Pope St Leo the Great

Yesterday the Church celebrated the feast for St. Leo the Great(400-461), the first in the history of the Church to be called "the great". He was first a deacon and later became pope in the fifth century and later declared "doctor of the Church." Upon hearing that Atilla the Hun was coming to sack Rome, he went out to meet him and convinced him to turn his armies away.
He called the Council of Chalcedon which denounced many heresies of the time including Pelagianism, which maintained that man has no original sin and does not need God's grace to merit heaven, but can attain heaven through his own goodness and good works. St. Augustine went after this heresy as well. Interestingly, the very heresy they fought is what Catholics are accused of believing. Catholics have never believed we can attain heaven by works alone, but not by faith alone either (James 2)!

"what [is] more iniquitous than to hold blasphemous opinions, and not to give way to those who are wiser and more learned than ourself. Now into this unwisdom fall they who, finding themselves hindered from knowing the truth by some obscurity, have recourse not to the prophets' utterances, not to the Apostles' letters, nor to the injunctions of the Gospel but to their own selves: and thus they stand out as masters of error because they were never disciples of truth."

Ordained Minister Abortionist

He prays for those he aborts. God have mercy!

Anglican Pastor Comes Home: Welcome Home Timotheus!

Here's a comment I just received on my Why I Returned to the Church"

Dear sir,

I am an Anglican/evangelical/Catholic who was raised RC. I am coming home!!
I live in Hunterdon County NJ.
Is that far from you? I am married with 5 kids and I am a pastor. Soon wont be. Also, without a job most likely. But I know the Catholic Church is the Fold of Christ.

Timotheus

Timotheus, our prayers are with you. We look forward to hearing your testimony!

Prayer Request for Haiti Medical Mission

Next Saturday, Prodigal Daughter and I will be leaving for our second medical mission to Sts. Simon and Jude Parish in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Little more than a year ago, we were just establishing our first contact with Fr. Andrew, pastor of this Church. Now, there are will be three medical trips a year to his parish and possibly a fourth team as well! Our home parish, St Joseph the Worker, is planning a team in the late spring of 2010.

Over the past three months we have had a fund-raising concert, sold fresh-roasted Haitian coffee, sold CD's (Way to Emmaus is still available, hint hint) solicited donations and collected a huge amount of medications to bring with us. I estimate we will have more than half a ton of meds to bring down. That's 14 people each checking 2 fifty pound duffle bags full of meds and supplies. On this trip we will have three physicians and one pediatric nurse practitioner.

So once again, I ask my blogger friends to begin to pray for us as we make our final preparations.
These are our requests:

• Pray for the Haitians that the ones who need to be seen will get into the clinic and God will grant us the wisdom to make correct diagnosis and treatments.
  
• Pray for Fr. Andrew and his parish workers as they make preparations to house and feed 14 folks in his rectory.
• Pray for health and safety and emotional strength for all of the team.
• Pray that we can get all the meds through customs without incident or costly bribes.

We will be leaving November 14th and returning the 21st. Thanks so much.

Why Did You Return to the Church?

I recently was in an e mail discussion with a ex-Catholic Christian who asked me directly why I ever would want to return to the Catholic Church. This was my response:

I believe Jesus gave us a Church in order to lead us in all truth. I don't believe he left it up to our individual private interpretations of Scripture to sort out the truth on our own. For one thing, there was no Bible for the first 380 years of Christianity until the Catholic Church canonized the New Testament and gave us the list of books that were considered inspired by the Holy Spirit to be part of Scripture, including 7 books of the Old Testament which Luther removed 1500 years later. So the Church grew and flourished through the ancient world for amost 4 centuries without the Bible as we know it, and the majority of the population was illiterate. So the people heard the gospel and truth as it was passed down from the apostles and preached in the Church.

