Catholic Info

Hey everyone! Now that I have a blog I can share with people some things about my beloved faith.....and now is the time! Here are some thoughts (and facts) to start with:

The Eucharist: The Catholic faith is centered around the Eucharist; which we believe is truly the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. If a Catholic doesn't believe that, he/she has no right calling themselves a Catholic; as Fr. John Corapi says, "If you do not believe what we [the Church] believe, then you are a heretic!" Without the Eucharist we would be any other Protestant religion. How do we know that it is Jesus in that tiny host and not just bread? "Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.' "(Luke 22: 19) Did you get that? He didn't say "this represents my body", or "pass crackers around on Sunday in imitation of this." No. He said, "This is my body...do this in memory of me."! We are ultimately blessed to have Christ at our disposal everyday of the year, except Good Friday. We can never appreciate or fully conceive Who we are receiving..it is so awesome!

Where we came from: There is a Catholic T-shirt that says, "Who started your Church?" Jesus started ours and other Christian faiths have sprung from it. Martin Luther started the Lutheran Church, Chuck Smith started Calvary Chapel, and I believe it was John Smyth who started the Baptist church. Why after hundreds of years after Jesus Christ would these persons feel that they were "called" to start the true church? Jesus started the Catholic Church, nobody else. We know it is the true Church because we have the four marks: one-holy-apostolic-catholic (universal). We are one: because we profess the same faith, have the same sacrifice, and sacraments, and are united under one and the same invisible head (Jesus) and visible head (the pope; the Vicar of Christ); we are holy: the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ (who is all holy), and because it teaches holy doctrines (under the Holy Spirit), and provides the means of leading a holy life; our Church also gave the world its saints; we are apostolic: we can trace its origins to the apostles; and we are catholic/universal: because we are destined to last for all time, it never fails to fulfill the divine commandment to teach all nations all the truths revealed by God.

The Pope: What other church has a pope to lead them? The pope, whoever he is, is not perfect, he is human just like anyone else but we are guaranteed by Jesus Christ that the pope would never be wrong in matters of Faith and Morals. (Matthew 16: 18-19) He is our spiritual father who guides the people of the Church. Some people say that the Pope is rich because he surrounded by such wealth, this is not true because when a man is ordained, he takes a vow of poverty. All those riches you see belong to the Church, not the pope.

Mary: Protestants say that Catholics worship Mary, and that we deny that we worship her when asked about it. Well, duh! We deny it because we do not worship Mary!!!! We honor her, we don't worship her, because that would be idolatry. Protestants treat Mary as a nobody. Why? How could you not honor the one woman on earth chosen to carry within her, hold, and raise God. Mary was free from original sin. Why? Because how could the Almighty, Divine God be conceived into an imperfect being, who is blemished by sin? She had to be perfect and pure. Mary is our spiritual Mother who helps us reach heaven; she intercedes for us to her Son, and what true Son does not honor his mother's request? (the Wedding Feast at Cana [John 2: 3-8] ) People question why we have statues and pictures of Mary and the saints in our homes. Well, we have them there to remind us of them; it is just like carrying a picture of your friends or family members in your wallet or having their picture up on the wall.

(Reference for this post: Baltimore Catechism and the Bible)

Well, that is all for now folks! God bless you all.