fans, saints & miscellaneous

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My nephew posted the following on his facebook page after his hometown team, the Atlanta Falcons, suffered a lopsided loss in the playoffs:

Paul: “you got to give it to aaron rodgers. even as a falcons fan, you just got to give it to aaron rodgers.”

A friend posted: “paul you are a terrible fan.”

I posted: “you're right, Paul! only diehard homies can't see that aaron rodgers and the packers were better last night...it's all about getting better...the falcons will be better next year... things could be worse--you could be a Redskins fan!

Not long afterwards, Jenny read in the newspaper that the beatification for Pope John Paul II is scheduled for May.

Dad was a free thinker. He didn’t let anyone else tell him how it is or how he should think.

Mom didn’t particularly like Dad expounding on his thoughts when they went “against the grain” of popular thinking, ESPECIALLY when they went against the grain of popular thinking in the Catholic Church. Jenny is a lot like Mom in that regard, when it comes to me expressing my view on popular thinking, including that of the Catholic Church.

I’m sure that Paul’s friend didn’t mean to slam him. But, I know my nephew. He’s a GREAT and KNOWLEDGEABLE sports fan. But, he doesn’t allow for his love for his home team to override his intellect, which is considerable.

I have NOTHING against Pope John Paul II. Clearly, he was a GREAT man and a GREAT pope. However, it has been a longstanding practice in the Catholic Church NOT to consider holy people for sainthood until they have been dead for a LONG time. That practice has changed relatively recently. That recent change has caused me to rethink the subject of saints.

The Catholic Church’s position is that it is proper for us to call upon saints in our prayers to God to intercede for us.

Most Protestants, to the best of my knowledge, do not ascribe to saints. As I understand it, Protestants feel that our prayers should be directed to God, and that we don’t need intercessors.

Personally, I don’t necessarily have a problem with the Church’s teaching on saints. But, I do have a problem with the new, revised process.

The Catholic Church has MANY canonized saints—MANY more saints than the calendar has days. Even doubling and tripling up on some days, there still aren’t enough days in the calendar to venerate ALL canonized saints with their own special day. Do we REALLY need any more canonized saints? Also, if we feel the need for an intercessor, then why not ask those who have died, and we know were good and faithful Christians, like our mother or father, grandmother or grandfather, godmother or godfather, etc., to intercede for us?

As far as the process of sainthood is concerned, why change the longstanding practice of waiting for decades after a person dies to begin the canonization process? Has shortening the process cheapened it? Has it become “political”? IMHO, these are valid questions. Maybe it would be better to suspend the process of canonizing more saints rather than to canonize more and more saints in less and less time. Direct our prayers to God. If we feel that we need an intercessor, then call on one of the MANY existing canonized saints, or your own intercessor, who you knew to be a good and faithful Christian.

The process for annulments in the Catholic Church has been criticized as being “political”. Some are able to get annulments relatively quickly, while others can’t get them at all. With some annulments it’s difficult to see what the “impediment” to marriage was when the couple were married by a priest, lived together for years, and had children together.

Like Dad, I find myself thinking more for myself the older that I get. When I was a child in Catholic grade school, I was taught that if you’re good that you go to heaven, and that if you’re bad, you go to hell. I have come to realize that this teaching was wrong. Protestants believe that our being saved has NOTHING to do with what we do, but is ALL about what God did for us. He sent His Only Son to redeem us, to pay the debt, and to open the gates of heaven for us. It’s ALL about Jesus, and what HE did for us.

So, when it comes to fans, saints, annulments, or salvation, I don’t need popular thinking, or ANYONE else, for that matter, to figure it out for me. Like Dad, I can figure it out for myself, thank you.

Ray Koenig, Jr.
January 16, 2011
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