St. Paul's writings have been used by millions of ... let us politely say ... anti-Catholics, to justify living the life of laziness & selectively retained immoralities. According to them, St. Paul said that you can do whatever you want and go to Heaven anyway, as long as you proclaim belief in a certain Nazarene whose name has been repeatedly used in vain, on modern movie screens.
Newsflash: This just in ===> The exact same St Paul wrote exactly the opposite.
Example #1:
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards
nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. --- 1 Cor. 6:9
Let it be repeated. St Paul, the disciplined & self-controlled aesthetic, NEVER wrote that you can commit all the sins you want and still go to Heaven, so long as you express belief in the miraculous Nazarene who was crucified by Roman soldiers. Yet, an entire religion that kept splintering into "denominations" was founded upon that one premise. Concerning this overly audacious Biblical interpretation, when Paul wrote that he no longer followed the law, he was referring to the Law of Moses and its many rituals which included animal sacrifice. He was NOT referring to the moral law. In fact, he also wrote:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness,
dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.
I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things
will not inherit the kingdom of God. --- Galatians, 5:19
Equally important is that Romans 3:28 did NOT state that "Faith alone suffices." The less than diplomatic Martin Luther added the word, "alone," changing the entire meaning of St. Paul's mission & ministry. Martin Luther dedicated his beer-drinking (ale-drinking) years to promoting the Sin of Presumption --- the sin of presuming God's mercy.
Yet today, all of the modern Protestant Bibles omit the "Luther translation," having published instead the Koine Greek version of Romans 3:28 that actually was written by Paul. That scriptural passage simply stated that a person is justified by having Faith in the Jewish Messiah of Nazareth without needing to perform the rituals of the Jewish Law of Moses which included animal sacrifice. The actual translation is:
For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Does God belong to Jews alone? Does he not belong to Gentiles, too? Yes, also to Gentiles, for God is one and will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith and the uncircumcised through faith. --- Romans 3:28
In electing to revert to fidelity in the Koine Greek version of Romans 3:28, Protestant denominations elected to delete Protestantism's thesis statement. They deleted Protestantism's raison d'etre. This is tragically ironic, in light of the wars & killings which could have been prevented --- highlighted in the 30 Years War and in Cromwell's genocide of Irish Catholics, as well as in the severely emotional anti-Catholicism of 19th & early 20th Century America.
There is the need of millions of people to quit making a mockery out of Saint Paul's epistles. Moreover, there is a canonized saint of recent decades who converted from Protestantism. He famously stated that, the deeper you delve into history, the further you remove yourself from Protestantism. The exact quote was, "To be deep in history is to cease being Protestant." His name is John Henry Newman. All in all, St. Paul ... and Elizabeth Ann Seton ... as well as John Henry Newman ... should be the patron saints of Protestant conversions. That will work ... really well.
In order to rationalize its existence, Protestantism performed selective amnesia in discarding 1,100+ years of Church history ... all deleted from the Protestant memory, being that there was no Protestantism on any scene for the first 1,450 years of Christianity. Protestantism will acknowledge Christianity up to the time of the FIRST Council of Nicaea, in 325 C.E; but not the SECOND Council of Nicaea, in 787. After the Year 325 comes the amnesia blackout in the mind of Protestantism.
Martin Luther wasn't born until 1,450+ years after the original Pentecost Sunday, when Peter first spoke publicly in the name of Christ. According to Protestantism, God the Holy Spirit is a liar who was not guiding the believers of Christ for 1450 years. According to Protestantism, Martin Luther is the Vicar of the Holy Spirit who finally brought the Holy Spirit to mankind. Protestantism denies the reality of the very sacraments which divert souls from spiritual death and which give souls purpose for being. Protestantism is the Big Blackout, in several ways.
Now, Protestantism got its beginning by . . . stealing massive amounts of Roman Catholic Church property, in places where they could get away with it . . . and by killing Roman Catholics by the truckload, in places where they could get away with it. Now, is that any way to start a religion? Is that any way to start anything? None the less, Protestantism was largely a geopolitical movement with occasionally unseemly (unexpected allies.) This meant that Protestantism was a political party. Then, out of it came religious fanaticism.
All in all, there was NO REFORMATION in the 1500s. There are only Theft & Murder back then .... and defamation; lots of defamation. That which was called the Reformation was actually the Great Defamation ... even the defaming of God, in claiming that the Holy Spirit was a liar and a bumbling failure who didn't guide the Church for 1450 years --- in claiming that the Holy Spirit was such a failure that the German ale drinker, Martin Luther, had to replace the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, Martin Luther was going to show the Holy Spirit who was boss. Guess where Martin Luther is at this very moment. Did you ever study exorcism transcripts? His name came up, when a possessing devil was ordered by the exorcist to give his name ... to the exorcist, during a 19th Century exorcism. For the record, damned
humans have the capability of possessing a living person as much as a
demon. A demon is a fallen angel. A devil is a damned human.
