Question of the day: If god loves us so much why does he go through all these games and shenanigans? Why did he send his son to jump through hoops and die?

Question: If god loves us so much why does he go through all these games and shenanigans? Why did he send his son to jump through hoops and die?

Answer: The Fall of Man unwittingly transferred dominion over the whole earth from Adam to Satan, with mankind ending up hopelessly and perpetually enslaved to Satan, sin and death.

So, mere forgiveness would have changed nothing.
The only hope for mankind
was divine intervention of a very particular type,
something only God was capable of accomplishing, for us.

Once redeemed from perpetual slavery to Satan, sin and death by Jesus Christ, it would be supremely foolish and wasteful for man to be voluntarily compromised by sin, once again. That’s why God holds us to high standards, yet mercifully forgives, so long as we remain faithful (to him) and are truly repentant.

God typically accomplishes this for us by means of his grace and through our full, faithful and consistent participation in all the work, worship, sacraments and devotions of his Holy Catholic Church.

Asked and answered on Yahoo!Answers. Edited for clarity and content.

A Reflection on the Modern Error of Preaching Mercy without Repentance

There are of course many ways of describing the pastoral, liturgical and theological struggles of our day. But one very simple way of describing current problems that touches on all these areas is simply this:  that a presumptive attitude of mercy without repentance is both taught and widely held by far too many modern Catholics, and other Christians. (Editor’s note: And evidently – certain Roman Catholic Popes.)

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Blogger publicly apologizes for being himself

by Doug Lawrence

Read the story here

This reminds me of the time I had to send a serial-misbehaving, disruptive sixth-grade boy to the principal’s office.

After a heart-to-heart talk, the principal walked him back and asked me – in front of all the students – if I would let him rejoin the class.

Truth be told, I liked the young man – but for a number of very practical reasons – I just couldn’t tolerate his disruptive classroom behavior – so I was more than happy to exclaim, “We’re all Catholics here – and Catholics firmly believe in repentance and forgiveness – so sure – he can come back to class – but only if we all resolve to work together – so as to make sure this type of thing doesn’t happen again.”

As I remember, the entire class seemed to appreciate the lesson – and some of the children were actually a bit surprised.

From that day forward, “John” became my official class gofer, reader, filer, messenger, and all around utility man. I realized that he just couldn’t tolerate sitting still, so I gave him things to do and permission to stand up and even walk around the back of the classroom – so long as he remained reasonably quiet and considerate. That would not be easy!

Of course,  I reserved the right to let him know when things might be getting a bit out of control.  His parents approved of our arrangement, and we had no more unfortunate class incidents.

Many years have gone by and I occasionally run into John, at Sunday Mass. He still can’t sit still, but he has become a bright, energetic, cheerful and polite young adult. He manages to hold down a regular job and keep the faith – and in my book, all of that counts for at least ninety percent.

I always enjoy seeing him. 

May God continue to bless him – along with all those who struggle to overcome their various personal shortcomings – whatever they might be – by the power of God’s grace – and with a little help from their friends.

Greatest Sin of our Time?

Before explaining what the Greatest Sin of our time is, let me prove that it also comes from the serpent, Lucifer. In 1930 two people wrote plans to destroy America from within and turn it into a communist nation. Lest you have no problem with communism it killed 1,500,000.000 of its own people in 60 years and every nation that adopted it failed financially, where everyone became poor. These two people were Antonio Gramsy and Saul Alinski. Salinski, a friend and teacher of Obama, wrote RULES FOR RADICALS, TOWARDS A SOVIET AMERICA.

In this book he outlined how to take over schools, the news media, the government, and even the history books. He planed to little by little to infiltrate the Churches and degrade the constitution of the USA. His teachers were George Bernard Shaw, Bernard Russal and John Dewy.

Most important is that he dedicated his book to Lucifer, the first radical.

Morality was Alinski greatest enemy and to overcome this he had to get moral teaching out of the school, Churches and even government laws. His idea was to replace moral laws with Lucifer laws of tolerance, non-judgmentalism, and acceptance of all point of views. He even wanted laws against speaking out against any kind of sin. These people infiltrated the schools and churches and led the progressive movement in politics. Progressives believe that the constitution is old fashioned and needs to be re-interpreted to fit the modern world. This plan was so successful that it produced the greatest sin of our age, That our conscience is the God of good or evil.

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Submitted by Bob Stanley

Seen on the web: Dealing with habitual and persistent grave sin and/or demonic activity.

Editor’s note: This posts reflects someone’s personal observations/opinion and/or belief, regarding certain types of demonic activity. That matter remains open to discussion.  The suggested solution though, is time tested, totally Catholic, and according to my knowledge and experience, highly effective. Demons … or not!

Bible Reader wrote:

I believe that (these) demons are quite real, and that people generate them, as poltergeist-like entities able to invade and affect our reality, when people engage in persistent illicit sexual activity. The activity which generates these things is usually habitual and persistent. If the wrongdoer is Catholic, sacrilegious abuse of the Sacraments of Reconciliation (by omitting discussion of the true level of guilt) and of the Eucharist (by knowingly receiving Communion in the state of mortal sin) also generates the demonic presence.

Demonic activity tends to be imitative. It tends to imitate Christ or Mary or the saints to poke fun at them, or it imitates the sinner whose sins generated the presence, to poke fun at the sinner.

So, serious sex-related sins generate a sexual demonic presence. [Of course, a demonic presence does NOT necessarily mean fornication with a “spiritual, non-corporeal being” cf. CCC 328. S.O.L.!]

In a sense, when the demonic presence appears, as a consequence, it is like a phonograph record re-playing the sins which generated it, again and again and again.

The presences are sometimes invasive — if you don’t do something about them, they can get worse and worse and worse.

The sinner with the demonic presence can take heart in a few things. First, I think that God permits such presences because the person is able to be saved. The person is being warned, “Hey! Hell is a reality, you idiot, and that is where you are going unless you change!” It is Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” See 2 Corinthians 12:7.

Second, though they are subjectively difficult for the sinner to eliminate, they are objectively easy to eliminate.

If we are talking about a sex sin underlying the presence — and we undoubtedly are — the individual must begin by “starving” the presence to death. Stop sinning. This works because the thing “eats dirt” — see Genesis 3:14 — sin is its “nutrition.” Sin energizes it. Pray to God for the will to stop sinning. He will give it to you. If we are talking about sex sin, here — and we undoubtedly are — the sinner should stop looking. Sexual coveting almost always precedes sexual sin.

Search for and find a good confessor, who you can trust, and “let it all hang out” in a special Reconciliation session. Most priests can’t take something as bizarre as a sexual demonic presence beside your bed, grabbing you at night, imitating your sex sounds. It is just too outstandingly weird. You really do need to prep the priest for what he is in for, in your confession, and also get him to know you, so that he doesn’t “freak-out” on you or conclude that you are insane.

Go to Communion frequently, even daily, after the sincere confession, and pray, pray, pray, pray, pray. And when you pray, don’t just roll-out incessant Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s — TALK to God, and to Mary.

The sacraments and prayer will make you holy, and make your person intolerable to the demon. YOU will become HIS “demon,” and eventually HE’LL find YOU disgusting, and leave.

If you ask God to let you hear the demon’s departure, He will do so. It feels and sounds like an explosion.

I know that some of the readers here will think this material outstandingly weird. It’s what I have learned, after 30 years of reading, talking, etc., etc., etc.
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Reader Paul comments on “Those in danger of death are presumed to be repentant…”

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“Those in danger of death are presumed to be repentant…”

Paul writes:

We are all quite damnable sinners and our life style and actions may be far less than we hope them to be. As death approaches perhaps we should be in terror of our eternity especially if we think about God and his judgment upon our wretched selves.

It is not that I disagree with this point. Indeed it is strangely comforting to remember that God is All Just and everything we do we shall be called to account for. Many wicked people would do well to tremble at this thought and perhaps the fear of eternal damnation may allow grace into their hearts before it is too late. After Death it will certainly be too late to repent and if a soul refuses grace all its life and at death spits hate upon whatever grace is offered its fate may be what it desires. As C.S.Lewis noted; “hell is a door locked from the inside”.

Nevertheless, we should not be afraid of our final judgment. Rather we should welcome it and go blithely to Our Lord. That is not because we are mentally deranged but as Christians we believe in something even greater than Judgment . . . We believe in Hope.

This virtue comes not from what we do not know but from what we do know.

It is about knowing that God is Love and essentially is revealed by Jesus as a God of infinite mercy and compassion. Hence the thief on the cross asks “Jesus remember me when you go into your kingdom“. The response of Jesus is one of sublime mercy when he promises the thief eternal salvation that very day. It is not that the thief has asked for repentance because he fears final annihilation but because he dares hope that this man crucified beside him so unjustly is a king after all.

And if the Gospels are Good News then we must recall what they are good news about? That Jesus understands us and seeks out the company of sinners rather than condemning us and blasting us into oblivion because of this or that action.

Mortal sin is constantly being re-evaluated by the Catholic Church. We simply do not understand the eternal consequences of any temporal act. There are some actions that are heinous and these are universally abhorred. Yet our understanding of these has and does change in time because we are creatures of time and place. For example, Abortion is a horrible sin but not all people that have had an abortion are of equal guilt because time and sense make the individual culpable or less so. The act is monstrous but individuals take greater or lesser part by their understanding. Again for example, suicide used to be considered always a mortal sin but today we are more gentle in our understanding that we simply do not know the reasoning or intelligence of a person that takes their own life. It would be insensitive and immoral for us to dismiss the hope of paradise because of any action of which we are ignorant of the full story.

Instead we have come to understand that God is not about Judgment but about infinite understanding, kindness, gentleness, mercy. Our hope is therefore that our loving father whom knows us intimately will forgive us more often then we fall, prostrate with our own stupidity.

All people of good will are potentially redeemable and it is the will of Our Lord that we shall be saved and not condemned.

When we see the Sacred Heart of Jesus we are told that he loves us beyond all reason or rational consideration. The Sacred Heart does not require us to offer a prayer in word, a simple longing look for example is enough to bring grace of salvation upon us. We will never earn Paradise but Jesus gives us his everything so that we can obtain it. It is Love that we face at death and it will require us to open before it every window in our soul. We can never escape Gods justice and his final judgment upon us but as Christians we must not be afraid to embrace his Love. If we can do this then we believe that Salvation is assured no matter our faults or errors at death.

To turn from Gods grace is unfortunate and could be disastrous but we must never forget “God is Love” and that should encourage us to go into the light and give us faith to welcome our Risen lord.

“Those in danger of death are presumed to be repentant…”

by Doug Lawrence

In order to make a good confession, a person typically needs to confess ALL known mortal (grave) sins to the priest, and to have (at the very least) imperfect contrition for having committed the sins, along with a firm purpose (and at least, a reasonable possibility) of actual repentance, i.e. turning away from committing those sins, in the future.

Absent all of the above, priestly sacramental absolution for sins is typically ineffective, and the person remains in a state of mortal sin.

The only exception to the “repentance rule” is when a person is near death.

From a purely practical standpoint, a person very near death is not likely to commit grave sin. Similarly, should death occur, it will no longer be possible for the person to commit sin, at all. In that case, a profound “change in ways” would be unavoidable! Hence, the church … the Catholic ministerial priesthood … and Jesus Christ … mercifully presumes that, whenever death is very near … a state of authentic repentance already exists. It’s a “gimme”.

Contrition is still required, as is a complete confession of all known, mortal sins.

This is truly great news for hypocrites, fallen away Catholics, adulterers, homosexuals, and all other types of habitual, grave sinners … assuming that they are blessed with the availability of a Catholic priest … and they still have the physical ability to make an otherwise, good confession … when their time comes to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Truth be told, until the moment a person dies and shortly finds himself standing before Jesus Christ … sins … even the gravest kind … are extraordinarily simple to have absolved. But after death … not nearly so much.

Contrary to today’s popular opinion, there is no reliable way … outside the Sacrament of Reconciliation … to obtain forgiveness of mortal sins … sins which can cause a soul to end up in hell.

So, it’s best always to “err” on the side of caution … especially since no one has yet returned to report what happens to those unfortunates who find themselves standing in judgment … sinful, unrepentant, and still “puffed up” with pride … before our loving God … who actually owes us sinners nothing but wrath.

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Submitted by Doria2