Angels

What do we as Catholics believe about angels? What does the word angel mean? Do angels really protect us from evil? Do angels really guide us? Are there different kinds of angels or different levels? Can we ever become angels? Are demons really angels who sinned against God? These are all great questions about angels. Let's look in scripture to find these answers.

What does the word "angel" mean?  The word angel means "messenger". A messenger of God to the humans. Angels were created by God and do not have physical bodies. They are pure spirits.

Do angels really protect us from evil?  Yes, St. Michael is the prince of heaven and is an Archangel. St. Michael fights for us against Satan. Jude: 9 = yet the archangel Michael, when he argued with the devil in a dispute over the body of Moses, did not venture to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him but said, "May the Lord rebuke you!" This shows that St. Michael an archangel fought for the body of Moses just as he will fight for us.
Psalms 91:10-12= No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent, (11) for to his angels he has given command about you, that they guard you in all your ways. (12) Upon their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. This shows that the angels do protect us from evil.
Matthew 18:10= "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. We have angels in heaven.

Do angels really guide us? Yes, as we see in Exodus 23:20-22= If you heed his voice and carry out all I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. (23) "My angel will go before you and bring you to Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites; and I will wipe them out. Here we see that if we follow our angles voice, God will be an enemy to our enemies. They will also guide us as we seen in Psalms 91:10-12.

Are there different kinds of angels or different levels? Yes, as we seen in the previous verses, there are angels and archangels. All are angels but different levels of angels, or should we say they have different jobs. The different levels are called choirs. There are nine choirs of angels. They are Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and angels. The archangels named in scripture are Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel. Michael means "Who is like God?" Gabriel means "God is my strength" and Raphael means "God is my healer".

Can we ever become angels? No, we can become a saint which means a person in heaven, or a person who followed God. Angels were made without bodies, humans were made with bodies.

Are demons really angels who sinned against God? Yes, every angel had a choice to follow God or rebel with Lucifer (Satan's angel name) One third of the angels rebelled and left God as we see in Revelation 12:4= Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. We can see also see in 2 Peter 2:4= for if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but condemned them to the chains of Tartarus and handed them over to be kept for judgment. We can see the angels sinned. We can also see in Psalms 103:20-21=Bless the Lord, all of his angels, you mighty in strength, who do bidding, obeying his spoken word. (21) Bless the Lord, all you his host, his ministers who do his works, everywhere in his domain. Bless the angels with strength who do bidding and obeying his spoken word.
We do not worship angels in any way, as we seen John fall to his knees in Revelation 22:8-9, and the angels tells him to get up and not worship him, but worship God alone.

Why did John fall to his knees and worship? Due to the fact the angels are with God, his glory is poured on them and they carry the glory of God with them wherever they go, demons can't stand the sight of angels cause of this glory poured on them. So as humans if we would see an angel with God's glory poured out on them, we might also think to worship due to God's glory surrounding us.

For more info on this topic you can also look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, (CCC), 1352, 525, 559, 331, 336, 311, 391-93, 414, 328, 954.
-AVM

Faith and Works

Faith and works; what does this mean?

Well most Protestants say that you can be saved by faith alone, they also say, “You can’t work your way into heaven.” They will take you to Roman 3:28= for we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.  They will also take you to Romans 4:1-12, where it talks about Abraham justified by faith and not works. This is true, but on the other hand what kind of works are they talking about here? Abraham was justified by his faith, his faith in God to trust in God fully. So what did Abraham do with this faith, he acted it out by taking his son to the alter to sacrifice him, as God told him too. Let’s look more into what the bible teaches about believing in faith and works.

 As I said Abraham was justified by his faith in trusting God and acting it out, we can clearly see it’s in, James 2:21-22= Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the alter? (22) You see that faith was active along with his works, and his faith was completed by the works.

James 2:14-17= what good is it, my brothers, if someone says they have faith but does not have works? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of them says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. So here we see that if you have faith but don’t have works, your faith is dead.

James 2:24= See how a person is justified by works and not faith alone. Faith is a need, we must have faith, but we al so must have the work that goes with faith. Read all of James 2:14-26. It explains more of faith and works together as one.

