The Sacrament of Penance

Catholic teachings are so inter-related that, while I may only want to go into Confession, doing so requires an explanation of Catholic teaching on the Graces, Justification, Sanctification, Salvation, Sin, Purgatory, Contrition, Penance, etc. In other words, any attempt to explain a Catholic position on one issue requires at least some understanding of several others to grasp it. Yet another reason why we're so misunderstood I expect.

With that being said, I will now attempt to begin outlining some important points concerning the above concepts as they relate to Catholic Confession. This will be done in an expository fashion,

As previously noted, I have to explain several topics that relate to Confession before I can get into Confession itself. We'll start with Faith.

I have seen many varied definitions of Faith before. I will here provide mine, which I do not believe specifically contradicts or conflicts with anyone else's, but which I do think will illuminate a particular difficulty many have with Catholicism.

Faith is something that is believed/trusted/accepted and acted upon. I add the final part regarding action, because we are told, for example, that even the Devil believes. Yet the Devil is not saved. Moreover, we are told that Faith without "works," or in other words, Faith without action based upon it, is dead in the Letter of St. James. In my personal opinion, Faith is something that changes us, and I have yet to meet the Christian who actually disagrees with me on this. As part of that change, Faith inspires us to act in a manner different to the manner we acted before we had it. In fact, I will go so far as to say that even the act of willing to have Faith, the very choice to have Faith, is the first act of Faith. I believe it is utterly impossible to have Faith divorced from action. They necessarily go hand in hand for Faith to be legitimate, or for it to be living, as St. James says. Keeping that in mind, let us progress to the concept of Grace.

Catholics actually have several names for Grace, and understand it to work in various ways in different situations, which is why we have the seperate terminology. Here we will treat with one form in particular, that called Sanctifying Grace (not to be confused with Actual Grace, a common problem).

Sanctifying Grace is the Grace we receive in Baptism, it is the gift of God that results in our salvation. We receive it because we choose to repent and turn to God. Thus we have Faith, that Faith is what allows us access to Grace, for without both belief and acceptance of Christ's redeeming Sacrifice, we cannot access His Grace. When we perform the act of Faith and are Baptized into the Church, that is when Sanctifying Grace is poured out upon us by God, and we are freed from the power of Sin and cleansed for God. Our Faith, and our choice, are inspired by God, to turn us away from sin and towards Him. We must then choose to accept His prompting and come to Him. This is how we first receive Sanctifying Grace.

Please note that water Baptism is only one of three forms of Baptism, and is called the ordinary form. Sacraments in general are the ordinary means of receiving Grace. By ordinary we mean that they are the normal ways, but we do not say that Grace cannot be received through any other means. It's all up to God. Therefore, let's have no one taking my comments regarding any of the sacraments out of context. If someone dies on his or her way to baptism, for example, we do not believe such a person was not baptized, we consider him or her to have been baptized by desire instead of water. Likewise, if someone is martyred for his or her faith in Christ before they can be baptized, they are considered to be baptized in blood.

However, because of the above outlined understanding that Faith and Action (works, fruits, etc.) are inseparable, we do not divorce Faith from the action that the Faith prompts. Someone who says "I have faith" and doesn't act upon it to be baptized in any way (see John 3 and Matthew 28 as to why baptizing is considered so important), we would question whether they truly had Faith at all, as per James' letter. A person who claims Faith, yet chooses to not engage in the rite by which all Christians become Christians, a rite commanded by Christ, and a rite that is a visible act of Faith (at the very least) to all of us, would be suspect as a result.

Progressing onwards, then, we must now tackle the issue of sin. Sin is, in essence, a rejection of God to one degree or another. It is also an inherently criminal action, for it violates the law of God, and is evil. Catholics have an understanding of difference in degree of sin as well. Catholics do not subscribe to the idea that all sin is equivalent, and for the following reasons:

For Catholics, there are mortal sins and venial sins. Mortal sins are sins that involve Grave matter (something important, usually outlined for us in Scripture as sinful), willful rejection of God, and knowledge that what you're doing is sinful. To further go into this, let us consider the following hypothetical examples (these will be somewhat extreme, their extremity is meant to highlight the principles involved, not because I have some realistic expectation of these things happening).

#1: Let us say that I am somehow forced to commit murder, and forced in such a way that I have no way to stop myself (maybe some kind of drug, or mind control device). I have committed a gravely evil deed, that being murder, the killing of an innocent person for no justifiable reason (like self-defense). But I did not choose to commit the evil deed. Because choice is always linked to culpability, we cannot say that I am fully culpable for this action. In other words, we cannot reasonably say that God would truly be Good and Just were He to condemn me for a deed that I did not choose to commit. And likewise, I have not voluntarily separated myself from communion with Him through this act, as it was not an act I choose to do.

