Oh, I'd do anything for her. How much do you love the child you created with her? "Oh, I'd do anything for that child's good.".
Even renouncing sex?
Gut check time for adults... are we capable of saying no to our flesh out of a YES to the moral good of a loved one?
If so, then mature couples can indeed live as 'brother and sister'. If not, then not only are they not going to be properly disposed for communion, they are not going to be properly disposed for discipleship at all.
Our faith teaches us to expect miracles. It teaches us that God's grace is real and sufficient. That we can in fact put on the armor of God. That we can in fact live a virtuous life.
That peoples' wounds can be healed, evil spirits indeed cast out, the home swept clean and filled with the Holy Spirit instead.
That far from conforming to the world, we can in fact change the world just as we ourselves can be changed, healed, liberated, restored in God.
Thus the true pastoral outreach and care of souls is not to assume the secular world's presuppositions about humanity but to propose the Gospel's.
True pastoral care is not to assume people can't help but sin but to promote the truth that concupiscence can in fact be quieted and harnessed as a horse is harnessed with a bit. Its animal dynamism will always remain but we can in fact control our passions rather than be controlled by them.
But all this requires first that we who would pastor others allow Jesus to first pastor us. That we who would minister to others first submit our minds, hearts, sex, will, etc. to Jesus.
To preach of miracles one needs to experience it personally.
Catholicism is a romance not a mere religion. It's fundamentally a life-changing relationship with Jesus for whom and in whom alone we can obey 'all his commandments'. Take away this life-changing encounter, this personal relationship, the power of His Presence, and sure, the secular default presupposition about the unbeatable passions, the invincible concupiscence does fill the horizon.
This is why it is the saints and martyrs who reform the Church each century and not mere tinkering with doctrinal or pastoral methods. First the personal encounter of God in his Glory and then the rules and methods will fall into place.
Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea is quoted as saying: "Let us pray for those pastors who leave the Lord’s sheep to the wolves of decadent and secularized society, far from God and nature. Sexuality is not a cultural fact, but a natural fact,” he concluded.
This strikes to the root of the heresy of the sexual revolution and indeed the progressive/modernist heresy: that human nature does not evolve. Culture doesn't change human nature.
So "changing times" don't change the natural law. What was intrinsically evil in 5,000 BC is still wrong today. 99% of men deciding that rape is acceptable practice wouldn't make it so, even IF all the cool kids of the NYT, LA, Madison avenue and the financial industry really, really, FEEL good about it.
That 'changing times' do not annul human nature and natural law and morality really bugs the heck out of modernists/progressives/cultural Marxists because their core presupposition about reality is that might = right. That "might" is the cool kids in charge of the mechanisms of culture and whatever they declare is truth is truth "because shut up".
JusadBellum, I think this statement (or something similar) attributed to Archbishop Sheen applies: "A lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it, the truth is still the truth even if no one believes it."
At times like these, one must put faith in the faith rather than faith in the rabble.
A good shepherd not only has to keep an eye on the flock but drive away the wolves.
4 comments:
How about that? Those open to The Truth, hear The Truth -- if revealed authentically and with authority.
I'm afraid that much of the adult world are "re-learning" their Catechism via the secular press and social media.
"how much do you love the woman"?
Oh, I'd do anything for her.
How much do you love the child you created with her? "Oh, I'd do anything for that child's good.".
Even renouncing sex?
Gut check time for adults... are we capable of saying no to our flesh out of a YES to the moral good of a loved one?
If so, then mature couples can indeed live as 'brother and sister'. If not, then not only are they not going to be properly disposed for communion, they are not going to be properly disposed for discipleship at all.
Our faith teaches us to expect miracles. It teaches us that God's grace is real and sufficient. That we can in fact put on the armor of God. That we can in fact live a virtuous life.
That peoples' wounds can be healed, evil spirits indeed cast out, the home swept clean and filled with the Holy Spirit instead.
That far from conforming to the world, we can in fact change the world just as we ourselves can be changed, healed, liberated, restored in God.
Thus the true pastoral outreach and care of souls is not to assume the secular world's presuppositions about humanity but to propose the Gospel's.
True pastoral care is not to assume people can't help but sin but to promote the truth that concupiscence can in fact be quieted and harnessed as a horse is harnessed with a bit. Its animal dynamism will always remain but we can in fact control our passions rather than be controlled by them.
But all this requires first that we who would pastor others allow Jesus to first pastor us. That we who would minister to others first submit our minds, hearts, sex, will, etc. to Jesus.
To preach of miracles one needs to experience it personally.
Catholicism is a romance not a mere religion. It's fundamentally a life-changing relationship with Jesus for whom and in whom alone we can obey 'all his commandments'. Take away this life-changing encounter, this personal relationship, the power of His Presence, and sure, the secular default presupposition about the unbeatable passions, the invincible concupiscence does fill the horizon.
This is why it is the saints and martyrs who reform the Church each century and not mere tinkering with doctrinal or pastoral methods. First the personal encounter of God in his Glory and then the rules and methods will fall into place.
Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea is quoted as saying: "Let us pray for those pastors who leave the Lord’s sheep to the wolves of decadent and secularized society, far from God and nature. Sexuality is not a cultural fact, but a natural fact,” he concluded.
This strikes to the root of the heresy of the sexual revolution and indeed the progressive/modernist heresy: that human nature does not evolve. Culture doesn't change human nature.
So "changing times" don't change the natural law. What was intrinsically evil in 5,000 BC is still wrong today. 99% of men deciding that rape is acceptable practice wouldn't make it so, even IF all the cool kids of the NYT, LA, Madison avenue and the financial industry really, really, FEEL good about it.
That 'changing times' do not annul human nature and natural law and morality really bugs the heck out of modernists/progressives/cultural Marxists because their core presupposition about reality is that might = right. That "might" is the cool kids in charge of the mechanisms of culture and whatever they declare is truth is truth "because shut up".
JusadBellum, I think this statement (or something similar) attributed to Archbishop Sheen applies: "A lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it, the truth is still the truth even if no one believes it."
At times like these, one must put faith in the faith rather than faith in the rabble.
A good shepherd not only has to keep an eye on the flock but drive away the wolves.
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