Galatians 5:6 = For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. As we see here faith is working through love.

1 Corinthians 13:2= And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but not have love, I am nothing. We must have love with our faith, faith working through love. Love is what makes our faith act out.

1 Corinthians 13:13= So faith, hope and love remain, these three, but the greatest of these is love. We can clearly see here that love is the greatest of the three. Not putting faith or hope down, but what are the other two without love?

Matthew 7:21= “Not everyone who says to me,’ Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven”. Not everyone who calls to God will go to heaven, but the one who does the will of the Father. So here we can see you must do the will of God. Doing is working.

Philippians 2:12= Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
This is pretty straight forward, we must work out our salvation.

-AVM

Passover and Last Supper

How does the Passover and the Last Supper relate to each other and why would we relate them to each other? This is a good question; let's look into scripture to see what we can find.

Exodus 12:5 = the lamb must be a year old male and without blemish. The lamb must be unblemished. These types of sacrifices were for the cleansing of sins.

John 1:29= Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. We see here Christ is the Lamb of God and takes away sins.

1 Peter 1:18-19= but with the precious blood of Christ as of spotless unblemished lamb. We see here he was the unblemished lamb.

Now let's look more into the celebration that took place.

Exodus 12:14= "This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution." A feast is being done with this unblemished lamb, and it will be perpetual.

Luke 22:19= "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me" Both were done in memory. This had to be actually preformed by the people.

1 Corinthians 5:8= Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, we can see here it was also called a feast.
Exodus 12:44 and 48, this gives the regulations of who can partake in this meal. It says no slave or alien can be a part of it unless they were circumcised. As we seen in the New Testament baptism replaced circumcision. We must be baptized in the Catholic Church to be able to receive at the celebration of mass.
Exodus 12:46, talks about how the lamb must be eaten inside and none of it taken out of the house. As Catholics we must receive the body of Christ in the church and not take it outside or save it for later. The only way the body of Christ can be taken out of the church is for the sick who couldn’t attend mass or special events as this. This is only one example of many.

Exodus 12:46 also says none of its bones could be broken. Numbers 9:12 also says no bones of the lamb must be broken.

As we see in John 19:31-36, they did not break any of his bones.

Exodus 12:22 says to take a brand of hyssop and dip it in the blood and put it over the door post so the angel of death would not be upon them.

John 19:29-30, says that they soaked in wine a sprig of hyssop and Christ drank it. When he did this he said "It is finished" just as the Jews would do.

-AVM

Confessing to a Priest

Confession, where did this practice come from? Is it in the bible? Confession is in the bible and it comes from Judaism, which is where Christianity came from.

Leviticus 5:5-6= than whoever is guilty in any of these cases shall confess the sin he has incurred, (6) and as his sin offering for the sin he has committed he shall bring to the Lord a female animal from the flock, a ewe lamb or a she goat. The priest shall then make atonement for his sin. Also continues through Leviticus 5:7-19.

As we can see here, Confession to a priest was practiced by the Jews. Now why don’t we have to offer a lamb, goat or a ram anymore?

In Exodus 12:5, they used a lamb for a sacrifice as well. As we see in 1 Peter 1:19, Christ is the Lamb, and in John 1:29, Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The lamb had to be unblemished as we see in Exodus 12:5 as well. Christ had no sin as we see in 1 John 3:5. So Christ is the sacrifice sent from God the Father, there is no need for any other sacrifice for the atonement of sins. Jesus was and will always be the ultimate sacrifice.

So the next question is, did Jesus carry this practice over to his Apostles and Disciples? Well let’s look into the New Testament to see.

James 5:16= therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. So here we can clearly see that we are supposed to confess our sins to one another. Does that mean anyone? Let’s look more into it.

John 20:22-23= and when he (Jesus) had said this, he breathed on them (Apostles) and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins your retain are retained.” Now, here we can see Jesus himself is giving the power to the apostles (the first priest of Christianity) the power to forgive sins. Notice the only times God breaths on people in scripture. Two times in the bible God breaths on the human body. First to Adam when he gave him a physical life with a soul, and second when Jesus breaths on the apostles. Giving them the spirit of new life, as we get when we are forgiven our sins.