#2: Let us say again that I have murdered someone. But in this scenario, I come from a culture in which murder is not considered wrong, a society which teaches from birth that murder is perfectly normal and fine, warping the conscience. In other words, I do not know that murder is wrong, nor do I know that I will be punished for it, that there is a moral rule against it, etc. I am utterly unaware of the fact that killing some random person for no reason is morally wrong. In this case, we Catholics again believe that some of the guilt of this action, evil as it is, is exculpated because of the offender's ignorance of the evil nature of the act. One must wonder, if the person knew it was evil, would the person still have done it? We believe that a Just and Good God would not necessarily condemn someone who was unaware that what they were doing was wrong. In like fashion we might consider a child who does something wrong without knowing it. Do we kill this child for the offense, lock him in his room, or beat him bloody? Of course not. We teach the child, perhaps scold him a bit, etc. but the punishment is far less severe than it would be for a child who knew it was wrong to do something and did it anyway.

#3: The last situation is the most difficult. Because it involves the gravity of a particular matter, I have saved it for the end. Gravity of sin is very difficult to judge. We are very certain that some sins, namely theft, rape, adultery, murder, idolatry, blasphemy, and aposticization, are objectively grave. They are, by their very nature, objectively and totally evil as a complete rejection of God's gift of goodness, and to perform them (willfully and with an awareness of that evil nature) is tantamount to a total rejection of God, who is Good. There are more sins than those lifted above that are considered grave matter, of course. The question, however, is what sins are not considered Grave matter.

When Protestants and Catholics fight about the Catholic gradation of sin (this happens occasionally) it has been my experience that what we're really fighting about is the idea of gravity of sin, and not whether a sin might be less or worse based on our knowledge or free choice of it. So I will attempt to provide an example of an action that is not gravely sinful.

Let us say that I am being mugged, and my attacker draws a knife on me. And as a result, I break his wrist and elbow in rapid succession to prevent him killing or injuring me. I am fully aware that the techniques I would use on him (after years of martial arts training) will hurt him severely, and I am also well aware that causing physical injury to another person is bad, even with the intention that I am only protecting myself (the fact remains that I have hurt someone to an excruciating degree). Catholics would consider my sin here to not be grave matter, for several reasons. First is that my action is not, in and of itself (at least as far as I am aware), objectively and totally evil. Hurting someone is not on par with taking a person's life. Moreover, Catholics, like most Christians, understand morality to work in terms of intentions, means and ends. My intentions here were to hurt the mugger, but for the purpose of defending myself, not out of pleasure or superiority, etc. My actions were wrong in that they hurt someone, whereas the perfect Christian might gladly surrender to a mugger (turning the other cheek), and the means are physical techniques that leave our mugger severely injured, and hopefully myself unharmed. This is not an action that I believe can be seen as gravely sinful, and thus I do not think it would qualify as a mortal sin.

And so we continue to the other kind of sin in Catholic theology, known as Venial sin. Sometimes our sins are small, or unwilling, or unrealized (as illustrated in hypothetical form above), thus they cannot qualify as mortal sin, and may not qualify as sin at all. In those cases where they do qualify as sin, though they damage your relationship with God and with those against whom you sinned (if against someone other than God alone). While these smaller sins won't kill the Grace inside you, they will do other things. They will attack the charity/love in your soul for God, as well as damage your relationships, etc. And by committing many of these lesser sins you can still do so much damage that you deteriorate into a state of mortal sin as well.

Mortal sin is so great a rejection of God (again, due to it being willful, knowledgeable and grave) that it will not just damage or offend the charity/love in our souls, but kill it entirely. It does this because sin is contrary to the Will of God. By knowing something is terribly wrong, and choosing to do it anyway, you have set yourself in total opposition to God's Will, which is a Will always oriented towards Love of God and Love of Mankind, Good, and Justice. If you have rejected God's Will, you have also rejected your acceptance of God's Salvation, which is naturally part of His Will for us, I think we Christians all agree, and it is that Will which allowed us to receive Grace in the first place. By rejecting God's Will, and God's Salvation, you have cut off that force which connected you to God's Grace. You have assaulted and mortally wounded your faith. This is how we destroy our connection to Sanctifying Grace, and in so doing, place ourselves under the power of sin again.

