{"id":104249,"date":"2018-06-14T00:16:11","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T07:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=104249"},"modified":"2018-06-07T16:51:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T23:51:06","slug":"a-sweet-reader-is-struggling-with-her-faith-and-writes-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/06\/a-sweet-reader-is-struggling-with-her-faith-and-writes-me.html","title":{"rendered":"A sweet reader is struggling with her faith and writes me…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026to say:<\/p>\n

I am a committed Christian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glad to hear it!<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t brought up in a Christian family but by God\u2019s grace I became His. I have been on an amazing journey in my faith and love and adore Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How wonderful!\u00a0 As a fellow convert, I salute you!<\/p>\n

When I was living in London I had a very happy experience in a Catholic Church and even became a member of the Catholic faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excellent!<\/p>\n

Over time though protestant Christian friends convinced me that the Catholic Church was not worshipping according to the Gospel, explaining that the Church teachings on the eucharist, worship of Mary and the statues, purgatory, pope etc etc goes completely against the Gospels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m sorry to hear that.\u00a0 They were wrong, though they no doubt meant well.<\/p>\n

The Church\u2019s teaching on the Eucharist is, in fact, thoroughly biblical.\u00a0 That\u2019s why every<\/em>\u00a0Church tracing its roots back to the apostles says the same thing about the Real Presence and always has:\u00a0 it is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.\u00a0 The notion that it is \u201cjust a symbol\u201d is the recent Protestant invention.\u00a0 See my book This is my Body<\/em><\/a> for a more thorough discussion of this.<\/p>\n

Catholics do not worship Mary or statues (in the sense of \u201cadore them as equals of God\u201d).\u00a0 You will see the word \u201cworship\u201d used in older English sometimes, but it does not mean what it now means, just as \u201cgay\u201d has changed in meaning from \u201chappy\u201d to \u201chomosexual\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cWorship\u201d in older English simply meant \u201chonor\u201d.\u00a0 So English judges are still called \u201cyour worship\u201d but nobody mistakes them for God.\u00a0 Old marriage oaths had the couple say to each other, \u201cWith my body, I thee worship\u201d meaning, \u201cI honor you with my body.\u201d<\/p>\n

So with \u201cthe worship of Mary\u201d.\u00a0 Scripture *commands* us to honor our father and our mother.\u00a0 So we honor Mary since, in Christ, she has become our mother.\u00a0 That is why John carefully records the words \u201cBehold your mother\u201d from Jesus on the cross.\u00a0 Not just John, but all of us are \u201cthe beloved disciple\u201d. She is our mother too.\u00a0 So we honor her and ask her her to pray for us as we ask each other to pray.\u00a0 We honor her, not as the equal of God (she\u2019s just a creature) but as God\u2019s greatest creature since it was through her that God chose to enter the world and from her he chose to take the flesh by which he would redeem the world.\u00a0 She is his greatest disciple and does something for us that Jesus, God though he is, cannot do:\u00a0 She shows us what a disciple of Jesus looks like.<\/p>\n

As to statues, here\u2019s the real story<\/a>. God forbade images in the Old Testament because it was the destiny of that people to be turned from the likeness of God to the reality.\u00a0 But paradoxically, he commanded<\/em>\u00a0the images of cheribum be place on the ark of the covenant, bowing to the invisible God.\u00a0 The point was that images are not bad in themselves but only that creatures cannot be adored as gods. \u00a0In the New Testament, God himself became<\/em>\u00a0an image when he took flesh in Jesus.\u00a0 Now images are hallowed and become doorways into God.\u00a0 They are not worshipped as gods.<\/p>\n

Regarding Purgatory, this too is perfectly biblical<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And so is the papacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is, in fact, no aspect of Catholic teaching that is anti-biblical.\u00a0 Not one.<\/p>\n

Also, I feel that Pope Francis and some other catholics has said that other religions and even atheists can get to heaven which seems so contrary to the Bible whereby worshipping anything apart from God is idolatry and it is an abomination to worship false Gods. People are without excuse for knowing the Lord Romans 1:20.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s far more complex than that.\u00a0 What the Church teaches (and has taught since Jesus gave the parable of the sheep and the goats), is that all who are saved are saved through Jesus, but that it is not necessarily the case that the saved will know Jesus\u2019 name in this life.\u00a0 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the prophets never heard of Jesus by name but were still obeying his Spirit.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the saved sheep are all surprised in the parable.\u00a0 \u201cLord, when did we see you<\/em>\u00a0hungry, thirsty, naked, etc.\u201d\u00a0 Obeying Jesus matters far more than having your ideas about him straight, though best of all is to do both.\u00a0 Consider this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also there is only one mediator to God and that is Christ not Mary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And yet Scripture calls us a \u201croyal priesthood\u201d (1 Peter 2:9) since we share in the priesthood of the Great High Priest Jesus through our baptism.\u00a0 And priests are nothing but<\/em> mediators.\u00a0 They mediate God to man and man to God.\u00a0 So when Scripture calls Jesus the \u201cone\u201d mediator it means it, not in the sense of \u201csole\u201d or \u201cexclusive\u201d but in the sense of \u201carchetypal\u201d.\u00a0 Jesus also tells us we have one Father and one Teacher (Matthew 23:8-9).\u00a0 Does he mean you sin if you call your dad your father or your high school science teacher \u201cteacher\u201d.\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0 His point is that, as Paul says \u201call fatherhood on earth\u201d (Ephesians 3:14) comes from the Father and that teachers are able to teach because they have that gift from Him.\u00a0 So Paul tells the Ephesians \u201che<\/em>\u00a0gave some to be\u2026 teachers\u201d (Ephesians 4:11) and reminds the Corinthians that he became their father through Christ.\u00a0 Mary is a co-mediatrix because it is through<\/em>\u00a0her that Jesus came to us.\u00a0 We are also co-mediators because it is through us the he comes to others.\u00a0 As the saying goes, you are only Jesus some people will ever meet.\u00a0 Like us, her office depends on the grace of Jesus.<\/p>\n

