1:
A Suggestion: Put Jesus on trial. Be judge, jury, or whatever you want. Then go through the questions. Why Jesus? Why Christianity? What is the same? What is different? Do miracles exist? What is a miracle? What did Jesus say about Death? What did Jesus say about suffering?
Put Jesus on trial. I put it to you, that Jesus stands up to the requirements of our courts. Evidence is there.
And stay away from the Zeitgeist claims, even non-Christians think it a farce.
Academia.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2:
You know a Christian's struggling with faith when they state, "My God isn't like that"
Because this suggests a personal impression of the Divine, and exhibits the greatest type of identity crisis of Modern Man.
We are not to coerce God into our desires and whalms, We are to listen
to God and seek His Will. Prayer is for listening more than aiding our
qualms.
God is not a response to you, you
are to respond to God. The identity crisis can be stated as such : I
conceive God, instead it should state God granted me the chance to
conceive Him.
Or in other words : They put themselves ahead of creation, instead of creation ahead of themselves.
It is why, for the life of me, the modern woman can not see that
believing in eliminating the very creation in their womb ----- is
immoral.
They say, it is MY right.
Have they thought that the only reason it is THEIR RIGHT, is because they were given the RIGHT TO BE BORN?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3:
The
Crux about AUTONOMY : The ethics of an autonomous lifestyle, is one of
the most selfless ways of life (it puts the burden on oneself and not
others) ... A philosophy of autonomy, however, is one where the means
and the ends are me, myself, and I, resulting towards a mush of
indifference for the other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4:
COULD
NEW AGE BELIEF BE UNIVERSALLY SIGNIFICANT IF THE IMPAIRED (MENTALLY RETARDED)
CAN NOT REACH A HUMAN POTENTIAL ..... HOW FAIR AND JUST COULD SUCH A
PHILOSOPHY BE?
TRY TO IMAGINE THE WORST CASE SCENARIO : PRISONER OF WAR, WAR, OR PARALYSIS.
DOES YOUR THREE BIG QUESTIONS STILL STAND: WHO AM I? WHAT IS GOOD FOR ME? AND IS THERE A GOD?
Monday, August 25, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
21rst Sunday of Ordinary Time Answers Buddhism
Discussing Buddhism versus Christianity (Note: I found a wonderful link, anything I write couldn't compare)
Ignatius- Catholicism Buddhism
Buddhism is an inner reflection in attempts to remove oneself from the cause of one's suffering: caused by desire.
This is actually useful to the Christian as well whose seven deadly sins are all vast manifestations of selfish desires.
We can see Christian concepts in Buddhism's Four Noble Truths and in the Noble Eightfold Path :
This is a pictorial display of how Christianity and Buddhism have many compatible teachings about suffering (the way) and freedom (salvation.)
But where they differentiate, is about their truths.
Buddhism is inner-peace centered. It sees man in a world full of suffering, and the way man can come to peace is by absorbing an inner conscience which teaches a separation from desire and a unity with all things in the world.
Christianity also promises peace. Even though certain mystics like St. John of the Cross seem to emphasize the separation of oneself from the world, such Christians are also mindful of the world created. Christianity makes distinctions in the world, it is both / and.
Both inner peace and outer peace. The inner peace is a personal salvation but the outer peace is one of human rights, equality, and love of neighbor.
To a Christian, true love is only true when differences are identified. You can only love your wife, if you see your wife as a distinct being with her own dignity, a dignifying love.
If you see your wife as a part of the unifying nature as perhaps a Buddhist, then she is equal and not separate from you, a reflective love.
This separation also is relevant to the opposite of love, hate, or more the result of hate, evil.
With a separation, Christian ideals also identify a separation of good and evil. If someone's nature and dignity is good, then there must be some kind of nature that is bad, it is relational.
In Buddhism, as we see in the yin yang and Buddhism's understanding of suffering, there is no separation in terms of good and evil, but only a reflection of one to each. The only separation occurs when one conquers suffering through salvation by reaching nirvana.
I like to point this out: Communism easily overpowered the Buddhist heavy culture of China. When evil comes a knocking, Christians are aware, Buddhists just stare.
So who is right? The Christian or the Buddhist?
Well, it just so happens after spending my morning talking bout Buddhism with a Buddhist nihilist, the Catholic mass seemed to want to answer this question.
Responsorial Psalm
Lord, your love is eternal, do not forsake the work of your hands.
GOSPEL MATTHEW 16: 13-20
Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter,[a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[b] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[c] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[d] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
This is what it comes down to! The Christian identity, seeing the world as a handwork of God allowing for the Christians to still see Good in what is made.