In a nut shell, this demonstrates the Catholic understanding of salvation as a process, not as a moment. Catholics believe that our initial Faith Justifies and Sanctifies us, generally through the baptismal act, whatever form it takes. The justification of our Faith is accompanied by the pouring out of God's Sanctifying Grace upon us, this is what makes Baptism a Sacrament. It is, and this is what is meant by "Sacrament," a visible outpouring of God's Grace upon us. We believe that mortal sin, because it demonstrates that we are rejecting completely the Will of God, corrupts our souls again, removing our initial Justification and Sanctification, necessarily, as a being who sins cannot be sanctified (holy) or justified (you have sinned and not yet repented, your actions have not demonstrated faith, they have demonstrated an antagonism towards God, thus the Faith that justified you is no longer even present). To remedy the problem of mortal sin, then, we finally arrive at the Sacrament of Confession, the ordinary means by which God's Grace and forgiveness is received by a Catholic.

First and foremost, let us address a couple of things that Confession involves, its history, and then make some clarifications as to what Confession is not. Both are extremely essential to properly understanding Confession, and both result in confusion, misunderstandings and arguments on the subject.

First, the Sacrament itself generally consists of going into a small room with a screen of some kind between you and the priest. The priest recites ritual phrases, and you first express that you are repentant for your sins and wish to confess, asking for forgiveness. You tell the priest how long it has been since your last confession, and you tell the priest the sins that you've committed (I've found it's best to write them down before hand, because it can be difficult to remember once you're there). Upon telling the priest your sins, you say the prayer called the Act of Contrition, and the priest absolves you of your sins in the name of the Holy Trinity and with the authority of Christ (John 20). That is the end of the Sacrament of Confession itself. After the Sacrament, the priest usually assigns a penance for you to undertake, often some prayers said for a specific intention. This penance is voluntary, no one can or will make you do it, it is left to you to do as an individual, and it serves a several specific purposes which I will go into soon. Failure to complete the penance, however, qualifies as a further mortal sin, nullifying the Grace you've just received. Understand that the voluntary assent to penance is implicit in going to Confession in the first place, and soon we'll see why.

Before that, however, I want to address several misconceptions and the history of the Sacrament itself. First off, for some common misconceptions.

Misconception #1) It is through some power of the priest that we are forgiven, and not the power of God. This is absolutely false. In Confession we are confessing to Christ, and the priest is only there to act as a physical stand in for Christ whose physical body is in Heaven. The priest in and of himself has no special or magical powers, he merely has a special authority, vested in him by Christ through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This is Scripturally traceable to John 20:23, where Christ tells His Apostles that He is giving them the authority to forgive people their sins. The power for this action comes from God, it is His Grace that works in us in the Sacraments, and it is on Christ's authority that priests are able to transmit this Grace.

Misconception #2) It is our act of penance that results in forgiveness or absolution, or in other words, that we are only forgiven once we've said a certain number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. This, too, is absolutely false. As noted above, the Sacrament of Confession results in absolution for the penitent Christian, before penance is assigned, let alone completed. Penance exists for an entirely seperate purpose, and is unrelated, utterly, to our forgiveness. I wish to say this again, absolution is not dependent upon penance, though failure to complete penance just results in further sin. I am most emphatic on this subject because this is the source of several accusation towards Catholics that we think we can "earn" forgiveness. This could not be farther from the Truth, I assure you.

Misconception #3) That it doesn't matter if we are truly repentant or not, we are still absolved. This, again, is false. Contrition is necessary for the Sacrament to be valid. The priest may pronounce the words of absolution, but the power of it, the grace, comes from God, and is only going to be effective on someone who is truly penitent and sorrowful for his or her sins. Period. If you make a false confession with no actual remorse or repentance, you have only worsened your sin by lying to God about your penitence.

Misconception #4) That Confession is a license to sin and then just confess again. Of course, false. Part of the Act of Contrition, the prayer that closes the Sacrament is a solemn promise to go, and with the aid of Christ, sin no more. Part of the purpose of repentance, which as you recall is necessary for the Sacrament to be effective, is that a repentant person does not intend to just go and sin again. Such an attitude is obviously not penitent, and would render the Sacrament invalid. So no, Confession is not a license to sin, for to treat it as such would mean that a person was not repentant, in which case the Sacrament doesn't result in absolution.

And now that we've addressed some of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding Confession, let's look at the history. Catholics are often attacked on the subject of Confession, because it is allegedly not Biblically based. Or more specifically, confessing to a priest by yourself isn't Biblically commanded. And this is true, in so far as it goes. Leaving aside arguments about the validity of relying solely on Scripture, let us look at exactly how the form of the Sacrament of Confession evolved in the Church.

