That’s a saying in Spanish, and if you look up “palo de gallinero” you will get a better understanding of the meaning of the phrase.
1. There are real people of the same sex who really have signed marriage licenses. Those documents seem to be legal. That is a reality that, well, is based on something or other. For those who are so married, their love and commitment is real. Many of these people are friends and loved ones. So, in that way, I am happy for them. If they are happy, then I am happy. I am not God, and my first human reaction is that I hope they live long and have a happy life together. I have never been invited to a same sex ceremony, so I can’t tell you if I would go or not. You know, I just might.
John Kasich, strong practicing Catholic who is socially conservative attended a gay wedding. I’ll leave it there for now.
So, there are individuals who have made this lifelong commitment and signed papers to prove it.
More to come.
I’ll just say that I love everybody and I want everyone to know Jesus, our Hope, our Life, our Love, the Source of all that is Good. He is that for all who believe, not just a few.
I will also say that God really does hate sin. Sin cuts us off from all that is hope, life, love, and goodness. God would not be a good God if He did not hate sin.
God loves the sinner and wants to bring him or her into a relationship with His Son and His body, the Church.
The door through which one must enter has two words over it. Repentance and faith. Repentance towards sin and faith towards God. You turn your back on the one and your face towards the other.
Here are some Scriptures to contemplate.
Contemplate is a more personal, more intense word than meditate. It involves wonder. We gaze at Christ in wonder and amazement at who He is and what He has done. We gaze in love into the face of our Father. We are amazed at the work of the Holy Spirit, teaching us and pouring out His love into our hearts.
We praise Him who alone is worthy. He really is all we need.
Here is John 3:16-21. These words took hold of me when I was a little girl, and filled me with hope and longing. We are most familiar with v. 16, but read the context carefully. As the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. Come to the light. Come to Christ. Your Father is waiting to receive you. You have a Mother as well, the Church.
As Christ was conceived in the body of Mary, so Christ can be conceived in you by the same Holy Spirit. Like her, you can say yes to God.
For God So Loved the World
16 “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
See the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Thief on the Cross.
ReplyDeleteCheck out the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery. Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity (CCC 1260).
So it could be that Dismas was ignorant of certain things but he experienced a true conversion on his cross and was saved because he would have desired baptism had he known. Or maybe he wasn’t ignorant but he had not yet had the opportunity for baptism and his actual desire for it sufficed: “For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament” (CCC 1259).
and...
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/dismissing-the-dismas-case
Now explain Ephesians 4 and the word “one”.
Take care, Brother Finnell, and thanks for stopping by.