Comments for The Christmas Paradox at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 11 out of 11 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Sat, 25 May 2013 08:18:31 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5538 John, I believe the difficulty you are having with accepting the Christian Church is that you are putting your faith in sinners rather than placing it with Christ. Once you strengthen your trust in Christ, you will see that Judas was not the death of the Church. As the others have said, study the actual teachings of the Church while in prayer with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, not the wishful thinking of the anti-Christian secular media. May this blessed Christmas bring you peace and joy in further union with Christ and His Church! - Robert Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:07:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5537 "I want so desperately to embrace the Catholic Church, which I was born and baptized into and have since strayed from, but I cannot be convinced it is the True Church when so many of its professed adherents are dismissive of its teachings." So, in protest against people not being faithful, one chooses to be unfaithful? That hardly makes sense. In troubled times, greater fidelity is required. - Mark Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:25:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5536 Thank you Dr. Royal for your very inciteful and needed article. Now, isn't it about time that more offical leaders of the Church follow the lead of Abp Chaput and Cardinal Burke and start publically telling public figures who call themselves Catholics that their words and deeds put them out of Communion with Holy Mother Church? It would be a sin against Hope to claim that the situation is hopless, but I fear that without the loud, clear, and collective voices of the Descendents of the Apostles more and more Catholics will think and act like Biden, whom The Presdient introduced at a "committed Catholic" without much noticable objection from our Shepherds. I know I'm not the only layman who, after noting these scandals, has been rebuked by someone using the ludicrous analogy of the woman taken in adultery, to whom Our Lord did NOT say that there is no such thing as sin. Yesterday when Cardinal Wuerl was aksed by Chris Wallace about the elimination of DADT the Cardinal gave a vague and ambigious answer, when in fact in 1992 the USCCB took a strong stance against Pres. Clinton's announced plan to allow what the new law allows. Yes, I know that we can catch more flies with honey, but who wants to catch flies? Let's get some vinegar and start cleaning up this place! - Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:24:55 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5535 John: Read the Summa Theologiae, or a precis of it for laymen, and you will find richness there you cannot imagine. You will learn that Catholicism has enormous depth. I am 70 years old and I have never been involved with prostitution, aberrosexuality, AIDS or condoms in my life! At the Christmas Mass in St. Peter's this year, the Pope insisted that all who wished to receive Holy Communion, must receive it on the tongue! Ignore the popular press. It is merely a tool of Satan to lead the faithful astray. Joe Biden? Read the entire passage of John 6. "And many of them left Him including some of His disciples and they never walked with Him again. He turned to His apostles. 'Will you leave me also? 'Lord to whom shall we turn? We have come to believe that You have the words of eternal life.' - Bill Mon, 27 Dec 2010 09:00:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5534 Dear John, A Mary and Joseph Christmas to you! i say "Mary and Joseph" because we are a little like them and need to be more like them. That there are pains and problems and confusion and weaker members of the Church is nothing new or even unexpected in this Age...an Age longing and waiting, yes groaning, for the Return of the King of Kings. Jesus said that Hell would not prevail which tells us quite plainly that Hell would unleash its rages and fury and hate upon Her, His most beautiful Bride. Mary pondered all these things in Her heart....all that was revealed to Her, that happened in Her, Her very life, and Life Himself before Her. Holy Scripture never says She understood all these things or did not need any eyes of Faith. St. Joseph had the most difficult of lives to live: he had to lead, guide, protect, provide for God Himself while yet just a mortal man, a just man yes, but still a sinner. Our Father God has never requested a single person to Know everything - understanding all things. We are to trust Him. so please my dear brother, before sister Death comes for you, reconcile yourself to your Holy Mother and allow Her to assist you in your union with Jesus Christ our Savior, Lord, and Lover. You need the Holy Eucharist and all the graces She has to offer. Come let us Adore Him! Merry Christmas to you! your sister in Him. a little p.s.- NEVER trust ANY SECULAR MEDIA in regards to relaying any information ever. the Love of Truth is not present and therefore cannot be relayed. - debby Mon, 27 Dec 2010 06:20:44 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5533 John, Please be careful. Your reasoning was once my own. I told myself that a Church that was, in my judgment, so unfaithful to its own professed beliefs could not possibly be what it claimed to be. I don't pretend to know what is going on in your own heart or mind, but I do know that in my own case, it was a total sham. I finally had to admit that I was expecting God to be impressed by my fine moral sensitivity. If it turned out that this church really was The Church and I was deceived, it would be because I was just so darned good. Surely God couldn't hold that against anyone. It took a real blow to the gut for me to see through this absurdity. I'm not saying that you're doing the same thing, only that in my case I needed to experience some real humility before I could perceive the truth, even about my own motives. - Charlotte Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:24:21 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5532 Brad, while I appreciate the distinction, one could liken your analogy to an armed robbery. Whether the gun was loaded or not does not make a difference. It's still a crime to steal. - John Mon, 27 Dec 2010 05:01:09 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5531 John, Dr. Royal may have more to add, but I feel compelled to note that your "nearly last straw" repeats the press account of the pope's comments but not the truth about them. What Benedict said is that a male prostitute's use of a condom may be an act of compassion (protecting his client from disease) and indicate the beginning of a moral awakening. But neither the use of the condom nor the homosexual act (or any sexual act outside of heterosexual marriage) are in any way licit. - Brad Miner Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:54:07 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5530 Quoting JPII: "Andre Malraux was certainly right when he said that the 21st century would be the century of religion or it would not be at all." It seems the Catholic Dark Age has arrived, as Fr. Benedict Groeschel feared in a sermon some years ago. Rather than regeneration, we see decomposition. Look no further than the VP of the United States, a self-professed Catholic and supporter of abortion, pronouncing gay marriage "inevitable." I want so desperately to embrace the Catholic Church, which I was born and baptized into and have since strayed from, but I cannot be convinced it is the True Church when so many of its professed adherents are dismissive of its teachings. The dogma of the Church, which I once considered solid and unshakable, has softened and shifted under the sands of modernity. The nearly last straw came with Pope Benedict's approval of condoms, albeit solely for prophylactic purposes and not contraceptive, has been confusing and undermining to those who look for moral and spiritual leadership in a world bereft of it. Though Jesus advises us to ask, seek and knock continually, I find no answers to the doubts that have plagued me since boyhood. I am now well advanced in years and no closer to the truth as I recall Emily Dickinson's line: "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me." - John Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:08:00 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5529 "It’s good to reflect on these puzzles between Christmas and New Year, even though the celebration of the savior’s birth is more a time for hope than reflection." Focusing on hope without reflecting on the source of that hope and the goals toward which that hope trends is a large part of what got us in our current mess. At the Nativity, the Blessed Virgin kept things in heart to be pondered, and we should do likewise. "Catholicism is often accused of opposing faults: pride and subservience, simple-mindedness and cunning, strictness and laxity, otherworldliness and worldliness, slavishness to ancient books and unfaithfulness to the real Jesus." To paraphrase Chesterton, if one gets such widely different descriptions of the same man from various people, it stands to reason none of them actually saw the man. - Mark Mon, 27 Dec 2010 02:36:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/the-christmas-paradox.html#comment-5528 I am a weakling so, two year ago I said my wife,"I need training for martyrdom." I don't want to be martyr but I pray for the Helper if anticipated. Ollie - Oliver Wilson Sun, 26 Dec 2010 22:35:15 +0100