The Cross is the very sign of our salvation. It is not some pagan symbol that the Catholics borrowed from Babylonians or Egyptians as JWs claim.
The prophecy of Ezekiel chapter 9 reads: “1 Then he shouted loudly for me to hear, ‘The scourges of the city are approaching, each carrying his weapon of destruction!’ 2 Immediately six men advanced from the upper north gate, each holding a deadly weapon. Among them was a man dressed in linen, with a scribe’s ink-horn in his belt. They came in and halted in front of the bronze altar. 3 The glory of the God of Israel rose from above the winged creature where it had been, towards the threshold of the Temple. He called to the man dressed in linen with a scribe’s ink-horn in his belt 4 and Yahweh said to him, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who grieve and lament over all the loathsome practices in it.’ 5 I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city and strike. Not one glance of pity; show no mercy; 6 old men, young men, girls, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the old men who were in the Temple. 7 He said to them, ‘Defile the Temple; fill the courts with corpses; then go out!’ They went out and hacked their way through the city. 8 While they were hacking them down, I was left alone; I fell on my face, crying out, ‘Ah, Lord Yahweh, are you going to annihilate all that is left of Israel by venting your fury on Jerusalem?’ 9 He said, ‘The guilt of the House of Israel and Judah is immense; the country is full of bloodshed, the city full of perversity, for they say, “Yahweh has abandoned the country, Yahweh cannot see.” 10 Then, I too shall neither give one glance of pity nor show any mercy. I shall repay them for what they have done.’ 11 The man dressed in linen with the scribe’s ink-horn in his belt then came back and made his report, ‘I have carried out your orders.’ “ https://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=33&bible_chapter=9
The cross was the symbol of Jesus’ crucifixion. It redeemed us from sin and death and the cross becomes the mark of our salvation. Historically, there is ample evidence that Jesus died on a cross and not on a single pole as JWs claim. Do your research. Don’t get caught up in some empty debate resulting from a couple of dissident marginalized critics and remote historical exceptions. Also study the Shoud of Turin. Jesus died on a cross. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE CROSS” AND “THE SHROUD OF TURIN”.
In Ezekiel chapter 9 verses 3 to 4, the prophet talks about a man clothed with linen who had the writer”s ink-horn in his belt and he had to go in the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem, and put mark, a sign, upon the foreheads of the men who sighed and mourned for all the abominations that were done in the midst of the city and anyone who did not have the mark would be killed . In the original Hebrew text, the word for “mark” is TAW and in the Hebrew alphabet this letter is the letter T. In the ancient Hebrew language which is slightly different from modern Hebrew, it wasn’t just the letter t. The letter TAW that the scribe with the ink-horn had to write on the forehead of people for them to be saved was actually a cross: the horizontal bar was lower. It was a cross, as a sign announcing the crucifixion and the need to have faith in the sacrifice of our Redemptor Jesus Christ!! Furthermore, it also means “alliance or pact”!!!
Also this letter TAW in Hebrew is written with two characters תָּ֜ו. The first one is a cross and the second character actually represents a man, a male human being or it can also represent a nail, as a nail used to set up a tent or a nail to nail a man on a cross during an execution!!
That is the mark that is to be written on the forehead of every person that is to be saved!! This discovery for me was amazing!!! MUST SEE: THE CROSS – The Cross: Jewish or Pagan?
Also the cross, the shape of the cross as in 2 perpendicular lines crossing each other is actually the foundation of the universe: theologians talk about the “cosmic cross”. If we analyze the world, the universe, most solid trusctures are actually based upon some form in the shape of a cross, every house, every door post, is actually built using two perpendicular beams or boards or planks or wooden pieces that will actually make the structure stronger… any piece of furniture, a bed, a chair, a cabinet, a cupboard, a fence, all of those are actually built with elements forming crosses because it’s actually the most solid shape or form in the universe. Light, stars, the sun, all shine with rays whose light is reflected in the form of a cross. Everything in the universe is based on a cross and therefore it is absolutely ludicrous to say, as Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, that the Catholics adopted the cross from some Egyptian or Babylonian pagan teaching or practice. The cross existed way before any civilization. It existed when God created the universe. Pagans didn’t invent the cross. The Catholic cross doesn’t come from pagan god nor civilization. God had purposed the cross to be the foundation of our salvation itself: it is the principle of the “cosmic cross”. SEE SECTION ON “THE CROSS”.
