I saw it said, '' I was protestant and learned a lot of the Christian faith in my years as a Protestant. The people are loving, faithful people, but I found the FULL FAITH was in Catholicism.''
Ever so true, and let's explore why.
I do not want to hammer on one's faith. One can generally say that Protestants have a great tract for great faith in Jesus as a Risen Christ and of the trinitarian deity.
They have such faith in Him, they feel that is all they need.
As great as that faith is, is it faithful to God?
What does 'faith' mean? It is a declaration of a 'knowing.' Of course, not in the case of knowing which would arise the scientific method, but a knowing of experience. Experience of personal experiences of the Living Christ in one's personal life, but also they experience that tells us that we can trust people in life. That it is possible to believe one's account. We do it on the news every night. There is a faith of the viewer of the newscaster that the things being said is true. In some cases, we can go out and see if there is a meteor shower in the sky as the TV has explained and sometimes we are incapable of having this kind of self-assurance of the news we hear.
Let's say the newscaster says,' The President of the United States will change America because he is the savior of the nation and calls on you to follow him. '
You may believe your friendly newscaster, and feel that the world is full of promise. You can easily buy that there is a President of the United States. You can even buy into that there is this entity called the United States that exist.
So you are satisfied that you know that what you heard is right, so you are a believer! Because you are a believer, you recite the Pledge of Allegiance and celebrate national holidays.
Are you a follower of the President? No, because eventhough you believe the president exist, you have not PRACTICED your faith in him by simple recognition and celebration.
Practicing what he preaches is a call to action. As in this case of the President, Jesus also called us to be followers of Christ, not just believers.
More so, simple acceptance is not great faith alone. When we marry, we have faith that we have a wife. A wife is not just a title, it is a calling. A wife should be with you good and bad, and function in the family.
Love is not supposed to be held, it is supposed to be given.
Great is the faith of a faithful Catholic.
Not only is a Catholic a believer of Christ, they are a follower of Christ as well. Catholic faith is more than recognition, it is BELIEVING that the Lord is so great that a instrument of His power can be an institution which reflects man's own need for governance and institutions. Catholics BELIEVE that Jesus is living, and because He is living, He has the power and ability to take part in the Eucharist in the most real way. Just as He was Human & Divine in the most real way.
Catholic faith in God is so great that it believes in His own way He protects His Church despite the nature of man which assembles it.
Catholic faith is so great that the traditions are not only seen as ritual but a part of a greater Truth and reflection of faith of the past from the Old Testament to the apostolic age.
Catholic faith is so great, that when faithful men come together to decide what is true and what is not, that the Lord will comfort their doubtful souls and be the light He promised. He'd be to be able to understand man's call in cases of morality and man's knowledge of the revelation as so happened when the Catholic Church deciphered the Holy Bible.
Catholic faith is so great that we believe God can purify a human being to be the next arch of the covenant, and this arch of the covenant can still speak to us today if she so will to help her God's people along the way whether it be through the rosary or scapular or by miracles of the sun.
Catholic faith is so great that nothing is impossible in this God.
Man, even flawed man, can serve the call of the Lord, have faith in the Law, and have faith in the promise which is laid out in the Bible.
In fact, Catholic faith is evidenced to be the True One Faith by the fact that all Protestant faiths are reliant on it's Bible.
The Bible is Catholic! that is to say a Catholic creation. So the interpretation of the Bible MUST be Catholic!
Catholicism is scriptural, just not ONLY scriptural.
Here is a website that is focused on Catholic dogma in the Bible:
http://www.bridegroompress.com/sc/
So what is the greatest faith? To 'know' something exists? Or to not only know, but to follow, to answer the CALL to LIFE.
Life is not simple as acknowledging. It is living, it is what Jesus called us to do and be..... Living and Faithful in His Truths.... that there is a covenant, and He will fill His promises when we fill ours.
Christians are supposed to fill the promise a great more than just by FAITH ALONE.
We are to be united in Him through the Eucharist as He requires, and we are to believe that He will guide His LIVING Church as He said Himself He came to do.
As He showed us His power to be both Divine and Man as both Bread and Present.
As He showed He holds the power to raise from the dead, and rise from the dead. To walk on water and to have Peter walk on water!
Which shows us the equation, that Peter was walking on the water and he 'knew' he was walking on water, but he did not have faith in Jesus to follow Jesus to reflect what Jesus did as he fell into the water.
Jesus is not calling us to 'know Him.' He is calling us to live a life in glory and faith that He is Living and calling us to His table! The table here on Earth in the Eucharist.
The Church HAS to be Jesus's mission. He wants to raise the dead back to a new-life as He wants to raise Israel into a New Israel.
The Jews 'knew' God, and yet Jesus came still. The Jewish faith was not enough! Jesus came to be present in His Church, not to be celebrated and believed ALONE. The Jews accomplished that and Jesus is God, so that faith was not the ending. Jesus wanted to encompass our lives to the FULLEST! In our personal nature, in our spiritual nature, and in our political nature.
Governance is not man made, governance is a necessity of man. Man is naturally social and relational. So is the Church God Himself established.
One that reflects every aspect of man, not only one's faith and knowledge, but life and institution. Catholicism intercedes into every aspect of the human experience. NOT FAITH ALONE.
ALL encompassing... the mystical, the traditional, the promises, the institutional, the LIVING
That is why Catholicism is the Truest Faith, because it does not hold back faith in the power and desires of God ........ That God is not living in only words and faith, but God lives in our lives and our lives reflect God's creation of man. FULLY in FULL FAITH.
Faith and the word is just the start, the invitation to life, but the full life is one of action and faith united in the system towards that which is promised.
The presidency exists and president speaks to us ..... the citizen is called upon more than just listen and acknowledge, but to live out the calling.
Bishop Sheen:
If I were not a Catholic
and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look
for the one Church which did not get along well with the world; in other
words, I would look for the Church which the world hates. My reason for
doing this would be that if Christ is in any one of the churches of the
world today, he must still be hated as he was when he was on earth in
the flesh. If you would find Christ today, then find the Church that
does not get along with the world.
Look for the Church that is hated by
the world as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is
accused of being behind the times as our Lord was accused of being
ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which men sneer
at as socially inferior as they sneered at our Lord because he came from
Nazareth. Look for the Church which is accused of having a devil as our
Lord was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the prince of devils.
Look for the Church which, in seasons of bigotry, men say must be
destroyed in the name of God as men crucified Christ and thought they
had done a service to God. Look for the Church which the world rejects
because it claims it is infallible as Pilate rejected Christ because he
called himself the Truth. Look for the Church which is rejected by the
world as our Lord was rejected by men.
Look for the Church which amid the
confusion of conflicting opinions its members love as they love Christ
and respect its voice as the very voice of its founder, and the
suspicion will grow that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of
the world then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly it is
other-worldly. Since it is other-worldly it is infinitely loved and
infinitely hated as was Christ himself. But only that which is divine
can be infinitely hated and infinitely loved. Therefore the Church is
divine (Radio Replies, vol. 1, preface, p. ix, slightly edited for readability).
