Thank you for your detailed reply,

Dear De Maria,

Hi Lutero,

Thank you for your detailed reply,

You’re welcome.

you were able to reply to each of my questions.—First Point, 1 Cor 2:14, it mentioned ..”some people do not accept it and they don’t understand it.” But I have embraced it, live to it all of my life.

No. You have fallen away from the Church which Jesus Christ built. You have fallen away from Christ. He is one with His Church (Acts 9:3-5; 1 Corinthians 15:9).

You fell away because you chose not to believe at some point in your life but I continued to believe and always ask God to show me more of him. I was not contented by the having God only in my mind, I asked Him to be in my heart.

We have that intimacy with God in the Eucharist.

—Second point, 1 Tim 3:15; Eph 3:10, None of these verses say that what I have now is wrong and what I have before is right and even vice versa.

Yes, they do. And if you want more, this verse says to obey the Church (Matt 18:17). This verse says to obey your priests (Heb 13:17). This verse says not to miss the Mass (Heb 10:25-31). This verse says to hold the Traditions (2 Thess 2:15). This verse says faith alone is dead (James 2:17; 24). And on and on and on. Your Bible only gospel is condemned in Scripture (Gal 1:8).

You mentioned, “the Spirit of God does not lead us away..” Exactly, I have tried to live as an obedient child as much as I could (although I always end up crying in repentance), I ask God to lead me to the right path,

God answered your prayer. He gave you His Church, His Eucharist, His Traditions, His Doctrines, His Devotions, His Saints, and you chose to chuck them all away because some false teacher gave you something you preferred rather than the Word of God (2 Tim 4:3).

I even asked my mother to enroll me to a seminary, but I ended up being born-again. You said, “I was not not born again in the Spirit of God.” But how can we know this?

There are many tests.
1. Obedience. Are you obedient to the Church (Matt 18:17)? The answer is, “No.” You have admitted that you discarded the Church. Therefore, God will treat you with the heathen.

2. You follow a different Gospel (Gal 1:8). The Gospel of faith “alone” is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Matt 25:31-45).

3. You deny and reject the Mass and the Eucharist (Heb 10:25-31).

Is it because I am not anymore affiliated with the Catholic Church and join a different group, OR we can know this by how it changed our being, I learned to love God more, learned to talk to God for an hour and never get bored (I never felt this before every time i do the Rosary or Station of the Cross).

Really? The Rosary and Stations are meditations on the life of Christ. But you claim to love God and to be bored by His life? There seems to be a contradiction there.

There are moments that i just smile while I talked to God and sometimes I just fall down on my knees and cry when I disobeyed him. How do we know that its the Spirit of God moving through us? a reference to a verse is good but would it not be better if you felt God in your heart.

Again, God is not looking for someone to chat with. God is looking for obedient people who will show their love by their obedience to His Word:

John 14:21-23King James Version (KJV)
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Philippians 2:12Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Hebrews 5:9And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

Its wonderful that you feel good talking to God. Now do what He commands, listen to the Church (Matt 18:17). and to the Priests of His Church (Heb 13:7; 17) and you will be saved.

—Point 3, The first commandment, I still think that the “no graven images” is the second because this was indented in the Catholic Bible or even in the Protestant Bible. But it doesn’t matter if it was the Jews or St. Augustine as long as it was not omitted, its okay with me. If this is so, why do we have a lots of graven images in the Catholic Church and why we kissed them, hold their hands before we make the sign of the cross.

Because we love them. God gave us a family. We are one in Christ. The entire Body of Christ. Those who came before us and those of us being made perfect in this life. We are all one in Christ.

I don’t know where did you grow up but I grow up in the Philippines and in my opinion we are very devoted Catholics, our family performed the Rosary every night before going to dinner and you eat last and clean the table if you don’t do the Rosary and you have to attend the mass every Sunday or your neighbors will call you black sheep . Yet, I still wonder why we kissed those graven images and pray and kneel to it when we have in the first commandment not to have it.

I thought I answered this already. We don’t worship any graven image. We recognize the Saints which they represent and we give them the honor which God expects (Heb 13:7; Psalm 37:28). God loves His Saints. Why don’t you?

You may say this is not correct (as what my mother always told me) but this ritual is shown on National TV, not one in the Catholic leadership say this is wrong since they are also part of these events. Two popes have been here and these rituals seems to be accepted. If you’re not familiar with this and you say this should not be the case then there is something very wrong going on in the Roman Catholic Church.

I have no idea what you’re talking about.
a. Philipinos, for the most part, are very devout Catholics and I admire their faith.
b. I’m not Philipino and I don’t know what goes on in Philipino National TV. Sorry.

—Point 4: Cherubim and Bronze Serpent. If we both believe that the 10 commandment came from God then I am pretty sure that God will not contradict himself. In my understanding, these items were made as symbols and was not intended to be worship to.

We don’t worship the Saints nor any images. If you were raised Catholic, you should know this.

In the Catholic Church we pray and bow down on these images when we say our prayers (some people say the prayer is directed to Jesus not on the images, then why do we always have them when we gather and pray, why do we care for it too much that we have to clean it, perfumed it and don’t ever break it) We kiss the statue of Mary, We kiss the image of Jesus on the cross. If you say this is not correct, then again there is something not right in the Catholic Church because this is what I do growing up in the church, these are my task when working at the church. This is the same anywhere in the country.

We kiss them and pray to them because the Saints whom they represent are alive in Christ. Have you ever kissed pictures of your mom or spouse or children? Same thing.

—Point4: The 9th/10th Commandment- You mentioned that the 9th is different since it refers to a person and the others are objects. Well, i guess this is based on opinions maybe from the people before us. But for me, this is not about treating nouns, this about 10 commandments. This is about not coveting someone/something that is not yours. As you said there are a lot in there not just neighbors wife our house, so this means all these should be in one command, the details about wife and houses and other is about emphasis not differentiation.

If you lump a wife along with the other objects in a household, I can’t help you. However, I can understand why you have fallen away from the Church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is summed up in one word. Love. We love our wives. We don’t love our possessions. We use those objects to make life better for our wives and our families.

Since you claim you speak to God. Speak to God about that. You need to and quick.

Well in the end its about what we have become as a child of God that matters, I don’t think Catholics are not Christian and Protestants are not Christian either. These are merely labels and none of us can claim that “I am a Protestant I am a true Christian” or “I am a Catholic and I am a true Christian”. Which ever group you belong if you do not follow Jesus and love Him with all your heart (not just mind) then you are not a Christian.

In order to follow Christ with all your heart and soul, you must be Catholic.

But I say this, we will never learned what is loving God meant unless you came to a point that whenever you think of Him you want run to Him and hug Him so tight that you will cry in joy. I can relate the feeling to when you’re very loving Father has gone for a long time and then he comes home. The feeling of loving him like you are again a 5 year old child.

That sounds very pretty. But it is only partially true. If you claim to love God, then obey His Word.
John 15:1-4
King James Version (KJV)
15 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

And His Word tells you to learn how to behave in His Church (1 Tim 3:15).

God Bless everyone.

And you as well.

Sincerely,

De Maria