So the next question is, can any follower of Christ (disciple) forgive someone their sins? Or does it have to be someone ordained into the church by the authority of the church. Notice Jesus didn’t give all his disciples the power to forgive sins. Just the first priest received this authority. There is a separation between the two. These were the leaders of the church and the faithful followers. Plus, in Judaism the people couldn’t just go to anyone to have there sins forgiven with a sacrifice. It had to be a priest.

Matthew 9:5-8= which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven, or to say, ‘rise and walk? But you may know the Son of man has the authority on earth to forgive sins….(7) He rose and went home. (8) When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to human beings. As we see here, at the end of verse (8) it says, God had given such authority to human beings, as in plural, more than one. Jesus is God and has the authority to give the power to human beings as he did in John 20:22-23.

Matthew 16:19= I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”.  Jesus was talking to Peter, giving him the authority to bind and loose, such as rules of the church and binding and loosing sins on earth.

2 Corinthians 2:10= whoever you forgive anything, so do I (Paul). For indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been in the presence of Christ. Paul is saying here that whatever and whoever he forgives, is in the place of Christ forgiving. Just as he stands in the place of Christ’s forgiveness, so do priest.

(CCC) 1457, 1532, 1401, 1415, 1467, 2490, 1851, 1480-84, 1455-58, 1448, 2040

-AVM



Questions about Mary

Here we will go over the main questions about Mary, “Mother of Jesus” and the Titles or Different names she has. What we as Catholics believe about her?

Who is Mary? Mary is the mother of Jesus as we see in Luke 1:43, Luke 1:35-37, Matthew 1:23 and Matthew 1:18-21.

Why do we believe Mary was a virgin even after she gave birth to Jesus? We can see that Mary was a virgin in Luke 1:27, Luke 1:34. Some might say, But in Matthew 1:25 it says, “He (Joseph) had no relations with her (Mary) until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus. Well let’s look at this word “until” and see how it’s used in other verses in scripture. As we see in Matthew 28:20, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Does this mean at the end of our life, or after judgment he will leave us? Of course not. Let’s also look at 1 Corinthians 15:25, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” Does this mean once Jesus put all his enemies under his feet he will no longer reign? Of course not. Also look at 1 Timothy 4:13, 2 Peter 1:19, and see how they use this word until in those verses. The word until is not accurately translated from Greek to English as its best. It’s used as everlasting until.

Why do we call Mary blessed? Luke 1:42, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” She is clearly called blessed. Another verse we can also look at is Luke 1:48, for he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on all generations shall call me blessed. All generations includes the people of today as well.

Why do we call Mary our mother? Let’s look in the book of Revelation. Revelation 12:17, then the dragon became angry with the woman, and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus. We are the offspring, also known as children. Some might say this is talking about the “Church.” This would make a lot of sense as well and would be acceptable sense the church is spoken as a female. Neither one of these would be speaking against the Catholic Church. Let’s look into John19:26-27, “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son,” (27) than he said to his disciple, “Behold your mother.” Just as John accepted Mary as his mother, we do as well.

Did Mary only have one biological child? Or should we say, was Jesus her only child? Yes he was her only child; he had no biological brothers or sisters. Some people might take you to Acts 1:12-15, they will say it says right there in scripture that Jesus had brothers. Here we can see they all gathered to pray and Peter stands up to speak and it says, He stood up in the midst of the bothers and then it points out there was about 120 of his brothers there. Do you really think they were speaking about biological brothers, or maybe they were speaking of spiritual brothers? If we look back at John 19:26-27, we see Jesus give his mother to John his disciple. If Jesus had brothers or sisters, why would he give his mother to a friend? Wouldn’t that be wrong? If he did have any siblings, where were they during his crucifixion? Where were they in all the stories of Jesus as a child or his lifetime?

