Baptism

A couple of weeks back I posted a blog on the sacraments with the intention of expounding on each individual sacrament on a latter day. Given the deep theological nature of these type of posts I prefer to do them on the few weekends when my schedule is relatively light and can give them their due justice, both mentally as in regards to supporting documentation.

The initial blog on Sacraments can be found here.

Today I will begin with the sacrament of baptism. This is the logical beginning, since without this sacrament a Christian cannot participate in any other sacrament and is indeed concidered outside of the fold of the Christian faith.

Baptism is the first of the three sacraments of initiation. It is the sacrament that makes one a Christian, it cleanses us of original sin. Indeed without baptism one is outside of the spiritual jurisdiction of the church and without it one cannot even be married in a sacramental fashion.

Jesus stated Clearly the need for baptism when he made this very declarative statement to Nicodemus in John 3:4-5 after which he proceeds to Baptize with his disciples in verse 22.

The need for baptism stems from what is known as original sin. Which is the Sin of Adam that is inherited by humans from the moment of conception. (Whether this is just that all men should be subject to the sin of another man is the subject for another post, suffice it to say that people suffer the consequences of others sins constantly as evidenced by the numerous mass graves world wide created at the hands of evil men such as Saddam Hussein and others) The main purpose of baptism is to cleanse us of this original sin and infuse us with the life of Grace that can come only though the Holy Spirit of God. See Acts 2:38-39. God uses the natural element of Water which signifies cleansing to actually cleanse us of original Sin. In the scene of Acts 2 cited 3000+ people accepted Jesus and were baptized. Catholicism knows of no other means of making salvation accessible other than though baptism. This does not mean that non-baptized people cannot be saved. It simply means that those non-baptized that are saved are being saved though means other than the ordinary means instituted by Jesus. Like any King, God is at liberty to circumvent his edicts, the Church as his loyal subject is not.

All Christian faiths practice baptism, though not all have the same view of it. Some have the Catholic notion of it's necessity and salvific effect others see it as merely a symbol and a response of obedience and nothing more with no salvific effect.

One aspect of baptism that is often maligned by non-Catholics is the practice of infant baptism. The common non-Catholic refrain is that Children are not capable of making a decision for Christ thus making the baptism invalid. They will often re-baptize adult Catholics that convert to their churches on the notion that only adults can make that commitment. Traditional Christianity has always practiced infant baptism. The truth is that since no other provision was revealed for Salvation it was seen as imperative that even children be baptized so as to ensure their entrance into glory. Note in the above passage from acts that Peter says "...for the promise is for you and your Children" and it states that all present were baptized, no exceptions were made for adults. Consider the historical context of of early Christianity. Christianity is born of Judaism and carried many Jewish notions and beliefs. Indeed Jesus was a Jew and he founded his Church as a perfection of that old covenant revelation. In Judaism the means of becoming a Jew was though Circumcision and the law dictated that infants should be circumcised on the eighth day of they birth. Note, Jews did not wait until the child reached an age of accountability to be circumcised. to be sure converts to Judaism were circumcised as adults as are adults converts to Catholicism. Paul makes the connection of circumcision to baptism here. In Scripture we see entire Household being baptized (Acts 16:27-33, and 1Cor 1:16).

As can be seen Baptism is the most important of Sacraments, because without no other sacrament is accessible even the most precious Eucharist. Baptism cleanses us of Original sin and start us in the life of Grace. It is is also vital in that no other means of attaining salvation was revealed and thus no other means is known.

Further reading on baptism can be found in the Catechism, and New Advent

Farewell Tony Snow

This Blog post is not easy for me. I feel the death of Tony Snow almost like that of a Friend. Though I never knew him personally, his personality was such that even from a distant medium such as the Radio he made you feel as though you were having an intelligent conversation with a great man.

I recall him as being my favorite substitute host for Rush Limbaugh, before he went to work for Fox. While I dislike the term compassionate conservatism as the oxymoron that it is, if anyone embodied such a description it was Tony. His duty to country had him leaving a well paying job at Fox to serve the thankless job of White House press secretary. This job for Tony was something like Daniel being thrust in the Lions Den and like Daniel Tony was able to temporarily tame the contentious press and somehow got the message of the presidents policies across to a nation hungry for information about a war not properly reported on by the press. I never heard him being rude with a caller and found his demeanor refreshing and one that I will sorely miss.

