CONCERNING OBJECTIONS TO CHURCH'S TEACHING ON RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION BY DIVORCED AND REMARRIED

Thank you again.
As a practising Catholic and believer in God I do not worry.
I also think it should be meritorious and useful to discuss the nature of God the First Person of the Holy Trinity without rancour .
If you think I am set in my ways then your post is of little help.

Of course I have made many decisions concerning what God is and what God is not.
Of course I have many personal and theological arguments and debates that are indeed for me fully and finally decided.

That is called advancing in the spiritual life.

I do not understand why you would have a problem with that.

 

Spiritual life is never ending learning.

Even at your driest and darkest point. Most will see light in the end.

The more you advance in your spiritual life... the greater understanding of how much you really don't know.

Brother al

 

That's a binary argument that is not terribly helpful .
God made us to know love and serve Him.

Therefore getting to know God is the first step.
It is not possible to know God unless God reveals himself to us.

Going around wondering about all the unknowns attached to God is futile.
One must concentrate on what we do actually know concerning God and that is actually quite a lot.

By the way I think this subject might not be really connected to the thread topic so perhaps it might be an idea to get back on topic

One thing God has made crystal clear is that adultery is a mortal sin and practising adulterers can not receive Holy Communion.

Current attempts by Catholic Church heretics to alter that teaching are causing immense problems throughout the church.

 

Love and serving is the easy part. Even the wicked can love and serve.

Getting to know God has many roads with non being the same. Yes God can be revealed in many ways...including in the observation of His creations.

But I am not wondering about the unknowns, just stating the more we know about the creator. The more we understand...we don't know. That is the gift of faith.

But what made me enter the discussion was your philosophy of genderism.

Your philosophy is anti-Catholic and leads down the wrong path.

 

You are going off topic again.

However I will reply to you.

There is no gender in God.
It is heretical to assert so.

If you say that God has gender then you are saying that God is either masculine or feminine.
Masculinity and Feminity are limited human physical facts.

Since God is a pure infinite spirit then any notion of specific physical gender residing within the Triune Godhead is absurd.

I suggest you examine the church's teaching on the Hypostatic Union.

That is my philosophy and it is entirely orthodox in complete conformity with all Catholic teaching .

 

Jesus is Male and He is also the 2nd person of the Triune Godhead. Jesus taught us to address God as Father! He was the one that gave us the notion that God is indeed Our Father. Jesus did not teach us anything absurd, nor is He heretical.


It was Jesus who assigned a gender to God the Father!

And it is beautiful! In the language that Jesus spoke, the word was abba. Abba was the word that a child would use to speak to his or her father. It is an intimate word, a word that a child would say slowly, in a quiet voice, knowing that he or she did not need to shout to get abba's attention. "When you pray, say: Father - Abba."


Hence as a Catholic when you make the sign of the cross, you say.....In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
And being a Catholic you are stating the creed daily at the commencement of the Holy Rosary you say......

I believe in God the Father, the Almighty
The Creator of Heaven and Earth......

Do not fear, you are not being absurd when you say this.



Matthew 6: 9-15

9 So you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.11 Give us today our daily bread.12 And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us. 13 And do not put us to the test, but save us from the Evil One. 14 'Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; 15 but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.


Luke 11:11-20

11 What father among you, if his son asked for a fish, would hand him a snake?12 Or if he asked for an egg, hand him a scorpion? 13 If you then, evil as you are, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!' 14 He was driving out a devil and it was dumb; and it happened that when the devil had gone out the dumb man spoke, and the people were amazed.


15 But some of them said, 'It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he drives devils out.' 16 Others asked him, as a test, for a sign from heaven; 17 but, knowing what they were thinking, he said to them, 'Any kingdom which is divided against itself is heading for ruin, and house collapses against house.

18 So, too, with Satan: if he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom last? - since you claim that it is through Beelzebul that I drive devils out. 19 Now if it is through Beelzebul that I drive devils out, through whom do your own sons drive them out? They shall be your judges, then. 20 But if it is through the finger of God that I drive devils out, then the kingdom of God has indeed caught you unawares.

 

Well said, Josephite.

 

You are deeply deeply confused.

The Holy Trinity is a pure spirit.
God is pure spirit.
God the Father is pure spirit.
If you say that God the Father has gender then God the father must have a penis.
Is that what you really think?

Do you really think that when Christ asked his followers to pray to their Father in heaven he meant an old man with a beard and a penis?

That is a travesty and deeply uncatholic

 

Abstract thought is required to understand what Jesus meant when he referred to his Father.

The Father of Jesus was not a physical individual.

Therefore those seeking to ascribe masculine or gender identity to the First Person of the Holy Trinity are all 100% mistaken.

 

Someone please get this person off this forum

 

Well, God the Father is male because Jesus is male. But God the Father is not male because it's a spirit. 'it' unfortunately does have a terrible connotation in English, but that's what 'it' is, simultaneously genderless and possessing gender. The Old Testament often uses the neuter to refer to God, I think Jews still do, too.

I often don't really like the Father being portrayed as an old guy with a beard, feeds into feminists' ideas of Christianity being dominatingly patriarchal, etc. I prefer a Giant Eye, it's unfortunate that the Freemasons stole that depiction from the early Christians.

 

There's also a difference between gender and sexual gender here, light for instance would be considered male because it's the active as opposed to the passive, that is light enters the eye and that's how we see. The Father emanates, so in that sense, yes, male, but not like man is.

 

That, at least, is how I think of it. What a silly thing to argue about.

 

Maleness, in this sense, does not imply the man bits. It implies a function. Are you saying that gender is not ontological? If a man is severed from his body is he no longer male?

 

This conversation is making me uncomfortable.

 

And it's totally ridiculous and useless to boot.

 

Jesus was a Man. A real Man. And also God at the same time.
He said to refer to God the Father in the Masculine sense.
Why?
Who can know the mind of God?
Isn't that enough to know?

 

You're implying that men and women don't have equal dignity, which might be why Anthony is so worked up.

CCC 370

In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.

 

I should add that what I meant is that what you're saying would imply that men and women don't have equal dignity, not that you as an individual believe this.

 

You are correct, AT. If we look at the first sentence in CCC 370:

370 In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes.

BUT...

Man is the only visible creature that can enter into a relationship with God because we are created in the image and likeness of God. In establishing that relationship, God is revealed as Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Through the Incarnation, the eternal Son has forever taken to Himself a human nature. And by means of His death, resurrection and exaltation, we too can become children of the Father and infilled by the Holy Spirit.

AT,

Though you are correct, the way you go about presenting your case is often condescending. You should instruct to uplift your brothers and sisters, never to prove "I'm right, you're wrong."

What is the purpose of this tangent?

Safe in the Refuge of the Immaculate Heart!