Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 38674 times)

Viva Cristo Rey · « **Reply #45 on:** March 28, 2024, 09:28:45 AM »

And then Pentecost. Divine Mercy Sunday is no for me. ( I can see why it was initially banned.) The fact that Pope John Paul II was friends with McCarick lacks spiritual discernment.

cassini · « **Reply #46 on:** April 11, 2024, 05:25:54 AM »

Fr Sean again:
Jesus’ Final Words: Be Converted

Jesus confirmed to His apostles and disciples that, indeed, He had arisen from the dead. On this occasion in Luke’s Gospel (24:35-48) they thought He was a ghost. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures (Old Testament), and reminded them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His Name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

These were Jesus’ final words to His Apostles and disciples before He ascended to His Father. He wanted His disciples to remember and carry them out for the good of all who believed in Him. These were the words that summed up the purpose of His mission and the mission of His Church, namely to preach repentance and forgiveness in His Name to all nations. Sadly, today many of the Church’s bishops and priests seem to ignore this. Today especially, we need to recognize what part of His ministry Jesus chose to emphasize with these final words. He didn’t tell them to save the planet or be concerned about global warming, but rather to be concerned with saving men and women from sin.

If He hadn’t spoken these words we might have assumed that His final message to His disciples would be, “Love one another!” Love was certainly central to Jesus’ teaching and the central ethic of life. But that wasn’t what He revealed in His last instructions. Love in itself isn’t the complete message of Jesus, though it may be central. There’s something more. A focus on love alone without understanding that it involves repentance and forgiveness of sin turns Christianity into a kind of touchy-feely religion where everybody is supposed to be nice and have a warm fuzzy feeling about everybody else – a religion based on feeling alone without bringing about any real change in people’s lives.

The main task and essential gift of Jesus’ Church is to “preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His Name to all nations.” This is the message that every Pope, bishop, priest, and deacon along with every lay member must proclaim and practice in the world. The central task of the Church is to say to the world: “Repent of your sins and be converted to Jesus Christ if you want happiness after death!” Jesus came specifically to call sinners (Mk 2:17). He didn’t come to make us feel good, although we’ll definitely feel good when we repent and receive the forgiveness of God and His Church in Confession.

What does it mean to repent? It literally means “to feel regret” or “feel sorry.” It means that we recognize our negative or selfish attitude and replace our sinful ways with graceful ways. It means turning our life around, converting to Jesus and heading in the direction that leads to where God wants to be and where we need to be if we want to be truly happy and fulfilled.

Everybody is headed somewhere. The key question is, “Will where I’m headed bring me happiness or misery?” Ultimately there are only two destinations, namely Heaven or for hell.

The mission Jesus gave His Church is to call everyone to embrace Him as their Savior. That requires asking for the grace of repentance so that He can forgive us and reconcile us with Him and with one another. The Church’s mission, then, is to say to everyone, “Turn your life around before it’s too late. Repent and be converted! God wants to save you from what pulls you down through the forgiveness of sins. God gives “His people a knowledge of salvation in freedom from their sins” (Lk 1:77). Jesus founded His Church to be His instrument through which He constantly addresses the world: “For your own spiritual welfare and the wellbeing of your immortal soul, turn around while you can and before it’s too late. Repent and be converted to Jesus Christ!”

Every one of us needs to examine our lives from time to time and ask the questions, “Where am I headed in life? Will the direction I am taking lead me to where God wants me to be?”

Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, ran away from home as a teenager and went to sea, much to the distress of his parents. He wanted to do his own thing. On his first voyage the ship was wrecked and he barely escaped drowning. He saw his foolishness and the bad choices he had made, but he was afraid to go back home because he knew his friends would make fun of him and he’d have to admit to his parents that he took the wrong direction in life. Defoe came to the conclusion that people are less ashamed of sinning than they are of admitting their sin and repenting. People are more ashamed to repent – admitting they were wrong and needing to turn their life around – than they are of continuing in their sinfulness. Pride, Satan’s weapon and one of the deadly sins, is often the killer here. Our pride distorts our thinking and we become blind to the stupidity of our sinful ways. It deafens us to God’s call and blocks God’s merciful grace. We would rather fight than switch – even when we know that what we’re doing is evil and stupid beyond belief.

