Questions

Purity and impurity in the law of Moses is not about sin. Being impure is not a sin and even what makes you impure is usually not something sinful. The things that made the Hebrews impure were all things that were culturally linked to death. A Jew had to be pure to approach God, because otherwise, by having these symbols of death on him, he would insult the fact that God is holy (meaing "set apart") and His people is expected to be holy too. Purity and impurity was a symbol of the covenant between God and the Jews.
Why was the ban on impurity lifted by Christ? Because it is not what goes into one's mouth that defiles them, but what comes out of one's mouth. Impurity is only ritual and symbolic, but sin truly kills the soul, and we are in an era where we are intimate with God and have no more need for symbolic, educational things like purity and impurity. Just as how Sabbath was made for man, rather than man being made for the Sabbath, we can say that the laws on purity and impurity were made for man, to teach him about holiness, rather than man being made for them.

Why was the Sabbath celebrated? Because it was the last day of creation, the seventh day. By commemorating it we commemorate the whole of creation, and, you could say, mystically participate with God in it - by resting with Him.
But in Christianity we learn that the true final day of creation is the 8th day, the day Jesus rose from the dead, the day the clock of the end times began counting down, the day we became able to return to the original purity of the world and to attain theosis. Note that the number 7 in Judaism means perfection, but the number 8 means "beyond perfection", that is, God. And the numebr 8 is often relevant throughout the Bible, and the gospels make a point to make Jesus rise on the 8th day. This is the apocalyptic "Day of the Lord" that the prophets warned about. While the Day of the Lord is in itself the final judgement, the eschaton, Easter is mystically this Day of the Lord also - with Jesus's resurrection, all the righteous are already given eternal life and all the wicked are already given eternal damnation. And this is repeated every Sunday, the Day of the Lord, where we receive the Eucharist and are either awarded with eternal life or condemned with eternal damnation. The 8th day of creation is why we celebrate on the day after Saturday, why Easter is the most important feast of the year, and why the commemoration has shifted from Saturday to Sunday.
However it doesn't mean Saturday is not still venerated as a holy day. I don't know about Catholicism but in Orthodoxy we are not allowed to fast on either Saturday or Sunday, and also we pray for the dead on Saturday, who have indeed entered into rest.

This means both. Peter's vision showed to him that that which was not considered holy now is. This means non-Jews but this also means impure food and impure things.

cont

I'm Orthodox but my catechism says about the Church that what it *should be* is the beautiful bride of the Lord, the perfect and stainless community of the elects, but what it *is* currently is an ugly, disfigured bunch of sinners. But Jesus, even as He was disfigured by beatings and spit upon, was still the Lord of glory, even if He was repulsive to look at at this moment. And in God's eyes, what we truly are is what our nature is - which is why we remain "good", as in Genesis 1, even though we have fallen into sin and rebellion. What defines us is our final purpose, not what we are right here and now. The Church is ugly to look at but who else can make a change about that but us? In the end all will be judged and the bad weed will be burned.

Can't help you with that for obvious reasons. But again, if what you seek is a community of living saints here and now, you will seek forever and die without having begun to repent yourself first.

Thank you, friend. But right now I don't feel worth of His sacrifice. He died for us all and I vehemently reject the notion that the Jews killed Our Lord Jesus Christ, we all killed Him. God bless you, brother.

While I feel that you're being facetious, I do believe that the dogmas of the Catholic Church are put in place to protect our spiritual life. Even Papal infallibility has made sense historically. I do have some misgivings about the Marian cult but I understand the differences between latria, dulia and hiperdulia and see that the Protestant churches for the most part aren't sufficiently reverent to the life and sanctity of Mary. Having said that, titles like the Queen of Heaven are very troublesome and should be reconsidered in my humble opinion. As per the rosary, I do believe those are the vain repetitions Our Lord Jesus Christ warned us about in His sermon on the mount.

What about Mathew 5:17-20?
I want to honour His sacrifice but He has instructed His followers to keep the law. We are to observe the Commandments because they are good and they are just, so why are the lesser ones abolished? I struggle with this notion and I see that the better answer is found on the Messianic Movement, though some of my Catholic brethren call them Judaiser which is a concept I don't fully understand I'm afraid.

I thank you kindly. You have given me food for thought.

His forgiveness of paedophiles is extremely irksome and not something I can abide. The Church is the bride of Christ and the priesthood doubly so. Adultery is the only sin that justifies a divorce so with whose authority does the Pope Francis forgives these people? Is this a valuable teaching or heresy? I'm inclined to believe the latter.

I believe that the dogmas are put in place to protect my spiritual life. But I have a bout of the Gnostic poison and am always questioning. Please understand that I have no ill-intent, I mean only to comprehend before returning to church. these are contradictions I seek to resolve, it is not my intention to foment discord.

And again, I kindly thank everyone of the polite answers. Thank you for putting up with my silly questions. God bless.

It relates back to following Ceremonial Law when you shouldn't.

