It is important to understand that sin and God’s holiness are incompatible. There is a radical conflict between the total and infinite purity, goodness, perfection and holiness of God, and the horrid, empty, constrictive and dark nature of sin. Every sin is an attack against God, his purity, holiness and truth. At the heart of sin is always a disordered self-love, a pride which seeks to suppress the truth about God and supplant the Creator with the creature.
Archives for February 2016
Second Sunday of Lent: The Transfiguration Offers a Window Into Your Future
The season of Lent is ordered toward finding new life in Christ. And there are indeed very great promises attached to this new life! St. Paul teaches that we await our Savior, who will “change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body” (Phil. 3:21). He is here speaking of the second coming of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead. That is the great hope to which Lent directs us: the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday, which foreshadows that moment at the end of history when we too shall be raised from the dead by Christ.
The Sacred Season of Lent and Death to Self
In many ways, Lent is about dying: dying to self as you embrace the cross of Christ; dying to the world as you live as a citizen of heaven; dying to material wants and sensual pleasures that you may be raised by God to new heights; dying to fleeting things that you may take hold of eternal life. And all along, it is God who sustains you, gives you strength and directs your path. Lent, then, is a journey into the wondrous and beautiful heart of God.
Roots of the Cafeteria Catholic Phenomenon
While “Cafeteria Catholic” is a somewhat new term, it is not an entirely new phenomenon; its roots are found in Renaissance humanism, Enlightenment philosophies and some of the subsequent errors of Modernism. Although some people today think that a self-guided moral autonomy is the intelligent way to live, it is not the path leading to human fulfillment but its opposite.