It was very painful to leave the Church but I have since worshipped at protestant Churches but even now I feel drawn to the catholic church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is Jesus, present in the Eucharist, who is drawing you back.<\/p>\n

Finally, I have just started to attend my local Catholic Church which was great and feels like home but then I grow concerned once again when I hear pope Francis says to a gay man that God loves him just as he is and to be happy as he is and when he tells a little boy that his atheist dad will go to heaven when Christ makes it clear that only those who believe on Him will get to Heaven, he is the only way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Catholic Church teaches that God\u2019s grace is given to all.\u00a0 If Jesus did not love us just as we are it would be impossible for us to be saved at all.\u00a0 Paul tells us that that \u201cwhile we were yet sinners, Christ died for us\u201d (Romans 5:8).\u00a0 That includes gay people.\u00a0 We only have the account the gay man gave himself, not a quote from Francis.\u00a0 What he reports<\/em> <\/a>is that Francis said, \u201cYou know Juan Carlos, that does not matter. God made you like this. God loves you like this. The Pope loves you like this and you should love yourself and not worry about what people say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember that he is talking to a victim of sexual abuse and trying to bring words of healing and consolation.\u00a0 And remember as well he is speaking to the person<\/em>, not to his actions. The Church teaches that the human person, in all his particularity, is<\/em> the creation of God.\u00a0 Every person is a sinner and yet every person was made the way they are by God.\u00a0 What is being affirmed her is him<\/em>, not his homosexuality.\u00a0 The Church does not, in fact, claim to know where the disordered appetite of homosexuality comes from any more than it claims to know where a disordered appetite for alcohol comes from.\u00a0 Some people have it, others don\u2019t.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know why.\u00a0 But we do know that each person is made by God and loved by God.\u00a0 That is what Francis is telling this man who has heard all his life that God hates him and that his sufferings are punishment by God for who he is.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s bad.<\/p>\n

The first work of a shepherd is to establish in the mind and heart of each person that God loves them.\u00a0 Some people get that very quickly and can then move on to addressing those places in their lives where sin needs to be addressed.\u00a0 Others take a long time, maybe years, to be able to hear that.\u00a0 Shepherds do not tie up heavy burdens and lay them on the backs of such people, or begin by slapping them around for their sins.\u00a0 They start small and they start always with the reassurance of God\u2019s love for you (unless they are a terrible confessor).\u00a0 When Jesus talked to the multiply-adulterous Samaritan Woman (John 4) he did something shocking: he never rebuked her for being an adulteress.\u00a0 He made clear that he knew all about her, but he never rebuked her for it.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Apparently because the *first* thing she needed to know was that she was loved.\u00a0 So here.\u00a0 Francis seems to me to be acting like a good shepherd, wooing a grievously harmed man back to Jesus.<\/p>\n

As to the child, Francis is reminding him of the same thing that Jesus is saying in the parable of the sheep and the goats.\u00a0 His father was a good man who lived a life of love for the least of these, in whom Jesus is present.\u00a0 One of the least of these, his little boy, loved him deeply, which is itself a sign of the presence of God<\/em>.\u00a0 That the man, through no fault of his own was unable to connect the love of God he lived with the name of Jesus who is the source of that love does not mean that Jesus\u2019 hands were tied in saving him.\u00a0 Rather, it just means that the boy can have good hope that his father will be one of those on That Day who will say, with surprise. \u201cLord, when did I see you<\/em>\u00a0hungry, thirsty, naked, sick or in prison?\u00a0 I just thought I was doing the right thing!\u201d\u00a0 The pope is saying to that kid that the king will reply. \u201cInasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.\u00a0 Enter into the kingdom which my Father as prepared for you from the foundation of the world.\u201d\u00a0 Why is that bad?<\/p>\n

Francis is actually extremely easy to understand.\u00a0 His whole pontificate can summed up in these words: \u201cHe has preached good news to the poor.\u201d He is all about evangelization and all about our duty to the least of these.\u00a0 Understand that, and you understand him.\u00a0 And he is, despite what you may hear, completely orthodox.\u00a0 Try reading one of his documents, like the Joy of the Gospel.\u00a0 He\u2019s really quite wonderful and says nothing different from his predecessors, despite the hype you may hear in the press.<\/p>\n

I hope you will continue your process of return to Holy Church!\u00a0 God love you, dear!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026to say: I am a committed Christian. Glad to hear it! I wasn\u2019t brought up in a Christian family but by God\u2019s grace I became His. I have been on an amazing journey in my faith and love and adore Christ. How wonderful!\u00a0 As a fellow convert, I salute you! When I was living in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-104249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mailbag"],"yoast_head":"\nA sweet reader is struggling with her faith and writes me...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"...to say: I am a committed Christian. Glad to hear it! I wasn't brought up in a Christian family but by God's grace I became His. 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