You and I, as members of Jesus’ Church, are obligated to bring Jesus’ words to the world and say, even when we’re ignored or turned off, “Brother/sister, turn around. Please, for your own sake and for the sake of those who love you most, turn around. Repent and be converted!” We might be told to mind our own business and keep our nose of other people’s affairs. But Jesus tells us that we are our brothers and sisters keepers (Gen 4:8-10; 1 Peter 3:8), and it’s our business, our obligation, to show our love for them by calling them to change their direction when they’re headed for misery, pain, and self-destruction. Out of love Jesus says to every man and woman, “Repent and turn your life around.”

Jesus’ Church must preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations so they can experience God actually saving them. The Church embraces everyone who accepts Jesus’ conditions, not on the conditions of those who want to be admitted into her world. Most of us have some regrets in life – something we did, didn’t do, or sinned against others. Now we wish we could erase that part of our life or handle a relationship differently. But if we repent God will forgive us and we can make restitution.

It’s interesting to observe that people have a need to confess the wrong things they have done as is witnessed in phone-in confession lines, etc. Unresolved guilt is one of the great problems in people’s lives. It emerges in physical disorders, sleeplessness, depression, and numerous problems in building relationships. Many people aren’t even aware that it’s a problem. Because people are confused about the nature of sin, or because they don’t realize they are sinners, they aren’t aware of their need for the grace of repentance and the gift of forgiveness. The nature of sin is that we put ourselves at the center of the world and push God and others out. We sin when we use others for our own ends. We sin when we don’t live up to our potential as God’s children. We sin when we become takers rather than givers. We sin when we ignore God’s commandments. Sin creates division, distrust, disrespect whether in thought, word or action. Sin makes us less human and less alive as God’s people.

We read in St. John’s Letter (1 Jn 2:1-5; 1 Jn 1:8-10)): “Those who say, ‘I know Him,’ but do not keep His commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them.” “Any man who says he has no sin is a liar.” At every Mass we begin by acknowledging ourselves as sinners “in what we have done and in what we have failed to do.” We all need to repent and seek forgiveness. This is why the Mass is the ordinary means of forgiveness for our venial sins and the sacrament of Reconciliation is the Sacrament is the visible sign in which Jesus offers us forgiveness when we repent of our grave and mortal sins.

Turning our life around and receiving God’s forgiveness in the Name of Christ is what Jesus empowers us in and through His Church. This is why we need the Church so desperately in today’s world where sin abounds and people seem too proud to seek forgiveness or fool themselves into thinking they have no sin. The lack of repentance and forgiveness dooms us to eternal suffering and deprives humanity of the grace of salvation which Jesus won on the Cross and makes available through His Church. The greatest thing anyone can do for himself or herself is to repent, seek forgiveness and be converted to Jesus Christ as a member of His Church where He offers forgiveness to the repentant soul. This is what Jesus made possible through His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. (fr. sean)

cassini · « **Reply #47 on:** April 18, 2024, 06:07:19 AM »

Fr Sean again:
There’s only One Saviour and One Church

One of the worst illusions is the belief that we can save ourselves from sin and make ourselves happy. Adam and Eve bought into this lie in the Garden of Eden. Another form of that lie prevalent today, even espoused by some Church leaders, is called universalism. This is the belief that every human being will eventually be saved regardless of their religion. That belief contradicts Jesus who stated unequivocally: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6), and “Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in Heaven” (Mt 10:32-33). He didn’t say, “I’m only one way, truth, and life among many.” Jesus is the only One who can save us from our sins. Outside His Church there’s no salvation and those who don’t belong to His Church depend on the merits of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church for their salvation. Jesus revealed to Peter and the other apostles as His Church’s leaders, “He who hears you hears me. He who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent me” (Lk 10:16). Neither Buddha, Mahomet, nor Confucius, nor anyone else can save us from eternal death except Jesus because He alone was raised from the dead by His Father and now sits at the right hand of God as the judge of the living and the dead (Col 3:1). Only those who die believing in Him and embracing His Church, His Bride on earth, will be saved. This is why Jesus urgently commissioned His disciples: “Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize that in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!” (Mt 28:18-20). He ordered them to teach what He taught them, not their own opinions or some synodal way. This is why Catholics are obligated out of love for others to bring them the truth that Jesus is the only Saviour.

