I am officially a Catholic! Truly blessed to receive the body and blood of my Lord Jesus Christ and to be confirmed into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Photo of my priest, Father Dave, me, and my sponsor Tom.
Many months ago, I was in a psychiatric hospital, and there was a patient there who would attack staff. He didn't want to attack them. He was a good man with a good heart, but he was filled with emotional pain and didn't want to be conscious.
When you're in a psychiatric hospital, if you act out, they may inject you with Haldol and Ativan, which can put you to sleep. Sometimes it can sedate you for days. He basically didn't want to be conscious. He wanted to be sedated so he wouldn't have to face the pain he was carrying.
I would hear him say, "I hate myself. I hate my life."
People, Christians of all traditions, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, please pray for those who feel this way. There are people everywhere who hate themselves and hate their lives. You may even be one of them.
Many of them end up taking their own lives, and I feel for them because I've been there. I've felt that pain. But I kept going because I know God has a purpose, even in the midst of suffering.
Please pray for those people. There are many who cannot handle that pain on their own. Pray that God reaches them, shows them that they are loved, and helps them see that their lives have purpose and value.
What is your theme song? Meaning what song best describes you? My theme song is cry little sister. I've always been an outcast to society and I finally learned to embrace it.
@DrShayPhD While the physical bodies of David and the saints remain buried awaiting the final resurrection at the end of time, their souls are now fully alive in heaven with God. As Jesus said in Luke 20:38, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
I take issue with your statement “God or Mary.” Catholics ask for Mary's intercession because her prayers are powerful, but mercy and salvation originate solely from God. Mary's entire purpose is to point souls back to Christ. She never acts as an independent fallback option if God decides to say no.
“Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”* - I Believe in the Holy Catholic Church, CCC 848
And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.* - Hebrews 11:6
For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! - 1 Corinthians 9:16
@BaptistClips@DF_UniatePapist The original Greek is figurative and implies difficulty, distress, or limitation, denoting a state of being hard-pressed or restricted by circumstances.
That’s disciplinary and it can be dissolved, and it has been. Nothing in the Code of Canon Law regarding that.
Demanding the acceptance of Lateran IV means acknowledging it as a valid ecumenical council in the history of the Church. It does not mean reviving 13th-century penal codes that the Church itself has long since dissolved.
@PaulinusOfTrier The Holy See does not exempt the other 20 ecumenical councils from this requirement; it demands adherence to all 21 councils as a single, indivisible exercise of the Catholic magisterium.
The Second Council of Nicaea did not claim that the 2nd-century Church practiced formal icon veneration exactly as it was practiced in the 8th century. The council argued that the underlying theological principle—that the Incarnation of Jesus Christ made the invisible God visible, thereby sanctifying matter—was present from the beginning.
Nicaea II defined a dogmatic distinction between latria (the worship due to God alone) and proskynesis (the veneration or honor shown to the person represented by the image).