Cork Free Presbyterian Church, 10 Briarscourt
(Annex) Shanakiel, Cork, Ireland
Pastor: Colin Maxwell. Email: colin.maxwell@fpcmission.org
PART OF A CONVERSATION WITH
A MEMBER OF LEGION OF MARY ABOUT THE MASS
The
following is an almost word for word - as best as I can remember it -
account of part of a very long protracted conversation which I had with
a member of the Roman Catholic Legion of Mary (LOM). I will refrain
from mentioning names, but sufficient to say that I have known this man
for over fifteen years and that we have corresponded at length on the
Roman controversy. (I have a huge file of his correspondence on every
relevant subject on this issue.) Our conversations are infrequent as he
lives many miles away from Cork City. However if infrequent, these
conversations do not lack passion or conviction on both sides.
After debating a while on various matters, we came round (again) to
discussing the mass. I always like getting to the heart of the matter.
Don't waste time pruning a few branches i.e. Peter's mother-in-law
etc., Lay the axe to the root.
LOM MEMBER: Do you never think that if you are wrong about the mass then what a great injury you are doing to the Lord Jesus?
ME: I
can not only refuse to attend the mass but oppose it with all my heart,
denounce it with the severest of language and your church still accepts
me as being a Christian. Why then do I need the mass? Again…what
if you are wrong about the mass, where does that leave you?
LOM MEMBER: If I am wrong about the mass, I will just say to the Lord Jesus, 'Lord Jesus I loved you too much.'
ME: P______,
if you are wrong about the mass, you won't be saying anything, because
you will guilty of the basest idolatry. It will be God who will doing
all the talking, because your mouth will be stopped and God will say:
'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels.'" (Matthew 25:41)
LOM MEMBER: [No reply as the seriousness of my point made sinks in. The conversation moved on.]
This
observation is true. It is unanswerable by any faithful Roman Catholic
who follows his church's policy in these things. If Rome is right, I
have but little to lose. Certainly not my salvation, for they accept me
as a Christian, mass belief or not. But if Rome is wrong, then
everything is lost for the bread and wine are adored as being the
literal body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ Himself.
Hence the perpetual adoration etc., of the host. If Rome is wrong and
the Protestant churches are right, the Roman Catholic is as guilty of
idolatry as the darkest heathen in some faraway jungle who bows to a
god of wood and stone. Substituting flour for wood and stone and giving
the idol a Biblical name (Jesus) does not change the basic charge. Nor
does sincerity or ignorance. If any doctrine is not based on truth, as
revealed in the Scriptures of truth, then it is worthless and, as in
the case of the mass, a most dangerous deception.
"Specially
the Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ hath not only been corrupted and
maimed: but also utterly defaced by the devilish abomination of the
hellish mass." John Calvin (Sermon on Galatians 4:1-4)
NOTE:
We study and refute the claims of the mass elsewhere on this site.