Featured The Biblical Basis of 10 Catholic Distinctives

I am an evangelical Methodist who grew up Pentecostal. But for 12 years I was a Theology Professor at a Catholic university. Readers who have followed my critical posts in the Perpetual Virginity thread may be surprised by my positive perspective on Catholic spirituality. I have even won a lawsuit against Catholics! Despite this, I believe there is no Christian spirituality superior to Catholic spirituality at its best and I prefer to ponder the relevance of the biblical basis for this spirituality to my own Christian journey. Sadly, many evangelicals assess Catholic spirituality only on the basis of its worst exemplars and know nothing of how informed Catholics might support their distinctives on biblical grounds. So in this thread I will take a sympathetic look at the biblical basis for 10 Catholic distinctives. In the interests of coherent and focused discussion, I only ask posters to confine their comments to the distinctive under currrent discussion. In my next planned post I will begin with the biblical basis for the Catholic use of Holy Water.

This thread will sequentially discuss the biblical underpinnings of these 10 Catholic distinctives:
(1) Holy Water
(2) Holy Relics
(3) Prayer to Saints
(4) Catholic Mariology
(5) Priestly Confession and Absolution
(6) Infant Baptism
(7) Transubstantiation/ Real Presence
(8) Purgatory
(9) Catholic Doctrine of Justification
(10) Catholic View of Scripture and Tradition

 

(1) THE BIBLICAL INSPIRATION FOR THE USE OF HOLY WATER:

The underlying principles for Catholic sprinkling with Holy Water are the various uses of sacred water in God's Word to bless, purify, heal, or establish innocence. The Apostolic Constitutions (c. 400 AD) trace the priestly use of Holy Water to the Apostle Matthew and thus attests the great antiquity of the Church's use of Holy Water. The first biblical reference to "Holy Water" can be found in Num. 5:16-19. Drinking it will exonorate the innocent and bring curse on the guilty. On certain occasions, bathing in ritual water can purify someone and refusing to use this water retains guilt (e. g. Lev. 17:15-16). Blessed water can unleash healing power. Naaman reluctantly obeys Elisha's command to immerse himself 7 times in the Jordan to heal his leprosy (2 Kings 5:10, 14). In the NT the Pool of Bethzatha has healing efficacy when it is stirred up (John 5:7). Jesus recognizes the healing power of blessed water by using spittle to heal the blind and the dead (John 9:6-7). But the blind man in John 9:6-7 also needs to wash in the blessed waters of the Pool of Siloam to compete his healing.

My next planned post will testify to modern examples of the various types of spiritual power of holy water.

• 

Reactions:The Liturgist

 

(1a) Water must be formally blessed in a priestly ritual before it becomes "Holy Water." Here are just 2 examples of the power of the Holy Spirit uniquely working through a priest who sprinkeles Holy Water:

(I) A few years ago, I received a call from friends at a UMC church I used to pastor. Their son in his late teens was secretly addicted to opioids. Then one night he went reluctantly to a horror movie with friends. The combined effect of created fear and opioids left him vulnerable to spirit oppression with paranormal manifestations like a supernatural light shining in his closet and his bedsheets being violently ripped from his bed in the middle of the night.

His desperate parents summoned an evangelical deliverance team to "cleanse" the boy and his room, but their invocation of Jesus' name had no effect. As a last resort, these evangelical parents called the local Catholic bishop, who sent them a mild-mannered Nigerian priest-exorcist. This Nigerian chanted his exorcism prayers, SPRINKLED HOLY WATER, and quickly took charge of the infesting spirit. This Catholic Nigerian succeeded where the evangelical exorcist team failed!

(ii) The real possession case that inspired the horror movie, "The Exorcist," involved a young boy who was playing with a Ouija board. The boy displayed the classic paranormal symptoms of possession--superhuman strength, levitation, psychokinetic movement of objects, etc. A Lutheran pastor tried and failed to exorcise the boy and was injured in his efforts. Realizing he was in over his head, he called the local Catholic bishop, who sent Father Bowdern for a long siege with Satan that involved a family move form Georgetown to St. Louis. Father Bowderm and his Catholic team regularly sprinkled Holy Water on the boy, which greatly upset the demon and proved quite effective. Eventually the boy converted to Catholicism so he could receive the Catholic Eucharist. The key moment of victory occurred when the boy was able to affirm Jesus as his Lord and confessed "Dominus."

 

(1b) HEALING MARIAN SPRINGS

An important variant of Holy Water is the healing Marian spring. If you want to experience awe, wonder, and a profound sense of the sacred watch this famous old movie ("The Song of Bernadette" [1943]) about Bernadette, the simple young girl whose visions of the Virgin Mary led to her discovery of the hidden spring at Lourdes that over the centuries has triggered pilgrimages by millions and countless healing miracles.

the song of bernadette movie online - Search Videos


Jennifer Jones won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Bernadette. Watch this movie and it will change the way you view Catholic spirituality, despite your misgivings about Mariology. More Christians visit Lourdes annually than Muslims who visit their holy site Mecca.

I will provide an example of the spectacular modern healiing miracles at Lourdes in my next planned post.

