Baptism For All

In the story, the woman treats the girl in a respectful way. Even though she is pregnant at a young age, the woman helps the girl deliver her child. The way she treats the girl shows that she is treating the girls like one of her own daughters. The woman loved and cared for the girl even though she did something wrong. This shows the unconditional love that God has for us. God loves us in the midst of all our flaws and he loves us even when we sin.

The infant was born with original sin, but the infant was also born as he was nearing death. To save him from original sin the infant had to be baptized. In the case of someone being on his or her deathbed anyone can perform the sacrament of baptism. The woman took the role of becoming the minister of baptism to the infant. She asked her son to prepare the things she needed and she quickly baptized him. This means he was saved from original sin. The infant, though he died so soon, was able to take part in the body of Christ.

The journey of the woman to her own home shows the struggles of life. There are always things in life that will try to stop you from achieving your goal, or in the case of the story saving someone from sin. The journey also parallels life in the sense that it is filled with ups and downs but God will help you along the way, just like her son did. The woman had strength and perseverance because she was able to make this trip quickly and also in the middle of the night where she could have been sleeping. She made a sacrifice just like Jesus did with His life.

Gifts of the Holy Spirit

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. In my life, these gifts are helping me to grow into a better person. Through Wisdom, I see the world in a new way. I can find how things are connected to God, and how to find peace within the world and myself. Understanding helps me to appreciate God and his grace. With understanding comes the opportunity for me to help and lead others the right way. Counsel is the gift that helps me make or choose the right decision even though it could be hard. In the end, it works out and I receive joy and comfort from the decision I made. Fortitude is the power for me to avoid evil and the devil and instead do good acts. Because I am human and there are a lot of temptations in the world, I need fortitude so I can avoid these temptations. Knowledge helps me see through the illusions and temptation of the world and helps me to focus and put my trust in God. Piety is serving God. From Piety I have received a greater sense of love and I love other more because we are connected as being God’s children. Finally there is Fear of the Lord. At first I didn’t understand this one, but I realized it is like a parent and a child relationship. You fear your parent especially if you do something wrong.

In your teenage years, I believe that I need a lot of Fortitude. In this time period you are getting peer pressured into doing a lot of things such as drinking, smoking, having sex, and using drugs. This is also a time period where parent start to give you more freedom and you might stop relying or your parents to take you places because you or your friends can driving. Fortitude is needed so that you don’t fall victim to these temptations of the world and that you can stay on the right path. During this time it is hard to fight temptations if everyone around you is doing it and they are pressuring you to do it. I need the strength to fight off these earthly sins and the devil’s advances on me. Fortitude gives us determination, energy, courage, and strength to be perseverant, steadfast, and patient in during times of great trial and temptations. The more fortitude that you have makes it less likely for you to fall prey to temptations of the devil and sin. The worst years of being a teenager are coming up soon and that is college. You are away from home and usually the worst things happen when there is no parental supervision.    

Are The Sacraments Narrow?

Are The Sacraments Narrow? By Mark Shea Questions

1. What is Ludwig’s problem?

He doesn’t understand why people say grace is imparted through the sacraments, because it shows grace in a narrow view. He sees God’s grace and love as universal.

2. Explain what the Church is not thinking about when it comes to sacramentality.

The Church is not saying the sacraments are there to deny God’s love and grace to the people who are not saved.

3. Explain what the Church is thinking about when it comes to sacramentality.

The Church is speaking out against doctrines that limit God’s redemption scope and they believe that redemption can happen to everyone.

4. How does God reveal and give to each individual human being his universally offered grace?

There is a primal Sacrament of Sacraments, or Jesus who came and showed us God in the world. He is where the sacraments stem from.

5. Which Christian Doctrine is the foundation of the Sacraments?

The doctrine of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, is the foundation of the Sacraments.

6. Explain what the gobs of modern “spirituality” tells us?

They tell us that God is extended ether in the cosmos and would never sully himself with the crudeness of matter, and that the spiritual dwell in realm of things unknown to the lesser evolved.

7. Explain the Christian repudiation of “such spirituality snobbery.

God likes matter a lot, because he declared it good during creation and manifested himself in it, and also became human.

8. “But that was so that he could put this gross body of flesh to death on the Cross and revert back to pure spirituality, wasn’t it?” Answer and Explain.

His death was an example that when we die we will live again. We also will become resurrected and liberated from the earthly bondage, and we will live again looking like human beings instead of spook beings.

9. Explain: “That is why the sacramental worldview sees more than just a symbol in a sacrament”

God didn’t created the world to show it off instead he created it to participate in it. These sacraments impart grace like Jesus imparted miracles and the Holy Spirit.