The Rite I described above is the "modern" form of the Sacrament. In other words, private confession with you and the priest is the newer form of the Sacrament. But by newer it should be understood that it is at least 1500 years old. Moreover, private confession with a priest has always been allowed in the Church. And for certain more public sins, like apostasy, early Christian writings are very clear that people would confess publicly before the entire church community (including the priest, of course). Moreover, the confessing of sins in general is Scripturally backed and even commanded. James 5:16 says, for example, "Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much." And I John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity." Note that in both of these examples, they are epistles (letters) written to Christian communities. In other words, these are instructions from the Apostles, in the Bible, to Christians who have already been Baptized, to confess their sins, in one the injunction is made to confess to each other, in the other, to simply confess, it does not specific as to whom. Moreover, early Christian writings like the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch's writings, Irenaeus's writings, along with Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, and more support the confessing of sins. The practice of confessing our sins goes all the way back to the Apostles (who wrote the Didache) their earliest successors (like Ignatius of Antioch), etc. The history of Confession, thus, runs throughout the history of the Church, though the form of the practice has changed from being more public to being more private.

Why change from the often communal confession of the past to the more private confession of the present? Why confess to the priest still and not just to God? Why is confession to each other, important enough that James specifically commands it? What is the value in Confession, aside from the claim that it brings absolution for our sins? Well that's next, so stay tuned.

In Catholicism, Confession is considered extremely important. I like to argue that while most of the Sacraments are not considered "necessary" for salvation, they are considered "essential." Confession is not strictly necessary, in that someone may very well be baptized and not mortally sin afterwards, and then die, in which case Confession wouldn't be necessary, as Baptism cleanses us of sin. But most of us do sin, even mortally, and for us, having a means of receiving forgiveness and sanctifying Grace that we can easily access is vitally important, and thus essential to our faith lives, essential to the point of being necessary for our forgiveness in ordinary circumstances. Let's look again, in brief, at the Sacrament....

The first step, and most important part of Confession is repentance. Obviously, as without repentance, the Sacrament has no effect.

Next is the action of confessing. Again, for Catholics, Faith and Action are undeniably and unalterably linked. It is action that demonstrates and breathes life into Faith, it is action that shows that our Faith as altered us. When a person has mortally sinned, that person has willfully and knowingly rejected to follow God's Will on some gravely important matter, thus demonstrating that they do not have living Faith. The act of repenting, the act of confessing is the action that demonstrates that a person's Faith has begun to rejuvenate at the behest of God, even under the strain of his or her sin. Moreover, the act of confessing is very important in that it requires of us and allows for us to experience several critical things.

First, it lets us face them in their entirety. To confess our sins means that we must honestly and contritely examine our consciences and our past deeds, identify our sins, and vocally admit them to another person (we're drawing closer to the why of confession to another), and at the same time to God. This is an incredibly powerful experience, and it requires not only a great courage from the Christian penitent, but also an amazing quality of Faith, to look our sin in the eye, confess to it, freely admit to our guilt, and trust that Christ has forgiven us for even our most horrible actions. It brings us quite literally face to face with our own worst selves, and even better, reminds us of the ever present, and all powerful grace of God that can forgive anything we have done.

The benefits do not stop there either. Confession also encourages an amazing sense of humility, one of the most important virtues a Christian can cultivate in his or her spiritual life. Because confession demands that we admit and own up to our failings to another person and to God, there is no room for pride, no room for arrogance, no room for selfishness or conceit. You are stripped bare of all egotism and humbled before God in Confession, and then you are Justified anew and washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb. There are no excuses, and no vanities in legitimate Confession, there is only honest, humble, repentance, and the Sacrament encourages these qualities the more we partake of it. Many great Catholics, like the late John Paul II, have been known to frequent Confession monthly, weekly, or even daily. This is not because they are committing horrible atrocities every day, but because for the humble Christian, even the slightest of sins is too much, and any chance outburst of anger or lust or sin in any of its many forms demonstrates to us that we need to remain humble and loving. Confession encourages this, and those who practice it regularly are amazing examples of Christian humility in their daily lives as a result.

And now we reach the last part of this expose, that being Penance. Penance is one of the most misunderstood teachings of the Catholic Church, due mainly to its confusion with absolution by some. Penance can even be used to describe the entire Sacrament itself (it is alternately called the Sacrament of Confession, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or the Sacrament of Penance, as in the title). When this is done, penance is used in the sense of a person being penitent, not in that the action of penance is required for absolution, as I have already noted. Penance is also the purpose of Purgatory as well as Indulgences, resulting in further misunderstandings and confusion on both subjects. I will address both here.

