One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

I have, for a long while, maintained a fascination with the Catholic Church. In high school and college I enjoyed an occasional trip to a Catholic mass. I loved going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. A couple of weeks ago Mary and I went down to Germantown in Nashville for Octoberfest. Before consuming a gallon or so of beer, we entered the Catholic church there and sat for a while. A really nice guy explained some of the statues to us. He explained that a depiction of a saint can be identified by the articles that he/she carries. For instance, Saint Peter (the Apostle and first Pope) often holds a key and a book. The key is the 'key to the church' that he posesses as the first Pope and the book represents the fact that he wrote a book that is accepted in the Holy Cannon.

When we were in London a few weeks ago I saw the saints on Westminster Abbey

and thought that I would like to know who each of them is. I just started doing some digging. It is so fascinating. Check out this article on Saint Peter. What do you think of the titles, "the first pope, Prince of the Apostles, and founder, with St. Paul, of the see of Rome." Does that make you bristle? I love it!

Check out Saint Paul. What do you think about him going "... to Jerusalem to see Peter and pay his homage to the head of the Church."

How about this article. Check out the section titled "A Saint for the 21st Century". I really like this language. I particularly like:
"Each generation needs to hear God saying "this is what I care about" - "this is what I find important". One of the ways God does this is through the persons God calls to sainthood."

Isn't that true? How ironic that protestants often criticizes the Catholic Church as being archaic. When, in fact, that is so relevant. I feel like we get too stuck in the first century that we refuse to listen to what God is saying today. He's still talking, isn't He!?!

This WikiPedia article, I think, is a bit cheeky about the Great Schism, but is an interesting read as well.