Everything he did he did with a smile and with a sense of optimism that was contagious and genuine. He was just a good man and it showed even to those of us that never met him.

I also think he would have a great president. Perhaps his intercession from above will prove as useful as his contribution to the political discourse on this side of eternity.

Rest in peace and know you will be sorely missed.

It's a good thing Iraq had not WMD programs...

If they did we might have reason for concern at the discovery of yellow cake uranium. We all know that an oil rich country that could produce it's own energy (but didn't given that the country spent most of it's time in the dark while Hussein was in power) had plenty of uses for such uranium other than weapons.

Of course with no WMD programs the 500+ artillery shells found in the dessert were just accidentally left behind by beduin caravans. One of these shells just heppened to be by the roadside at the same time our sodiers were patrolling, see here. The 3000 protective suits found in a hospital were for a costume party I am sure. The parties were to held here

I mean they were fully cooperative with the WMD inspectors and in compliance with all UN Resolutions, weren't they?

Yeb Bush lied. All of the other world intelligence services that came to the same conclusion, did not...

Are Catholics afraid of truth

Christians in general and Catholics in particular are often accused of being afraid of truth. We are told that we reject science and hold to superstitions. That our beliefs when held to the light of truth fall apart like a snow man in the dessert. The fact is, that nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that in the past men of faith, or claimed the faith seemed opposed to progress and sound science, out of fear that their beliefs would be proven wrong perhaps, or out a sincere desire to save souls. But the folly of this is self evident and not in keeping with historical Christian thinkers. Indeed we owe much to Christianity when it comes to progress in education. The university system was a Catholic invention. Modern genetics was developed by Gregor Mendel a Catholic priest. Nicolas Copernicus developed the modern science that proves the sun is as the center of our solar system, again a Catholic Priest. Galileo did not get in trouble for proposing this but for delving in theology as well as science. So history shows that Christianity has from the beginning embarked in "A relentless, unstoppable pursuit of the truth" to borrow from Rush. Jesus said that "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). So to a Christian the truth, all truth, is liberating. It is also true that to a Christian the opposite holds in that to hold to a lie is to be enslaved. This is where the Church and some people in science clash. Not all research is interested in truth. Take stem cell research. Science has shown much progress in stem cell research not derived from an unborn embryo. Yet some insist on pursuing embryonic stem cell research. It is therefore evident that the research is not to seek out truth but to promote the lie and the evils of abortion. This the Church and the rest of Christianity will oppose with every moral weapon we can muster.

Happy Birthday USA

Today we Celebrate the birth of Our Nation. In all of our celebrations, family gatherings, and fireworks we must not loose sigt of what we are celebrating. We Celebrate the birth of nation founded on a premises never before conceived. The notion that All Men are Created Equal and are endowed by their Creator with the rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.. The founders of our nation set out to protect these God Given rights. They did this first by sacrificing their own lives, the lives of their families and their Fortunes fighting a revolution that they were not supposed to win against what was a the time the mightiest empire in the world. Having done the impossible and won their independence they then set out to create a governing document unique in history. That Document was our constitution. This constitution was unique in that it limited the power of the federal government first by enumerating the first powers it did have then by further dividing that authority into three branches of government thus no one individual could have absolute power.

Today as we see a judiciary encroaching on the legislature and the executive powers, and when we see an ever growing federal government who seems intent on appropriating powers that the founding fathers
never intended it to have. It is incumbent on us the voters to read and remember the words of our founding documents and begin the process of taking our government back. We have elections coming up, and while we are all focusing on the presidential candidates (none of which are rally that inspiring) let us remember that there are also local, state and federal positions on the ballot. Everyone of these races could begin the process of returning out government to it's founding roots.

Here are our founding documents lest we forget;

Constitutions

Declaration of Independnce

Read them, learn them, love them and fight for
them they are worth every bit of our blood and sweat and they are the founding
documents of the the one nation that is in the words of Bill Benet "The last
Best Hope of Man Kind"

This is what the left wants for us.

Note how north Korea the thuggish dictatorship the left wants us to emulate is dark and South Korea, the prosperous capitalist nation.

See here

Why is it....

That when privately held oil companies reports a profit (which goes for the most part to running the company and to the share holders, I.E. me as a 401K holder) it is seen as evil and the outcry is heard across the whole left wing spectrum, but the same people are silent when a muderous dictator turns an even bigger profit by scamming the oil for Food program.

