| Who I Am About Me My Interests Family & Friends What I Do St. Therese School My Desk Other Aspects Art Gallery Fantasy Page News Links Song now playing: "The Church's One Foundation," Traditional Catholic Hymn This page last modified May 16, 2004 |
 |
| I am a Catholic. By calling myself a Catholic, I mean: I am a Christian of the most ancient kind -- one who absolutely believes that Jesus of Nazareth, who really lived and walked the earth 2,000 years ago -- was, and is, God Almighty. Not just a good man. Not merely even a holy man. And not some wimp who went around patting children's heads, telling everybody to turn the other cheek. God Almighty, in the flesh. I believe that God is a Trinity of Persons -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit -- each of whom fully possesses the Divine Nature, and yet is distinct from the others. Each is totally, fully, God. I believe that the Second Person took flesh of the Virgin Mary and walked the earth for approximately 33 years -- God, becoming one of His own creatures, God, living on earth. During that time, He spoke and acted as no other, healing the sick, opening the ears of the deaf, making the lame walk. Even the dead were not beyond His power. His death on the Cross restored man's relationship to God, broken by our first parents. It did not suddenly make me not responsible for my sins -- as if God were somehow granting a free pass into heaven just for believing. One cooperates with God's grace by doing His will, which involves action. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17), and a person is not justified in the sight of God -- does not have a good enough reason to enter heaven -- on the basis of faith alone, apart from works (cf. James 2:24). I believe in the Resurrection -- a historical fact. That many of His followers who saw and heard Him went to their deaths without ever confessing to a lie ought to speak volumes. People do not die for a daydream; Jesus's followers who gave up their lives for their belief in His divinity weren't going on mere faith -- they'd seen Him alive after His death; the lie would have been to deny that He had risen. They knew entirely that He was alive. I believe that He ascended into Heaven, and will one day come again to judge the living and the dead. Finally, I believe that while on earth, Jesus Christ left a visible means by which to continue His presence on earth, and which will exist until the end of time. It's called the Catholic Church. This entity exists to teach in the very Name of God -- and with Jesus's own authority, a fact that many Catholics nowadays would prefer to forget. The Catholic Church did not start itself, and did not invent any of its teachings. The world can concern itself with other matters, but the Church has two areas in which it absolutely cannot officially teach error: doctrine and morals. Put another way, when it comes to what is true and false spiritually, and right and wrong morally, the Church is prevented by the Holy Spirit from ever declaring something other than what God has established. If it ever did teach error in those areas, guess what -- it would not be the Church that Jesus founded. It's that simple. If Jesus Himself established the Catholic Church to teach in His Name, then it must be absolutely trustworthy, because its Founder is absolutely trustworthy. Jesus did not teach the truth some of the time, or even most of the time -- He taught the truth all of the time, because He is Truth itself. He left the Church to do exactly the same thing. It doesn't make sense to say that even though God is always truthful, the very entity He created to preserve that truth can somehow get it wrong. Remember, the areas in which the Church exists to teach the truth -- faith and morals -- are the only two areas that bear directly on our getting into heaven. Really, they go hand in hand: what we believe morally and spiritually translates into our actions. And when it comes to our souls, God doesn't fool around -- if He knew that the one entity He gave to the world to help people attain heaven would, at any point, mislead even a single person by teaching something false -- He would never have created it. It's that serious. Either the Catholic Church is right in all of its spiritual and moral teachings, or it is not the Church founded by Jesus. And this Church has taught the same things for almost 2,000 years. Along the way it has come to better and more fully understand the truth it is meant to teach, but that's similar to understanding math: nine times nine was always eighty-one, but we first have to learn the basic truth that one plus one is two. Eventually we'll understand the deeper concepts. It's amazing to see how Catholic the first Christians were; indeed, the very first believers in Christ were the first Catholics. They had the Mass, the Sacraments (especially the Eucharist), an ordained priesthood, the Pope, even devotion to Mary from early on. They prayed for their deceased. They went to Confession. Even though all these things have changed their external forms over the centuries, they were always part of Christian life -- there was no such thing as do-it-yourself Christianity. A First-Century believer, transported to the present day, would find himself horrified at Protestantism in all its forms -- he'd wonder why no Mass, no Sacraments, no priesthood, no Successor of Peter... why so many missing things. The only environment he'd even remotely understand would be a Catholic one. That's because he'd be a Catholic. I'm proud to say that I believe the Faith of the Apostles, the only faith that truly satisfies the mind and the heart, because God has revealed it, and He can neither deceive nor be deceived. |
 |
 |
 |