Today’s question: Why do I deserve to burn in hell for eternity? If God is love, how can such a thing even be possible?

Question: Why do I deserve to burn in hell for eternity? Please explain how I deserve to burn in hell, from a human perspective and how can I possibly follow a religion that doesn’t make sense?

Answer: The problems related to “The Human Condition” are probably due as much to “circumstance” as to the personal “guilt” of we who are alive on earth, today.

That said, the problem of sin is and always has been, deadly serious!

Due to the Fall of Man (in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden) the default state of all humanity is to be born estranged from God; totally lacking the divine grace that is necessary to enter Heaven; perpetually enslaved to Satan, sin and death; having a natural attraction to sin, as well as an all too human propensity to commit sin.

The only known antidote to perpetual slavery and eternal damnation, is faith in Jesus Christ, the divine man who has demonstrated (as one of us and on our behalf) his total mastery over Satan, sin and death.

The fact that Jesus voluntarily took on flesh, became man, willingly sacrificed himself and then, rose again from the dead, in order to destroy Satan’s power over us (the power of death and hell) while asking nothing in return, except for our faithful allegiance, should be more than sufficient proof of God’s abiding love and tender mercies.

Christians typically swear faithful allegiance to Jesus Christ by being Baptized into his Holy Catholic (Universal) Church.

The Sacrament of Baptism, followed by a regular program of personal prayer and study, along with a lifetime of full, faithful participation in all the work, worship, sacraments and devotions of the Holy Catholic Church, is the time-tested, “Jesus Approved” method of first, being justified by the grace of God and then, proceeding to live a holy life that will serve to glorify God, while preparing us to (hopefully) spend an eternity with him, in Heaven.

The bottom line: Nobody “deserves” Heaven. An invitation to Heaven is a free gift from God, subject only to his divine will, his justice and his mercy.

God typically reserves the gift of Heaven for those who are (or who will be) faithful to Jesus Christ – the one who redeemed all of mankind from Satan, sin, eternal death and hell.

Absent faith in Jesus – or a great miracle/divine exception – there’s only one other choice available.

So what will it be: The Smoking Section or The Non-Smoking Section?

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 of our sins.

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.

A Question about our redemption in Jesus Christ.

Question: So god required a sacrifice and then he sacrificed his son who was also himself?

Answer: Not exactly.

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three divine and distinct persons who essentially constitute the one, true God.

1 X 1 X 1 = 1

The 2nd person of the Holy Trinity (the Son) took on flesh and became man, while never ceasing to be God. We know him as Jesus Christ.

Jesus did for the human race what Adam failed to do: He remained totally and completely obedient to God the Father, even unto death on the cross.

Since Jesus is the eternal God, it is impossible for him to commit any type of sin, so Jesus is immune to the wickedness and snares of the devil. Jesus’ act of total obedience to his heavenly Father, as one of us and on our behalf,  served to appease God’s wrath (due to our sins) redeem mankind and “make” the peace between man and God.

When Jesus permitted the forces of evil to unjustly put him to death, he became the perfect and spotless sacrifice for the sins of the world and the forces of evil became subject to divine judgment, subsequently forfeiting the dominion over all the earth that they enjoyed after “the fall of man”.

When he rose again three days later, Jesus defeated death and proved his claim to divinity, as well as his mastery over Satan, sin and death.

Jesus is now the King if Kings and Lord of Lords, wielding all power over heaven and earth, death and hell.

Fallen mankind does not have that type of power. Only Jesus does.

Through faithful allegiance to Jesus Christ, along with baptism into his church, the power to overcome death becomes available to all who truly seek it. This is primarily a function of divine grace, which is a free gift from God.

All we need do is accept God’s saving grace (which Jesus deliberately obtained for us by his life, death and resurrection) and make a free will choice to cooperate with that grace, as a full, faithful member of his church. Then, we hope for the best.

God will do the rest. His grace is sufficient.

Romanian Doctor Addresses Synod on the Family. Nails It!

…We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.

Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia’s errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it’s being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin’s sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent’s offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It’s an error of religious nature, it’s Gnosticism.

It’s the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

“Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The Church’s mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or “climate change”.

The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government.

These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin.

Salvation.

Read the entire text

Why homo sex and shacking up will always be considered immoral, by the Holy Catholic Church

(Click graphic to enlarge)

by Doug Lawrence

1) According to the Bible and the Catholic Church, there is no doubt that virtually all deliberate, willful homosexual acts – as well as sexual intercourse and similar types of activity between men and women, not married to each other – are objectively sinful.