In the Gospel, if Jesus is who, in this case Peter says He is, and who He alludes to being, then the Buddhists are inflicted with falsehoods.
If Jesus is not who He says He is, his teachings are scorned by His great deceits to man, and the Buddhist carries the day.
SO WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS IS? A LIAR? A LUNATIC? A LEGEND? OR LORD?
Buddha says, I am a man, but I know the Way.
Jesus says, I am God, I AM the Way !
What is the answer? This is what this blog is about !
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Defending the Church: The Bad Popes
1 Corinthians 1 : 2
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Thanks to the documentary I just watched on the De Medici Family, I feel very compelled to defend why there are so many cases (yet a minority) of Bad Popes.
We start with, Popes can sin, there is even likely Popes in Hell, but Popes are infallible in only in cases concerning Divine Revelation.
There are actually very simple things to say, why God would allow bad popes.
1) Popes have free will.
2) God has chosen many faulty humans, King David, for instance, killed a man. If you want to question the papacy's purity, question the men God chose in the Old Testament. It is a defense we all must make, not only Catholics and the Pope, but the whole Judeo-Christian culture is diluted by the weaknesses of men.
3) Jesus picked Judas, enough said.
4) I like to say that the Pope is the New Covenant Jewish King. The Jewish Kings were chosen by God, and many were awful, the difference is the teachings are carried forth with guidance of the Holy Spirit. No Pope, however bad, ever changed the Church's Divine Revelation to fit their own sins.
-- This is significant in my mind, if Popes are just a bunch of evil tyrants, why did they never change their own sins into virtues or what have you? I mean modern day Christians are making a Christian case for homosexuality as we speak, could the foul Pope not have done something similar?
Now humor,
A Jewish business man from Paris began to have interest in Jesus' teachings. so he sought out a local bishop in Paris.
The man loved the message of Christianity, and having the means, he wanted to travel to Rome before he decided to get baptized and become Christian.
The bishop, knowing the terrible sins which existed in Rome, tried to persuade the business man not to go to Rome until he was baptized. But the Jewish business man insisted that he would rather make a pilgrimage first.
When the business man returned from Rome, the bishop was surprised the Jew was even more enthusiastic about getting baptized than he was before.
Perplexed, the bishop asked why was the Jewish man still wanting to be a Christian after his being in Rome?
The Jewish business man said,
" I'm a business man, I know business. That place must be have God's graces, because anything ran that badly, wouldn't last two weeks."
Think about it, a lot of wisdom in this, how can a corrupted Church last 2000 years?
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Thanks to the documentary I just watched on the De Medici Family, I feel very compelled to defend why there are so many cases (yet a minority) of Bad Popes.
We start with, Popes can sin, there is even likely Popes in Hell, but Popes are infallible in only in cases concerning Divine Revelation.
There are actually very simple things to say, why God would allow bad popes.
1) Popes have free will.
2) God has chosen many faulty humans, King David, for instance, killed a man. If you want to question the papacy's purity, question the men God chose in the Old Testament. It is a defense we all must make, not only Catholics and the Pope, but the whole Judeo-Christian culture is diluted by the weaknesses of men.
3) Jesus picked Judas, enough said.
4) I like to say that the Pope is the New Covenant Jewish King. The Jewish Kings were chosen by God, and many were awful, the difference is the teachings are carried forth with guidance of the Holy Spirit. No Pope, however bad, ever changed the Church's Divine Revelation to fit their own sins.
-- This is significant in my mind, if Popes are just a bunch of evil tyrants, why did they never change their own sins into virtues or what have you? I mean modern day Christians are making a Christian case for homosexuality as we speak, could the foul Pope not have done something similar?
Now humor,
A Jewish business man from Paris began to have interest in Jesus' teachings. so he sought out a local bishop in Paris.
The man loved the message of Christianity, and having the means, he wanted to travel to Rome before he decided to get baptized and become Christian.
The bishop, knowing the terrible sins which existed in Rome, tried to persuade the business man not to go to Rome until he was baptized. But the Jewish business man insisted that he would rather make a pilgrimage first.
When the business man returned from Rome, the bishop was surprised the Jew was even more enthusiastic about getting baptized than he was before.
Perplexed, the bishop asked why was the Jewish man still wanting to be a Christian after his being in Rome?
The Jewish business man said,
" I'm a business man, I know business. That place must be have God's graces, because anything ran that badly, wouldn't last two weeks."
Think about it, a lot of wisdom in this, how can a corrupted Church last 2000 years?
