DAY 22: The Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

     Since I talked about the seven sacraments a couple of days ago, I thought I would discuss the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Catholics believe that the gifts are given to a person after they go through confirmation. These gifts are not physical objects that you can touch or break (like the barbie doll or monster truck you got for your fifth birthday) but are "supernatural gifts operating in a supernatural mode or manner." (http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0451.html)  "These are not gifts one simply invokes in times of emergency; rather, these gifts are present to the person as long as he remains in a state of sanctifying grace....The idea here is that these gifts help a person to share in the very life and nature of God, now in this life and for eternal life."

     Now, some sites I've found tell me that there are seven gifts ( faith, charity, hope,prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance,) but I remember learning these nine when I was in second grade, so that's what I'm going to go with. Forgive me if I'm wrong.... below are the nine... (http://www.bible-knowledge.com/gifts-of-the-holy-spirit/ and http://www.bible.ca/tongues-9-spiritual-gifts-defined.htm)

1. The Word of Knowledge- one of the most common gifts ( it can even help you with your math homework! and I'm not kidding...) 
2. The Word of Wisdom- ability to be able to properly apply the knowledge given by the Spirit
3. The Gift of Prophecy- when you get a direct Word from God (usually give to someone else.)
4. The Gift of Faith- although you have some from the Father Himself, the Spirit increases your faith in times of need.
5. The Gifts of Healings- being able to heal any sickness or disease (like leprosy)
6. The Working of Miracles- the saints are given this power...
7. The Discerning of Spirits- angels, demons, human (like pride)
8. Different Kinds of Tongues- this is speaking in different languages, sometimes at the same time.
9. The Interpretation of Tongues- being able to understand the languages being spoken by the speaker.

     According to the second site above, the Holy Spirit decides who gets which gift: I Cor 12:11. Now seeing this reference, I immediately went to my Bible to make sure it was valid and found all of my questions answered about the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12. Since the Spirit is part of the Trinity, He is God and He can do anything. My interpretation of this chapter (remember, I'm no theologian) is that He can activate all of the spirits in each person, or He may only give to one to each person. You can have multiple gifts. But don't rely on my understanding. I encourage you to go read the chapter yourself and make your own opinions.

Alrighty then, I'll write again on Monday. Until then!

DAY 21: The Catholic Church is opposed to science and rejects evolution

      I guess this is a fairly big misconception of the church because I've found it in a couple of " Top 10 Misconceptions of the Catholic Church" lists... so. here goes!

     Now, the Catholic Church has actually been behind many of the world's great scientific advances- remember Gutenberg's printing press?- and I actually have one example of such a discovery that may knock the socks off of your feet....either that or melt your face.... any guesses?... oh c'mon... really?... well you'll never guess so... it's the Big Bang Theory! ( No, not the show- sorry to everyone who loves Sheldon... ) Yep, the Big Bang Theory creator is credited be a Catholic Belgian Priest. (Yeah, I couldn't believe at first either, but it's on catholic education.org  and PBS say it's true...so it must be okay...right?) This Priest, Georges Lemaître, called the Big Bang "a day without yesterday" and proposed the theory in 1927, based on Einstein's theory of gravitation. Funnily enough, Einstein actually rejected Lemaître's  theory at first.

     And as for evolution? Well, the Catholic Church does not reject the theory. Our parameters are limited to our belief that God created the world from nothing. However, we (the church) have no conclusive evidence that evolution doesn't exist. In fact, many say that God himself created evolution and guides it. One website, http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp, states that there are three different views on evolution and the origin of mankind.

 1.)  special or instantaneous creation- basically the idea that there was nothing until...*POOF* things just came into being, like humans.
2.) developmental creation or theistic evolution-  essentially, a given thing develops from a previous state or form, but it's under God’s guidance. OR
3.) atheistic evolution- evolution is due completely to random forces alone...

     The website also says that Pope Pius XII claimed that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God"  So, in English, evolution may have created human bodies, but God gave them souls...and souls do not evolve.

     Well, I hope everyone finds this post as interesting as I did. It certainly is interesting learning new things, isn't it? You know what they say "You learn something new every day."

DAY 20: The Seven Sacraments.

               

     Since I don't really know much about these, I decided to do some research. Here's what I found:

     The seven sacraments are baptism, penance, Eucharist, confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, and anointing of the sick. (Penance is confession, Eucharist is communion, matrimony is marriage and holy orders are the priests and nuns.)  The sacraments were established sometime before 1100 AD/CE because they were already being discussed in the education system. Why seven sacraments? Well, according to Al Kresta, that's how many Christ instituted... I'll be honest...I'm not exactly sure where the Bible says that, but 7 has always been an important number in the Bible: 7 days of creation, Jesus speaks 7 times when He's on the cross, 7 years of famine, 7 plagues.... and the list goes on. Maybe the reason "7" is so important in the Bible is because the number 7 in Hebrew means fulfillment and "sacrament" in Latin is sacramentum which means "a sign of the sacred."

