Hi,
I'm very much on board with "Extra Eclesiam Nulla Salus" and I think Catholics need to always keep that in mind, to gain confidence in our Catholic teachings and traditions. Specially when confronted with protestants who want to challenge our dogmas. Can you let me know what you think?
One piece of advice Fr. Wathen gives when dealing with Prots who are only questioning so as to discredit and not actually seeking answers, is to not answer their questions directly, rather answer a question with a question. They ask "why do you worship Mary?" for example. Reply with: "Why do you ask me that, who told you we worship Mary?"
And when they start quoting the Bible, tell them you will not participate because their view of the Bible is not our view of the Bible and bring up teachings from the history and traditions of the Church - two things they do not have.
Here are a few youtube videos worth watching on this subject as I could not do it any justice in my above 2 paragraphs.
When it comes to non-catholics getting prayers answered I can reason it as Matthew 5:45 "That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust." So to me, they obtained graces from God just like rain falls on the just and the unjust. Is that a good interpretation or reasoning?
The other thing I'm struggling with is people who claim to receive words from God. I often hear from people from prayer groups that this person or that person got this message from God or from Our Lady asking us to do x, y and z. I'm extremely careful with that and remind people, at most, it is private revelation and I am not required to believe in those messages as part of my Catholic faith. But then I hear from protestants claiming that God told him/her this or that. So as with the reasoning above, rain/graces from God can fall on any of us but saying that a protestant received a message from God is just unacceptable to me and quite honestly, it upsets me. In fact, the reason why I'm asking for your opinions is because someone (Catholic too), told be to be prepared because Jim Bakker (protestant personality) said that God told him [insert apocalyptical message here]. What is the traditional way of dealing with this type of "private revelation" to non-catholics?
God may (or may not) answer their prayers, but the only graces possible are those which lead them to the Church, to become members of the Church and only IF He sees they will cooperate with those graces. Remember, the value of graces is immeasurable and God does not waste them on anyone that He knows will reject them.
In one of his talks, Fr. Hesse insists if you think you're getting messages as you describe above to ignore them, or to talk back to them and be as absolutely mean as possible demanding them to stop, because they are not from God, God does not work that way. He says do this and if they are from God, which they won't be, but if they are then you will know right away.
I feel like many people who profess to be Catholics, do not believe in EENS because they act surprise when I mention it. To me, not believing in EENS opens the door to allow ideas to come in that chip away at someone's faith in the Catholic church.
IMO, the percentage of Catholics who believe in EENS is likened to St. Louis Marie de Montfort's teaching on the fewness of the saved, on that subject he says:
"The number of the elect is so small — so small — that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief: one here and there, scattered up and down the world."
Topic: EENS - non-Catholic prayers answered and claims of private revelation (Read 7756 times)