Martin Luther died a sudden death (at the age of 62). He died without the Sacraments of the Church. He rejected the Sacraments of the Church. Do the math, here.
So extraordinary were the mighty deeds which God accomplished
at the hands of PAUL that, when facial cloths or aprons that
touched his skin were applied to the sick, their diseases left
them and the evil spirits came out of them.
Now, Acts 19 describes the valid & successful use of Third Class Relics -- or third degree relics. Such relics are pieces of cloth or other physical items such as paper that are touched to an actual living saint or to the bodily remains of a saint who has already gone into eternity.
Of course, the Church never declares any living being a saint. None the less, people in the Church, on occasion, were known for miraculous results to their interactions with others. It doesn't happen everyday, but it did happen in the very turbulent history of the true church of Christ ... as opposed to a "knock-off" church produced by Henry Tudor, his less-than-friendly daughter, Martin Luther & the politically motivated Elector of Saxony, the Swiss John Calvin, and more recent names who became associated with mass suicide and/or gun battles with federal agents.
Of course, a person who identifies himself as "a born-again Christian" or a Baptist or a Fundamentalist or someone "saved" would call the use of relics the ritualistic act of idolatry. Well, to declare this is to declare St. Paul a ritualistic idolater. In fact, it's to call the New Testament ritualistic idolatry. This is because the use of third-class relics were used to spread Saint Paul's miraculous power. Therefore, relics are Biblical. The Catholic tradition of employing saints' relics traces itself back to St. Paul's followers.
The Old Testament gives at least one instance of a miracle involving a First Class Relic --- or first degree relic. That type of relic is the actual saint, himself; as in a bone fragment, etc. In the Second Book of Kings, a miracle occurred when a corpse was thrown into the grave of Elijah's prime student and spiritual heir, Elisha.
2 Kings 13:21
Once some people were burying a man, when suddenly they saw such a raiding band. So they cast the man into the grave of Elisha, and everyone went off. But when the man came in contact with the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and got to his feet.
Thus, miracles done upon contacting a first class relic IS very Biblical.
So, if you are no-no on relics, then you are also no-no on the Bible,
probably unbeknownst to you ... until now. Now, concerning the Cloak of Elijah:
2 Kings 2:14:
Wielding the mantle which had fallen from Elijah, he struck the water and said, “The LORD, the God of Elijah—where is he now?” He struck the water. It divided, and he crossed over. Elijah's prime student did this with Elijah's cloak, so stated for the record.
Elijah's Cloak was a Second Class Relic. A second-class relic is a former physical possession of a saint. Examples are a writing quill, a walking cane, a favorite chair, an article of clothing, and Elijah's Cloak. With this comes the conversation of metaphysical power which can be a lengthy topic. HOWEVER, all angels have a METAPHYSICAL attachment to physical creation, and they perhaps come into the relic schematic, in matters involving second-class relics effecting miracles.
Tradition comes from none other than the Latin, TRADITIONEM. It means to deliver across something ... to hand-over ... to hand down. The Greek equivalent is parádosi̱ which actually means to surrender something to others.
2 Thessalonians 2:15
Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that
you were taught, either by an ORAL STATEMENT or by a letter of ours.
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Thus, TRADITION --- church teaching that comes from outside of the Bible --- is Biblical, ironically enough. The Bible is NOT God. It's a testimonial to the existence of God and to the mindset of God. Mindset is understood to be the same as "personality." Moreover, the Law of God and the Will of God are the exact same thing. To claim that "everything is in the Bible," is the sin of IDOLATRY. It's the worship of the Bible, instead of God.
Moreover, being that God is so infinitely massive, the task of being God cannot be accomplished by merely one person. It takes three infinite persons to accomplish the mission of being God ... literally. In as much, in order for God to exist, God can only exist as a multiplicity of Three Individual Persons who share the exact same essence and nature.
See: http://www.theheartofmary.com/2014/07/divine-reciprocity.html
Also see: http://www.theheartofmary.com/2011/08/comparing-holy-trinity-to-song.html
While we're still here, let's address the claim that it's a sin to call a priest, "father." After all, Jesus did say to call no one your father, but God the Father. Well, the Catholic Church does recognize God the Father to be the Unmoved Mover ... and the Uncatalyzed Catalyst ... who authored life and wrote the blueprint of the only Church ever founded by his only Begotten Son. The use of the name, father, as it applies to priests, has a lesser meaning of the word. And that practice came from St. Paul, himself. In the FIRST Letter to the Thessalonians, Chapter 2, verses 10 to 12, Saint Paul wrote:
You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly, justly, and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers.
