@BillArnoldTeach Whatever you can imagine about heaven, and how the soul becomes happy there, no one can begin to imagine. Someone who has never seen the ocean asked what it is like. The other could only say, "Oh, the vastness! The waves! The roar!"

In the 1950's when a cross-dresser ran the bureau, the FBI would visit the employer of a Communist to ask if Mr. So-and-So still works there. The startled manager would say, 'Yes, he is employed here.' Then the manager would hear in reply, 'Let us know if he ever leaves employment.' Without being ordered to fire the worker, that was the immediate result of the visit.

Patriotism is the love of one's country of birth or adoption, and is a virtue. The Church allows for patriotic displays of the flag in the sanctuary, and teaches that while one may love the country God placed one in, one must also appreciate and honor that other citizens have the same love for their own countries. In this particular instance, it is a military chapel, where the various service's flags are also displayed. The flags are prominent, though, not unlike the heraldic flags hanging in the National Cathedral.

@vintagegirl1963 @zachrowell95 @prayandfast2 I assumed you regularly attend Mass with your husband. The best unsolicited advice I could offer is to follow your conscience. Know that you are in my prayers.

In that case you should make your priest aware that you are not even baptized, much less Catholic. Having felt healing can be good, but feelings are not a good reason for the irregular and illicit reception you are in, as they can easily mislead. If your priest is the same one who said you may receive then I would get a second opinion from another priest, as priests (and nuns) can and do make mistakes and cause harm, even by being permissive. Sorry to pry, but guessing you were married in a Catholic Church, they must have been aware at the time that you were not a Catholic. Did your husband get the dispensation from the bishop to marry a non-Catholic?

When you say you went to a Catholic school and later married a Catholic man, and you told the priest you are a Christian, I have to wonder if you were baptized Catholic, but had dropped away after the terrible experience you had in school. A person baptized will always be a Catholic, even if one drops out of Church attendance and joins another faith community. If this was your situation then the priest was correct that you may receive Holy Communion, as you would have always been Catholic.

@TheRealGanarR @zachrowell95 @prayandfast2 Catholics are allowed and encouraged to pray with non-Catholic fellow Christians, but the Church forbids the receiving of any of their putative sacraments, as doing so would be like saluting the flag of another country.

@Jonsie_Bach @zachrowell95 @prayandfast2 Well said. The modern Catechism of the Catholic Church is more comprehensive.

@Celeste_CC7 Advice which leads to holiness.

@oliverburdick One has to wonder if you worship God.

@msl_orthodoxy Hint: Icons representing Christ are said to not include any reflected light on the eyes, as Christ is the Light.

@Barnabas878 Unfollow.

@true_flesh @USCCB No, but faithful Catholics do have to support the Church in its charitable causes. It wasn't the Church which opened the borders, but don't expect those who personally opened them to personally support the arrivals, and now, the departures.

Another concern I have heard about among potential converts is the need to assent to all that the Church teaches, every official doctrine and every infallible dogma. In good conscience, one might then think one has to carefully study them all in order to see if one agrees or not, as conscience indeed must always be followed. There are many archaic doctrines which are of no use in today's world. Furthermore, one might already have belief and trust in the truth of Scripture, without having read it all or understood all of it. Consider when a wife calls her husband to say he needs to pick up the kids at school. Does the husband then make an independent determination on whether indeed the kids will be found at school before travelling there? No, he drives there to collect them because his wife's word is trustworthy. It is the same when we trust Scripture, and it is the same when we trust the living Magisterium, the teaching office of the Church established by Christ. We assent to the Church because she is trustworthy, and because she has produced so many saints. She is judged by her fruits.

@ArchangeloRom St. Paul, in 1Cor13:2 makes it clear. " . . . and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

@remnant11111 @ArchCordileone @USCCB So, charity is evil. Got it. I wish you luck on your journey.

For good or for bad, the previous administration allowed in almost anyone able to cross the border. To claim the Church is involved in thievery and human trafficking is just calumny, which is a sin. Families given permission to enter, wisely or not, were given shelter and amenities required for living in our society. Would you much rather have seen hordes of families starving?

@gunsnrosesgirl3 When we experience an exhilarating free-falling dream, it is the soul soaring.

The TLM is being curtailed not because people love the form of the Mass but because many are using it as a base for their disobedience, superstitions, clericalism, and self-excommunication. If they love the TLM but refuse to adhere to the Councils of the Church, and refuse to commune with Catholics in the Latin Rite spoken in the vernacular then they are excommunicating themselves, and all their rosaries and adorations and sacrilegious communions, and whiffs of incense will do them no good. Maybe you personally know those who are spoiling it for others.