      As http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/The_Sacraments.htm says "Each sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace. When we participate in them worthily, each provides us with graces—with the life of God in our soul. In worship, we give to God that which we owe Him; in the sacraments, He gives us the graces necessary to live a truly human life."

http://www.americancatholic.org/features/special/default.aspx?id=29 < This website has a lot of information on the sacraments. I encourage you to go check it out. It's a little young, but sometimes I find it's the simple stuff that is easiest to understand : ) I would type in everything here, but it's just that it would essentially be coping and pasting the entire site.... so....go check it out!

DAY 19: Catholics and Angels

This post will be mainly based on the information I recieve from Al Kresta's book Why do Catholic's Genuflect?  

Angels- incorporal beings without physical bodies. They are invisible spirits that are not composed of energy, matter, light, or any other material substance. They are " visitors from beyond this materisal universe" who are heavenly messengers. They are task-oriented and "purely spiritual creatatures that have inteligence and will." (Thus we get Lucifer, the devil, who broke off from God and became a fallen angel.) We know that they exsist for many reasons: a. "through divine revelation" b. the teachings of the church c. the stories of those who claim to have seen them, and d. Those people in the bible, like Mary and Joesph, who have talked with these messengers personally. By the way, angels are not, as many people suppose, the disembodies spirits of the deceased... we do not become angels when we die. We, humans, need a body to enclose our spirits. Angels do not becuse they are pure spirits. They are not capable of lying or sin.... we are "two different species."

The Catholic Church has feast days. Feast days are set aside for the saints, the holy family (Jesus, Mary, and Joesph) and others, such as the Feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2nd. This feast day, Kresta says, is to remind us that "every indivdual has a guardian angel, and awareness of our guardian angel can be a comfort and aid in our spirtual growth." There are so many passages in the Bible that support the exsistance of these creatures. One example is Satan tempting Jesus in the desert in Matthew. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Angels are found in both the Old and New Testaments. Some examples are Judith, Hebrews, Luke, Acts, and Revelations among others.

Just as God gave Humans free choice, He also gives us our guardian angels to help guide us back to Him.
So, maybe that's something you can thank Him for: the protection and guidence we find in our own personal angels. I'm going to go back and edit the post on how to become a saint, so I suggest you go back and check that out sometime in the near future.

DAY 18: Does the The Church discourages Bible reading?

     No! Actually, if one went to mass every time it was offered for three years, they would have heard the entire Bible. Like I have said before, we (Catholics) read 3 passages from the Bible at each mass. One is from the Old Testament, and 2 from the New( one of which is the Gospel reading...) Most, if not all Catholics have a Bible in their home... for example, my family has 3...uhhh ... maybe more...
     As  http://myamazingfact.blogspot.com/2009/07/top-10-misconceptions-about-catholic.html states, "The very first printed Bible was produced under the auspices of the Catholic Church – printed by the Catholic inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg. And the very first Bible with chapters and numbered verses was produced by the Catholic Church–the work of Stephen Langton, Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury."The blogger is also so nice as to add this tidbit of information for us "This myth (that the Church doesn't allow Catholics to read the Bible..) has come about because Bibles were often locked away in Churches in the past, but that was not to prevent people having access – it was to prevent them being stolen. These were hand written Bibles which were incredibly valuable due to scarcity."
      The Bible was produced in many languages from the beginning, and although it may have started with just Latin and Greek, as literacy grew, so did the translations. Before the printing press was invented by Gutenburg in 1450, handwritten translations were written in Hungarian, Polish, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish, and Bohemian by Catholic monks/priests. And by the Protestant Reformation in 1517, there were also 18 different German translations, along with French and Italian. (Thanks, Al Kresta for writing Why Catholics do Genuflect?)

Well, that's all for today.  Until tomorrow readers!

DAY 17: Purgatory

I am truly running out of things to write about. If anyone has any ideas please comment...

Purgatory is not something Catholics make up out of thin air.... It's not like we're magicians or something. No, Purgatory is essentially a place where a person is purified before entering heaven.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven."  and according to http://www.anawim.pair.com/CATHOLICS/PURGATORY.htm  "In Purgatory all remaining love of self is transformed into love of God. As Rev. 21-27 states, nothing defiled can enter heaven. Prayers from those still living on earth can help free those who are in Purgatory who are unable to pray for themselves."  That is why we pray for those who have died and ask that they rejoice in eternal life. 

Although "purgatory" (nor "trinity") is not a word found in the Bible, there a some chapters that speak of a place where you are purified before you enter heaven. You will find these scriptures below...

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(Mt. 12-32) - And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come (some sins can be forgiven after death-where? Purgatory)
(1 Cor 3:13-15) - Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (15) If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. (the fire is the purification of Purgatory).
(1 Peter 3:19-20) - By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime(After Jesus' death he went and preached to the spirits in prison that were disobedient. Now, these prisoners were not in Heaven or Hell, where were they? These spirits are in a waiting place being purified for their disobedience, the place is called Purgatory.)


So, there you have it. Purgatory.