Again I fell and again Christ was there!

Again I fell and again Christ was there!

Show me one person who never made a mistake that would require severe punishment.  We are made with God’s love, yet each one has the propensity to fail.  This is not because there was a failure in the creation account of anything God ordained.  But, the essence of evil is found because of sin.

What revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience.  For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn toward what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator.  Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which would link him to his last end; and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures.   (From the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World)

“Man enticed by the Evil One, abused his freedom at the very beginning of history.  He succumbed to temptation and did what was evil.  He still desires the good, but his nature bears the wound of original sin,  He is now inclined to evil and subject to error:  (CCC 1707).

Man is divided in himself.  As a result, the whole life of men, both individual and social, shows itself to be a struggle, and a dramatic one, between good and evil, between light and darkness.  (From the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World).

In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures:  “It was not you,” said Joseph to his brothers,  “who sent me here, but God…you meant evil against me ; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.”  From the greatest moral evil ever committed  - the rejection and murder of God’s only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that “abounded all the more,” brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption.  But for all that, evil never becomes a good.  (CCC 312).

St, Catherine of Siena said to “those who are scandalized and rebel against what happens to them:”  Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.  (St Catherine of Siena).

St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter:  “Nothing can come but that that God wills.  And I Make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best.”   (The correspondence of St. Thomas More).

Using the CCC it is easy to discern the Churches views and the truth of the Magisterium regarding issues that many might disagree with, these are the sound structure of this Catechism.  (1) The profession of faith; (2) The Sacraments of faith; (3) The life of faith; (4) Prayer in the life of faith,

Conclusion to the prologue of the Catechism:  The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.  (From the preface of the Catechism).

Ralph B. Hathaway