Dr. Scott Hahn | The Bible and the Sacrifice of the Mass | Franciscan University of Steubenville
Explicación de las partes de la Misa con imágenes
How to Prepare for Mass & Holy Communion | Before, During & After ~ Fr. Ripperger
Aprende a acolitar en unos minutos a través de este video y anímate a colaborar en tu parroquia.
Liturgy and Sacrifice: Understanding the Mass’ True Meaning ~ Fr. Ripperger
A Protestant walks into a Catholic Mass… and everything changes.
The Sacrifice of the Mass (Aquinas 101)
Fulton Sheen: The Deep Sacrifice of the Mass Explained
LATIN MASS / NOVUS ORDO MASS / ST JAMES RITE
THE LITURGY OF THE MASS REFLECTED IN ST. JOHN’S VISION OF DIVINE WORSHIP IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
What makes a consecration valid – EX OPERE OPERATO – MINUTE 7″ 35
The first miracle of Jesus was turning water into wine, his last on earth was to turn wine into blood – What Really Happened at Cana and Why It Matters: Explaining the Faith with Fr. Chris Alar
EX OPERE OPERANTIS – THE GRACE OF MASS DEPENDS ON THE RECIPIENT – MINUTE 9’43
El Gran Milagro: La Santa Misa · Testimonio de Catalina Rivas
THE TRADITIONAL LATIN RITE MASS – The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is a Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical right, that is, a community of priests who do not take religious vows.
THE TRADITIONAL LATIN RITE MASS – Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest
“By the grace of God, in the midst of the confusion and heterodoxy of the 1970s, the founders of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest — Monsignor Gilles Wach, STD, and Father Phillipe Mora, STD — cultivated a deep love for the unbroken stream of Catholic tradition under the tutelage of Cardinal Giuseppe Siri and other orthodox Cardinals and clergymen.
Since then, they have sought to defend and pass on to the members of the Institute and Catholics throughout the world the majestic patrimony of Catholic tradition.”
1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify.48 They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. the Father always hears the prayer of his Son’s Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.
1128 This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation49 that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that “the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.”50 From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.
1129 The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation.51 “Sacramental grace” is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament. the Spirit heals and transforms those who receive him by conforming them to the Son of God. the fruit of the sacramental life is that the Spirit of adoption makes the faithful partakers in the divine nature52 by uniting them in a living union with the only Son, the Savior.
Exorcist Explains How Catholics/Non-Catholics Are Saved
Who Can Be Saved?
No salvation outside the Church
EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS
ONLY CHRIST SAVES BY MEANS OF THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST
ALL GRACE COMES THROUGH CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH
Does Salvation By Faith and Works Mean You Can Lose Your Salvation at Any Moment?
Can You Lose Your Salvation?
Many Protestants say once saved, always saved. The Bible doesn’t agree.
From a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop (Sermo Caillau-Saint Yves 2, 92: PLS 2, 441-552) He who perseveres to the end will be saved Whenever we suffer some affliction, we should regard it both as a punishment and as a correction. Our holy Scriptures themselves do not promise us peace, security and rest. On the contrary, the Gospel makes no secret of the troubles and temptations that await us, but it also says that he who perseveres to the end will be saved. What good has there ever been in this life since the time when the first man received the just sentence of death and the curse from which Christ our Lord has delivered us? So we must not grumble, my brothers, for as the Apostle says: Some of them murmured and were destroyed by serpents. Is there any affliction now endured by mankind that was not endured by our fathers before us? What sufferings of ours even bear comparison with what we know of their sufferings? And yet you hear people complaining about this present day and age because things were so much better in former times. I wonder what would happen if they could be taken back to the days of their ancestors—would we not still hear them complaining? You may think past ages were good, but it is only because you are not living in them. It amazes me that you who have now been freed from the curse, who have believed in the son of God, who have been instructed in the holy Scriptures—that you can think the days of Adam were good. And your ancestors bore the curse of Adam, of that Adam to whom the words were addressed: With sweat on your brow you shall eat your bread; you shall till the earth from which you were taken, and it will yield you thorns and thistles. This is what he deserved and what he had to suffer; this is the punishment meted out to him by the just judgment of God. How then can you think that past ages were better than your own? From the time of that first Adam to the time of his descendants today, man’s lot has been labor and sweat, thorns and thistles. Have we forgotten the flood and the calamitous times of famine and war whose history has been recorded precisely in order to keep us from complaining to God on account of our own times? Just think what those past ages were like! Is there one of us who does not shudder to hear or read of them? Far from justifying complaints about our own time, they teach us how much we have to be thankful for.