The only question that remains is whether God will choose to judge any particular person to be worthy of eternal punishment, as a result.

As far as we humans can know, anyone who is fully aware of the biblical/Catholic Church teachings on such matters and who still freely chooses to engage in them, will be subject to divine judgment.

There’s absolutely no way to honestly reinterpret the Bible in order to avoid this conclusion. Anything to the contrary is mere “spin” and/or deception. For more on this, see: The 4 sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.

2)  The prohibition against homosexual depravity, adultery, fornication and other related sexual sins is DEFINITELY NOT something that was long ago consigned to the dust bin of history.

While it’s true that Jesus Christ personally fulfilled and then respectfully set aside the entirety of the Old Covenant Laws, Ordinances and Statutes, making them void and of no further effect – the full moral authority described in the Old Law was transferred to the Catholic Church, the sole governing authority of the New, better and everlasting Covenant, which was given to us personally by Jesus Christ, at the Last Supper.

The condemnation of homosexual acts and culture, of abortion, adultery, fornication and related sexual sins was in fact, promptly reinterpreted and readopted by the divinely appointed leaders of the fledgling New Covenant Catholic Church, according to the extraordinarily high moral standards personally established by Jesus Christ, while he still walked the earth, which deemed not just the acts themselves – but even deliberately thinking about doing them – to be gravely sinful.

Sensible people would do well to spend some quality time working out in their mind precisely why Jesus Christ, the Creator of all things, would according to his divine wisdom, so strongly caution his creatures (us) against even thinking about such things!

All those living in today’s New Covenant times are expected to live up to this higher standard, defined by none other than Jesus Christ – God himself – who redeemed us from the powers of darkness by his atoning sacrifice on the cross – and who thereby earned the right to judge both the quick and the dead, without exception.

These divine standards apply to all.  Not just Christians. The Catholic Church has been teaching and explaining this to people, all around the world,  for the last 2,000 years. In this age of instant information, there may still be some excuses for lack of faith in God or in his Catholic Church, but the case for invincible ignorance in  matters sexual is getting harder and harder to make, everyday!

3) The act of “shacking up” (living together as man and wife – whether homo or hetero – without benefit of sacramental matrimony) institutionalizes and makes permanent sinful, personal depravity.

Continuing to “live together in sin” – even if a firm purpose of amendment exists – means that genuine repentance is not possible – hence, these and other sins are not likely to be forgiven, unless and until the illicit living arrangement is discontinued. 

This is spiritually, an extremely dangerous condition in which to exist, since death and judgment might occur at any time. God prefers that we all live in peace, unafraid of death, according to his grace. See: A Last Chance for Lost Souls.

4) The necessity of enlightened prudential judgment and high personal moral standards, according to the clearly defined teachings, traditions and practices of the Catholic Church, as well as the absolute certainty of Divine Judgment by Jesus Christ, the Just Judge and Savior of ALL mankind, should as a practical matter, be considered a “given” – since the Bible and the Catholic Church unanimously hold that this sobering prospect applies to all – without compromise or exception.

The Bottom Line:

Legalizing, promoting and celebrating immoral, illicit heterosexual and/or homosexual lifestyles is the surest way of leading untold millions of souls to Hell. There’s absolutely no love in that!

The official Christian opposition to all forms of sexual immorality is based on inerrant, unchanging, divine mandate – plus thousands of years of practical experience in various world civilizations. The fact that many professed Christians fail to correctly practice their faith changes nothing.

The Catholic Church offers a number of practical and effective solutions for these and other major issues of the day – including complete and total absolution for a lifetime of sins, no matter how serious. The fact that corruption has always existed inside the Catholic Church, at one level or another, sadly diminishes but can never totally negate the Church’s divine power and authority, or its’ particular efficacy in the proper care of souls.

Jesus Christ remains the head of the Catholic Church and it his power alone that serves to keep the Catholic Church authentically holy and totally indefectible.

Please give all of this very serious consideration.

What Pope Francis never told you: Present-Day Judaism is not Old Testament Judaism

General Titus’ Siege of Jerusalem – Pentecost Sunday, 70 A.D.

“What The Jews Believe” is the subject to which “Life” magazine devoted eleven pages of its September 11th issue. The writer, Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein of Rochester, N. Y., is the president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, “the largest organization of rabbis in the world.” The article enforces the conviction that the Judaism of today is not Old Testament Judaism.

