BOYO3221 said:
hi border girl, i see what you are saying but you forgot the biggest scripture ever John 3:3 in the king james says "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God"
then romans 10:9 goes on to explain this in further detail, that baptism is not being born again. also if you read the numerous scriptures paul talks about the new birth in expicit detail about salvation not being by works.
Ok----here goes a long post so grab a coffee....
Many non-Catholics, in their zeal for Jesus, are constantly asking Catholics if we are "born again," admonishing us that unless we are "born again" we cannot be saved.
But, Catholics, like St. John the Evangelist in the third chapter of his Gospel, relate the phrase "born again" to the results of Baptism. Baptism is how we enter into the New Covenant, in the same way the Hebrews and Israelites entered the Old Covenant through circumcision (which, you'll note, was done to infants).
When many Protestants use the phrase "born again," they seem to be referring to an "emotional experience."
Traditional Catholics most certainly agree that repentance is necessary and that inner transformation (or "sanctification") is the goal, but we are very conscious of not confusing "feelings" with "faith."
These are two different things, and mere "feelings" can lie: ask anyone who's ever been "love-bombed" in a cult, experienced sheer bliss, been to a U2 concert
woo hoo!, or is just having a really excellent day.
These sorts of experiences must be discerned.
As to "personal relationship with Jesus, " think of the great Saints -- everyone from Thérèse de Lisieux to St. Francis -- are these people not "born again" in the Protestant sense of "having a deep relationship with Christ" ?
Another question Catholics often hear is, "Have you been saved?"
Catholics, though, don't see eternal salvation as a one-time event that one can pinpoint and relate to others by saying, for example, "I was saved at 5:30 pm on 23 October 1988 when I got on my knees and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior."
We think of salvation, ultimately, as a process that is begun with faith and Baptism (or just Baptism in the case of infants) and is then "worked out" (Phillipians 2:12) as we endeavor to "put on Christ." Additionally, we don't see salvation as something that can't be lost (2 Peter 2:20-21).
Most Catholics, of course, are able to speak of specific events such as the first time they truly "got it" that Jesus is Lord or that the Church and its Scriptures are true; many are able to tell specific stories of experiences of the Holy Spirit.
Many have wonderful stories of healings, consolation, and miracles. But to speak of "having been saved," in the past tense, is something we tend not to do unless we are speaking about our Baptism, at which time we were first justified.
We speak, instead, of "being saved," in the present tense, as we obey Him after Baptism and endeavor to keep accepting the gift of salvation which we could never earn on our own.
Many Protestants tend to see salvation in legal terms: "I believe, therefore, I am saved because that is God's promise to me. As long as I believe, I can't lose my salvation because the terms of the contract are that I simply believe and I will be saved."
Catholics see salvation more in terms of kinship, our adoption into God's very family, our becoming, literally, true children of God and inheriting Christ's sonship through Jesus' sacrifice.
We see "working out our salvation" as those things we, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are called to do as children of God, in the same way that a child honors an earthly parent -- and we see God's gift of eternal salvation to us as an inheritance from our Father rather than a "pay-off" for having fulfilled a "contract" by a simple assertion of faith.