A sacrament, as we learned from our catechism, is a visible sign of grace that does what it signifies. Its efficacy is bound up with its signification. Subvert the sign and you subvert its power (for efficacious natural signs, too, like the marital embrace).
The Passion of Our Lord is similar. The holy doctors teach that it would have been sufficient for Jesus to have shed a single drop of blood, for all of the sins of all of humankind to be forgiven – if he had so chosen. Yet, rather, he freely chose to endure his Passion. And why? Because of what was thereby expressed.
“To satisfy the divine justice,” St. Alphonsus Liguori writes, “it would be enough for him to have suffered any pain; but no, he wished to submit to the most galling insults and to the sharpest pains, in order to make us comprehend the malice of our sins, and the love with which his heart was inflamed for us.”
Like a sacrament, then, the Passion has an essential aspect of a sign. Our Lord freely chose that our redemption would be accomplished by this specific means, which was at the same time an expression of both the gravity of sin, and the depth of God’s love.
But to be intelligible, signs need a language and context. So, here arises an interesting question: What conditions were necessary for God to have been able to fashion a sign like this? It’s not so easy.
Follow me here. Suppose that God had wanted to apply a remedy for sin immediately after Adam and Eve had fallen. How could he have repaired things at the start, while expressing the correct truths?
Surely Adam and Eve needed to understand the gravity of sin. They looked upon eating the fruit as something slight, maybe even good (“to become like God.”). As for God’s love, they suspected, as the Devil suggested, that maybe God didn’t have their best interests at heart. What could God have done, right then, to save them, precisely through helping them understand?
He couldn’t have sent Jesus Christ just then. How would Jesus have come into existence? If through being born to Eve, this would have expressed, rather, the levity of sin. Suppose that Jesus was created de novo, a mature man, perhaps fashioned like Adam out of mud. But then why should Adam and Eve ever have believed that this third being, although like them, was God?
And how would this new being manage to die for them? If he killed himself, this would express the wrong things. But Adam and Eve didn’t seem particularly inclined to torture or kill anyone themselves. So, presumably, if Jesus were to die for their sins,
God would need to create another being de novo (this one not God), somehow representing themselves, tasked with torturing and killing him. The material, rational creation at this point – Adam and Eve, and then another pair of rational creatures, one tasked with torturing and killing the other, the other tasked with accepting it – if it expressed anything all, would teach that torture and murder are now part of Creation, and that God can be malicious.
Do you see my point? We take for granted that the Lord’s Passion, as depicted by a crucifix, signifies as it does. It’s only through something like a miracle, however, or many miracles, that it can do so. This marvel – that it signifies and that its signification is itself God’s work – has been sensed intuitively by millions of converts, who have recognized divine power already in “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
If what happens to Jesus is to express anything about us, he needs to be one of us: he needs to be born of a woman, and yet in such a way as to make a new start. If it is to express something about the gravity of sin, what happens to him has to be a clear expression of our sin.
But since to sin is to go astray, he needs to be tortured and put to death exactly because everything good and strong about us has gone astray – our best expression of administration (Rome), our best expression of the priesthood (Judaism), our best expression of popular acclaim (the festival crowd), our best expression of friendship (his disciples).
For it to express something about God’s love, he needs to be identifiable as God. He needs to be placed in a tradition that has established incommunicable signs for God, such as a name, “I am,” and incommunicable acts of God, such as forgiveness and rescue (the pascal lamb). If it is to express the ultimate form of love, it has to be a genuine giving up of his life for us. That is, he must be fully open to being put to death, while doing nothing to precipitate or recklessly cause it.
And then the whole thing needs to be presented “in the manner of a sign.” Not everything is like that. If I separate my pointer and middle finger by accident, or in the dark, I cannot signify “victory” or “peace.” If I do so as if inadvertently, although in plain sight, it is not yet a sign – someone needs to see that I am intending to convey something.
And just try getting executed as a madman by public authorities and see if you succeed in “saying anything” at all. Another miracle, then: the crucifixion occurred within the short time when the great secular power of Rome and the great spiritual power that was Israel coincided in one place. And another miracle: it was for Rome to provide the final condition and seal.