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
The Truth about Equality, and Everything from it
The West stands out in the world, the cultural, political, and spiritual influences are enormous.
In today's West, we see a new brand of man.
It is the kind of man that wills to be nice, and wills peace.
There is great honor in a lot of what modern man strives to do.
But there is a great gap in the fabric of modern man.
This gap relates to his understanding of "reality."
It's the society of "just friends" and "meaningless love making."
If it is meaningless, what does that mean? Logos tells us there is a word for a reason, if there is a word for a reason, what is the meaninglessness of the words "love" and "making?"
This, by the way, is where the phrase, "The Word made flesh means!"
It means the word, the logos, the "reason" is made flesh. Jesus, "the reason for everything" is made flesh.
Let's get back to the modern man.
The modern man is ever growing into becoming a progressive man.
This of course has everything to do with the rapid technology and the mobilisation an economically linked world produces.
Why are immigrants, immigrants? They have an economic reason to move.
Where do they move? A place known to them.
Why is it known to them? In some way or matter, people are attracted to its economy and have access to that economy.
Otherwise, people's movement would be random, and no nation would be superb in receiving immigrants over another.
So with the socio-economic climates at hand, culture is also affected.
The root of a culture is its values and understandings of nature, in other words, it's religion.
So we have a combustion of elements at work here, and many have come to the conclusion, we can't determine who is right, so therefore, no one should think they are right.
But if this was the case, then no one should think it WRONG to think themselves RIGHT! Yet, they do!
It is a great paradoxy, but there is an explanation.
People think this is all new, but it is not.
Around 500 BC in India, a place of great multiculturalism, a brand of monotheism started to become the norm in a place of polytheistic religions. (primarily seen in monistic Hinduism seen in the Upanishads)
This is because when they met each other's cultures, they began to realize that their religions didn't meet each others, yet, they were capable to realize that there was similarities in humanity anyway.
Their conclusion, there must me one god as there is one humanity, in very brief terms.
In today's world, the modern man has reacted quite differently.
In, again, very brief terms, modern man has valued the material world and have repressed the spiritual world. In doing so, religion is seen as more anti-intellectual.
Modern man's conclusion, there are so many religions, that it is very likely that there is no true religion, and therefore, no true Truth. Truth is what is seen, and that lies in nature.
Yet, and a big yet! The modern man loves! loves! romance, he loves the dignity of the individual, in fact, he uses this idea of dignity as the very cause of his progressiveness. I dignify the other by accepting the other, it is cruel to say to the other "you're wrong!"
Yet, what about his own dignity? By saying that someone else can't be wrong, you are saying that you CAN NOT be right!
Still, with this attitude, you think yourself RIGHT for showing dignity to the other.
The is a huge conflict of terms, which hints at, it is FALSE, NON-LOGICAL, WRONG!
Logos is reason, so if right and wrong have this irrational conflict, then it is all "meaningless!"
Yet still, looking at this dignity we so much value. Where does it come from?
Dignity comes from a sense related to our ideals of equality.
Where does equality come from?
NOW I WILL SHARE AN INFORMAL EMAIL:
"
All are Equal, but modern day life puts equality with life standards.. Based on what standards? Those standards are themselves presupposed positions.... So the conversation is VERY UNCONVINCING
"
So if you see this as clearly as I see it, I go with the ancient Indians in 500 BC. As I displayed, modern mans' logos is not logical.
One can not think it RIGHT to think it WRONG to think one can be RIGHT.
HAHAHA, this is soooo funny! So faulty in basic logic!
But the ancient Indians, more philosophically literate, say what I am saying, that if there is one humanity, there is one God.
If there is one God, ALL are Equal.
This is the only real basis for this value of equality! No other idea of equality can live up to the idea!
So modern man, in his infinite wisdom! loves EQUALITY and removes the DEITY.
Removing the only possible source of true dignity, and there by, having ZERO basis for their morals and ideals! No Logos! No Sense!
In today's West, we see a new brand of man.
It is the kind of man that wills to be nice, and wills peace.
There is great honor in a lot of what modern man strives to do.
But there is a great gap in the fabric of modern man.
This gap relates to his understanding of "reality."
It's the society of "just friends" and "meaningless love making."
If it is meaningless, what does that mean? Logos tells us there is a word for a reason, if there is a word for a reason, what is the meaninglessness of the words "love" and "making?"
This, by the way, is where the phrase, "The Word made flesh means!"
It means the word, the logos, the "reason" is made flesh. Jesus, "the reason for everything" is made flesh.
Let's get back to the modern man.
The modern man is ever growing into becoming a progressive man.