The two opening sentences alone of the lengthy article warrant the above declaration, viz:—“The Jew has no single organized church. He has no priests.” This is enlarged upon in these words:—“The congregation’s rabbi is a teacher, not a priest.” The rabbi is “without any vested ecclesiastical authority, he is not even necessary to the functioning of the synagogue. Any male Jew with sufficient knowledge of the prayers and the laws can conduct a religious service, officiate at marriages and bury the dead.”

This is not new in Jewry. Ludwig Lewisohn, professor of English literature at Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., says in his “Mid-Channel”:—“With the destruction of the Temple the sacrificial cult of the Jews was destroyed. For among the people there was but one altar, hence the Jewish people were suddenly laicized. Priests and sacrifices and tangible mysteries were no more.”

Surely this is not Old Testament Judaism, which was, as the Catholic Church is, an authoritative God-instituted priestly religion; the high priest being the supreme ecclesiastical authority. Aaron was its Peter, who was ordained by God through his brother Moses (Exodus 28), having successors until about the time of the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 A. D.

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After the Second Vatican Council, the dogma of the devil’s existence became an ’embarrassing part of doctrine’.

Satan’s “no” to God

It’s time for Catholics especially who have been perhaps too eager to buy into too many of the promises and doctrines of modern science, to become reacquainted with the reality of evil.

Just as morality is not a flexible system based on the Masonic conception of “tolerance”; evil, temptation and the devil are not merely convenient mechanisms used to illustrate the concepts of right and wrong to children.

While it’s increasingly fashionable to have a hearty laugh at the simplistic and outdated beliefs of those forefathers in the Faith removed from us by less than a century, all Catholics must be very careful to faithfully retain those doctrinal elements central to the Faith; most especially Original Sin, evil, and the temptations of a very real, very powerful devil.

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Idolatry is the first sister of “pride” which “is the beginning of all sin…”

“Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions.
Their females exchanged the natural use
into that use which is against nature.
Males did shameful things with males and thus,
received in their own persons
the due penalty for their perversity.”

What you see in “Romans” above is the lamentable soul “handed…over (by God) to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies.” These are the ones, then, having been “handed over,” who are unable to control their inner compulsions to “same sex, sex,” as Dr. Socarides calls it. Moreover, they are made victim of “the lusts of their hearts” which translates to the “King Midas” curse! Not only will you be given to your lusts but it shall be overpowering and serve to “the mutual degradation of their bodies.”

It becomes quite apparent from “Romans” 1 that God is a participant in addressing these persons’ particular idolatry by the fact it is cited in three separate instances that “God handed them over to impurity…God handed them over to degrading passions…God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper.” One cannot but note that “handed over” is not worded in a manner reflecting the terrible consequences spoken of possibly coming about but, rather, they are avowed as givens!

The sodomite condition, then, is not biological/physical, it is spiritual! No wonder the atheistic or agnostic secular disciplines are all over the wall. They haven’t a clue and their mindset while in that state will assure that they never will.

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Diabolical Disorientation

“Diabolical disorientation is when a person is disoriented by various tricks of the devil. These diabolical tricks are not simply a kind of possession portrayed on television and in the movies. The devil, the purveyor of diabolical disorientation, manages often to give the targeted person a perception quite different from reality and yet the person so diabolically disoriented is convinced what he thinks is the truth when it is actually a lie.

The devil disorients individuals by making them think that because of their wealth and successes, they are being blessed by God, when, at the same time, they are committing sin, cheating and lying, and are hurling themselves headlong into hell. Even worse than diabolical disorientation of an individual, is the disorientation of a whole society, which insults and ignores God and His Mother . . .

The diabolical disorientation we are talking about here is the disorientation of Catholics who think they are serving God, but embrace beliefs and practices which are gravely contrary to what the Church always taught and practiced. This disorientation has been produced in individuals and in large segments of the Catholic population, by the devil.”

Saint Anselm had things properly figured out around 1000 years ago.

Monsignor Charles Pope provides us with a comprehensive list of various types of sin.

Sometimes it helps to see sin in categories and to be able to “name the demons,” as a help to combat them.

These are just a few helpful lists.

There are others and I invite you to add to them.

For the sake of brevity, I do not fully develop them all.

The sins that cry to heaven for vengeance: (CCC 1867)

1. Murder (Gn 4:10),
2. Sodomy (Gn 17:20-21),
3. Oppression of the poor (Ex 2:23),
4. Defrauding workers of their just wages (Jas 5:4).

Seven Deadly Sins

1. Pride
2. Greed
3. Lust
4. Anger
5. Gluttony
6. Envy
7. Sloth

Sins against the Holy Spirit:

1. Despair,
2. Presumption,
3. Envy,
4. Obstinacy in sin,
5. Final impenitence,
6. Deliberate resistance to the known truth.

Sins against faith: (CCC 2088-2089)

1. Hesitating doubt – delaying the overcoming of doubts, difficulties, or objections due to indifference or laziness
2. Voluntary doubt – disregarding of the truth or on-going resistance to overcoming doubt.
3. Incredulity – willful refusal to assent to revealed truths of the faith.
4. Heresy – the choosing and over-emphasizing of certain truths of the faith to the exclusion of others.
5. Schism – Refusal of submission to the Pope or Catholic communion.
6. Apostasy – Total repudiation of the Christian faith.

Sins against God’s love: (CCC 2094)

1. Indifference
2. Ingratitude
3. Lukewarmness
4. Sloth – sorrow or aversion at the good things offers to the soul
5. Hatred of God – usually rooted in prideful notion that refuses to be second to God.

Sins against the Honor that is Due to God – (CCC 2111-2117)

1. Superstition – the elevation of certain practices such that they are regarded as more important or powerful than prayer or trust in God.
2. Idolatry – divinizing what is not God, false worship, holding creatures more precious than the one Creator who is God.
3. Divination – undertaking practices meant to disclose the future, e.g. horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, recourse to mediums etc.
4. Magic and spiritism – attempts to tame occult powers and place them at our service, or to have power over others in this way.

Sins of Irreligion: (CCC 2118-2128)

1. Tempting God – Putting God to the test
2. Sacrilege – stealing sacred things, profaning sacraments or liturgical actions, desecration or speaking irreverently of sacred persons, places or things that are blessed or consecrated to God.
3. Simony – Buying or selling spiritual things, seeking to profit on them merely because they are blessed.
4. Atheism – Denying the existence of God, to include the practical atheism of materialism and utopian notions that man can save himself.
5. Agnosticism – an indifference toward God that refrains form formally denying his existence.

Sins against the name of God: (CCC 2142-2155)

1. Promises – infidelity to promises or oaths made with God’s name
2. Profanity – using God’s name in vain ways that do not respect its sacred character, (e.g. empty expressions like “Oh my God!”
3. Blasphemy – to speak ill of God, trivialize, curse or ridicule him. By extension, to ridicule sacred things or the Saints.
4. Swearing – calling God to witness in matters that are trivial. Also swearing a false oath, committing perjury when under oath.
5. Cursing – using God’s name to curse or call down evil on others.

Sins against the Lord’s Day: (CCC 2185)

1. Refusing the worship owed God
2. Refusing the joy proper to the Lord’s day
3. Refusing the relaxation of mind and body commanded on the Lord’s day.
4. Refusing reasonable works of mercy proper to the Lord’s day.

Sins Against life: (CCC 2268-2283)

1. Intentional homicide – all unjust killing
2. Abortion
3. Euthanasia
4. Suicide
5. Acting with reckless disregard for the safety and life of our self or others

Sins against Chastity: (CCC 2351-2357)

1. Lust – willfully entertaining inordinate or disordered desires for sexual pleasure
2. Masturbation
3. Fornication
4. Adultery
5. Pornography
6. Prostitution
7. Rape
8. Homosexual Activity

Sins of Injustice and theft: (CCC 2409ff)

1. Theft
2. Deliberately keeping lent things
3. Damaging the goods of others without restitution
4. Fraud
5. Paying unjust wages
6. Forcing up prices
7. Refusing to pay debts
8. Work poorly done
9. Tax evasion
10. Forgery
11. Excessive and wasteful practices
12. Hoarding
13. Excessive and unnecessary exploitation of natural resources
14. Refusing our legitimate obligations to the community
15. Refusing our legitimate obligations to the poor

Link

Editor’s note: The simple alternative to all of the above: Love God. Love your neighbor. 

Greatest Sin of our Time?

By the late, Bob Stanley

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 Gramsci and Saul Alinsky.

A dedicated Communist, Gramsci is one of U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg ‘s favorite “philosophers”.

Saul Alinsky, was a friend and teacher of Obama, who wrote RULES FOR RADICALS, TOWARDS A SOVIET AMERICA. In his book, he outlined how to take over schools, the news media, the government, and even the history books.

He planned to little by little, infiltrate the Churches and degrade the constitution of the USA. His teachers were George Bernard Shaw, Bernard Russel and John Dewy.

Most important: he dedicated his book to Lucifer, who he claimed, was the first radical.

Morality was Alinsky’s greatest enemy and to overcome this he had to get moral teaching out of the schools, churches and even, the government.

His idea was to replace moral laws with Lucifer’s 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, the assertion that our conscience is the God of good or evil.

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What Calvinists, Jesuits (and Muslims) don’t understand about divine providence.

If nothing exists without God’s causing it to exist, and nothing is moved without God acting as the first Mover – how can we avoid concluding that every human choice is wholly and entirely caused by God and that the human will is moved infallibly by God’s providence? In short, if God causes all things, how can man be truly free?

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Editor’s note: Like the Protestant Christian Calvinists, Muslims also believe in a form of “double-predestination”.  According to that (false) principle, God is the only cause of everything … all is preordained by God alone … and no mortal has freedom of will, in any case.

Of course, if double-predestination was indeed true, it logically follows that God could not convict anyone for sin … nor would a holy redeemer be necessary … nor would there be any need for a Judgment Day … since consent of the will is absolutely necessary if one is to be found guilty.

Reasons why they don’t like to see gruesome abortion pictures: #1 – Before you can flagrantly kill babies for profit, you must first dehumanize them, by denying the all too obvious reality.

by Doug Lawrence

Every body part of the aborted fetus shown above is obviously human, since never in the history of the entire human race has a non-human baby been naturally conceived by two other human beings.

Killing innocent human beings has always been morally wrong, so abortion is also obviously, morally wrong.

Anyone who believes anything to the contrary is either deranged, a liar, a fool … or …  President of the United States.

Anyone who financially assists such persons or groups, or lends political and/or ideological support of any kind to their cause is complicit in their evil work, and ultimately shares the responsibility for their immoral acts.

In the several thousand year-old, authentic Judeo-Christian Tradition, abortion has always been considered to be an intrinsically evil and gravely sinful offense against both God and man.

Some things were so logical, commonly understood, and firmly embedded in the culture of the people of that day, the biblical writers found little reason to expound upon them, to any great degree.

Abortion and homosexuality are two primary examples of such things. Neither was ever accepted or publicly tolerated, from the earliest days, since both were always considered gravely sinful by Jews and Christians, alike.

The pagans who routinely practiced such things were thought to be cursed by almighty God, and already destined for hell. Only by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, along with baptism and authentic repentance, through faithful membership and full participation in the Catholic Church, could such persons make peace with the one, true God, find justification in his grace, and hope to obtain eternal life.

Government efforts to normalize abortion, homosexual behavior, and other intrinsically evil acts only serve to lure gullible people into aberrant modes of existence that are offensive to God, harmful to society, and potentially deadly to their own immortal souls.

People who choose to build their lives around the promotion, pursuit and practice of illicit and offensive, intrinsically evil acts, literally cut themselves off from the primary sources of God’s grace … particularly, sacramental reconciliation and holy communion.

Unless and until their illicit living arrangements have been terminated (this also applies to unmarried cohabiting heterosexual couples) and/or their support for abortion and similar abominations ceases, such person will typically be “trapped” in their sins, through their own deliberate acts … and be unable to make a good confession … or worthily receive holy communion.

Contrary to the efforts of today’s highly skilled propagandists of perversity, nothing has happened over the last 5,000 years to alter these things … or to change God’s mind about them, in any way.

Jesus Christ is, was, and always has been God, the second person of the Holy Trinity … so every jot and tittle (iota, in the Greek) of the God-inspired sacred scriptures (the Bible) is indeed the authentic word of Jesus Christ … whether proclaimed directly by him, as recorded in the Gospels … or otherwise. No exceptions!

While the entirety of the old law was indeed perfectly fulfilled and respectfully set aside, in favor of Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice on the cross, the Catholic Church … exercising the awesome and virtually unrestricted power given to it directly by Jesus himself … soon reaffirmed (for all time) the essential substance of the great moral precepts contained in the Ten Commandments.

Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers: Nor the effeminate nor liers with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor railers nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.  (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today: and the same for ever. Be not led away with various and strange doctrines… (Hebrews 13:8-9)

We’re all called to stand up for human life … for the truth … and for what’s right and good.

(Click on picture to enlarge)

by Doug Lawrence

The biblical account of the creation of man duly records the fact that the entire human race is derived from a single, original couple … and when that first couple united in one flesh… the first child was conceived.

Like every child ever since, there was never any real doubt as to precisely who or what a child is. It is a newly minted human life … begotten of 100% human stuff … stuff that was originally derived from Adam and Eve … according to the God-given power of procreation.

Thousands of years later, nothing has really changed. Most importantly, neither has the character and consistency of human life. Every new life bridges the gap between one generation and the next … extending the human race … and every new life explicitly begins at the moment of conception … no matter how some people, in order to suit their own ends … might attempt to redefine the terms involved.

The Bible also clearly records God’s main purpose for humanity:

“So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that move upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creep upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Genesis 1:27-31)

So … God blessed man by giving him the ability to bear offspring (procreate) … and by giving him dominion over all of the substantial resources to be found on the earth … in order to nourish, shelter, and otherwise accommodate all who would eventually come to be.

The plan was a good one, and it still is. Unfortunately, many have other ideas about how things should be done, and they prefer instead, for whatever reasons, to pursue disordered and sinful lifestyles that are in direct opposition to God’s will.

World governments also used to be guided by God’s express instructions, as clearly stated in the Bible, and faithfully interpreted by the Catholic Church. But those days too, are long gone.

Today, the secular courts make government policy, while increasingly embattled and divided legislatures are unable (or unwilling) to come together and stand on their own, in order to meet judicial challenges.

The result is a literal death spiral … with governments going financially bankrupt, while their citizens are increasingly lulled into the spiritual bankruptcy of godless lifestyles … all under the guise of expanded personal freedom and liberty.

The process of corruption greatly accelerated in the aftermath of Vatican II, when wholesale apostasy within the church unfortunately coincided with a similarly undisciplined social revolution taking place in the world’s great institutions … and on the streets.

The Catholic Church, which was supposed to be the divine bulwark that kept the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil, at bay … instead turned out to be “missing in action” for one of the most important spiritual battles in the history of the world!

The combined death toll from abortion and AIDS can easily be counted. It is absolutely staggering … and still mounting …. yet the Catholic Church continues to speak with a weak voice, split almost down the middle between the protestantized “social justice” types and traditional, sacramental Catholics.

Worse yet is that both sides together (if such a thing is actually possible) based on their visible participation at Sunday Mass, make up only about ten percent of those who are actually counted today as Catholic … perhaps 100 million out of an estimated 1.1 billion.

The rest are AWOL (absent without leave), MIA (missing in action), or they have simply left the church without telling anyone.

The bottom line: We no longer have enough active, properly trained, fully informed and equipped Catholics in the world, to get the job done.

And the devil knows it!

So … faced with 39 years of generally unrestricted world-wide abortion deaths, numbering in the hundreds of millions … and 50 years of general apostasy and corruption so widespread that few even care anymore … what are faithful Catholics to do?

Here’s a plan that can’t fail:

1) Start by making a good confession, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If it has been so long that you no longer remember how, simply tell that to the priest and he’ll walk you through the various steps. This will “clear the decks” and permit you to cast off any and every type of past sin. It will also fill your soul with God’s grace, in order to give the Holy Spirit some “room” to work.

2) Get to Mass. The Sunday Mass obligation has never been rescinded. And there’s absolutely nothing to prevent your attendance at a weekday mass, or two.

The Mass is the universal prayer of the whole Church, and it is also a solemn renewal of the one time, once for all, perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, on the cross. Our participation at Mass confirms our distinct identity as Catholics, and it also serves as a major channel of God’s grace, which typically helps empower us to discern … and then (hopefully) carry out … God’s will … according to his plan. Successfully accomplishing that is about as good as it gets … this side of Heaven!

3) If there’s any impediment to your receiving Holy Communion … do whatever is necessary to remove it. You are what you eat, and without the right spiritual food, you’re likely to be quickly vanquished by the enemy. Additionally, the Holy Eucharist … worthily received … remains the only known antidote to eternal death and hell.

4) Pray several times a day, every day. Pray at regular, set times. Pray at regular, specific places. Pray for specific purposes. Pray for the people and institutions you love. Pray for the conversion of your enemies. Pray in order to give thanks and praise to God. Pray to ask God for favors. Pray to ask God for forgiveness (but be sure to get to confession promptly, in the event of mortal sin.)

Prayer is the way we officially give God permission
to interfere in our lives … for good.

5) Team up with other like-minded Catholics. The Church is the communion of all believers in Jesus Christ, but today’s church, as an institution, along with many associated apostolates and religious orders, is highly dysfunctional, in many ways.

Don’t let that stop you. Instead, accomplish whatever you can, in and through your own little group … but always in complete conformity with Catholic doctrine and tradition (which may not be easy, since it’s still quite difficult to get a firm and accurate opinion on things, from most Catholic priests and bishops.)

Remember: In the first century, twelve well disciplined, highly dedicated men, by the power of God’s grace, and against all odds, successfully established the Catholic Church throughout the known world.

Today’s Catholics still worship the same God, and we still operate according to the same grace. The mission has never changed. Only the results seem to be lacking. And that’s a real shame, since:

“… we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestine to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover whom he did predestine, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things?

If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:28-31)

Time to get busy!

St. Peter Damian’s views on the innate malice of the vice of sodomy

“Without fail it brings death to the body and destruction to the soul.

It pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the mind, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, and gives entrance to the devil, the stimulator of lust. … It opens up hell and closes the gates of paradise. …This vice excludes a man from the assembled choir of the Church. …This disease erodes the foundation of faith, saps the vitality of hope, dissolves the bond of love.

It makes away with justice, demolishes fortitude, removes temperance, and blunts the edge of prudence.

Shall I say more?”

Saint Peter Damian, O.S.B. (Petrus Damiani, also Pietro Damiani or Pier Damiani; c. 1007 – February 21/22, 1072) was a reforming monk in the circle of Pope Gregory VII and a cardinal. In 1823, he was declared a Doctor of the Church. Dante placed him in one of the highest circles of Paradiso as a great predecessor of Saint Francis of Assisi.

St. Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah:
A Moral Blueprint for Our Times

Submitted by Doria2

QUESTION: Christians, If god didn’t sacrifice himself to himself to bypass a rule he made, then what did he do exactly? (REPOST)

ANSWER:

Jesus resolved a “structural” problem that occurred as a result of Adam being swindled out of his God given earthly dominion by Satan, the devil.

As a result of Adam’s fall from grace, Satan managed to enslave Adam and all of his offspring under an evil dominion, based on the power of death.

God permitted such a thing because Adam was properly and completely educated (warned in advance) by God and should have known better. Once Adam lost everything to Satan, there was no (natural) way of reversing (restoring) things. Hence, God stepped up to right the wrong.

True God and true man, Jesus is the sinless, fully authorized and fully qualified “kinsman redeemer” – the only one who has the supernatural power, as well as the “natural right” to step in and redeem mankind from perpetual slavery to Satan, sin and death. But it would not be easy and it would not be accomplished the way most would expect.

Because Jesus is God – and because Jesus is also a sinless man, Satan had absolutely no power (the power of death or otherwise) over Jesus – so Satan and his minions (the corrupt Jews and the pagan Romans of the time) had absolutely no authority to put Jesus to death.

They went ahead and crucified him anyway, even though they should have known better. They had been warned, all the way back in Genesis 3:15.

Jesus permitted it to happen, since when Jesus died on the cross, Satan’s evil dominion over mankind and the earth was forfeit and mankind now had a (perfect and sinless) new leader – the resurrected Jesus Christ, the Messiah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords – the one who Satan had absolutely no power over.

Now, all power on earth and in heaven (as well as everywhere else) was awarded to the New Adam – the resurrected Jesus Christ – fully God and fully man – who had effectively “crushed the head of the serpent” – freeing mankind from the power of perpetual death and hell – just as he promised, so long ago – and who, by his glorious resurrection, proved all that I claim here and more.

God the Father was pleased, freely bestowing grace, peace, divine adoption, protection from eternal death and much, much more, on all who choose to swear faithful allegiance to his divine son, Jesus – something that is typically accomplished through water baptism, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as well as through faithful membership and regular, consistent participation in the work, worship, sacraments and devotions of the only Church that Jesus Christ ever personally founded, authorized, empowered and perpetually guaranteed, for the purpose of our salvation – the Holy Catholic Church.

Asked and answered on Yahoo Answers

How Does Jesus’ Death, at the hands of men, pay a debt men owe to God?

The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross at Calvary forms the basis for what I like to call “The Peculiar Theology of Redemption”.

And there’s no doubt that the theology behind our redemption IS peculiar, because it had to be … in order to give Satan the devil just enough “rope” to hang himself. 

Here’s how it works:

The first sin had to be a very serious matter, Adam also had to fully understand that it was indeed very serious, and the sin also had to be committed with the full consent of Adam’s will.

Finally, the consequences of that first sin had to be such that a simple apology, a pledge of repentance, and God’s subsequent forgiveness, would still not be sufficient to make all things whole again.

Based on all of the above, we know that the first sin resulted in Adam’s total rejection of God, and his “throwing in” with Satan, against God.

