Should We Imitate the Catholic, Orthodox Saints and Protestant “Esteemed” Christians?

Are you a saint? Do you sin? Are you evil in any way?

I am a sinner saved by grace, constantly in need of His grace, ever thankful of His grace. As time goes by i am finding I have hidden sin, that my conscience is not sensitive.

There is a reason i identify with Mary Magdalene

Make that the Least Evil Religion in the World, the Most Ancient and Largest Christian Denomination, Catholic Christianity.

Catholic Christianity's contribution to Health Care/Hospitals: "The Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental provider of health care in the world. It is estimated that 26% of healthcare facilities around the world are Catholic. Catholic healthcare has been largely inspired by scriptural instruction to "heal the sick" and the Christian call to charity."

Taken from: https://catholic-geo-hub-cgisc.hub.arcgis.com/pages/catholic-healthcare

Let us individually be not evil, love God, and serve Him.

Jesus is the the head of the Church and will have His bride holy and undefined…He will make her so.

Catholic Christianity's contribution to Charities. Article from: https://usa.inquirer.net/15692/catholic-church-worlds-biggest-charitable-organization

"Catholic Church: World’s biggest charitable organization

... the Church runs 5,500 hospitals, 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, with 65 percent of them located in underdeveloped and developing countries.

Consider Caritas, the confederation of Catholic aid agencies that spent billions of dollars for poor humanity. Then sum up all the small-scale charitable projects of more than 200,000 Catholic parishes around the world and those of individual religious orders such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans, Opus Dei, Vincentians, and others.

Christians are only following the footsteps of Christ. The historical Jesus had a social mission, in addition to His mission of evangelization. The total liberation of the human person was foremost in the life and death of Him crucified, who was indeed never indifferent to the sufferings of others ...
To fast forward a bit, during the Middle Ages (500 AD to 1500 AD), monasteries, bishops’ houses, and convents became the key medical centers of Europe. The Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres, founded in 1696, are dedicated to nursing, visiting the poor, and taking care of the old and infirm, orphans, and the mentally ill. Today, with operations worldwide, they have about 121 Sisters in the Philippines working in 13 hospitals.

Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, who cared for the British troops during the Crimean War (1853-1856), once said: “What training is there to compare with that of a Catholic nun.”

Around 4,500 Missionary Sisters of Charity (founded in 1950 by Mother Teresa) care for hundreds of thousands of poor refugees, mentally ill, the aged and convalescent, sick and abandoned children, lepers, and people with AIDS – in addition to running schools to educate street children and managing soup kitchens around the world."

Please meditate on these words of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Resident Alien. Anti-Catholics ignore all the Good Fruits that Catholics who actually follow the Teaching of the Lord Jesus (in e.g. Mat 25, love for the Poor, is love for Him) clearly bear.

"A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." (Matthew 7:18).

God Bless.

Aweee you give me honor and praise. I thank you for it. Believe when when I say, though, I stumble and struggle with myself plenty. I need Him constantly to keep me and the dredful ego from running a muck. He is so gracious as He keeps me in chk and encourages me to lay down my cross of self, every moment, of every day.

I hope to follow Him more and more, with His tender-mercies there is hope. I am not real savy of the saints like some of you are, but I do learn much from the diciples, because they followed Him so willingly, right off the bat. I am often inspired by them. However, it is Christ that is my One and only guiding light. Well, wait now. I seek to be this way. Like I said, um my ego rears her ugly head still, from time to time.

Thanks for always being so kind to me. I really appreciate it. I love you brother.

The nerd part of me is now curious how one would calculate the time necessary to spend in purgatory, and the mechanics of reducing it. What are the metrics used in calculating it? How does one affect them? How would you check whether what you do to affect it is actually having an effect?

Actually I thought indulgences was where you know you are going to sin, so you pay off the church in advance so you can sin without feeling bad about it. I thought paying down purgatory time was something different. Maybe I got something backward?

Whatever it is called where you can pay off sin you know you are going to do, how do I get in on that part?

As far as i know the Orthodox Church never promulgated indulgences….also several other things that would agree with the protestant mentality

Are you a saint? Do you sin? Are you evil in any way?

I am a sinner saved by grace, constantly in need of His grace, ever thankful of His grace. As time goes by i am finding I have hidden sin, that my conscience is not sensitive.

There is a reason i identify with Mary Magdalene

It's not "against the law" to post Catholic ideas here. But the official policy of this forum is Catholicism is heresy. I think what Subhumanoid was getting at is that criticism of Catholicism is permitted and you will get pushback from other members.

See this: https://christianchat.com/bible-discussion-forum/catholic-heresy-for-the-record.41911/

I assume by: "It [the church] had existed for 1500 years before then" you mean the Catholic church. I don't recognize the Catholic church as a true Christian church, so anything you have to say pretty much ends right there for me.

If someone belongs to a heretical sect they might be true part of the time but still false the rest of the time. If I quote them, or encourage others to listen to them, I'm leading them down a crooked road.

I think when we focus more of our time and energy on any particular denomination, or doctrine, or theology, or even other believers, past or present, more than on
Him, on His atonement, His grace, His Love, His justice, His fellowship, His work..we are losing site of what really matters..Him, not religion.

Everything starts and ends with the great Alpha and Omega.

My biggest arguement against Catholicism is it seems to place more focus on a certain way of believing, certain traditions, certain theologies, certain style and ways of thinking but to me..He is the ONLY way; it is all about Him, not about a way of believing. I just don't get it.

Are we wanting to convince ppl to accept or to be a catholic, or a calvinist or a baptist, or a lutheran, or a protestant, evangelical, or a methodist...on and on? I'll admit that I honestly dont understand the differences nor do I desire to know.

OR

Are we trying to encourage others to be followers of Christ alone?

Sincerely, I mean no shade or shame.

I just don't get it.

I also remember once where my neighbor invited me to a non denominational church.
It was fairly long for about 3 hours, 2 hours of which were spent by some sort of theatrical play and an hour of music. I wondered if I was at a theater or a church , but guess what? My neighbor is wonderful!
He cuts my grass and I make bread for him. He and his family are wonderful and we also care and do little things for each other.

From what you say "All roads lead to Jesus, being His disciple, following Him" Bravo!

100% agree with you. In your heart you are in the right place.
The focus of any church should be God and for most Churches It is. But for some churches they get lost in dogma, hierarchy or traditions and lose sight of God.
This doesn’t make them all bad. There are many good people like you in my Church, in fact the Priest is a lot like you. Just like any group, including this virtual forum, you have to take the good with the bad.
There are a few things I don’t like about my church too but I’m not going to hate all because of a few. This is also contrary to what Christ teaches.
I go to the church to meet people like yourself so we can say “Christ is in our midst” and just be joyful and grateful with God and each other.