What I learned about the catholic church yesterday

As many of you know, we had to go to a funeral yesterday and it was at a catholic church. We had to sit there for an hour before the service began (I have no idea why!) and I was bored so I started looking through the books that were in the pew. One was a child's book called Celebrating Eucharist, A Mass Book for Children. I was surprised at first because it wasn't bad at all and not what I was expecting...at least up to page 23. On that page however, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I read it 5 times because I kept thinking that I absolutely must be reading it wrong! But I wasn't. To make sure I remembered it correctly, I pulled the only thing I had in my purse that I could write on out: a kleenex, and wrote it down there. I didn't realize that I was going to get to see it played out in front of my eyes when the service started though. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut then!

Listen to what the priest says as he pours the wine and water into the chalice: "By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity."

You've got to be kidding! They actually think they're going to get to be mini gods someday, just like the mormons? Apparently the only difference is that Catholics don't think they get their own planet to rule as a god and women can get to be little gods too!

I looked up the word "divinity" in their catechism, and sure enough, it has something to say about this, and what it says blows me away too:

51 "It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature."2 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_PF.HTM#1O

Catechism of the Catholic Church
460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":"For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/460.htm

This partially quotes Ephesians1:9, but I want to post at least some of the context of it too so you'll see it for what it really says: I've underlined verse 9.

Ephesians 1:7–14 —In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace *that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. *And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, *to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. *In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, *in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. *And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, *who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. *

I didn't want to make the mistake of assuming that the catholic church taught what it sure sounds like they teach, so I did some research on itfirst. Sad to say, they do in fact teach that very thing. I also discovered that it's this teaching that winds up messing up the catholics view of justification among other things. That's not hard to understand though, because when you mess up one doctrine, it's bound to affect your understanding of everything else. That's one reason I say that when people refuse to accept the doctrine of the pre-trib rapture, it messes up their understanding of everything else, including salvation.

I was pleased when I did the research to find that a pastor I greatly respect for his scriptural teaching, had written a great article about this very thing. I'll post a tiny portion of it here, and those who are interested in being able to defend that faith against this type of heresy, can click on the link and check out the rest of it. It's very well written and to the point.On Theosis, Or Divinization

By Pastor Larry DeBruyn

If biblical precedent exists for attaining unto divinity, “The only biblical text which seems to bear directly on deification is 2 Peter 1:4, where the destiny of Christian believers is described as becoming ‘partakers of the divine nature’.”[1] So the question becomes, does Peter’s reference to partaking of the divine nature support the teaching that in this life a Christian can become deified; that a Christian, as defined by the Orthodox Church, can become subjected to “God’s full and perfect penetration . . . in which [state of being] the operations and energies of human nature cease, having been replaced by the Divine Operations and Energies.”[2] On the face of it, Peter appears to be teaching the possibility of personal divinization, but upon a deeper investigation of the text, he is not.

A Translation
To understand partaking of the divine nature, the context, grammar and syntax of Peter’s statement needs to be attended to, because if we understand what the apostle is really saying to the saints of that era (that’s every believer), we will be clear as to what he meant; and that is not that a human soul can become divinized. For this understanding, the following translation of 2 Peter 1, verse 4, is offered:

For by His own glory and excellence, the Lord Jesus has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises in order that by them—His precious and magnificent promises—we participate in/with the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

In order to understand what Peter stated in this verse, several points can be noted, some of which in the English text are obvious, and others that are not. In noting these points, it will become evident the apostle was not teaching that Christians can become divinized, attain perfection in God.

http://herescope.blogspot.com/2011/0...inization.html

 

But there were other things that really bothered me too. One was the way the priest talked about heaven. He made heaven sound like the most boring place anyone could possibly go to. The only word he ever used to describe what it would be like was that the deceased would be at peace. I kept thinking, "we're talking about an 18 year old here....not some stressed out housewife!" That thought made me think of those calgon commercials, and honestly, those were more exciting then what the priest said about heaven! It made me feel badly for the parents and the siblings of the boy who died. I wanted to go tell them how awesome heaven really is, and would have, except I knew it wouldn't be accepted or appreciated.

The thing that really, really bothered me though was the superstition that was so prevalent and obvious during the service. I have to admit that I never, ever, expected to see that! They had communion, what they call the Eucharist, which we didn't participate in. But being family and in the front row, we could see and hear everything. It was quite obvious that they thought the priest was actually turning the bread and wine into the actual body of Christ.

What got to me though was this guy who was sitting up by the alter with the priest, basically doing the things that some churches have acolytes do. Only they did some things very differently. When the priest held up the host and was blessing it to turn it into the body of Christ (in their minds anyway), this guy picked up this whole mess of bells that were attached together and rang them 3 times. I don't know why he did this, but it sure seemed like he was doing it because of the belief that while the bells were ringing the host was being turned into Christ's body. And he did the same thing when the wine was being blessed and held up, which I again felt was for the purpose of showing that this is when they supposedly were changed.

I just looked it up to find out if it was what it looked like and sure enough, that's exactly what they were doing!

Quote:

The primary reason for the use of sanctus/altar bell(s) is to create a joyful noise to the Lord as a way to give thanks for the miracle taking place atop the Altar of Sacrifice. An ancillary function of the bell(s) is to focus the attention of those attending the Mass that a supernatural event is taking place on the altar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altar_bell

Unbelievable! After that, the priest explained to everyone what was going to happen and told us that only catholics were allowed to partake of it. I already knew about that and had told Bruce we wouldn't be going up, although my reason for not doing so was that I couldn't bring myself to participate in such pagan superstition.

I desperately wanted to ask the priest if he believed that God didn't change, that He was the same today as yesterday, etc. And then when he said yes, (at least I hope he would, but you never know) I'd ask him why then did God have a law that stated we were not to drink or eat blood and repeated that law in the New Testament for Christians? I'm also pretty sure that God doesn't condone cannibalism.

I'm quite aware that the early Christians were accused of that very thing, but they were accused of it, not because they thought the bread and wine turned into the body and blood of Christ, but because of their words....the same words we use today at communion:

Matthew 26:26–28 —... Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” *And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, *for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. *

They were accused of it because people would overhear them saying that and took it to mean just what it sounded like, because they were very superstitious back then and because it wasn't at all unlikely in those days for something like that to be happening, when strange things were being done in the pagan temples all around them.

To see such superstition now though, really surprised me. I was prepared for them thinking it was the real body and blood, but not how they'd use the bells to try and make people think that's when the magic happens.

The other thing they did to prepare for the change to take place was smother bread and wine with incense. The priest held an incense burner on a rope and very slowly walked all the way around the alter, while causing the burner to swing back and forth from him to over the bread and wine, and back to him. Again, it was quite obvious that this was part of the magic ritual.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to use incense or bells in a church service. I've been at some lovely church services where both were used. But they weren't used to make it look like the priest was calling down some supernatural magic or something like that.

There were a number of other things, but I don't have time to mention them all. The one other thing that I'd like to share though was the obvious hypocrisy of it all. On the one hand the priest spent a lot of time acting very, very solemn and, well, priest like lol. But then, at the drop of the hat, just for a moment, you'd catch him acting totally flippant Maybe he thought no one was watching or that no one would catch it, I don't know. But I saw it, and was really appalled at it. It made me wonder just which actions were "real" and which were contrived.... I guess I'd feel better about it all if I thought the guy really truly believed what he was teaching and doing and that he was worshiping God the 1best he knew how; but to see the other side of him, made me question that too and made me wonder if he saw it all as foolishness, and if that applied to God as well.... Altogether it was quite unsettling.