Perhaps if the oil companies changed their names to oil for food or had a crecent as their symbol the left would be more sympathetic.

The Faith of an Atheist.

I have always believed that it takes more faith to hold to Atheism than it does to hold a belief in God. Atheist have to look at the majesty of Creation all around them and believe that is came by a process other than intelligent design. Atheist accuse believers of a faith that cannot be empirically proved, yet there is less proof for the atheist position than there is for the believers position.

Of course while atheist hold as an article of faith that there is not God, they have an ecclesiastic structure. The Have churches in the form of the University system (A catholic invention), the professors being their clergy. Their journals being their Magisterium, their sacraments (in most cases not all atheist are leftists) abortion, Tehir popes are leftists Judges who ignore the constitution and develop Dogma from the Bench, which no leftist Atheists dares contradict. They have no problem excommunicating those that defy their dogmas, ask Joe Lieberman and Zell Miler. Make no mistake the atheist will cling to his faith regardless of any evidence to the contrary, Not much different than the Pharisees of Old who opposed Jesus even when witnessing the miracles he performed in their mist.

Why Obama is more Dangerous to our Security than Carter

Many political pundits have stated that an Obama Presidency would be a second Carter Term. There are indeed some comparisons in that both seem to think that negotiation is the only way to address global issues. During Carters presidency the Military technological advantage the United States Had over the Soviet Union was almost lost. Carter canceled several defense projects such as the B-1 Lancer bomber program. Instead of defeating the Soviets, Carter sought to appease and negotiate with them. Obama has made it clear that he will take the same approach with our current enemies. The problem is that we live in a much more dangerous world today than in the 1970's. The Soviets were many things, but they were not suicidal. They sought to destroy America but were not willing to be destroyed in the process. So while Carter was pushing for negotiations the United states still had a Nuclear arsenal that could destroy the Soviets and the Soviets knew that. Our current crop of enemies on the other hand are not only willing to die, but see death as desirable when fighting the infidels. So while Obama negotiates with our enemies they are developing Nuclear weapons in the belief that their version of Armageddon will bring forth the twelfth Imam. So while Carter was Naive in dealing with the Soviets, the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction served as a deterrence against overt Soviet Aggression. There is no such deterrent against the current crop of Islamic Terrorist. To elect Obama is to re-elect Carter to negotiate against an enemy that is not interested in negotiating. While the prospect of a McCain presidency is not my Idea of an Ideal presidency, the prospect of an Obama presidency literally frightens me. Even a Hillary Clinton did not frighten me that much, with her at least I could be assured she could to to our enemies what she did to her husband when she found out about the Lewinsky Affair. I understand it was not pretty.

Why I cannot Vote for Obama

Article, No to put to fine a point on it, and at the risk of beeing called politically incorect (as if I cared) but this is simply evil, right there with Stalin and Hitler.

It's easy to be tolerant when there are no absolutes

This Column points to a survey dealing with religious tolerance. The fact is that the survey points not to religious tolerance but to religious relativism. Tolerance is recognising and thus protecting the God given rights of individuals. Tolerance does not mean giving another belief systems the same truth status as yours. While all beliefs systems have truth in them, they cannot all be equally true in all aspects. Christians believe Jesus is God and the Messiah promised in the old Testament, Jews reject that and Muslims believe Jesus was merely a prophet and hold Mohammad as higher in the order of prophets. Now only of these can be true. The relativist says that all three are true since what is true for one may not be true to another. The thing is that truth is truth and it remains true regardless of individual belief.

What are the Sacraments

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Catholic Doctrine , both by non-Catholics as well as by Catholics themselves is the Sacraments. The Sacraments are Central to Catholic theology. Failure to understand them is failure to understand Catholicism. Many of those who reject Catholic teaching on the sacraments often ague against a false understanding of them and are thus working against a straw man, in many cases in good faith wishing to correct what they perceive to be Catholic errors and in some cases by people who should know better. Examples; Here, here, here, and here. This post will (in the feeble words of the author) attempt to explain what the sacraments are and what they are not.

A Sacrament is in a essence a visible, outward sign of a spiritual reality. In essence what the we see taking place with our senses is actualytaking place in the spiritual realm. In baptism for example, Water which represents cleansing, actually cleans the soul of the individual of original sin. The following web sites give similar definitions of the word Sacrament; Here and here.

