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Dec 29th, 2019
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Joined: Nov 2002
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Johan:
What would you find other than the Fathers?
The Church existed before the Bible was written and the earliest Christians gathered for Liturgy. They served the Eucharist, the unbloody anamnesis of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
Some of the churches had an Epistle that had been sent to them. The Gospels came much later.
The Church has nothing but the faithful witness of its members telling each other and each new generation the story of our incorporation into Christ by Baptism, Chrismation, and the Eucharist. It isn't terribly complicated.
The whole of the Church's Deposit of Faith, given by Christ and brought into the fullness of Truth by the Holy Spirit, comes to us from the Fathers, the first teachers of the faith who received directly form the Apostles. We trust them to have passed to us the Truth. It is this trusted-passing-on that we call Tradition and it is with this ongoing-life-of-the-Holy Spirit-within-the-Church (Tradition) that the Church has judged which books would form the Scriptural Canon.
This is the basis of where you differ from your Protestant friend. We do not turn to Scripture to prove our faith. Scripture is the heart of our Tradition and the two cannot be separated any more than a living heart can be separated from the body and live--or with Scripture, be understood.
In Christ,
BOB
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Johan, my brother in Christ,
Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!!
What do either of these two articles have to do with your original question?
Archeological digs uncover an ancient church or the catacombs unearth the burial place of St. Peter. Your friend can use the same physical evidence to argue his point. So where are we with this?
To me the most important prism through which I judge whether something is worth my time is this: "How does this particular event, argument, or other activity further my relationship with Jesus Christ?" "Does is help or hinder it?"
Fruitless arguments with people over whether the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are the same today as they were two thousand years ago are things that border on breaking my focus. I gave them up years ago. I was where you are--young, full of zeal for Christ and His Church, and ready to take on all who came at me. Then I began to realize, with the help of my spiritual director--that these arguments were making me become defensive, bitter, and narrow. I wasn't growing; these arguments were making me shrink.
I work every day with people who hate me because of my Catholic faith. So be it. I don't argue with them or fight with them. I pray for them and ask the Lord not to impute any guilt to their actions because they may have been raised with this hatred--much like people grow up learning to hate Jews if they are Muslim or to hate others in the Balkans, etc. Hate is a learned activity. I care about you and am asking you to be careful. Don't learn to hate. It's an easy, short trip from arguing, to anger and bitterness, to hatred.
This morning I had a preaching assignment and the subject was how we are to live as Catholic (Orthodox) Christians. I started with Romans 12:3-21. Look closely at verse 18: " . . . live at peace with all."
In Christ,
BOB
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Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory to Him forever! Bob, Fruitless arguments with people over whether the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are the same today as they were two thousand years ago are things that border on breaking my focus. I gave them up years ago. I was where you are--young, full of zeal for Christ and His Church, and ready to take on all who came at me. Then I began to realize, with the help of my spiritual director--that these arguments were making me become defensive, bitter, and narrow. I wasn't growing; these arguments were making me shrink. Don't worry about me I am doing just fine. Thanks! Forum, I would like people to share with me some of the physical evidence of the early church besides writings. I am beginning to show an interest in early Church archaeology.
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Johan S
It would appear that there were "Altars" in the early churches the first known refference we have is from Ignatius Bsp of Antioch.
"There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent. Do you therefore all run together as into one temple of God, as to one "altar", as to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one."
Stephanos I
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