 
Knights Of Columbus
Bishop Verot Council # 5845
Post
Office Box 372845
Satellite
Beach, Florida 32937-0845 |
JOHN F.
KENNEDY ASSEMBLY 1593
Post Office Box 410584
Melbourne, FL 32941 |
Recently I have
had discussions with non-Catholics as to why we believe some of the things that
are not in agreement with other Christian Religions. In doing research for this
website I have come across a site that answers many of the questions that often
arise in these conversations. I have decided to include on question
monthly to strengthen your faith and give you the answers that even Catholics
have had but were either too embarrassed to ask or did not want to admit that
these may have been in your mind too.
I found this site to be more
then enlightening but extremely interesting also.
Enjoy.
All in the Family - The Communion of Saints
What is the communion of saints?
The communion of saints is the intimate union that
exists among all the disciples of Christ. This communion is known as the
Mystical Body of Christ: the Family of God consisting of the faithful on earth
(the Church Militant or pilgrim Church), the holy souls in purgatory undergoing
spiritual cleansing (the Church Suffering), and the saints in heaven (the Church
Triumphant). This union of believers joins us in Christ, our source of grace and
life, and calls us to love and pray for one another as members of His body.
Therefore, we can ask for the prayers of the saints in heaven, and we can also
pray for people on earth and those in purgatory (Catechism, nos. 946-62).
...Some believe that asking the saints in heaven
to pray for us is a form of idolatry. The Catholic Church does not worship any
person other than God, who created everyone and everything. The Church may offer
praise and honor to Mary and the other saints, who are great disciples of the
Lord, but she worships God alone.
Read the rest on
Catholics United for Faith
How come Catholics
emphasize Mary and the saints so much?
Certainly, the Catholic Church is distinctive
in its emphasis on the doctrine of the communion
of saints. The Blessed Virgin Mary and all the
blessed in heaven have an important role to play
in the life of believers. The Catechism of
the Catholic Church (957) explains:
“It is not merely by the title of example
that we cherish the memory of those in
heaven; we seek, rather, that by this
devotion to the exercise of fraternal
charity the union of the whole Church in the
Spirit may be strengthened. Exactly as
Christian communion among our fellow
pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our
communion with the saints joins us to
Christ, from whom as from its fountain and
head issues all grace, and the life of the
People of God itself”
(CCC
957).
This relates to Christ's teaching:
“I am
the vine, you are
the branches. He who abides in me, and I in
him, he it is that bears much fruit, for
apart from me you can do nothing” ( John
15:5).
The Catholic Church believes what the Bible
teaches: that the Blessed Virgin Mary and
the saints are friends of God and with Him
in glory in heaven. Catholic author Patrick
Madrid described it this way:
“Because of Christ's victory over death, a
victory in which all Christians share, (See
1 Cor. 15:25-26, 54-56; 2 Cor. 2:14; 2 Tim.
1:10.) natural death can't separate
Christians from Christ or from each other.
That's why Paul exulted, ‘What will separate
us from the love of Christ? . . . I am
convinced that neither death, nor life . . .
will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom. 8:35-
39). Since death has no power to sever the
bond of Christian unity, the relationship
between Christians on earth and those in
heaven remains intact. . . .”
(continue
reading here).
One Catholic author explained how the rapture theory became
popular, what the Bible says (or doesn't say) about it,
and why the Catholic Church doesn't accept the concept of a
rapture :
“ The rapture idea gained popularity in America as part of a fundamentalist religious movement known as dispensationalism
— a movement that includes folks such as LaHaye, Jenkins,
Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell and others. To be more specific,
they are pre-millennial, pre-tribulational
dispensationalists. They believe (1) there will be a
one-thousand-year reign of Christ on earth in the future;
(2) “true believers” in Christ will be raptured, or taken up
to heaven prior to a seven-year period of worldwide
tribulation; and (3) history has been divided into seven
different dispensations or eras. In each of these, God tests
particular people, they fail, and then He judges them. . . .
