Layers - in the knowledge of God and the path to holiness
Learning about God is like unwrapping a head of lettuce, pealing back one leaf at a time. Always there is another leaf below. We will eventually reach the center of the head of lettuce; but we will never unwrap everthing there is to know about God.
The path to holiness is like pealing an onion. God shows us what is sinful and convicts us that we have sinned. No matter how sweet the onion, there are always tears in the peeling. No matter how sweet the grace of repentence, there are always the pain of letting go of the sin. As the peeling of the onion reveals another layer, so God shows us what we lack in holiness, drawing us ever closer to "be(ing) perfect even just as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48
What I Believe
Why I am and always will be a Catholic. "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. Tthe living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever." John 6:53-58 The words and actions of man cannot sanctify. Only the priest, empowered by his ordination, can invoke the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into Jesus so we can receive Him - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity into our bodies and souls. This is the core of the Catholic Church; without this there is no purpose or meaning to the Catholic Church. There are other ways to holiness, to grow in grace; there is no better way than union with Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Essence of Marriage
“The Lord God said: ‘It
is not good for the man to be alone. I
will make a suitable partner for him.’ So
the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of
the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever
the man called each of them would be its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all
the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man. So the
Lord god cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, He took out one
of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that He had taken from
the man. When He brought her to the man,
the man said: ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.’ That
is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two
of them become one body.” Genesis 2:
18-24
A person who believes that the Bible is the word of God
cannot dismiss the message of Genesis. God
made man, and He made woman to be a partner for man. A person cannot claim to believe in the Bible
and also claim that two men or two women can be partners in the same sense as
God intended for man and woman. Two persons
of the same sex cannot become “one body”.
This connotes a union that is not just physical, but also emotional and
mental. This bond enables the two
individuals to become one unity. NO
rhetoric from popular culture can change the words or the meaning of Genesis.
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