I'd reply to the rest of the post but has it in the bag.

That's good. Absolutely no one, not a single person, is or ever will be worthy of His sacrifice. Even if we become absolutely sinless, we are still merely God's creatures, so how could we ever be worthy of having communion with God? Yet He still emptied Himself out to take upon our burden and suffering and eradicate it while divinizing us in the process. The life work of a Christian is to realize how unworthy we are to receive God's blessings, and comparatively, how immense God's love is for us - and as such, how immense our love for our neighbors must be also.

I do think the title should be used carefully (if only because it incidentally lines up with a pagan goddess's title as mentionned in Jeremiah 7:18) but Mary being crowned as queen of the community of saints, and of the whole creation, is not so shocking. First, we are all called to be kings and queens, ruling over God's creation as we are images of Him, the only King. Mary simply got ahead of us on this one because she is the greatest saint. Secondarily though, in the kingdom of Israel, the queen was the king's mother. If Jesus is the king of the world, what does that make Mary?

Vain repetitions like those used in the Psalms? See Psalm 136 for instance. If you read the part where Jesus warns against repetition, you will notice the context of what He says. See:

Pagans prayed with "vain repetitions" because they believed that if they repeated themselves often enough, their gods would finally hear them. The repetitions are vain because they are empty of meaning, and they are wrong because they show that the gods the pagans believed in were not omnipotent and almighty. While praying the Rosary mindlessly is certainly bad (just as any mindless prayer is), the Rosary itself is not "vain repetition" simply because it is not "vain" to begin with, and the repetitions are not to get God to hear us better but to meditate on Him and beg for mercy.

Did you read the Acts of the Apostles?

Nothing is abolished, however we, as Christians, are a spiritual people, and we fulfill the commandments of God not always in the letter, but always in the spirit (that is, the intentions behind the commandments). The Jews may perfectly fulfill the law given to Moses but their heart is hardened, they do not actually become co-workers of God, or extensions of His hand into the world. The law of Moses was given to a specific people in a specific time, and furthermore God knew that until Christ would come noone would be able to fulfill the commandments of God perfectly, which is why the law of Moses is given as a teacher, pedagogy to tell us what God's holiness means and that we must dedicate our entire life to God. The law of Moses is holy, of course, but not the final and perfect appearance of God's will. We, as a people animated by the Holy Spirit, can fulfill God's will, even if it means infringing upon the Mosaic law (because parts became outdated in the economy of salvation, such as honoring the Sabbath or staying away from impurity).
Did you read the epistles of the apostles? They talk about this a lot.

The only silliness would be to not ask questions. Even the prophets asked questions many times. Some were even explicitly angry at God. Jacob got the name of Israel because he fought with God, and as Israel, we too should not be scared to wrestle with God to find answers rather than passively sit back and wait for salvation and wisdom to fall on our lap. Don't feel embarassed about asking questions about Christianity.

This was immensely insightful. Thank you ever so much.

I think I understand. Jesus was the Temple so He had to keep the Law of Moses so that He would remain ritually pure (anything impure would in fact be against His very nature). Our Lord Jesus eating pork would be akin to the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus.

Like I said the other user, I think that we all killed Christ. Not wanting to be to presumptuous. like there are lesser and greater people in the Kingdom of Heaven, so do I think we can measure our worthiness to the Lord Our God. I am especially unworthy, I haven't gone to church in over a decade, I have broken His commandments and my works are none. I do not believe I have His Holy Spirit. Perhaps someday I will feel Him in my life but now is not the time. It is easy to confirm His existence and His Messiah, but it's not enough to merely acknowledge Him. I'm still at the beginning of my journey, I've amassed years and years of sin and still sin daily. How can I rejoice when I kill Christ every day? His love is indeed great but right now it only brings me pain.

Only parts. I've only went through Genesis, Job, Proverbs and Revelation. I've read loose chapters of plenty of other books but I've yet to read the Holy Scriptures cover to cover..It is my understanding that the Orthodox and Protestant canons differs from the Catholic, so I hope I'm not missing too much.

I thank you all for your answers, they were more enlightening that what I was hopping for honestly. God bless you all.

Actions are very different from doctrine.

Actions inform doctrine.

Bad actions lead to shit yeah I agree.
But to answer that user no one needs to agree to the actions of a pope and God knows how many did even worse shit than this.

The actions of one man do not inform the 2000 year old, immutable doctrine of the apostles themselves. If so, dozens of Popes could have sunk the ship, but ultimately the are only the first mates and Christ is the captain.

All fair points. But the Pope is to be the supreme authority and the best possible example of the Faith. Regardless of there being worst examples, this is just unacceptable. The Bible teaches us that sin should horrify us yet these kinds of normalising behaviours have become our daily bread. We shouldn't be complacent, not as Catholics and especially not as Christians. This may be naïve of me but this is how I feel.

And its unacceptable when a pope does shit. But what can we do? Nothing except praying for him.

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