10. Explain what G.K. Chesterton said:

G.K. Chesterton says that the sacraments focus God’s grace on specific things instead of taking it away. The sacraments are there so you won’t be overwhelmed with all that grace. They are your lens that make the grace more focused and clear.

11. What does grace do?

Grace brings God to us. This is how he shows his love, not by sending letter but by being apart of our lives.

  

      

       

Divine Sense of Humor

The Divine Sense of Humor is first who we look at life. Others see things for the way it is. Others will see things and see that it has a deeper meaning to it. A person with the divine sense of humor understands the literal and spiritual meaning of things. One example he used was the equation E=MC². This could be seen as the literal letters or could be seen and the letters standing for something else. Another example is the brazen serpent. God was life this serpent as he was put on a tree and a man without sin was looked to have sin to save others from sin. This is the divine sense of humor to an imminent degree. When Jesus talked about destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days he was using the divine sense of humor. Jesus was calling himself the new temple as it related to His death and resurrection three days later. There are two Greek words that stand for temple Hieron and Naos. Naos loosely means the holy of holies, which was the area that only the priest could go to. It was in this area where God was present. Jesus would become the new holy of holies. Jesus’ human nature was the flesh in which divinity was shown.

The life of Jesus was a sacrament and because of this it was filled with signs and symbols. Jesus himself was a sign of his Father and made Him present in the world. Jesus was also a symbol because He was semantic to God. 

Sacraments

Sacraments Introduction

Sacraments can’t be fully understood unless the person has a divine sense of humor. To have sense of humor is to say a person can see through things. This person can’t be a materialist because they don’t see the bigger picture. A sacrament combines the elements of the visible and the invisible. Some examples include spoken word, because of the audible meaning and the spiritual meaning, a handshake, because for the physical contact but it could also be a sign of friendship. When civilization was happier, churches showed sacraments on its façade. These were all the elaborate architecture that these churches had. Now the churches are just buildings with no meaning or elaborate façade. The two errors that can confuse our understanding of the world are putting God to far in everything or taking God out of everything.

The Bible is a Sacrament

The Bible is a sacrament because it has the foreground, which includes the people and their actions, and the background, which is God’s presence in everything and Him making judgments to all the nations. God was able to use material things as a symbol of trust or faith in him as seen in the brazen serpent miracle. The brazen serpent also represents what was going to happen to Jesus in the future. A thing without sin is seen as having sin but whoever looks toward him shall be saved. Sacrament in Greek means mystery. Christ can be seen as a mystery because he was divine but human. He was so great but in his human form he seemed ordinary. Jesus was a sign of God and the sacraments became the signs of God’s grace. Man too is a sacrament because we have a soul and spiritual destiny.

Sacraments and man

Sacraments bring divine life or grace. Man lost his higher divine life but Christ came back to bring that life back to man. Man may live at three levels. The first is the sensate. This level is the first floor and they deny any other reality except the pleasures of the flesh. They don’t like being told able higher levels and might deny their existence. The second level is the intellectual. This person has brought all the powers of human reason and will to a peak. This level believes in a closed universe and they desire a higher form of life. The third level is the level of grace. The human heart has the power of love in it and gives peace that can’t be found in other levels. God gave us Himself so that we would be one with him. Christ coming to save us can be found in the sacraments through the Church or His Mystical Body. When He was on earth he used material things as signs and symbols and after he ascended he uses other things an instruments for the divine life. Christ earthly life he had two types of contact, visible or through touch, and invisible, which includes miracles that happened at a distance.   

Conditions of life

The physical or natural life requires seven conditions. Five of them refer to the person as an individual and the other two refer to people as a member of society. Individual life includes being born, being nourishes, growing to maturity, healed wounds, and diseases must be driven out. Societal life includes living under the government and justice and being called to propagate the human species. The seven conditions of leading a personal Christ-life are the sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. Every sacrament has a visible sign and spiritual significance. Three things required for having a sacrament are its institution by Christ, an outward sign, and the power of conferring the grace or divine life of Christ.

The sacraments get their power from Christ’s Life. Life is in the blood but so is sin, therefore to get rid of sin blood must be shed to empty sin. Blood is the best symbol of sacrifice because blood is the life of man. Christ’s blood had infinite value because of his divine nature.

Calvary is a reservoir of divine life and grace. Seven different kinds of sanctification flow from different stages in a man’s spiritual existence. Each of these channels has a sacrament by which Christ’s risen power is bestowed on souls by spiritual and effective contact. The difference is the application of the sacraments. Each one applies differently to each of us.