This of course has everything to do with the rapid technology and the mobilisation an economically linked world produces.
Why are immigrants, immigrants? They have an economic reason to move.
Where do they move? A place known to them.
Why is it known to them? In some way or matter, people are attracted to its economy and have access to that economy.
Otherwise, people's movement would be random, and no nation would be superb in receiving immigrants over another.
So with the socio-economic climates at hand, culture is also affected.
The root of a culture is its values and understandings of nature, in other words, it's religion.
So we have a combustion of elements at work here, and many have come to the conclusion, we can't determine who is right, so therefore, no one should think they are right.
But if this was the case, then no one should think it WRONG to think themselves RIGHT! Yet, they do!
It is a great paradoxy, but there is an explanation.
People think this is all new, but it is not.
Around 500 BC in India, a place of great multiculturalism, a brand of monotheism started to become the norm in a place of polytheistic religions. (primarily seen in monistic Hinduism seen in the Upanishads)
This is because when they met each other's cultures, they began to realize that their religions didn't meet each others, yet, they were capable to realize that there was similarities in humanity anyway.
Their conclusion, there must me one god as there is one humanity, in very brief terms.
In today's world, the modern man has reacted quite differently.
In, again, very brief terms, modern man has valued the material world and have repressed the spiritual world. In doing so, religion is seen as more anti-intellectual.
Modern man's conclusion, there are so many religions, that it is very likely that there is no true religion, and therefore, no true Truth. Truth is what is seen, and that lies in nature.
Yet, and a big yet! The modern man loves! loves! romance, he loves the dignity of the individual, in fact, he uses this idea of dignity as the very cause of his progressiveness. I dignify the other by accepting the other, it is cruel to say to the other "you're wrong!"
Yet, what about his own dignity? By saying that someone else can't be wrong, you are saying that you CAN NOT be right!
Still, with this attitude, you think yourself RIGHT for showing dignity to the other.
The is a huge conflict of terms, which hints at, it is FALSE, NON-LOGICAL, WRONG!
Logos is reason, so if right and wrong have this irrational conflict, then it is all "meaningless!"
Yet still, looking at this dignity we so much value. Where does it come from?
Dignity comes from a sense related to our ideals of equality.
Where does equality come from?
NOW I WILL SHARE AN INFORMAL EMAIL:
"
All are Equal, but modern day life puts equality with life standards.. Based on what standards? Those standards are themselves presupposed positions.... So the conversation is VERY UNCONVINCING
I mean why are all equal? People in today's world can't tell you.....
They think of it as an "of course, "
But it is not an "of course!!!"
People have come to realize it, otherwise, ancient man would have probably come to realize it as well.
Does modern man think himself so great as to realize it all on his own?
Where did they realize it?
Well, it was first the Christians who said it unanimously
Others said it, but they didn't see women as people... so the all are equal had qualifiers
Others said it, but they didn't see women as people... so the all are equal had qualifiers
Without a god, no one is equal... with many gods, no one is equal
For all to be equal without a god, we need to look to how the situation is on the ground.
And a place like Denmark, who exudes modern day thought and philosophy.....
The Danes love their values of equality, yet they have laws, they even have a Queen...... and they have politicians making laws over others.....
And a place like Denmark, who exudes modern day thought and philosophy.....
The Danes love their values of equality, yet they have laws, they even have a Queen...... and they have politicians making laws over others.....
How is All equal, when there is a class of law makers?
All systems have a social accord, and therefore, one pocket will always have the power over another, therefore, NOT EQUAL! and never politically equal!
And many gods.... then each person is at the will of each
god, and if each people are at the qualm of the various deities......
their luck and life circumstance is based on the power of each
individual god....
Therefore, each person is hanging off circumstantial
influences, and these by the very nature of several gods.... are not
dispersed evenly, therefore, NOT EQUAL"
So if you see this as clearly as I see it, I go with the ancient Indians in 500 BC. As I displayed, modern mans' logos is not logical.
One can not think it RIGHT to think it WRONG to think one can be RIGHT.
HAHAHA, this is soooo funny! So faulty in basic logic!
But the ancient Indians, more philosophically literate, say what I am saying, that if there is one humanity, there is one God.
If there is one God, ALL are Equal.
This is the only real basis for this value of equality! No other idea of equality can live up to the idea!
So modern man, in his infinite wisdom! loves EQUALITY and removes the DEITY.
Removing the only possible source of true dignity, and there by, having ZERO basis for their morals and ideals! No Logos! No Sense!
