Blessed Mystery to some, but the Scripture declares ONE mystery: how God was manifest in flesh. (1 Timothy 3:16)
It truly amazes me how we somehow can build doctrines on air castles and then proclaim them to others?!
It truly amazes me how someone can ignore my post that explains "Mystery", taken from the original Greek, that agrees with 1 Timothy 3:16, and then accuses me of building "air castles". This is what you ignored:
In the Catholic sense, mystery means something that is known by divine revelation, which makes it beyond human understanding and thus must be accepted with faith because reason fails to define it alone. The word is from the Latin Mysterium which means the same thing as Sacrament which is Greek in origin.
To a Catholic a sacrament is a time when God touches ones life in a fundamental and personal way. We as Catholics live a sacramental life in that we believe that God is a personal God who touches our lives often. The Church has defined seven particular times in a person's life when God's touch is so intimate that those times are elevated to a "capital S" sacrament. These times are so important that they are celebrated within the Faith Community and leave a mark on the person that cannot be taken away. The seven sacraments are Baptism, First Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick/Dying. Most Sacraments are so important that they can only be received once by a Catholic. Eucharist, Reconciliation and Anointing are the three that are repeatable.
The other time one hears the term mystery in the Catholic tradition is when someone is speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. While historically we can know that these events actually happened, there is a point where our reason and intellect fail in understanding the import of the events. At this point we must rely on our faith to accept the truth of these events. This is living in the Divine Mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus for the salvation of souls.
As these two examples are times when humans try to understand the action of God which cannot be done with reason alone, then for a Catholic the term mystery is meant to explain those actions and interventions of God into our world that we must accept on faith coupled with our reason which is also a gift from God.
To a Catholic a sacrament is a time when God touches ones life in a fundamental and personal way. We as Catholics live a sacramental life in that we believe that God is a personal God who touches our lives often. The Church has defined seven particular times in a person's life when God's touch is so intimate that those times are elevated to a "capital S" sacrament. These times are so important that they are celebrated within the Faith Community and leave a mark on the person that cannot be taken away. The seven sacraments are Baptism, First Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick/Dying. Most Sacraments are so important that they can only be received once by a Catholic. Eucharist, Reconciliation and Anointing are the three that are repeatable.
The other time one hears the term mystery in the Catholic tradition is when someone is speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. While historically we can know that these events actually happened, there is a point where our reason and intellect fail in understanding the import of the events. At this point we must rely on our faith to accept the truth of these events. This is living in the Divine Mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus for the salvation of souls.
As these two examples are times when humans try to understand the action of God which cannot be done with reason alone, then for a Catholic the term mystery is meant to explain those actions and interventions of God into our world that we must accept on faith coupled with our reason which is also a gift from God.
Groundzero, many people are hungry for deeper spiritual realities. They grow weary of the same old bible studies with the same old content, the same old Sunday hymns/sermon/hymns. They long for something deeper, richer, and that is one reason why THOUSANDS of Protestants are coming home to their true roots. Catholicism can offer what they are longing for. 1 Timothy 3:16 is a very rich passage, and you shouldn't be afraid of using reason to further unpack it's meaning.
MUST SEE - Mystery of the Catholic Eucharist and the Ancient Jewish 'Bread of the Presence' pt.1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyOFHQzVRio