list of things
we ought to believe. Apologetics defends
Catholic doctrine by looking to Scripture and Tradition; but this is working
backwards from the doctrine from our position in time. Back in the early Church there was no
doctrine per se. The early Christians
had to ask, “What is true?” They looked
to the Traditions of the Church, both written and oral; and they make
declarations on what was to be believed (doctrine). There were many disagreements. Many broke off from the faithful because they
had a different view of what was true.
We need to rely on the promise of Jesus that the Holy Spirit would be
with the Church, guiding the Church. If
we cannot believe in this promise then we cannot trust anything purported by
Christianity. Everything then needs to
be proved over and over again. One
cannot trust what has been declared before, but one must discover the truth for
oneself, one on one with the Holy Spirit.
One then becomes a church of one only allying oneself with others of
similar beliefs. The unity, which Jesus
prayed for at the Last Supper in the Gospel of John, becomes impossible. Only the belief that the Holy Spirit is
guiding the Church and has guided the Church from the beginning can lead to a
unity of belief. That belief is the
doctrine of the Catholic Church.
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