While our forgiveness is not dependent on performing penance, penance is important and often assigned by our confessors. Penance is oriented towards healing the damages done by sin on our lives. What damages are these that are not healed by forgiveness itself? Such problems as addiction, or family feuds are two excellent examples. While we can be forgiven for our sins by God in confession, and realign ourselves to His Will, it is indisputably true that while we are under the power of sin we develop bad habits that can easily lead us to sin again after confession. If your sins were watching pornography and masturbating, not only will you be at risk for a sexual addiction, but your psychological understanding of the beauty of sexual intercourse and the value of the opposite sex as more than just objects of lust are in danger from your sin. One purpose of penance is to repair these damages by forcing you to perform actions that are opposite to those sinful ones you were performing earlier. Thus your penance might be aimed at repairing your relationships with the opposite sex and removing from yourself your treatment of them as objects of lust.

If your sins are, for example, linked to fighting with your family members, your penance might be to ask forgiveness in person from each and every family member you've fought with, or to say prayers for them for every time you've been angry with them or upset with something they did. This is the primary purpose of voluntary penance, it is to remedy the effects of sin upon our selves, and not just our souls.

There are more purposes to penance though. The next purpose of note is that penance is indeed a form of punishment. Catholics do not deny that Christ's death on the cross removes from us the Eternal punishment of Hell that is the wage earned by our sins. However, while Christ has taken upon Himself the Eternal consequences of our sins, there are still the temporal consequences to be dealt with. That there are temporal consequences seperate from both the Eternal consequences and from forgiveness itself, we can see by looking at King David. In the case of King David, he sinned concerning Bathsheba and Uriah. When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David repented and God forgave Him. And yet, God still, despite forgiving David of his sin and not damning him to Hell, carried out the temporal punishment He had decided upon for David, that of taking his ill-begotten son from David. Scripturally, the idea that forgiveness does not relieve us of responsibility for temporal consequences for sin is quite sound. Christ takes for us the Eternal penalties of sin, that is what we know from Scripture. And we know that even when forgiven there remain temporal consequences to our actions. Penance is the action voluntarily undertaken as a form of punishment for our sins to relieve ourselves of the temporal consequences of sin while in this life.

Purgatory is, for the most part, our temporal penance for sins that remain to us from incomplete penance in our lives. While we are forgiven and we are spared from Hell, we are not spared the temporal consequences that we know from the Scriptures and reason. Penance is how we address that in life, Purgatory is how we address that in death. Thus, I hope it will be understood here that Purgatory is not performed for the forgiveness of sin. Like all forms of penance, Purgatory does not exist for absolving sins or earning forgiveness. This is a misunderstanding. One's sins are not forgiven because of completing penance, one's sins are forgiven by God in an act of Graceful forgiveness, both in this life and in Purgatory should it occur.

Indulgences, likewise, do not exist for forgiveness. You cannot buy forgiveness in indulgences (and the buying of indulgences was an abuse happily ended in the Counter-Reformation, as indulgences are supposed to be earned/worked for in some fashion). What one earns with an indulgence is a remittance of penance in Purgatory. In other words, through performing some good work or act of charity and gaining an indulgence, one has essentially done pre-emptive penance. There is no forgiveness involved, if a person has many indulgences, but dies in a state of unrepentant mortal sin, that person's indulgences are utterly meaningless. They do absolutely nothing. Period. I repeat, indulgences and Purgatory do not exist for the absolution of sin.

Now, I mentioned that it is also knowable according to reason that God requires some form of temporal punishment for our sins in addition to the Eternal punishment He Himself has relieved us of. But how can I say this? Here is the explanation:

First we must examine momentarily the Problem of Evil. We know that Evil exists as a result of human freedom (in that we choose to commit evil acts, and that is sin). I also assert that God's Love turns Evil to Good, and will soon demonstrate how and why. But right now in our examination we all perform Evil, and in doing so stain ourselves. We do wrong. God does no wrong, it is part of God's Nature. As God is Good and Just, Evil in those whom God desires a relationship with is very troublesome. While God can Love those beings (us), their ability to Love Him will always be hindered by their choices to reject Him and hurt others. Moreover, those rejections and those injurious acts to others are in some sense criminal (I believe I mentioned this before). Which means not only that humans will have a hard time returning the Love of their Creator, but they will also run afoul of their Creator's Perfect Justice. Humans reject God, and God being loving will not force humans to not reject Him. Thus humans seperate themselves from God (sin). Moreover, as perfectly Just, for our criminality against God and each other, we face Justice which coincides with our choices to spurn God and hurt others. God's Loving relationship is thus injured by us. But God loves us still, and God is also Merciful. So how do Love, Justice, and Mercy co-exist in such a tricky situation?

I submit that God, as a Loving Creator who Wills for a relationship of Agape Love with His Creation, will also Will to somehow end or take away that which threatens that relationship (sin). The question of course, is how? We already know God will not remove our wills, as that will defeat the purpose of Creation. But God can forgive sin. God can forgive the crimes we commit, the rejections and the hurts and wrongs.