Humans are unique creatures in all of creation. Creation is comprised (As far as what has been revealed to us) by three distinct living being, the spiritual in the form of Angels, who have spiritual but not corporal natures, and corporal as in the from of animals and plant who have corporal but not spiritual natures, Humans are unique in that they are created with both spiritual and corporal natures. Of these beings the Angelic and the Humans are made to worship God. The Angels worship God within their nature and worship with their whole being which is spiritual. Humans are made worship God with their whole being as well. So how can a human creature who is both flesh and spirit worship God using their whole nature? This is where the Sacraments come in. In the old testament there was no sacramental system, so the Jews worshiped God using symbols such as the Temple, Sacrifice, Images (yes the Jews used Images in their worship, this is for another post) etc. Jesus Came to show us a more perfect form of Worship, first by becoming flesh himself and showing us God though our senses. Jesus usually used matter to perform his miracles. He would for example make mud by spitting on dirt and healing the blind. He would show a visible act of Worship to the Father and raise the dead. The lady with the blood disease showed her faith by touching the garment Jesus wore. Jesus made it a point of going down to the Jordan and being baptized by John. Jesus turned bread into his body and blood and commanded his apostles to forgive and retain sins. So by becoming flesh and leaving a visible church with visible means of showing us God's grace Jesus instituted a Sacramental Church. Indeed as Jesus is seen as a sacrament of the Father by making God visible, the Church is seen as a sacrament of Jesus as it is her mission to make Jesus visible in the form of his body, both in the sacrament and in her body of believers. It must be noted
that all of the Sacraments have supporting passages in scripture. I will deal with each sacrament individually in other posts.

There are seven Sacraments;

Baptism

Confirmation

Reconciliation

Eucharist

Matrimony

Holy Order

Anointing of the Sick

Each sacrament corresponds with a certain aspect or stage in human life. The fact that there are seven is also significant. In scripture the number seven corresponded with the fullness of what is being spoken off. Thus there are seven days in a week and on the fullness of Creation God Rested.

In essence the Sacraments are gift from God that shows us his grace. They are not means of earning salvation (as some non-Catholics say) since they have no use to us unless we have faith, they are simply there for us, to aide us in worshipping with our whole being, to see and feel Gods grace flowing into our lives, keeping us feed in our journey in this life while at the same time showing us glimpses of the next.

This T Shirt about Sums it up..

Taken From this site. I know it is a little vulgar, but hey it about sums things up.

What Not Global Warming

So let me see place an exploding volcanoe under the polar ice cap and what do you get. The Ice sheets melt. They still have to throw in the increasing water temperature... Read Article

On the existence of Ghosts.

I thought I would post on something less political and less apologetic in nature and post on something that I find interesting in a somewhat related field.

Recently I have become fascinated by the Sci-Fi Original Series Called Ghost Hunters. I have always had an interested in Ghosts, but have always found the field troublesome as it is filled with people whose views are decidedly non-Christians. I am interested in the field from the Christian point of view. The reason I find the program interesting, even though the main characters do not bring a Christian world view to the field, it the skeptics approach they bring to their investigations. Unlike the British guys on travel channel these guys (plumbers by trade) enter a situation with a desire to disprove anything paranormal and in many cases do show alternative explanations. When all natural explanations are exhausted then they are willing to acknowledge paranormal activity. Of course when paranormal activity is documented they do not usually offer a Christian explanation or solution. Sometimes they do offer solutions, but not a Christian one, such a bringing in clergy. One of the things that the show serves to establish is that there is something in this world besides the physical world. Which can come as a revelation to those from an atheistic point of view.

My interest in these subject as mentioned is belief that whatever entity is active in these hauntings can only come from one of two sources. Either it is of God (which is in most cases not likely as angels invariably come with a divine mission, there is also the potential of the souls in Purgatory seeking prayer some mistics have written on this) or it is of demonic origin (the more likely explanation in most cases) This is where I think the Ghost Hunters guys may be failing their "clients". Not all demonic activity results in possessions and are as overt as that depicted in the exorcism of Emilly Rose. Many are quite benign in appearance, the purpose of which is to cause confusion and crisis of faith amongst their intended victims. The victims then turn to spiritism and other pagan practice as a source of explanation and are thus drawn further from Jesus. I think these are more dangerous than the actual possessions as those are clear and the solution is also clear. It takes duly appointed Catholic Priest to liberate those poor souls.

