I have recently been thinking about and bothered by two things I have heard. A few years ago before returning to the Catholic Church I attended a few Unitarian services. At one of the services the speaker joked that Unitarians are out of sync and can't carry a tune but it's because they are too busy contemplating the meaning of the lyrics they are singing. This past Friday I was listening to a pastor on a Christian radio station and he remarked to a Catholic caller that he was once Catholic but that in the Catholic Church he never learned that he should accept Christ in his heart as his personal savior. The first statement bothered me a little bit because of the arrogant implication that people in other religions are just going through the motions, they don't contemplate the meaning of what they sing or say. The second statement bothered me considerably more because it appears to be evidence that the first statement is true!
If that pastor did not learn in the Catholic Church to accept Jesus in his heart as his personal savior, he wasn't propely catechized. He also doesn't understand the Mass. Every single thing in the Mass comes from scripture and from the apostles. Everything in the Mass centers on Jesus Christ who takes away the sins of the world. The most important part of the Mass is recieving Jesus in the Eucharist. Every single mass we confess our sins, we praise God, we hear his word in the Gospel, we profess our faith in Jesus, and we recieve Jesus! That is exactly what it is all about! If there are Catholics who don't understand this I hope they will begin to read scripture, contemplate the words of the mass, and speak with a priest about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment