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@catalexandriae
"That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."
John 17:21-23, ESV
“Mary did you know” is not meant to be a literal questioning of Mary’s knowledge. Wasting time debating the theology of what mary did know or did not know shows that one’s comprehension skills are lacking.
The question is rhetorical. It’s phrased as such to juxtapose the beautiful cozy moment we like to think of with the baby in the manger against the reality of who Jesus was and all that he came to do.
That’s it. That’s all it is.
The asking the question isn't the problem. It's when she's asked if she knew "the she child that [she] delivered would soon deliver [her]"
She was saved at the moment of her Immaculate Conception. This song is blasphemous. It can never be tolerated.
Well in the chronological order of time as humans experience it, the delivering act (death and resurrection of Christ) had not yet occurred, even though its effects are applied outside of time, since God is not bound by time.
Me in front of non-catholic friends: it's your life, none of my business. You'll see me being catholic and I'll answer any questions you want to make, but I won't be bothering you arguing religion. We don't do proselytism here. You do you.
Me, on the floor, in front of Jesus in the Eucharistic: pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaepelspeplspepsppelpleasepleaseplspepeaepplease
on one hand, i don’t think Mary was a child when she gave birth, and I don’t like the insistence by non Christians that Mary’s pregnancy was statutory rape and forced impregnation, as it’s historically and theologically unsound and only used as a ‘gotcha!’ instead of a jumping board for real discussion. but also, I think that in this day and age, the narrative of an impoverished, unmarried teenager having an unplanned pregnancy that just so happens to be Divine represents the spirit of the gospels far better than a Mary bathed in white light dressed in gold with perfect curls as she cradles a white blond Jesus to her chest
She was married when the Angel Gabriel visited her and when she conceived Jesus.
apologies for the heavy ask but
is self harm a sin?
no
How to believe, even when you don't.
I've received several asks over the last few months from people struggling with their faith, and seeking advice on how to keep it. "How do we know there is actually a God?" and "Somedays I doubt that this is the true religion". I've pondered for awhile on how to answer these asks in a meaningful way. It's something I've struggled with a lot in my adult life. I'm fundamentally legalistic in my belief. I've never had an emotional connection to my faith, or felt the "personal love" of Christ in prayer, or had that beautiful childlike instinct to run to Him with my problems. Part of that is my nature: I'm pragmatic, prioritize efficiency, and have an intuition for logic over emotional responses. My practice is from disciplined habit rather than any personal joy or takeaway. I don't feel my faith, I think my faith. There are times, however, when I'm in Mass reading the dreary Gospel, or saying the cryptic Vesper Psalm of the day with my husband, and that doubt creeps into my mind: I'm not sure I believe any of this. What does one do with such thoughts? We can't quash them, because they'll surely grow more confident with a lack of substantial resistance. But giving in helplessly to doubt is intellectually unjust. For those who think their faith (such as me), understanding a theologically-interwoven philosophy is not just a good: it's absolutely essential. We don't keep to what we cannot parse or analyze. I'm envious of those who successfully believe in Christianity with the blind faith of the illiterate peasants of history, wholeheartedly committed to a supernatural presence they have absolutely no intellectual reason to believe in. Instead, I have the questioning mind of St. Thomas Aquinas, challenging every aspect of my religion, without his beautiful ability to meet such disputes with answers. So I read Aquinas, who does have the answers. I read the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy he models Christianity after. I've read St. Augustine's Confessions twice, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy once, smatterings of Saints Jerome and Ambrose. I am not the first to raise doubts -- in two-thousand years of Church history, so many knowledgeable men and women have tackled the hardest questions. It'd be an intellectual crime to ignore the philosophical wealth at my metaphorical doorstep, to stop believing just because I do not have every answer. Blind doubt is not a substitute for blind faith. And, at a certain point, all people must humble themselves to admit that they will never understand 100% of existence. It doesn't matter if your faith is in a supreme being, or "scientific explanation" (which aren't mutually exclusive but I digress) -- sooner or later, you will be overwhelmed by how insanely complex and layered every fabric of life and our existence are. Even with all my reading, and studying, and conviction of theologian and philosopher's reasoning regarding the necessary existence of God and souls, it doesn't completely eliminate doubt. There are chinks in the armor. It all seems so thoroughly complex and convoluted and intricate that some days, that understanding turns right back into perplexing and wondering, "How can this be true?" It at once is impossible, and yet, the only logical answer. Because I've been convinced the alternative (that there is no God, no Will, no Objective Truth) cannot be based in any sound philosophical reasoning. So no matter how often I disbelieve.... I yet continue to believe in it. Friends, if you are like me, you must give your faith a fair chance. Atheism/agnosticism is not the default; the concept that there is nothing must philosophically prove itself as much as the concept that there is something. Read the Summa Theologicae -- if you must, the cliffnotes version first. Thomas Aquinas' sheer perchance for unshakeable logic is what keeps me grounded in my belief even when it seems too complex to believe in. My intellectualism is both curse and gift: I am dissatisfied with what I can't understand, and yet I am unable to deny sense where I find it. Do not ignore your doubts. Seek
them out, confront them, and put them to trial. And when you arrive more assured at the inevitable mystery of existence, it will be easier to believe, even when you don't.