The website for the Ghost Hunters group is Here.

There is a more Catholic oriented site that deals with the demonolgy aspect of this.

Voter Guides

Voter Guide For Serious Christians.

Note that nowhere in this guide is there mandate that seeks to create a government dependent class. Nor is the death penalty a non-negotiable, as the church while frowning on the death penalty still recognaices the right of the State in such matters. It is not the same to kill an innocent child and to kill a convicted Murderer.

There is at least one candidate that I know that will violate several of these non-negotiables.

One More Justice is all we need....

To keep making good decisions like this, on a consistent basis.

Of the Two candidates one promises to nominate, Justices like Ginsburg, and Stevens the other promises to nominate justices like Thomas and Elito.

Of course the one that promises to nominate such originalist Justices has a maverick streak and we cannot truly know what he will do, but if the other guy wins we do know what he will do. One might give us the majority we need to overturn state sponsored infanticide, with the other there will be no such chance perhaps for a very long time.

Priest Sex Abuse Scandal

It was terrible and it did highlight problems in church administration. It gave the Media an excuse to go for endless weeks attacking the church and showing how this proves the folly of Priestly celibacy. No mention of Protestant Clergy accused of similar crimes, this of course by married clergy, but to report on this would not advance the notion that sex abuse is the fault of celibacy. Also ignored are the acquittals of Catholic Priests being.

Article

Article

Article

Article

I found these in ten minutes using Google. I do not have the world wide resources of the media or a Lexus Nexus account.

Please note, I am as angered by the scandal as the next devout Catholic, but I think there should be perspective and this should point to the medias Anti-Catholic Bias.The Fact is that the incidents of Sex Abuse were wildly exaggerated in order to cast aspersions upon the Catholic Church and to discredit her teachings which stand in opposition to the secular Medias
libertine lifestyles and beliefs.

Charity is not a Government Program

It’s an election year. This means that predictably the secular left candidate will discover Scripture and Jesus and translate the teachings of scripture and Jesus on the treatments of others with charity into a government program. They will say Point to passages such as the Good Samaritan, the Be Attitudes, Do unto others etc. and speak of treating others with charity an immediately point to a government program as the only expression and or application of these teachings to the exclusion of legitimate charities such as Catholic, Charities, Lutheran Social service, The Salvation Army and other charities to do great service, often on shoe string budgets and lots of volunteers and real individual acts of charity. Interesting that when a secular left winger quotes scripture or refers to Jesus the ACLU’s and George Soros of the world do not scream as they do when a right winger does the same, perhaps because they know that the left wing candidate does not mean it.

Catholic Social teaching does allow and even encourage government assistance for the poor, but it also recognizes the obligation of a free people to do service for each other without the need or want of a government program. Catholic social teaching does not really care where the assistance comes from, it does not however promotes one method or the other. Catholic social teaching opposes the extremes of both Socialism as well as Capitalism and believes that society can have an economic systems that incorporates the best aspects of both economic systems. Only politicians seeking to buy votes and to create dependence of government will promote government as the only legitimate form of charity.

Real charity is something one does without coercion. No can be forced to be charitable for, if one is forced it is no longer charity. Charity by definition is voluntary. Politicians who promote charity through government programs are seldom charitable with their own Money as evidenced by their own tax returns. They love to be charitable with other peoples money, which the take in the form of confiscatory taxes. The fact is that it is people of faith that are the most charitable and they give without coercion, often above and beyond what is already taxed. It is also people of faith who often volunteer their time to charitable organizations (this never makes it on a ledger sheet). In time of disasters it is private individuals who often out-gives even our own very giving government

My Brother posted an excellent treatise on the true meaning of Charity on his Blog Assenting Catholic. Read Post here.

So in short do not let politicians fool you. Whenever they bring up Jesus and the bible and speak of charity, grab a hold of your wallet, it’s not as though they are going to open theirs.

Obama Supported by Foreign Leaders,

Such as Castro, HAMAS, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud I'm-a-dirty-Yak, And Now Kim Jung Ill. Still Waiting on Osama Bin Ladens, grainy video tape is probably in route as we speak.

It's nice to know who Americas Friends and well wishers want as our president.