We can neither save ourselves from selfishness and sin, nor perfect ourselves. If we could save ourselves we certainly wouldn’t suffer, let alone die. Why, as intelligent creatures, do people think and behave so unintelligently? Instead of embracing Jesus as the Truth people make up their own truth which is founded on their opinion that are as flawed as they are. Jesus is the only person in history who conquered death through His Resurrection. Therefore, He’s the only one who can show us how to rise from death. He alone shows us the only path to joy, peace, and a happiness that lasts forever. Peter, the head of the Apostles, “filled with the Holy Spirit”, reminds us that, “There is no salvation in anyone else, nor is there any name under Heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts 4:10-12), apart from Jesus. Knowing that He was the only means of entry into Heaven, Jesus commissioned and commanded His Apostles to bring this good news to the whole world. St. Paul reiterated Jesus’ command when he said, “Now you must realize that this salvation of God has been transmitted to the gentiles – who will heed it” (Acts 28:28).

How does Jesus save us? Through uniting us with Him in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. He prayed that His followers, and through their witness, that all peoples would be united with Him in His Church. “I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all may be one as You, Father, are in me, and I in You; I pray that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent me” (Jn 17:20-21). Jesus saves us by making us His adopted brothers and sisters through baptism into His Church where He’s present to each member in the preaching of His Word and in the Sacraments. There He intimately nourishes our soul by giving us the gift of Himself especially in the Holy Mass which is the re-presentation of His sacrifice on the Cross. There we are privileged to receive the “… love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God… we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 Jn 3:1-2). Have you received that love as He unites your suffering to His and asks His Father to bless you in your suffering?

If love is the essence of Christianity - the glue of togetherness through repentance and forgiveness - why are there divisions among those who call themselves Christian? How can we love God if we don’t love one another? We can’t. Jesus identified Himself as the “Good Shepherd” (Jn 10:11) who has an intimate relationship with His flock and also cares for those who are not yet members. “I know my sheep, and mine know me in the same way that the Father knows me and I know the Father. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must lead them too, and they shall hear my voice. There shall be one flock then, one shepherd” (Jn 10:16). Jesus shows clearly that there can only be “one fold,” one universal Church, led by “one shepherd,” the Vicar of Christ, Peter and his successors. This is Jesus’ visible community to which those outside it are invited to join, not on their conditions but on Jesus’ conditions, namely by obeying His commandments. Jesus’ Church, under the leadership of the Apostles’ successors, re-sounds His voice calling all people to be saved through entering and participating in His “one fold” as His “one flock” shepherded by Him until the end of time. Anybody who tries to build a fold and collect a flock outside of the Church founded by Jesus on Peter causes division. Division is always a sign of Satan’s activity generating confusion and dissension. As Christians we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and pray daily with the Psalmist: “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.” (Ps 118:1)

Division among Christians weakens the Church’s effectiveness as Jesus’ visible sign of His saving presence in the world. It’s an absurdity for Christians not to be united in one family. The Holy Spirit revealed that “There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all” (Eph 4:5-6). To heal division and restore unity, Jesus empowered His Church to administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation so that her members may repent of their sins, be forgiven, and reconciled to God and to one another in order to witness His mission of supernatural and unconditional love. The human love with which we naturally love must be nourished with God’s supernatural love if we’re to mirror Jesus’ love, truthfully, mercifully, and justly. God’s spirit of love - the Holy Spirit - decries division since He leads everyone into the loving union enjoyed by Jesus and His Father. There’s only one Saviour and only one Church. This is God’s will for us to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. (fr sean)

cassini · « **Reply #48 on:** **Today** at 12:02:34 PM »

Fr Sean again.
Are You Well-Connected?

Bishop Fulton Sheen noted that the greatest insult you could heap on someone is to say he or she is useless. No one is useless. God creates everyone at the moment of conception with the ability to make a positive difference in the world. A reporter asked a businessman how he got to be so wealthy. He said that when he and his wife married they had only five cents between them. “I bought an apple, polished it and sold it for ten cents. Then I bought two apples for ten cents and sold them for twenty.” The reporter asked, “Then what?” The man smiled, “My relative died and left us twenty million!” Good connections make all the difference. To be successful in life we must have good connections. It’s not what we know but who we know that we can rely upon for help to achieve our goals. It is not what we know about Heaven that will get us there but who we know.