THE HEALING SPRING BY THE HOUSE OF THE VIRGIN MARY ON TOP OF A SMALL MOUNTAIN JUST OUTSIDE THE MASSIVE RUINS OF ANCIENT EPHESUS

Dick climbed this little mountain on a "Footsteps of St. Paul Tour" that he (and later I) took about 10 years ago. Dick went on this tour despite the fact that he had torn tendons in his badly arthritic knee.
He limped badly up the beautiful little mountain lined with box-shaped trees and an elegant wall along the pathway. A Turkish lady saw him limp and urged him to bottle water from the adjacent Marian spring that could be tapped from a spigot in the descending wall. A skeptical Dick complied just to be polite, but when he returned to his hotel, he complained about his pain to his wife, Mary Ann. She replied, "Well, why don't you pour the bottled water onto your knee to see if that helps?" Dick replied, "Why? It's just water with no special powers!" His wife retorted, "I agree, but what do you have to lose?" So Dick reluctantly poured the water on his knee. He felt a little better, but attributed this to a placebo effect.

When he returned to the US, he entered a Spokane hospital for orthopedic surgery on his knee. When he came out of the anesthesia, his surgeon stood at the foot of his bed. The surgeon said defensively, "I don't understand it. We took MRIs and did other tests on your torn tendons before your trip, but when we cut you open, your knee was perfectly normal and even the arthritis was gone!" The doctor probably feared a malpractice lawsuit. Dick testified to his miracle in my church and began it in this unforgettable way: "Now I do some things which many of you would disapprove of!"

 

There is not even a shred of evidence that the Catholic use of Holy Water was borrowed from paganism,
and even if it did, its grounding in biblical teaching and precedent is sufficient to validate its use, especially since God uses it to perform miracles like exorcism when evangelical efforts to do so fail miserably, as my prior post demonstrates.I ndeed, the celebration is Holy Communion is influecned by pagan mystery religions, but the Christian development of this practice protects it from dismissal as a pagan ritual.

 

(1c) God has mightily used the spring at Lourdes to achieve astounding healing miracles comparable to the miracles from the time of Bernadette's divine call to dig an unseen spring at the small cave at Louirdes'. Catholics have long established a staff of investigative doctors and surgeons there to collect medical records and identify the healings that lack parallels in spontaneous remissions of various sorts. But countless sick visitors don't bother with the hassle of a medical investigation, preferring rather to glory in the grace of God in performing their miracle there. Here is a video of how Mary Maguire received a healing from advanced multipple scherosis after being confined to a wheelchair fo much of her life. When she touched the rock of Bernadette's cave, she was instantly healed. She bolted from her chair, ealking and leaping up and down the many steps of the sanctuary there, praising God and shouting out her testimony to everyone withn earshot. Watch this testimony. It will change your life:

Search Videos view=detail&q=lourdes+healing+miracle+testimony+mary+maguire+youtube&mid=F665F326FF20C5282591F665F326FF20C5282591&FORM=VIRE

What is particularly instructive about Mary's miracle is her initial failure on her first visit to Lourdes. God prompted her to return a week later and this time she forgot her dire condition and spent days praying for the other needy pilgrims there. Then when she herself again touched the cave rock, she was instantly healed! Providentially, yesterday I heard the testimony of another Christian woman with advanced multiple sclerosis. She never went to Lourdes, but heard a voice commanding her, "Rise from your wheelchair and walk." She was instantly healed. And like Mary Maguire, she had forgotten her own need and spent her days praying for others to be healed!

 

No, Jesus was not a magician, but He borrowed practices from magic that functioned as effective valves to release their faith.

Readers should note that in typical Baptist fashion Jon C has not bothered to watch my posted testimony videos, though Baptists typically expect outsiders to take their personal testimonies seriously. I on the other hand am willing to watch any Baptist sanctioned videos as a gesture of good faith and in the interests of intellectual integrity, if Baptists are willing to reciprocate. From my experience Baptists are unwilling to step outside their myopic thought Ghetto and breathe the fresh air of honest and open inquiry. One of my favorite Billy Graham sayings is "In life theological understanding is the booby prize because it gives you just enough spirituality to inoculate you against the real thing." Of course, by "real thing" he meant spiritual experience, a vibrant life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ. Despite my disagreements with my Pentecostal heritage, I ''m so grateful for the many miracles I experienced in that tradition as "the power and demonstration of the Spirit" without which I doubt I'd still be a Christian. Many Catholics also thrive on such paranormal experiences. So I highly respect their spirituality despite the fact that I''ve successfully sued them.. 'm just waiting now for Baptists to play the card: "if they don't support my theology, miracles must be demonic"--this despite the way they inspire faith and bring glory to God, and increase loving devotion to Jesusl

 

2(2) HOLY RELICS

Biblical precedent for healing miracles associated with the bones or clothing of saints can be found in 2 Kings 13:21, which recounts the restoration of a dead man to life through contact with Elisha's bones.
The Shroud of Turin's authenticity has been discussed on other threads. My point for this thread is the frequency of miracles throughout history such as divine healing generated by some sort of contact with the Shroud. For ancient and modern examples, read this article:

Healing Miracles of The Shroud of Turin

What prompted me to take holy relics seriously was a Catholic man's testimony of how his wife's congestive heart failure was cured when he visited a saint's tomb in Italy and asked that saint to pray for his wife. His wife was instantly healed! This impressed me particularly because I have a good friend who suffers from congestive heart failure and have often prayed in vain for his healing. Indeed, in my Pentecostal and Methodist circles I haven't even heard of someone with this life-threatening condition being healed. Why would the bones or artifacts of the dead and prayer to saints trigger such a miracle, when the desperate prayers of Protestants like me go unheard?

• 

Reactions:The Liturgist
QuoteReply
Report

Upvote