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to lead us in all truth and I believe He does that through the Church that he started, the Catholic Church. Paul told Timothy that the pillar and foundation of Truth is the Church, not the Bible.(1 Timothy 3:15) Especially since the complete Bible was not canonized or available at the time Paul wrote those words to Timothy.(only the old testament was)
It is obvious since the Church did indeed canonize the Bible and discerned which books should be in it, she loves Scripture and believes it to be the infallible word of God.(St Jerome said in the fifth century: to be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of Christ) But the Church has always held that the teachings of the apostles passed down from generation to generation of believers makes up a sacred deposit of faith called Sacred Tradition. Paul says that much Christian teaching is to be found in the tradition which is handed down by word of mouth (2 Tim. 2:2). He instructs us to "stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15). (Paul did not condemn tradition, and Jesus only condemned tradition when it was used wrongly by the pharisees to get them out of their responsibilities)
So we Catholics believe Scripture and the Sacred teachings passed down from the apostles comprise the Word of God, not just the Bible alone. Sacred Tradition never contradicts Scripture and Catholic teachings can all be supported by the Bible if one looks to the whole scripture.
So I don't suspect we will agree, but I appreciate your willingness to ask "why would you ever want to do that???" regarding my return to the Catholic Church.
The bottom line is that we are called to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.
I believe the Church is true and I can find no purer worship here on earth than in the Holy Mass where Jesus comes to us from heaven and allows us to eat his body and drink his blood.
May God bless you as you pursue Him and feel free to pass my thoughts along to others. It is my hope and prayer that more ex-Catholics will look back and re-consider the Church they left in their youth, not fully understanding what they were leaving.

In Him

Russ Rentler, M.D.

Director of Planned Parenthood Has a Conversion!

A woman who was a local director of Planned Parenthood (America's #1 for-profit abortion provider) quit her job after watching an abortion with an ultrasound. She has now joined Coalition For Life, the pro-life organization across the street and has had a conversion. She will be on
O Reilly Factor on Friday night. Pray for her.

"America won't stop abortion until it sees what abortion is" says Fr. Pavone.

Check out her story here

(H/t to Susie)

Happy All Souls Day!

Purgatory really freaked me out as a non-Catholic Christian. When my wife first started dabbling in Catholicism, she actually liked the doctrine and we had some pretty heated discussions about this. In my mind it conjured images of the sale of indulgences(always condemned by the Church) and called to mind the famous saying of the 16th century indulgence merchant, Johann Tetzel*: "A coin in the coffer rings and another soul from purgatory springs!"

(I must admit, I actually used this line as the chorus in an anti-Catholic blues rant I composed when I was 15 years old and a brand new born-again Christian)

When I first returned to the Church in April 2004, this was one of the last doctrines that I struggled with. Now I'm blogging about it and encouraging others to pray for the departed, and spend a portion of each day praying for my loved ones.

Prayers and "suffrages" on behalf of the departed believers have been prayed since the first century. The earliest liturgies of the Church contain prayers for the dead. From the Syriac liturgy of St James: "We commend into thy mercy all other thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith and now do rest in the sleep of peace: grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy and everlasting peace."

The catacombs from the first century contain inscriptions asking for prayers for the dead. The early Church fathers wrote about it.
St. Augustine: The universal Church observes this law, handed down from the Fathers, that prayers should be offered for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ when they are commemorated in their proper place at the Sacrifice(mass)"

16th century theologians:
"Dear God, if the departed souls be in a state that they yet may be helped then I pray that you would be gracious. When you have thus prayed once or twice, then let it be sufficient and commend them unto God." (Martin Luther)

"We commend into thy mercy all other thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith and now do rest in the sleep of peace: grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy and everlasting peace." (Church of England 1549)

• The Jews before Christ prayed for the dead (Maccabees)
• St. Paul prayed for the dead (Onesiphorus)
• Early Christians prayed for the dead (catacomb inscriptions)
• Church fathers wrote about prayers for the dead
  
• The earliest reformers prayed for the dead including Luther and the Church of England
  
• The Catholic Church continues this practice and has made a day to particularly honor the dead and keep them in our prayers.

I am no longer freaked out by it but am thankful to God for his grace and mercy towards us in that we have an opportunity to be purged of the last vestiges of sin that we are attached to before we step into His throne room.
So like CS Lewis once said, I now say : "Purgatory ? Our souls demand it, don't they!"

Check out this excellent article on First Things on the meaning of All Soul's Day

*Johann Tetzel was censured by the Catholic Church not for the teaching of indulgences but the practice of money being exchanged for them. The Church never apporoved the sale of indulgences.
To learn more about what the Church teaches on indulgences go here.

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)

Deer in the Backyard !

I Left The Catholic Church Because....

I have a new blog I am launching called I Left The Catholic Church Because...
I am interested in hearing the stories of those who have left the Church and continue to remain in another ecclesial community or none at all. I know the reasons why I left but would like to see why others did also.