Adam even went so far as to transfer dominion of the whole earth, which God had earlier given him, over to Satan.

And since Adam enjoyed free will, God permitted him to make these choices, and to suffer the eternal consequences.

Once all this was done, Satan turned on Adam, and made a slave of him and his descendents, because, as everyone knows, all the offspring of a slave automatically belong to the master.

This presented a serious problem, because man had no ability to overcome the supernatural dominion that Satan now exercised over him.

Furthermore, God was under no obligation to provide his supernatural graces to his enemies.

Deprived of God’s grace, Eden soon disappeared, Adam and Eve began to age, suffer, and die, and the world became an increasingly more hostile and forbidding place.

Mankind lived under constant threat from Satan, who was given the power of death over them, according to their free will choice, and according to God’s perfect justice.

But this is not what God had in mind when he created man, so God promised to eventually send a redeemer to destroy Satan’s evil dominion, forgive sins, defeat death, and restore all things.

That is exactly what Jesus did.

And the only reason Jesus could do it, when no other human ever could, was because Jesus was never “stained” by sin … and Satan had no power at all, over one without sin.

Under God’s most basic law, one without sin is not liable to die. (This was the flip-side of the same law that Adam broke, when he sinned.)

Jesus permitted Satan and his minions, the Jews and the Romans, to unjustly put him to death, knowing full well that this was the only way Satan’s evil dominion could be legally destroyed, as no one, not even the devil, had the authority to take the life of a sinless man, let alone the only son of God.

Once Jesus died, Satan was judged for his great sin, stripped of all that he had earlier gained from Adam’s fall, and left destitute.

Jesus was raised from the dead and appointed the new head of all mankind. God was now more than willing to forgive man’s sins, and our redemption was truly at hand.

Now, anyone who rejects Satan and swears faithful allegiance to Jesus (typically through baptism) is able to have their sins forgiven, become a living temple of the Holy Spirit, and among other things, also become a member of God’s own family.

The Church carries on Christ’s great work of redemption in the world today, and it will continue to do so, until the end of time.

We have Christ’s word on it.

The Prospect of Divine Judgment Need Not Be So Terrifying

Jude 1:21  Keep yourselves in the love of God,
waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ,
unto life everlasting.

The Mass: The awesomely powerful representation of Christ’s perfect and eternal, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world.

by Doug Lawrence

The Mass is the liturgical re-presentation of Jesus Christ’s one-time, once for many, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world, at Calvary.

The Last Supper was the anticipation of that blessed event, the eternal fulfillment of the Jewish Passover, and the Christ-instituted model for our timeless Catholic liturgy.

What makes the Mass eternally unique and infinitely efficacious is the real presence on the altar, under the auspices of bread and wine, of Jesus Christ, the sinless God-man who was crucified, died, and was buried, who rose again from the dead, and who remains the only perfect and acceptable sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Since Jesus Christ personally embodies the one time, once for many, eternal sacrifice for the sins of the world, when Jesus becomes present on the altar at Mass, his eternal sacrifice for sin is also renewed and re-presented.

From a practical standpoint, this is necessary so that we might have a pure and perfect offering that will be acceptable to God the Father. Without Jesus’ real presence on the altar, such a thing would not be possible. 

Most people look forward to receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, and typically consider that as their primary reason for attending Mass, but there’s much more to it … since it typically remains necessary for the People of God, with the assistance of the priest, to faithfully and regularly “line up” behind Jesus, offering him up to our Father in Heaven … so that “mountains” might move, all things might be reconciled and renewed, and divine grace might continue to flow, in supernatural abundance.

This happens shortly after the consecration and just before the “Great Amen”. Watch and listen carefully the next time you attend:

The priest takes the chalice, containing the blood of Christ,
and the paten, on which his body, in the form of the host, rests.
Raising both, he says:

Through him, and with him, and in him,
O God, almighty Father,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honor is yours,
for ever and ever.

The people acclaim:
Amen.

Having just offered Jesus Christ, our sinless brother, savior, perfect victim, Heavenly High Priest, mediator, and God, to our Father in Heaven, we rightfully expect this ultimate, totally spotless and perfect sacrifice to be accepted, affording us (and the whole Church) divine favor of all kinds.

Only then do we continue … rightly claiming Jesus’ Father as our own … and receiving Jesus Christ … body, blood, soul and divinity … for our divine sustenance … as we go forth.

The Mass – illustrated

Propitiation and Atonement – illustrated