Why do we believe that Mary was sinless? Not even sinning once. If we go to Genesis 3:15, I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman (Mary), and between your offspring and hers (Jesus); He (Jesus) will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel. This would be why she was born without original sin. She carried Jesus in her womb. Jesus is God in the flesh. He couldn’t be brought into this world from a sinful person. If Mary was born with sin than her Original sin would have been handed down to Jesus, which can’t be. So God protected her from all sin so he could come into the world as God in the flesh, always and forever pure. The reason we sin is because we were born into it, sense she was not born into sin, she never knew sin. In this question as well you can also look at the section of “Theology” under the heading of “Mary is sinless.” You will see it goes a little deeper in this belief.

Is it okay to believe Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven? Well let’s see if it goes against scripture. We see in 2 Kings 2:11 and Hebrews 11:15, Enoch and Elijah were both assumed body and soul into heaven. Enoch walked with God and Elijah was taken by a chariot of fire. So it wouldn’t be going against scripture to believe God would do the same for the perfect, sinless mother of Jesus. Another thing that goes along with this is no one has ever found the tomb of Mary where her body was place, or found her body on earth. Just like Jesus, Enoch and Elijah, Mary was also taken to heaven.

-AVM

Calling the Priest "father"

Most Protestants will say that Catholics are wrong for calling the priest “father.” They will also use scripture to back up their argument. They use Matthew 23:9; Call no man on earth your father: you have but one Father in heaven. Now how do catholic reply to this verse? We reply with a firm AMEN! This will throw them off, thinking that this was supporting their argument. Remember the Catholic Church does not go against scripture, it’s our book! So replying with Amen, would only be agreeing to that verse but not agreeing with their interpretation of that verse. Most of the time, Protestants will take the text out of context. This verse in context is talking about how the Pharisees and Kings were making people worship them; by forcing the people to call them “Father.” Now if the bible was talking about not using the word “father” in any situation then it would contradict itself. Let’s see some scripture that would give this a good argument.

Matthew 3:9= and do not presume to say to yourselves, “we have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. As we seen here Jesus himself calls Abraham our father. Notice the word father is lower case.

Romans 4:16= For this reason, it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to those who follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us. Abraham is called the father of us all; Notice again, father is lower case.
Now let’s see how this word “Father” is also used in the bible.

Hebrews 12:9-10= Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not then submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? Notice here, it separates our earthly fathers and the Father of spirits. Also see that our earthly fathers are lower case, and the word Father of Spirit is upper case. Here we see different kind of fathers. Let’s keep going.

Ephesians 3:14 = for this reason I kneel before the Father, notice here they are talking about God the Father so the word Father is once again upper case.

1 John 2:13-14= I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you young men, because you have conquered the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. Again, talking about earthly fathers and God the Father, notice the casing of the word Father when they talk about earthly fathers and the heavenly Father.
So at this point, you made it known that it’s acceptable to call our dad father as they do in the bible, and its ok to call our heavenly Father by Father as they do in the bible as well. But now what about priests? Is that ok? Well let’s look into it and see if the bible says anything about it.

1 Corinthians 4:15= even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. As we see St. Paul is saying he became our father through the gospel. So there is God the Father, our earthly fathers, and now we see a father through the gospel.
Ok, now let’s look at the obvious; the 4^th commandment is Honor your father and mother. We can see here it was ok to call our mother as mother and father as father. If they try to say this is talking about our heavenly Father, then who would it be talking about when it says Mother? For sure, they will not say Our heavenly Mother. The commandments are broken into 2 sections. Commandments one to three call us to a fidelity to God. Commandments four to ten involve a commitment to each other here on earth. Also, see in Exodus 20:12 where the fourth commandment is given, mother and father is lower case, not meaning God the Father.
So we can see the bible uses the word “father” in three different contexts, God the father, earthly fathers, and Gospel fathers. Gospel fathers is where our priest fall in. The real question would be, why don’t protestants call there pastures father, since they are the ones leading them through the gospel?
Here are some more verses you can look up to see that this word father is used not only in God the Father but earthly and Gospel fathers.

