What Was The Hardest Truth To Accept?

[homeschoolmom]

For some it's authority, for others the Real Presents or the teachings on Mary or the Saints. What truth was the hardest to believe and do you think your religious "baggage" made it more difficult?

Edited April 12, 2004 by homeschoolmom

[Fiat_Voluntas_Tua]

For me...I would say it was none of it...I mean at first all of it seemed 'wierd', but once I became knowledgable about it...The door was opened. Like I knocked on the door to believe, and Christ just opened it right up. It is Sweet!

Pax et Agape per Maria, Andy

[homeschoolmom]

Ah, I typed Real Presents and I can't edit... :crackup: Is that like the [i]Gifts[/i] of the Spirit...? :rotfl:

[Joseph]

The hardest thing for me to accept was papal authority.......and I also had a hard time with the assumption. The immaculate conception made sense, but for some reason I couldn't grasp the assumption.
I had always thought there was something of a mystery about communion, something very, very spiritual about it.....so the Real Presence made so much sense to me even though I didn't know that was what Catholics believed. I didn't know hardly anything about the Church, but once I learned the truth, I knew it was where I had to be.

Edited April 13, 2004 by Joseph

[Crusader_4]

Uhmm well once i was concivnced of the Church teaching inffalliby i said to myself well...i am not sure but i put my trust in them since they know best. (Hence my quote on my signature from St. Ignatius) but i think that the Real Prescense was a difficult one.

[Sojourner]

There isn't really any one issue that I recall that was a stopper for me ... I can remember a bunch of "aha!" moments. When I started really digging into the theology, I found answers to questions I hadn't even fully formed yet.

For example, on one level I'd really struggled for years with trying to figure out which of the Protestant churches was "right." The way I'd expressed it was that I'd never been able to find a church that accomodated my head and my heart. You either find churches with a strong intellectual base but no real emotional connection to faith, or churches that are all about the emotions, but not guided by a strong theology.

As I read Catholic theology, I recognized that this was a church in which I could worship God as a whole person -- head, heart, body, and soul -- and that was huge for me.

Most things were like that ... Catholic theology just made sense, and then as it worked its way into my heart, I came to a point that I had to convert. And so I did.

[theculturewarrior]

I didn't quite realize what I was getting myself into when I first heard the call to conversion. When I was in RCIA, I was kind of subjected to a relatively benign form of the "anything goes" theology that pervades Catholic catechetics. Then I found EWTN's Q&A forum. The first pill I had to swallow was the inerrancy of scripture. Once I came to embrace this teaching, the proverbial door (as stated above) was opened.

[homeschoolmom]

One of the hardest things for me to get used to are the deuterocanonical books. Being a great lover of the Scriptures, it is hard for me to "add" to it. I still have trouble reading them. I haven't bought a new bible yet... and probably won't anytime soon. I know in my head that they are supposed to be there, but I can't feel it in my heart yet.

[theculturewarrior]

the Deutero-canonicals are some of my favorite books!

I would recommend starting with Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) or Tobit. It is true, there are things in there that make a "Sola Scriptura" reading impossible, but they are truly beautiful, inspired, and edifying when placed in their context.

PS Maccabees reads like a modern day action flick, if you are into that sort of thing.

Edited April 13, 2004 by theculturewarrior

[PhatPhred]

For me, the hardest teaching was "yo-yo" salvation, i.e., the idea that whether I end up in heaven or hell depends on if I die during the 70% of the time after confession that I haven't committed a mortal sin or if I die during the 30% of the time after I've committed a mortal sin but before I've went to confession. However, the Church has very clearly taught against "Once Saved, Always Saved", or even compromise versions like fundamental option theory.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='PhatPhred' date='Apr 13 2004, 09:32 AM'] However, the Church has very clearly taught against "Once Saved, Always Saved", or even compromise versions like fundamental option theory. [/quote]
What's fundamental option theory?

Actually, while I am not wild about the yo-yo salvation idea, it's pretty biblical and makes sense... and since God did not consult me when creating the universe, I guess I'll have to go with it. It was one of the first things that made sense to me. I am finding this phorum fascinating... everyone stumbled with different things and accepted early on different things... God's amazing!

[PhatPhred]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Apr 13 2004, 11:57 AM']What's fundamental option theory?[/quote]
It's described in paragraphs 65 to 70 of [url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html"]Pope John Paul II's Encyclical [i]Veritatis Splendor[/i] (THIS IS AN HTML LINK!!!)[/url].

In a nutshell, it's the idea that a person makes a fundamental choice to be good or to be evil, to follow God or to fight against God, and that most or all of one's specific acts flow from and are dependent on this fundamental choice. When this idea is taken to the extreme that a fundamental choice for "good" can overcome a mortally sinful act, then it has been condemned by the magisterium:

[quote name='Veritatis Splendor']69. As we have just seen, reflection on the fundamental option has also led some theologians to undertake a basic revision of the traditional distinction between [i]mortal[/i] sins and [i]venial[/i] sins. They insist that the opposition to God's law which causes the loss of sanctifying grace — and eternal damnation, when one dies in such a state of sin — could only be the result of an act which engages the person in his totality: in other words, an act of fundamental option. According to these theologians, mortal sin, which separates man from God, only exists in the rejection of God, carried out at a level of freedom which is neither to be identified with an act of choice nor capable of becoming the object of conscious awareness. Consequently, they go on to say, it is difficult, at least psychologically, to accept the fact that a Christian, who wishes to remain united to Jesus Christ and to his Church, could so easily and repeatedly commit mortal sins, as the "matter" itself of his actions would sometimes indicate. [b]Likewise, it would be hard to accept that man is able, in a brief lapse of time, to sever radically the bond of communion with God and afterwards be converted to him by sincere repentance.[/b] The gravity of sin, they maintain, ought to be measured by the degree of engagement of the freedom of the person performing an act, rather than by the matter of that act. [/quote]
I bolded the sentence above that refers to yo-yo salvation.

[theculturewarrior]

[quote]For me, the hardest teaching was "yo-yo" salvation, i.e., the idea that whether I end up in heaven or hell depends on if I die during the 70% of the time after confession that I haven't committed a mortal sin or if I die during the 30% of the time after I've committed a mortal sin but before I've went to confession. However, the Church has very clearly taught against "Once Saved, Always Saved", or even compromise versions like fundamental option theory. [/quote]

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do not believe this...indeed, I see you likely know more salvation theology than myself. My caveat, for those who do not know about this, is that God forgives us WHEN WE REPENT. Confession is good, because the priest forgives us in the person of Christ. But not without contrition on our part. And perfect contrition, while not negating the need to confess the sin, opens the doors of Heaven. Jesus said angels rejoice when a sinner repents, the word "confess," did not appear in that passage, IIRC.

[PhatPhred]

theculturewarrior,

You've made a very good point; one that I've overlooked. Thanks!

In my case, I've pretty much been assuming that all or nearly all of my acts of contrition have been imperfect, having been partly motivated by my fear of damnation, and not fully motivated by my sorrow for having disappointed God.

[theculturewarrior]

One does not negate the other. The main evidence for perfect contrition is that you stop committing the sin in question. This does not mean that it is not because you fear damnation. It is that in addition, you despise the sin because it hurts God.

[quote]O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but [b]most of all, because they offend thee[/b], my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to confess my sin, to do penance, and to sin no more.[/quote]

I think that prayer says it all.