Two videos on “sin” to help us on our Advent journey. From Michael Voris:
And from Cardinal Arinze explaining “mortal sin”:
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Catholicism Pure & Simple 
I wonder what enlightenment Cardinal Kasper can provide us on Cardinal Arinze’s words. Oh, I forgot, he never said that, that’s right.
Anyhow, I’ve been looking on the worldwideweb for a poster I once saw there in front of a church in Lagos in Nigeria, but I can’t find it right now.
It went something like this:
Don’t ask God to be you. Ask God to make you like Him.
Apparently, that was important to say in Nigeria, Cardinal Arinze’s homeland. As for Germany, I somehow am not really that sure.
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“Don’t ask God to be you.”
I have no idea what that means:
“Don’t ask God to resemble you”?
“Don’t ask God to act like you”?
“Don’t ask God to share your prejudices”?
Nope.
No idea.
Does, or has, anyone ever asked God to do any of those things?
If it had said, “Don’t ask God to be like you,” it would make some sort of crude sense.
Perhaps that’s really what it did say?
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At least Voris doesn’t pussyfoot around. He’s right – as far as he sees it here:
“Die in sin; go to Hell,” and we can take that or leave it.
I will leave it. myself.
I have, since I developed the ability to reason, refused to believe that a loving God would permit any one of his children to suffer eternal punishment for any non-eternal offence, mass murder, burning heretics to death, deliberately missing Sunday Mass – or whatever – let alone for, say,doing a paper round on a Sunday or eating meat on a Friday, or deciding nine children was enough and opting to use contraception.
To believe that defies logic, and surely Catholics must think God is the source of logic?
Does’t mean we can all do whatever comes into our heads, of course. There are standards.
As Voris points out, there are many people to understand very well what the Catholic Church preaches, and yet reject it. They just think the Church has got it wrong on some issues, and is misrepresenting God. They might be wrong themselves.
I don’t know, myself.
But then, I’m thick.
(Boring Toad diatribe.)
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To believe that defies logic, and surely Catholics must think God is the source of logic?
Absolutely right Toad. Damnation is a very dark and serious topic (I don’t trust anyone who can speak of it without fear and trembling). Whilst no Catholic can deny the possibility of hell — it is undeniably invoked far too frequently, and far too casually by some Christians. I suggest reading “Dare we Hope” by Hans Urs Von Balthasar for a thorough discussion. The reformation has a lot to answer for on this issue. The instant salvation/damnation dichotomy of the protestants has unfortunately influenced many Catholics a great deal over the centuries.
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Dear Toad, thanks for the query.
I’m sure that is pretty right or fairly close to it, though I can see now why it might not make much sense to others, even if it does to me.
Our Catholic churches here have many Africans at worship on Sundays and over the years I have come to know some of them. Just some of these give you the impression that they believe that God has identified with them to a very large degree. God is so much like them that they are very confident that He will grant them all the riches and every success that they desire, even if the means by which they gain these things are more than a little questionable. I think that was the meaning of the poster outside the church in Lagos.
See here:
Nigerians seem to wallow in wilful amnesia as regards God’s incompatibility with sin. We mention God’s name all the time and pray for His help even in the process of committing heinous crimes. The politician who seeks to alter the votes in his favour asks for God’s blessings. The band of robbers, before it carries out its operations, says the Lord’s prayers.
http://www.punchng.com/opinion/religion-and-the-nigerian-society/
Of course, I am not attempting to malign Nigerians or any other Africans here. I can’t imagine Cardinal Arinze, for instance, giving his approval to this kind of thing.
As for Germany, i wonder what passes there for sin? Not being “inclusive” enough or being insufficiently “passionate about justice” and things like that, which seem to be the biggies in the sin line for the ever-dwindling institutes of religious life in the West? Cardinal Kasper might be able to enlighten us.
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Here’s the sort of thing that is meant, I suggest, Toad, from a sermon by the Archbishop of Lagos:
We live in a nation in which people profess faith in Christ, carry out acts of worship and it is as if the Church was their second home, but in fact we see a huge amount of unrighteous living. Corruption that has ensured that our nation is held captive and we have been made unable to reach the height that our human and natural resources should have placed us. The monster of corruption has ensured that our youths are living from day to day without much hope for the future because there are not many job opportunities. We have a situation in which parents are constantly being put to shame because they cannot find jobs that will earn them enough to take care of their children adequately. We live in a country where it would seem that life means nothing. We are witnesses to a spate of killing for ritual purposes, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery. We live in a country in which we are so intolerant of one another on the basis of our places of origin or else on the basis of religion etc. We have a country in which politics is nothing but a means of personal enrichment rather than service and provision for the welfare of citizens. As we celebrate the death of Christ today, offering himself for the good of others, the Lord challenges us to a new way of life that puts others before ourselves.
Lots of decent old-fashioned sins there, I suggest.
Quite a good Good Friday homily by Archbishop Alfred Adewale Martins:
http://lagosarchdiocese.org/msg.php?tab=2
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Very true, GC – and…
“We live in a nation in which people profess faith in Christ, carry out acts of worship and it is as if the Church was their second home, but in fact we see a huge amount of unrighteous living. “
..strikes me as being just as true for present-day America; as does most of the rest of the Archbishop’s text, such as ….
“We live in a country in which we are so intolerant of one another on the basis of our places of origin or else on the basis of religion etc. “ ”for the U.S., read race.
Whereas…
“The monster of corruption has ensured that our youths are living from day to day without much hope for the future because there are not many job opportunities. “
… is horribly true of today’s Spain, Greece and much of Europe – countries which are probably equally corrupt and venal, but at least have the “virtue” of not being hypocritical as far as religion goes these days.
But it’s all relative, of course.
…All in all, a rattling good sermon bash from the ArchBish, it would seem.
Nor do I suppose anyone listening imagined one word of it applied to him or her.
…But then, Toad is an old cynic.
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Tom @ 9.54:
OK, Tom, let’s try you.
Who goes to Hell and why? What for? Can an eight-year old child go there? Apparently.
And what is Hell like? Or are these just more Thick Toad questions?
Do you think Hell is like this, Tom?
“… we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals.”
We must suppose the black (note the colour) demons part of God’s loving plan and creation. Sound like the ravings of a mad person, does’t it? But, of course, it’s not.
Bit off topic, not much though: Interesting to consider (Well, I think it’s interesting) that had there been no Satan, there would have been no Christ.
No need.
So… I dunno where that get’s us.
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