Catholicity

  Friday of the Third Week of Easter. John 6:52-59 Jesus - The Bread of Life      The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,  "How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them,  "Amen, amen, I say to you,  unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,  you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood  has eternal life,  and I will raise him on the last day. For my Flesh is true food,  and my Blood is true drink. Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood  remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me  and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven.  Unlike your ancestors who ate (manna) and still died,  whoever eats this bread will live forever." These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. =================== ✠ ================= Meditation for Friday of the Third Week of E

     Occasionally we hear variations on this theme: “I had a run-in (got mad, had a disagreement, didn't like the response, etc.) with a priest in Confession in 1982, and I haven’t seen the inside of a church since then.”           We might wonder: 1) Maybe the priest didn’t have his morning coffee and was grouchy. 2) Maybe the priest had the flu and couldn’t concentrate. 3) Maybe the priest’s mother died, and he was preoccupied. 4) Maybe the priest is just an insufferable jerk.     Then we come to our senses...      “Okay, well...look at the bright side. You received absolution, right? Oh you didn't? So tell me, what sin did you commit, and why did you try to argue/justify it?”      Confessions, after all, should be sincere. What About Jesus?     In a similar situation, w hat could a penitent expect from Jesus and, allowing for human failure, from His priestly instrument and mouthpiece in the confessional - the Priest - when the penitent sincerely seeks forgiveness?      One i

  The Only True Church 1. "You always come back to the claim that yours is the one and only Church"      Not the one and only Church....there are hundreds of churches.      Rather that the Catholic Church claims to be the only true Church. 2. "How can your Church be the only true Church, when Christ Himself was a non-Catholic?"      As the Founder of the Catholic Church He could not possibly be a non-Catholic.      You will admit, surely, that Christ established a Church.      We have it recorded that He definitely said: "I will build my Church." Matt. 26:18.      He so identified Himself with that Church that when St. Paul was persecuting that Church  before his conversion,   Christ appeared to him 3 years AFTER His Assumption, directly, and said: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Acts 9:4; 22:7; 26:14.      Now comes the question:     Q. " Which of the Churches today is identical with that Church with which Christ identified Himself?

  Q uestion: "I don't understand the sin of presumption. Is it deliberately sinning, because you can go to confession before committing the sin?      Or, is it deliberately sinning, because it can be confessed later?"      Think about what you are saying in the first part. How can you confess and be forgiven of a sin that you have not yet committed? Does a man go to a doctor to set his leg before he breaks it?      It is the combination of premeditation, and then the ACT OF THE SIN, that drives forgiveness. This is how the old  Catholic Encyclopedia  defines the sin of  presumption : It may be defined as the condition of a soul that...  hopes for salvation without doing anything to deserve it, or for pardon of sins without repenting of them.      One wonders how sincere a person’s love for God is when he is readily willing to sin, and then disparages God's forgiveness.      But God cannot be fooled.      He reads hearts and knows our sincerity.      To firmly decide t