As an omnipotent being, God can take away all of our faults and forgive us of all of our sins. As a Merciful God, God does just that. But God is also Just. Which means that God will not just snap His metaphorical fingers and say every thing's taken care of. Justice does not allow for crime to go unpunished, even when it forgives. We often choose to do wrong freely, knowing that such a thing, at the very least, might hurt someone else. We choose, and we choose freely, knowing that there are negative consequences for others revolving around our choices. Justice demands that we pay the consequences of our choices, it's part of the responsibility inherent in having choices.

Were God to be Just without Mercy, every single one of us would be accounted as having rejected Him. The Just thing to do would be to leave everyone of us to continue existing without Him even after we die here. This would be the very definition of Hell, existence separated from God, and is no more than the Just and logical conclusion of choosing to not Love God and not want God. Mercy without Justice would strip humanity of responsibility for its choices and destroy the very notion of a governing morality that teaches us to treat each other with love and respect. With only perfect Mercy we can do whatever we please, so long as we repent, and we never suffer any consequences for our actions. I've noticed some atheists seem to believe that Christians think there are no consequences for our actions once we ask forgiveness. This is utterly false, at least in Catholic theology, penance is always required to meet Justice. So, Justice without Mercy is not so great (kind of pointless for God to create us if we all just go to Hell anyway) and Mercy without Justice is also not so great (though perhaps better than the other) but regardless God exists as both. So how do Justice and Mercy co-exist? Justice "demands" that the natural consequences for the crime of rejecting God be mete out. And Mercy "demands" that God's Love for us is so self-less that He bring us to Him no matter how horrible we are so long as we truly repent.

The solution, is that God Himself must take on the eternal "punishment" associated with the crime of rejecting God, that being separation from God. This is not only the supreme act of selfless love (God Himself dying for the entirety of the world's sins, and taking upon Himself humanity's rejection of Himself) and satisfies God's Mercy, but it is Just, for the punishment due to humanity for its crimes is met, the eternal consequences borne, for those that let Him, by God Himself. The temporal consequences however, remain to humans themselves to satisfy through voluntary penance. Certainly no matter your sins they are not so great that God cannot forgive them (and indeed God's one sacrifice is in fact an Eternal sacrifice because He is outside time, which means your sins are already forgiven, you merely need to go to God and repent). But that doesn't mean that you will not be expected to perform penance, to work to rectify the harm you have done yourself, your neighbors and loved ones, the community and the Church and to your relationship with God through your habits and wrongs. Through our temporal penance, we also satisfy God's justice, as well as come closer to Christ in His suffering and sacrifice for us. Penance thus allows us to not only experience God's justice, but also God's merciful love to a fuller extent than we would otherwise. And so from Love in response to Evil, we find a greater Good, and Evil itself is turned to Good. It is taken away, forgiven, and we are turned towards Good and God and that relationship for which we were created.

On one final note concerning Purgatory, I would like to address the idea of a final cleansing or purification, that is actually at the root of the name Purgatory. While not expressly related to Confession, I wanted to address it while dealing with all these related concepts. Purgatory is considered, in addition to being a place for the completion of penance, it is also a place of final scrubbing of the stains of sin upon us before entering into the presence of God, where sin is inadmittable. While sin has been forgiven, Catholicism believes that it leaves a certain stain upon the soul, especially when not repented of before death (as in the case of unrepented venial sins before death). Temporal Purgatory allows us the opportunity to ask for forgiveness one last time (because it is a temporal existence, we have the ability to pray, choose, etc.) for our sins and to be scrubbed clean or purified as in fire (there is more to support this notion both Biblically and among the Fathers, but as it is merely a side note to the main issue in this essay, I will leave that aside). Hence the name Purgatory.

Returning, finally to Confession, I have one last issue to address, namely the questions of why confession to another person, especially in the Catholic case, to a priest is so important to the Sacrament. I have already noted that it increases the power of the Sacrament in terms of its effects upon us such as humility, courage, etc. (not in terms of efficacy, of course). Now I'd like to address somethings more often ignored even in Catholic apologetic writing on the subject (at least I can't recall ever having read this before I wrote it to someone else, though I believe it may be referenced in the Didache as well). And that is the difficulty, combined with the communal aspects, of Confession.

One problem often noted by critics of Confession is that confession is difficult. As already noted it requires a great deal of courage, humility and faith to properly perform. It is often described as a rather uncomfortable experience at first, and I know of many former or lapsed Catholics who never went because of this uncomfortableness. Coupled to that uncomfortableness is the idea that many people have that we're confessing our sins to some strange man, a random stranger priest, or even a familiar man. Regarding this, I have this to say: Confession certainly is difficult. And I think it should feel uncomfortable. Sin should make us feel uncomfortable! We should be ashamed of ourselves when we go into confession. I usually cry when I go to confession, I have no problem admitting, and it's the only time I can actually get myself to cry usually.