"43. The faithful should stand from the beginning of the Entrance chant, or while the priest approaches the altar, until the end of the collect; for the Alleluia chant before the Gospel; while the Gospel itself is proclaimed; during the Profession of Faith and the Prayer of the Faithful; from the invitation, Orate, fratres (Pray, brethren), before the prayer over the offerings until the end of Mass, except at the places indicated below.
They should, however, sit while the readings before the Gospel and the responsorial Psalm are proclaimed and for the homily and while the Preparation of the Gifts at the Offertory is taking place; and, as circumstances allow, they may sit or kneel while the period of sacred silence after Communion is observed.
In the dioceses of the United States of America, they should kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic Prayer, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present, or some other good reason. Those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow when the priest genuflects after the consecration. The faithful kneel after the Agnus Dei unless the diocesan Bishop determines otherwise.[53]"
From the General Instruction of the Roman Missal
The "efficiency" argument against praying to the saints is a very troubling perspective.
"Why would I pray to the saints when it's more efficient to go directly to God?"
Because prayer is not about being efficient. God is not a vending machine where we insert prayers to get what we ask for with the minimum possible effort. Prayer is about building a relationship. It's about love. And we're called to love God and love our neighbor.
When we pray for our neighbor, we are loving them in one of the most powerful possible ways, bringing them and their concerns before God. When we ask others to pray for us, we're also loving them by trusting them enough to bring them into our concerns. Prayer to the saints allows us to extend that community of love beyond the bounds of space and time. I'm not limited to loving only the people who happen to exist on Earth during the limited years that I happen to be alive. I can love someone who lived on Earth hundreds of years ago. Someone who lived hundreds of years ago can love me--not only abstractly, but concretely. They can take an active role in loving me by bringing my concerns before God. I am part of a community going back centuries, full of people who are willing to listen to my problems and help me pray about them.
Cutting myself off from that community of love, because I think it would be more "efficient" to talk only to God? It would be a tragedy--and very lonely.
a lot of people on tumblr and Ao3 seem to think Christianity (mainly Catholicism) is just a cool and sexy esthetic narrative force to make your characters guilty and repressed and I'm just like...
hey what about the grace? the grace of God? the grace God gave specifically so we wouldn't need to be guilty and repressed? God's grace? that grace? do they have that grace?
Honest question: if God's Grace is meant to prevent guilt why do Catholics have the stereotype of always feeling horribly guilty about everything?
well to be an uncharitable protestant: because that grace is not properly recognized, emphasized, or implemented in Catholicism.
but that's prb more complicated than I could really explain
Also a Protestant evangelical here, but I think this applies across the board to anyone who believes in sin. The first thing about receiving grace is to admit you need it which means repentance of sin which means admitting guilt.
“In Chesterton’s The Secret of Father Brown, a beloved nobleman who murdered his good-for-nothing brother in a duel thirty years ago returns to his hometown wracked by guilt. All the townspeople want to forgive him immediately, and they mock the titular priest for only being willing to give a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection. They lecture the priest on the virtues of charity and compassion. Later, it comes out that the beloved nobleman did not in fact kill his good-for-nothing brother. The good-for-nothing brother killed the beloved nobleman (and stole his identity). Now the townspeople want to see him lynched or burned alive, and it is only the priest who – consistently – offers a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection. The priest tells them: “It seems to me that you only pardon the sins that you don’t really think sinful. You only forgive criminals when they commit what you don’t regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. You forgive a conventional duel just as you forgive a conventional divorce. You forgive because there isn’t anything to be forgiven.” He further notes that this is why the townspeople can self-righteously consider themselves more compassionate and forgiving than he is. Actual forgiveness, the kind the priest needs to cultivate to forgive evildoers, is really really hard. The fake forgiveness the townspeople use to forgive the people they like is really easy, so they get to boast not only of their forgiving nature, but of how much nicer they are than those mean old priests who find forgiveness difficult and want penance along with it.”