Friday, April 11, 2014
How to Respond to Christ's Call
“Love has three and only three intimacies: speech, vision, and touch. These three intimacies God has chosen to make his love intelligible to our poor hearts. God has spoken He told us that he loves us: that is Revelation. God has been seen: That is Incarnation. God has touched us by his grace: That is Redemption. Well indeed, therefore, may he say: “What more could I do for my vineyard than I have done? What other proof could I give of my love than to exhaust myself in the intimacies of love? What else could I do to show that my own Sacred Heart is not less generous than your own? If we answer these questions aright, then we will begin to repay love with love. Then we will return speech with speech which will be our prayer; vision with vision which will be our faith; touch with touch which will be our communion.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Eternal Galilean)
Which exactly is why we must respond to God in the same way, If God comes with speech, vision, and touch. Should we not respond to him in the same way? Fully? Full body and soul? Speech (prayer and consecration), Vision (sacramentals, vestments, relics) and touch (sign of cross, holy water, laying on of the hands) .
To respond to God, we should respond not only to Jesus the incarnate, but the Father and Holy Spirit. To do this, we must listen, gaze, and reach out. Listen to the Father in prayer, gaze at the Jesus incarnate, and reach out our spirits to the Spirit. Simple speech and profession is not a response to the Cross! Even the demons know the cross.
Just as told in the parable of the talents, we are not just to receive the gifts, but do something with it!
The Parable of the Talents
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good andfaithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked andslothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14-30&version=ESV
I am not holier than thou
I am not holier than thou ...
I AM
which I am not
Only He is that IS
I am just a crock-pot
I simmer, slowly
And am not done
until time passes
Long passed hunger as fun
He IS
And has been
He is unmoved
Niether to nor fro
Always, Forever
I am however
I am always slow
Slow to see
Slow to believe
Slow to consider
If His home is
where I am meant to go
When I get a passage
Do I pass it on?
Or do I think of ideas
Like milkened honey and lepracauns?
No, I sit and think to only me
What it is that I am suppose to conceive
I give me the power you know
It's logic
It's me whom shall grow
It's my time
To let flow
It's my rhyme and songs
I sing and row
Row, Row,
Rowing down the stream
I row so much
I forget what rowing means
I sing tunes
And the tune is nothing less
Than what it all means
I digress .....
Have I forgotten the note?
The builder of those?
Or have I jumped to the excitement
And leave it all unwrote
So the tunes mean more
Than the root of hope
Which is the root of all songs
That we all like to note
We sing to daze
We sing to dazzle
We sing to praise
We sing to praisal
But why do we sing to all that jazz?
Where did it all come from?
Do we bother to ask?
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Biblical Confession
Two verses in the Old Testament show that God is the one who forgives, but this does not mean that He does not (rather has before) used a priest to offer petition for sins. This especially demonstrates that this is in no way contradictory.
Old Covenant: psalm 103 (God forgives ) Leviticus 19 : 21-22
21 but he shall bring a guilt-offering for himself to the Lord, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram as guilt-offering. 22 And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of guilt-offering before the Lord for his sin that he committed; and the sin he committed shall be forgiven him.
But that is the Old Covenant, of course:
New Covenant:
jn 20: 21 - 23
21 Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’
acts 19 : 18
Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done.
2 corin 2 : 10
Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven--if there was anything to forgive--I have forgiven in the person of Christ for your sake,
2 corin 5 : 17-21
17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,[a] not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Clearly, Jesus came to forgive sins
During His public ministry, Jesus preached about the forgiveness of sins: remember the parables of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11) or the Lost Sheep (Lk 15:1), and His teaching that "There will likewise be more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over 96 righteous people who have no need to repent." (Lk 15:7) Jesus Himself forgave sins: remember the story of the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1) or the woman who washed His feet with her tears. (Lk 7:36) He also taught us to pray for forgiveness in the "Our Father."
His mission of reconciliation would climax in His passion, death and resurrection: Jesus suffered, died and rose to free us from sin and death.
On the first Easter Sunday evening, Jesus appeared to His Apostles, "breathed on them," and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound." (Jn 20:21-23)
Jesus called the sinner to realize the sin, to repent of it, and to be reconciled with God and neighbor.
God and neighbor. Sin is not only against God, Himself, but against His creation. We must ask for forgiveness from God, but also from our neighbor, and we do this through the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corin 5) with a priest who is in the person of Christ (2 Corin 2).
Christ is in the Church, the priest is in the person of Christ, so therefore all sin is against God and His Church, and severe sins must be forgiven through the instrument of a priest before God as they are mortal sins:
1 John 5 : 16 -17
16 If you see your brother or sister[a] committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God[b] will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.
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