According to the World Christian Encyclopedia published in 2001 there are about 34,000 different Christian groups in the world since 30AD, with 1200 different Christian denomoniations existing in the United States alone. This seems kind of silly to me and unnecessary and certainly not what our Lord and savior Jesus Christ intended as he left us his own words about this in the Gospel of John Chapter 17 so please read that.
The purpose of this piece is to provide you a guide when you are called or asked to express what you believe and why and everything I will write in this piece will come directly from Scripture. Start by reading 1 Peter 3:15, which states, defend what you believe with respect and gentleness and also gives us the term apologetics, which does not mean to apologize, but rather, defend the faith. Also, please keep your bible next to you and read all the scripture passages written in this piece for yourself and do it prayerfully asking our Lord what he is saying to you as you read and listen to the ear of your heart and act on it.
You have my permission to print this out and use it whenever you encounter opposition against our Catholic faith. It has taken me a lifetime to prepare myself and I will continue to prepare while I speak out, listen and learn. I had to dive into my faith on my own and wrestle with it, and study and read it so I can understand what I believe and why and I recommend you do the same.
So, I must defend my faith, my Mother, Father, Brother and Sister and so I will and here is what I mean by this.
I have encountered a “street” preacher, multiple street preachers actually. One is a woman. They use big megaphones so they can be heard blocks away. They will not dialogue nor listen nor let anyone else talk. They think they know it all.
I can only hope and pray that this article gets in front of them some how some way if God wills it.
So let us begin street preacher and we will go toe to toe, scripture quote vs scripture quote.
Right off the bat street preacher you do not honor 1 Peter 3:15 nor Romans 14:1 on being compassionate and respectful and gentle in sharing what you believe and why. That is not Christ like.
You say Matt. 23:9 says call no one your father but your father in heaven. To understand what Matt. 23:9 means please read this article -https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/call-no-man-father-understanding-matthew-23-9.html#:~:text=In%20Matthew%2023%3A9%20Jesus%20says%2C%20%22And%20call%20no,%22father%2C%22%20and%20do%20not%20call%20your%20dad%20%22father.%22 – whereby scripture quote after scripture quote explain why we call our earthly fathers father and why we call priests father. To summarize, a biological father is called to be the image of the heavenly Father to his children and a priest gives up biological fatherhood to father so many children spiritually and as you will read in the article where St. Paul writes, I am your spiritual father in 1 Cor. 4:15.
You say we pray to Jesus’ Mother and that’s wrong. This is a layup street preacher, and I say with love and compassion, are you kidding me?! Mary, Jesus’ Mother is THEOTOKAS (The Mother of God) and our Mother. Look no further than John 19:26. Our Lord gives His Mother to John and to us at the foot of the cross! To all of us. She suffered a spiritual martyrdom so please go back and read what Simeon the prophet said to her at Jesus’ Presentation in Luke 2:35. In addition go back the Old Testament and read up on King David, who means everything to the Israelites. Jesus is ofthen referred to as Son of David in scripture and Son of Man. Are you aware that both Mary, Jesus’ biological mother, and Joseph, his foster father both descended from the line of King David? Are you aware of Jeremiah 13:18? It states the Queen Mother sits on the right of the King. Are you aware of Genesis, she (her offspring) will crush the head of the serpent, or Revelation where the woman gives birth to the child while the dragon waits to devour him or the wedding feast of Cana, “do whatever he tells you”, or Luke Chapter 1 and 2, “All generations will call me blessed”, “how is it that the mother of my lord should come to see me, at the sound of your voice the baby in my womb lept for joy”, or Isaiah 7:14, the virgin will be with child and he will be called Immanuel, meaning God is with us. In the latin, we use the term latria, meaning adoration, this term is reserved for God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit alone. The term dulia means reverence, as in revering the saints, and the term hyperdulia, means a higher reverence and we use this for Mary, Jesus’ mother. Are you aware there was a church council in the year 431, held at Ephesus, where the church fathers declared Mary THEOTOKAS! Meaning mother of God. Mary is mother of mercy and mother of grace, she is the new ark of the covenant first named in the old testament scripture that Moses made. Her body was and is a tabernacle of the most high living GOD! So again , don’t get me angry but if you talk about my Mother and my family I will hit back!!!!
You say we pray to statues and images and babble. I say, I love my family and keep pictures and images of them all around. Jesus himself told us in scripture that we have a biological family and a faith family – “who are my mother, and brothers and sisters? Those who hear the word of God and act on it. See Matthew 12:46-50 and Mark 3:35. Please don’t mess with my family; Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the angels and saints. I must add no other human beings ever created listened, pondered and acted on the Word of God as Jesus’ parents Mary and Joseph did and this is all Biblical! If I can ask you to pray for me, why can’t I ask them to pray for me? They are not dead and our Lord Jesus says this himself once again in scripture, Luke 20:38 and Mark 12:27. And it’s Christ Himself who raised all of them from the dead. I need all the prayer I can get and I will ask those most powerful in devoutness and steadfastness of faith to pray for me, past, present and future. As to you saying we babble, our Lord and St. Paul in scripture state pray without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Luke 18:1, Matthew 26:41. We can see here that Jesus himself in his great agony in the garden repeated His prayer to the Father 3 times, so I disagree with you street preacher as it is shown in scripture that Christ himself repeated his same prayer 3 times and that he commands we pray without tiring.
You say the pope is a man and not a god and I say, I agree. He is the vicar of Christ and Peter and our Lord Jesus himself said, “you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church”. Matthew 16:18.
Now for the hard and dirty stuff
Street preacher you say how can you remain in the Catholic Church when so many of your priests are pedophiles and homosexuals and sinners. I say, yes, I agree, the ordained priest is a man, and a sinner, as you and I are, so we must pray even more fervently for him! I have been told maybe 2% of priests perpetrated evil acts of child molestation, and yes, 2% is 2% too many, however let’s not paint all priests as evil because that is not true! It’s a lie in reality! Any priest who committed a heinous act and crime must be held accountable and pay the price for such an act. Let us also hope and pray that he repents because if he truly repents he will be forgiven by God. If a priest has an affair with a woman, goes to strip club or prostitute, lives or partakes in the homosexual lifestyle, woe is him! He must confess his sin to another priest in the sacrament of confession, repent and sin no more; living out his vow of celibacy and live chastely as all men and women are called to live chastely, even in the marriage vows.
Now, I have a question for you, street preacher
What church do you belong to?
If you reply I don’t need a church, then you are sadly mistaken so read Luke 4:16, 1 Cor. 12:12-31, Hebrews 10:25, Matthew 18:20, Exodus 20:8, Romans 10:17 to name a few reasons why we need each other and why we need a church, an assembly of brothers and sisters worshipping together and why we need tradition I might add.
So, you see what you are doing is causing great harm to the body of Christ! There is no need for 34,000 different Christian denominations. It’s embarrassing actually as we are called to be one by Christ Himself, again see John chapter 17 and please read John Chapter 6 while you are at it, the bread of life discourse. So, how about we agree as to what we believe in common, that Jesus is the savior of the world and that all Christians believe this truth and that the Catholic faith because it is One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic contains the complete fullness of truth! And this is God made, not man made.
Okay street preacher I want you to know I love you like a brother because you are my brother, my brother in Christ, I will pray for you daily, please pray for me!
God Bless you!
TO BE CONTINUED…
If you have a question or concern about the Catholic faith please reply to me here and ask and I will be glad to provide any answers I can
Charles DeFeo: Catholic Blogger and Useless Servant of Christ 