In a book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey identified the key habits that enable people to be successful. He showed that effective people are proactive instead of reactive; they begin with the end in sight, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand before seeking to be understood, synergize, and continue improving their skills. Habits, good or bad, are actions that we do repeatedly until they become embedded in our unconsciousness so that they become second nature to us. Our actions flow from our intellect and will, both of which are faculties of our soul. To develop good habits we need to seed our minds with the kind of thoughts that when planted in our soul shape us into effective people. To be effective Christians we must seed our minds with God’s thoughts and plant them in our soul. As God’s creatures our effectiveness depends on our adherence to the purpose which He gives us. Connection to the Creator assures us of achieving our purpose which is to know, love, and serve Him here on earth and after death to be with Him forever in Heaven.

How do we connect with God? By letting God connect with us first. “It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit” (Jn 15:16). How does God connect with us? He initiates His connection with us through Jesus’ presence in His Church in the Sacrament of Baptism. There Jesus enables us to “put on the new nature created in God’s image, whose justice and holiness are born of truth” (Eph 4:24), giving us a new identity, a new nature, and a new destiny as His adopted brother or sister. We can’t be effective if our sinful nature isn’t replaced by a new loving, life-respecting nature. The highly effective Christian, as is evidenced in the saints, is the man or woman who thinks and acts humbly, justly, mercifully, gracefully, and truthfully. Faith, hope, charity, humility, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, peace-making, prayerfulness, worship, and service are the habits of an effective Christian.

To be an effective Christian community or parish or diocese we need to be continually connected to Jesus. That’s why He founded His Church on Peter to be His Bride, His Body on earthHe is the source of Christian fruitfulness. “I am the true vine and my Father is the vine-grower … Live on in me, as I do in you… I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me and I in him, will produce abundantly, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:4-5). Effective Christianity is impossible without Jesus since He is the vine and we are the branches. When we try to be effective while ignoring Jesus we, like branches cut off from the vine, wither and die. This is why so many baptized people have rendered themselves ineffective workers in the vineyard of the Lord.

How does Jesus make us effective Christians? Through His Church’s Sacraments, especially in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass where we hear His Word, celebrate His real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, the re-presentation of His sacrifice on the Cross, and receive Him in Holy Communion. In that action of His, through the ordained priest, Jesus visibly inserts us into Himself as the branch is connected to the vine, and energizes our soul so that we can go out and effectively promote life, love, and enthusiasm in a world wallowing in death, hate, and apathy. This is a real connection with Jesus, not a symbolic gesture, as He Himself revealed. “Let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. He who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:53-54). Jesus isn’t speaking symbolically but literally. He makes the reception of Him in Holy Communion the essential and effective nourishment for our soul: “For my flesh is real food and my blood real drink. The man who feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in Him” (Jn 6:56). No one can be in Christ unless Christ is in him or her. Thus Jesus guarantees a continual connection with Him since we need on-going spiritual nourishment to be effective witnesses to what is real, true, good, and beautiful. This is why He commanded His Apostles on Holy Thursday when He instituted the Holy Eucharist and ordained the Apostles to the priesthood to “Do this in memory of me!” (Lk 22:19).

Jesus is the best connection we can ever have since He is the only one who has risen from the dead and has the power to raise us up from suffering and death. We couldn’t be better connected because He alone enables us to achieve the fullness of our potential. Look at the difference in Paul when Jesus connected him to Himself. He alone enables us to “love not in word and speech but in deed and in truth …and love one another just as He commanded us” (1 Jn 3:18-24). Actions speak louder than words. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit obeying the Ten Commandments assures us that God has connected us to Him. “Those who keep His commandments remain in Him, and He in them, and the way you know that He remains in us is from the Spirit He gave us.” The Holy Spirit urges us to “let the coming generations be told of the Lord that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born the justice he has shown” (Ps 22:26-32). If we’re not connected to Jesus we can’t hand on the Faith to our children. And since only Jesus can make human beings effective persons in a fallen world, if our children aren’t connected to Him they’re doomed to failure in eternal death. Is this the legacy we want to hand on to them? Wouldn’t that be an act of injustice to them? Don’t they deserve the best from their bishops, priests, and parents? Jesus acts justly towards us in His Church where He makes it possible to be connected to Him and thus achieve the fullness of our potential, namely to be God’s image and likeness and be co-heirs with Him (Rom 8:17) to His Kingdom. There is no connection with anyone that’s more important than being connected to Christ Jesus. Without that connection we wither and die and leave the world a worse place. (fr sean

Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 38674 times)

Viva Cristo Rey

Re: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live

cassini

Re: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live

cassini

Re: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live

cassini

Re: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live