Catholics Are Never Alone - Happy All Saints Day
And neither are our non-Catholic brothers and sisters. Through the communion of saints as the early Christians proclaimed (Nicean Creed of 325 AD), we believe that the Church Triumphant (in heaven) is actively and effectively praying night and day for the believers here on earth. On a never-ending basis the saints cast their intercession for us before the throne of God and He hears their prayers to accomplish his purposes in our lives here on earth. Even if someone denies this intercession exists, it doesn't make our glorified brethren in heaven stop praying for them.
Some say we should just pray to Jesus alone but He has given us his mystical body to intercede to Him for us. Those same folks who say we should pray to Jesus alone have no problem asking other people to pray for them. That's what Catholics are doing as well, but we know that the ability of our holy brethren to pray for us doesn't end with their physical death. As a matter of fact we know their prayers are even more effective now that they are perfected in heaven.
So Happy All Saints to all my friends out there. You are never alone, take full advantage of the intercessions that are available to you. It's like a 24 hour prayer line that you can call with a 1-800 number, so there's no charge to you. You gain access to these wonderfully powerful prayer warriors based on faith. Through Him, with Him and In Him we can ask these things, AMEN.
"When in his frailty, a man invokes the saints, he invokes Christ, and without fail he will reach Christ whenever he calls upon their names, for wherever they are, they are in Christ and Christ is in them, and their name in Christ's name and Christ's name in their name." (Martin Luther)
Some say we should just pray to Jesus alone but He has given us his mystical body to intercede to Him for us. Those same folks who say we should pray to Jesus alone have no problem asking other people to pray for them. That's what Catholics are doing as well, but we know that the ability of our holy brethren to pray for us doesn't end with their physical death. As a matter of fact we know their prayers are even more effective now that they are perfected in heaven.
So Happy All Saints to all my friends out there. You are never alone, take full advantage of the intercessions that are available to you. It's like a 24 hour prayer line that you can call with a 1-800 number, so there's no charge to you. You gain access to these wonderfully powerful prayer warriors based on faith. Through Him, with Him and In Him we can ask these things, AMEN.
"When in his frailty, a man invokes the saints, he invokes Christ, and without fail he will reach Christ whenever he calls upon their names, for wherever they are, they are in Christ and Christ is in them, and their name in Christ's name and Christ's name in their name." (Martin Luther)
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 1:22 PM
7 Comments:
How in the world do you find all those Martin Luther Quotes :D I think it's funny :D I think you like to rub that in don't you brother? ;)
Hey George!
These are the quotes from him that don't tend to show up on the non-Catholic blogs. You should see what he said about the Real Presence and baptism as well. (I have posted about this before, as you might recall)
I am hoping to show my non-Catholic readers that at the outset of the reformation, the reformers still clung to ancient tradition and doctrines, including the creeds of the Church, the sacraments of baptism, the eucharist, and confession. Sadly, as the reformers continued their journey away from the Church, their doctrines continued to "develop" or morph getting less and less recognizable when held up to the doctrines that had been believed and taught for 1500 years.
So now, my protestant readers will readily hold to and defend doctrines that have no likeness to the one's held by the "fathers" of their faith. Obviously, this is the end result when doctrine is developed/created/derived based on a "plain" reading of the Bible alone in a vacuum, divorcing it from the Church. Even in their own lifetime, the longer they lived, Calvin and Luther, and Zwingli continued to change their doctrines so Lutheran theologians have to ask , "what period of time is that Luther quote from?" In the past when I wrote about Luther's strong devotion to the Blessed Mother, non-Catholic bloggers protested and said that Luther changed his views of Mary later in his life and then gave me quotes proving this.
So in conclusion, I don't want to "rub anything" in to my protestant readers. I hope and pray that posts like this will cause them to question why they believe the things they do when even the reformers, at least initially held to distinctive Catholic teachings.
My goal as always is to help others to think of things they have never thought of before regarding the Catholic Church. These posts are all about things I wish someone brought to my attention 30 years ago. Perhaps I would have been willing to re-consider my decision to leave the Catholic Church in exchange for a faith system that had little historical connection or theological similarity to the faith of the apostles and their successors.
Thanks so much for reading my blog. I honor and appreciate my non-Catholic brothers for reading my blog and want nothing but the best for them, which I believe is their return to the Catholic Church.
Russ, I know your heart... I didn't mean to make it sound the way I did. I just think that those quotes are kind of a "gotcha" kind of moment. I personally enjoy those. Thanks for what you do with the gentleness that it is due. It is your strength I believe... that you so gently handle these things.
Blessings and Happy All Saints Day!
-g-
Thanks George, Happy All Souls Day Today!
My wife and I also marvel (if that's the word) at the limited scope of Luther's Reformation. Having let the 'authority' genie out of the bottle all those centuries ago, we frequently speculate at what Luther'd think of what is a Secession or Revolution more than a Reformation.
Wow Martin Luther said that!? To bad error leads one continually away from God.
One of my favorite things about being Catholic is belonging to the Communion of Saints--we are never alone--how sweet it is :)
Yes Tara, it's so sad, Luther held to a few Catholic doctrines, like the Real Presence, confession, prayers for the departed, Marian devotion, at least early on. Once outside the authority of the universal Church, it didn't take very long for things to unravel theologically until the the reformer's religion had no resemblance to the religion espoused for over 1500 years by the successors of the apostles.
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