I'd like to reiterate again that we're not confessing to "a strange man." We're confessing to Christ through His Body the Church, and the representatives He gave the authority to absolve sins to. You're not telling your sins to any old man, you're telling them to Christ, and you're telling them to the Church. And therein lies the necessity of telling them to someone else. Sure it feels uncomfortable and scary and strange. But that's a good thing. If you don't feel uncomfortable confessing your sins, something is wrong! In the early Church, as I noted before, Confession often took place before the entire community. Now that would be uncomfortable! I don't say this just to make that comparison though (indeed, that'd be a waste of time). James didn't exhort the people to confess to each other just because it would make them unbearably ashamed. No, James did it because there is value in confessing, not just in prayer from yourself to God, but in confessing to the Church, to physically present oneself as sinful and sorrowful, and go to the Living Body of Christ in person to receive absolution. Part of that I noted before, in that it has personal value for us in our spiritual development, but there's more to it, and to finish the tale, we must return, again, to sin.

Sin is not just a crime against God, or against our own souls, it is a crime against the Church. It is a crime against the body of believers. Your sin affects others, hurts others, could even destroy others. When the burglar steals, certainly he offends the laws of the land and God, but it is the person he steals from who is most aggrieved and who seeks justice. When the murderer strikes, certainly he offends all society with his crime and God Himself, but it is the victim who suffers the most. And it is to the victim that the first and greatest apology should always be given.

The glory of Confession in Catholicism isn't just that it is the means appointed by Christ of receiving the Sacramental Grace of forgiveness (though that's certainly the biggest part), it's that in Confession, we do not confess just to God, we confess also to the Church, to the Body of Christ, and thus to all our brothers and sisters in faith against whom we have sinned. We are a community of believers, we're together as one body in the Church, and we must seek forgiveness from that community for our evils against it just as we seek forgiveness from God for our evils against Him and again just as we seek forgiveness from ourselves for the harm we do our own immortal souls. Thus, why confess to someone else, especially some priest? Not only because of the nature of the Sacrament, the authority granted by Christ, but also because that priest, that person, is a representative of the entire Church, the entire Body that we are a part of, and our interaction with that person, our confession and contrition, allow us to beg forgiveness not only of God, but of our Brothers and Sisters whom we have failed in our sin.

And that is the Sacrament of Penance in a formidably large nutshell.

This week's introduction.

So we've entered the Easter Season, and I believe it fitting and appropriate to spend each day this week writing on a different Sacrament. Seven days, seven Sacraments, should work out well if I can keep on track. I find it fitting since this is period is a major time for the Sacraments. Baptism, Communion and Confirmation at Easter Vigil, and for the kids of my parish, they'll be having First Communion soon as well. Confession before Easter for everyone who is receiving. I can't speak of any ordinations, unfortunately, but my brother's one year anniversary of marriage has just past, and my own wedding presses upon my mind. And for myself, this past weekend was my first confession and reception of the Eucharist in something like half a year.

Seeing as this is an apologetics blog, I will begin with one of the most hotly debated apologetics subjects among the Sacraments, and end with the most hotly debated. I will begin with the Sacrament of Penance, and end with the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In between, I'll tackle the others as the dual masters of whim and inspiration dictate. I am not entirely sure what form these essays will take, other than explanatory. Some will assuredly be more mystical than others, and some longer than others. And some more fully and elaborately written. I make no claim to impartial bias, I am sure Confession and the Eucharist will probably be the longest and best.

And I'll admit also that the one on Confession, at least, is already complete. I wrote just such an essay some time ago for apologetics purposes, and I shall post it presently.

To a beautiful first week of the Easter Season, a deepening in all our hearts of the hidden Joy of Christ, and the growth in depth of our live for God and each other, I dedicate this week's writing.

Epicurus

Been seeing a bit of Epicurus popping up, so I thought I'd post an old analysis of his classic argument and take on the problem of evil.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent."

No problem, logically speaking, with this part.

"Is he able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent."

This, however, is a logical fallacy. Epicurus assumes that if God does not will to prevent Evil, that God is evil. What Epicurus fails to understand is that there may well be a reason that God allows Evil, and in fact, there are several.

First is that we exist to Love and to be Loved. But Love can only be given freely, it must be chosen by the persons who love. Which means that we must have choice to love God. Evil is merely the other option of that choice. We can choose to be with God, or we can choose to reject God. That is evil, evil is the absence of God. God allows Evil for the greater purpose of allowing us to truly Love, for the purpose of allowing us to be free to follow Him. Malevolent? No.