Jesus was not simply crucified but crucified publicly, “under Pontius Pilate.” In “the fullness of time,” Pilate, through his use of those three great instruments of meaning, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, as a public act made it clear to all that this death of the King of the Jews was intended as a sign.
The Origins and Meaning of the Sign of the Cross: How Did It Begin?✝
ABSOLUTE MUST SEE: THE CROSS
The Cross: Jewish or Pagan?
EZEKIEL 9
3 And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon he was, to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side;
4 And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
PERSONAL NOTE:
Una homilia que escuche sobre el texto de Lucas 20 leía:
“21 Y le preguntaron: «Maestro, sabemos que hablas y enseñas con rectitud, y que no tienes en cuenta la condición de las personas, sino que enseñas con franqueza el camino de Dios: 22 ¿Nos es lícito pagar tributo al César o no?» 23 Pero él, habiendo conocido su astucia, les dijo: 24 «Mostradme un denario. ¿De quién lleva la imagen y la inscripción?» Ellos dijeron: «Del César.» 25 El les dijo: «Pues bien, lo del César devolvédselo al César, y lo de Dios a Dios.»”
// El sacerdote explicó que cada moneda suele tener la cara o imagen del Rey.
Según Genesis 1: 27, fuimos “creados a la imagen de Dios” y por el bautismo somos hijo por adopción y propiedad de Dios y tenemos su nombre plasmado en nuestra frente y corazón. Padre Patricio, mi profe en San Damaso dijo que somos “moneda de Dios” según la expresión de San Agustin y no moneda de Cesar, le pertenecemos y a solo a Él le damos y le sirvimos con todo nuestro ser, amor, alma, corazón, fuerza, mente y espiritú.
En lo mismo, Ezekiel 9: 2 a 4 dice:
2 Y en esto vinieron, de la dirección del pórtico superior que mira al norte, seis hombres, cada cual con su azote en la mano. En medio de ellos había un hombre vestido de lino con una cartera de escriba a la cintura. Entraron y se detuvieron ante al altar de bronce. 3 La gloria del Dios de Israel se levantó de sobre los querubines sobre los cuales estaba, hacia el umbral de la Casa. Llamó entonces al hombre vestido de lino que tenía la cartera de escriba a la cintura; 4 y Yahveh le dijo: «Pasa por la ciudad, por Jerusalén, y marca una cruz en la frente de los hombres que gimen y lloran por todas las abominaciones que se cometen en medio de ella.»
Endagué este relato en la traducción interlinear hebreo-inglés que dice literalmente que el hombre con el escritorio tenía que poner “una marca” o un “TAW” en la frente de aquellas personas gimiendo: la letra TAW del alfabeto hebreo que tenía que escribir el hombre con el escritorio en la frente de las personas para que sean a salvo, no solo era la letra T que corresponde a una cruz, como señal anunciado la crucifixión y la necesidad de tener fe en el sacrificio de Nuestro Redentor, pero además significa tambien “alianza” y esa letra se escribe en hebreo con 2 caracteres תָּ֜ו, uno que es una cruz y el otro que representa un hombre varón o un clavo como él que se usa o sea para montar una tienda de campaña o un clavo para clavar a un hombre en una cruz durante un ejecución!!!! Increíble!!!
The Cross is the very mark we must bear on our foreheads to be saved!!!
The cross is the very sign of our salvation. It is not some pagan symbol that the Catholics borrowed from Babylonians or Egyptians as JWs claim.