Luke 16:24, Matthew 10:21, 1 Tim 5:1, Acts 7:1-2, Luke 14:26, Exodus 20:12, James 2, 21, Mal 1:6, Exodus 21:15 and many more.

-AVM

What do Catholics believe about the Eucharist?

Eucharist.
What does this word mean and why is it not in the bible? This word means “thanksgiving” and thanksgiving is in the bible. The root of this word comes from the Greek language. As Catholics, we believe that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. It is in NO way symbolic. How can we defend this belief with scripture?

Jesus said in John 6:51= I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give you is my flesh for the life of the world. Jesus says his flesh is the life of the world that we must eat.

John 6:52-53= The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (53) Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life within you.” Jesus is being questioned and he is making it clear that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood or we have no life within us. Now let’s go a little deeper into it.

John 6:55= “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” Making it a little clearer for them to understand.

John 6:60= then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard: who can accept it?” The disciples were not taking Jesus in a symbolic way when he said this. If they were taking him symbolically it would not be a hard saying to accept. Now, some people might say, “Well Jesus also said he was the vine and the door as well, but we don’t see hinges and leaves on him.” Yes Jesus did say that, but if we look at these verses not a single person took him literal, no one said, “This is a hard saying to accept,” because they all knew he was speaking symbolically. Now let’s look how the disciples reacted to this statement.

John 6:66-67= As a result to this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the twelve, “Do you also want to leave,” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Now we can see here they took Jesus literal with his statement and no longer followed him. Don’t you think if Jesus was speaking symbolically he would have stopped them from leaving? He did not only let them leave, he also turned to his twelve and asked them if they were also going to leave. This shows that Jesus was serious about this and was willing to lose his followers. He was speaking literal, and was token literal.

1 Corinthians 11:27-29= Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and the blood of the Lord. (28) A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. (29) For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on him self. If it was not literally his body and blood why would St. Paul speak of it as it was?

Also look up 1 Cor 10:16, All of John 6, Matthew 26:26-28, Luke 22:19, 1 Cor 6:20, John 20:24-29

(CCC) 1322-1419

-AVM

What is Apologetics?

There are three different types of apologetics, which as Catholics we need to be focused on all three. Not one is more important then the other. Let's get into the three types of apologetics. First let's look at what apologetics means.

Apologetics: The branch of theology concerned or proof of Christianity. For example, not apologetic as apology but to simply build a case. This came from a Greek word "Apologia", to build a case for someone or something.

Natural Apologetics: Natural apologetics will cover the areas of God and the obvious facts of the world. When I say the obvious facts of the world, I mean straight truth to be known to man kind. It was not divinely revealed by any humans or past souls. Example, the earth is here. How did it come about? Does God really exist? This is defending God in general. Not getting into religion, simply does God exist?

Christian Apologetics: Christian apologetics will cover divine revealed truth through Jesus Christ. What we believe as Christians. Example, Jesus is the only Son of God. Jesus is the Messiah and died for our sins. Mainly what every Christian should believe. Christ is the truth, and how to defend him as the Son of God, the Messiah and what we believe about him.

Catholic Apologetics: Catholic apologetics will cover all three of these topics but main what we believe as Catholic Christians. From Jesus starting the Catholic Church in the year 33 with St. Peter as our first pope. To the Eucharist, Mary, Confession, Trinity, Purgatory, Sacraments, and many more topics we face everyday.

As Catholics we need to be able to defend and prove all three of these. They go in this order because you can't have the Catholic church without Jesus, can't have Jesus in the flesh with out God the Father sending him. Start from the root and go from there. How can I have someone believe in the Catholic Church if they don't even believe in Jesus? How can I have them believe Jesus is the Son of God, if they don't believe in God?

-AVM

For Catholics and curious Protestants....and others.

This was designed to help Catholics understand the Catholic Church better and how to defend the church Jesus started. I will use scripture, tradition, logic and writings of early church fathers to prove what we believe. Feel free to commit, request certain topics or ask any questions regaurding the Catholic faith. I will also post Catholic music, pictures and videos for your enjoyment. For further enjoyment and explanation of the faith, visit The Recollection Perception.

-AVM