— Scott Alexander, “I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup”
"Jacob I Have Loved, Esau I Have Hated" - Evidence for the New Perspective on Paul
(This is inspired by the recent episode on election on The Lord of Spirits podcast by Frs. Andrew Stephen Damick and Stephen DeYoung.)
First, if you're not familiar, the Old Perspective on Paul (within Protestantism, that is) is that St. Paul is teaching, particularly in Galatians and Romans, that justification is by faith alone, and not by any human effort. By contrast, the New Perspective is that St. Paul was instead teaching that Jewish identity does not secure salvation; only faithfulness to Christ does that.
If you know Calvinists, who follow the Old Perspective, they love quoting Romans 9:13 - "Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated" - to support their theology. More broadly, they reference Romans 9 to support their theology of unconditional double predestination (usually shorthanded to "predestination") - God chooses people to go to Heaven or to Hell, and this choice is in no way contingent on human action. By contrast, the New Perspective reads Romans 9 as St. Paul stating that being a descendant of Abraham is no guarantee of being saved.
That's the preamble to the point of this post - that, if you read about Esau in the Old Testament, the Calvinist interpretation of this verse makes no sense, and the New Perspective one makes a great deal of sense.
The Book of Genesis never says that Esau went to Hell or Jacob went to Heaven. If anything, it says the opposite. Unless you count "despis[ing] his birthright" (Genesis 25:34) as a sin, the only sin he commits in the text is desiring to kill Jacob, which he repents of. Later on in the Pentateuch, in Deuteronomy 2:2-5, the Edomites (Esau's descendants) are identified as brothers of the Israelites who were given their land by God. The verse quoted by Romans 9, Malachi 1:2-3, is not talking about people going to Heaven or Hell, but about God's providence for His people, in contrast to His wrath towards the Edomites.
To recap, the Calvinist reading is that, in this passage, St. Paul is citing Jacob and Esau to say that God chooses who to save and who to damn freely. By contrast, the New Perspective reading is saying that being a descendant of Abraham, even one who was gifted by God, is no guarantee of salvation and never has been.
Which fits better with the story of Esau?
Catholics can gain a Plenary Indulgence on New Year’s EVE, 31 December (EnchInd. 26) be the recitation or the singing of the Te Deum.
To gain the indulgence the usual following conditions must be met.
1. Sacramental confession and Communion within a brief time (about 20 days) 2. The prescribed good work (for 31 Dec. the recital of the Te Deum) 3. Prayers for the Pope’s designated intentions (1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary) 5. Detestation of and detachment from even venial sins (without which only a partial indulgence can be gained), at the time of the indulgenced work.
Catholics can gain a Plenary Indulgence on New Year’s DAY, 1 January (EnchInd. 26) be the recitation or the singing of the Veni Creator Spiritus.
Same conditions.
For the sake of those legitimately impeded, confessors can commute both the work prescribed and the conditions required (except, obviously, detachment from even venial sins).
Indulgences can be applied either to oneself or to the souls of the deceased, but they cannot be applied to other persons living on earth.
It does say it needs to be a public recitation. I don't know what the threshold for "public" is - I would assume a few people gathered in a church reciting it together is fine but I don't think saying it alone in your room counts. Just throwing that out there.
Every day's a Day when you hang out with Catholics
we don't talk about Joseph's fear enough. like imagine you are told that your betrothed is carrying God Himself in her womb. imagine the fear you probably feel for her safety since she is pregnant outside of wedlock and everyone is looking at you suspiciously. imagine having to walk 90 miles to your hometown when she is 9 months pregnant. imagine arriving in bethlehem but there is no where for your heavily pregnant wife to stay for the next ew days until the census, but it's mid-winter, and the best you can do for her is a smelly barn because an innkeeper took pity on you. now she's having contractions and you don't know what to other than call the town midwife, hold her hand, and wish that you could have given her and the child better than this. imagine that the birth is over and the baby Messiah is healthy and the mother is okay, and you think you can finally breathe a little, and then an angel tells you that this precious little boy will be brutally murdered and hunted by the king if you don't immediately flee that night to a different country. and for the whole 600 mile journey to cairo you are constantly looking over your shoulder.
imagine Joseph's fear, and his perseverance despite it.
Joseph and Mary were, according to legal and cultural custom, truly married at the time Mary conceived Jesus.
Many theories exist about why Jesus died at age 33 but I find it most interesting that that was the exact length of David's reign at Jerusalem
The Blessed Sacrament by Andy Schmalen
Via: Schmalen.com