The prophecy of Ezekiel chapter 9 reads: “1 Then he shouted loudly for me to hear, ‘The scourges of the city are approaching, each carrying his weapon of destruction!’ 2 Immediately six men advanced from the upper north gate, each holding a deadly weapon. Among them was a man dressed in linen, with a scribe’s ink-horn in his belt. They came in and halted in front of the bronze altar. 3 The glory of the God of Israel rose from above the winged creature where it had been, towards the threshold of the Temple. He called to the man dressed in linen with a scribe’s ink-horn in his belt 4 and Yahweh said to him, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who grieve and lament over all the loathsome practices in it.’ 5 I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city and strike. Not one glance of pity; show no mercy; 6 old men, young men, girls, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the old men who were in the Temple. 7 He said to them, ‘Defile the Temple; fill the courts with corpses; then go out!’ They went out and hacked their way through the city. 8 While they were hacking them down, I was left alone; I fell on my face, crying out, ‘Ah, Lord Yahweh, are you going to annihilate all that is left of Israel by venting your fury on Jerusalem?’ 9 He said, ‘The guilt of the House of Israel and Judah is immense; the country is full of bloodshed, the city full of perversity, for they say, “Yahweh has abandoned the country, Yahweh cannot see.” 10 Then, I too shall neither give one glance of pity nor show any mercy. I shall repay them for what they have done.’ 11 The man dressed in linen with the scribe’s ink-horn in his belt then came back and made his report, ‘I have carried out your orders.’ “ – (External link)
The cross was the symbol of Jesus’ crucifixion. It redeemed us from sin and death and the cross becomes the mark of our salvation. Historically, there is ample evidence that Jesus died on a cross and not on a single pole as JWs claim. Do your research. Don’t get caught up in some empty debate resulting from a couple of dissident marginalized critics and remote historical exceptions. Also study the Shoud of Turin. Jesus died on a cross. SEE SECTIONS ON “THE CROSS” AND “THE SHROUD OF TURIN“.
In Ezekiel chapter 9 verses 3 to 4, the prophet talks about a man clothed with linen who had the writer”s ink-horn in his belt and he had to go in the midst of the city, in the midst of Jerusalem, and put mark, a sign, upon the foreheads of the men who sighed and mourned for all the abominations that were done in the midst of the city and anyone who did not have the mark would be killed . In the original Hebrew text, the word for “mark” is TAW and in the Hebrew alphabet this letter is the letter T. In the ancient Hebrew language which is slightly different from modern Hebrew, it wasn’t just the letter t. The letter TAW that the scribe with the ink-horn had to write on the forehead of people for them to be saved was actually a cross: the horizontal bar was lower. It was a cross, as a sign announcing the crucifixion and the need to have faith in the sacrifice of our Redemptor Jesus Christ!! Furthermore, it also means “alliance or pact”!!!
Also this letter TAW in Hebrew is written with two characters תָּ֜ו. The first one is a cross and the second character actually represents a man, a male human being or it can also represent a nail, as a nail used to set up a tent or a nail to nail a man on a cross during an execution!!
That is the mark that is to be written on the forehead of every person that is to be saved!! This discovery for me was amazing!!!
Also the cross, the shape of the cross as in 2 perpendicular lines crossing each other is actually the foundation of the universe: theologians talk about the “cosmic cross”. If we analyze the world, the universe, most solid trusctures are actually based upon some form in the shape of a cross, every house, every door post, is actually built using two perpendicular beams or boards or planks or wooden pieces that will actually make the structure stronger… any piece of furniture, a bed, a chair, a cabinet, a cupboard, a fence, all of those are actually built with elements forming crosses because it’s actually the most solid shape or form in the universe. Light, stars, the sun, all shine with rays whose light is reflected in the form of a cross. Everything in the universe is based on a cross and therefore it is absolutely ludicrous to say, as Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, that the Catholics adopted the cross from some Egyptian or Babylonian pagan teaching or practice. The cross existed way before any civilization. It existed when God created the universe. Pagans didn’t invent the cross. The Catholic cross doesn’t come from pagan god nor civilization. God had purposed the cross to be the foundation of our salvation itself: it is the principle of the “cosmic cross”.
ABSOLUTE MUST SEE: GOD WILL PROTECT THE ONES MARKED BY THE SIGN OF THE CROSS
REVELATION” THE SIGN OF PROTECTION IS THE MARK OF THE CROSS
Over the course of Christianity’s first thousand years, the crucifixion of Jesus went from a subject that could be preached but not shown, to the inspiration for marvelous public artworks.
In “Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week”, Pope Benedict XVI explains that God’s covenant relationship with his chosen people in both the Old and New Testaments is not an add-on, a divine afterthought—or, as it’s more often understood, a fix for something that had gone wrong. Rather, Benedict writes, God’s covenantal bond with his people—the Jewish people and the people of the church—is the very reason why God “created” in the first place:
“According to rabbinic theology, the idea of the covenant—the idea of establishing a holy people to be an interlocutor for God in union with him—is prior to the idea of the creation of the world and supplies its inner motive. The cosmos was created, not that there be manifold things in heaven and earth, but that there be space for the ‘covenant,’ for the loving ‘yes’ between God and his human respondent.”
‘All Creatures of Our God and King!’: Catholics and the Cosmic Covenant