(continue
reading this article)
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church speaks about the Church's teaching on
what those who are alive then can expect to see happen during
the “end times” in paragraphs 675 to 682:
675 Before Christ's second coming the
Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the
faith of many believers.574 The persecution that
accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 will
unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious
deception offering men an apparent solution to their
problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The
supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a
pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of
God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576
677 The Church will enter the glory
of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she
will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.579
The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic
triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but
only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil,
which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.580
God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of
the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this
passing world.581
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Stations of The Cross Dates Back to the Fourth Century
Columbus, Ohio, Mar 11, 2009 / 03:12 pm (CNA).-
The Stations of the Cross in the form most American Catholics know best are of
comparatively recent vintage in Church terms, dating back to the year the U.S.
Constitution was ratified. However, their history goes back well before that, to
the days when pilgrims were first openly able to go to Jerusalem and walk in the
footsteps of Jesus on Good Friday.
The emperor Constantine permitted Christians to legally worship in the
Roman Empire in 313 after 250 years of persecution. In 335, he erected the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher at the site where Jesus’ tomb was believed to have
been.
Processions of pilgrims to the church, especially during Holy Week, began
soon after its completion.
A woman named Egeria, a pilgrim from France, described one such pilgrimage
which took place in the fourth century. The bishop of Jerusalem and about 200
pilgrims began "at the first cockcrow" at the site of Jesus’ agony on Holy
Thursday night. They said a prayer, sung a hymn, and heard a Gospel passage,
then went to the garden of Gethsemane and repeated the procedure.
They continued to Jerusalem itself, "reaching the (city) gate about the
time when one man begins to recognize another, and thence right on through the
midst of the city. All, to a man, both great and small, rich and poor, all are
ready there, for on that special day not a soul withdraws from the vigils until
morning," Egeria wrote.
Pilgrimages eventually took a fixed route from the ruins of the Fortress
Antonia, where Pilate had his judgment hall, to the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher. That route through Jerusalem’s Old City gained acceptance as the way
Jesus went to his death and remains unchanged today. It is known as the Via
Dolorosa, Latin for the "Sorrowful Way."
Read the rest of the story
HERE
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why doesn't the
Catholic Church permit non-Catholics to receive Holy Communion?
This question comes up a lot. Many non-Catholics, when attending Mass at a
Catholic wedding, for example, find themselves being told, however gently, that
they should not come forward to receive Holy Communion. “Why?” they ask,
understandably. “Catholics are allowed to receive communion in our
church, so why can't we receive communion here?” St. Paul speaks about this
issue in
1 Corinthians 11:23-32.
And The United States' Catholic Conference of Bishops provides a
helpful explanation:
“We welcome our fellow Christians to this celebration of the Eucharist as
our brothers and sisters. We pray that our common baptism and the action of
the Holy Spirit in this Eucharist will draw us closer to one another and
begin to dispel the sad divisions which separate us. We pray that these will
lessen and finally disappear, in keeping with Christ's prayer for us ‘that
they may all be one' (Jn 17:21).
“Because Catholics believe that the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign
of the reality of the oneness of faith, life, and worship, members of those
churches with whom we are not yet fully united are ordinarily not admitted
to Holy Communion. Eucharistic sharing in exceptional circumstances by other
Christians requires permission according to the directives of the diocesan
bishop and the provisions of canon law (canon 844 § 4). Members of the
Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Polish National
Catholic Church are urged to respect the discipline of their own Churches.
According to Roman Catholic discipline, the Code of Canon Law does not
object to the reception of communion by Christians of these Churches (canon
844 § 3).
(continue
reading this article here!)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why
does the Catholic Church believe Christ is really present in the Eucharist?
The primary reason for the Catholic Church's teaching on the
Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the testimony of
Jesus Christ Himself:
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in
the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes
down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am
the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one
eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread
which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can
this man give us his flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the
Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he
who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and
I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh
and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (John
6:48-56).
Biblical References
The Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Eucharist is
the Body and Blood of the Lord, which He gave us at the Last
Supper: “This is my body, which will be given up for you”
(c.f. Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19)
Continue reading here about the
Church's teaching on the Eucharist.
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