Second, God does not merely let evil sit and fester on the Earth, He does not leave us to rot in it. God is able to prevent it, and this is part of His omnipotence, as Epicurus pointed out in the first part. But God being omnipotent, He can not only prevent it, but He can in fact create Good from Evil. He can take our sins, and He can bring about such Good from them, that we, who are the source of it, can still be united with Him. In short, God can be Christ, God IS Christ. The Lamb of the World, who even while being tortured, mocked and murdered, still managed to forgive the world, to forgive all of our sins, and to take them upon Himself. So yes, there is evil, and God can prevent it, at the cost of destroying our ability to love Him. Or God can let us have that Love, and God can Himself take up the burden of sin for our sakes, that we might know even MORE Good, that we might know the Good of Christ.

And that, I would argue, is not only NOT malevolent, but is the greatest act of Good imaginable.

"Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?"

Epicurus here engages in another fallacious argument, this time he assumes that evil comes from God. This is false. Evil comes from us, specifically, it comes from our ability to choose something OTHER than God. What God made is the potential for us to Love, and thus the potential for us to not Love, the potential for us to do Good, but with that came the potential for us to do Evil. WE are the ones who choose to do evil, not God, and God is the one who choose to forgive us, redeem us, bring good from evil and right from our wrongs, and even to help us to sin no more.

Remember that, fundamentally, we are Good. We are not evil creatures, even if we do evil, and we should never despair of God's Love for us, He has already shown it, He has already promised it.

"Is He neither able or willing? Then why call Him God?"

Indeed, we'd be wiser to call such a being Epicurus...

Is Christianity Fake?

The following is a transcription of my response to an atheist who claimed Christianity is fake on a major discussion board. Follow the title link to see the original. He started with a supposed 9 premises that were to demonstrate that Christ was a fictional character. Let's see how he fared!

"1. On Proving the Bible True Or False

"Much, if not most, of the Bible is arguably fiction."

This is an assertion, not a logically founded premise. Your argument has already failed.

"Quit being so intellectually dishonest, Christians!"

This isn't even relevant.

"This is the twenty-first century."

Nor is this.

"That means the burden of proof is on YOU."

Burden of proof is on the asserter. You being the one asserting in this argument, burden of proof rests upon you. Good luck.

"If you make a claim about the universe, it is up to you to prove it, not the other way around."

In this argument, you're the one making assertions. This isn't a reply to anyone. Stop being intellectually dishonest.

"It is not up to us, the rest of the world, to prove that your claims are false; that is not scientific thinking, that is anti-scientific thinking."

Strangely, this has nothing to do with your initial assertion, nor with the Bible...

"Because I am a man of my times, and believe in correcting ignorance, what I am doing here is out of courtesy to YOU, just as if I were to publicly argue that there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Venus, preparing to blow up Earth with a death-ray, at least ONE of you would probably, out of simple human decency attempt to correct me and point me towards the truth. This is my way of doing that."

You choose a strangely illogical way of doing so.

"Now, back to the Bible being fiction..."

Yes, one must wonder why you ever left...

"that part's easy."

This will be very funny.

"Find me a snake with vocal chords,"

You've now demonstrated that one part of one book, a part acknowledged by nearly every serious Bible scholar as myth, to be fictional. BTW, most Christians agree, it's a myth, and not history or science.

"water that's dense enough for a human being to walk on,"

I'm curious why you believe that people walked on water due to the water's density?

This doesn't prove anything regarding a miracle. The account is either true, or untrue, and no one has suggested that it was a natural event, but rather a supernatural one. Which means that to DISPROVE it, your stated intention, you need more than a disbelief in the miraculous. If your only opposition is simply that miracles cannot happen because you don't believe they can happen, then I'd have to ask, do you have a real argument, or just further dogmatism?

"or a chemical process that converts complex carbohydrates to fish."

You're joking, yes? You do realize that both loaves and fish were present in the baskets, right? Now, you might ask about a process that converts bread into more bread, or fish into more fish, but then you'd fail to the same problem as in the one above.

"Until then, you're out of luck... the evidence wins, and the evidence sides with me."

You haven't offered any evidence. You've simply claimed that certain stories are not possible empirically. You haven't demonstrated this is true, nor have you even demonstrated why anyone would think they were empirically accomplished.

"Wake up, people - these are invented stories! Fictional dramas meant to impart some moral lesson! THEY ARE NOT REAL!"

Here's some news for you. The Bible? Not a monolithic work of literature. It's seventy some odd books, with multiple authors, intents, literary styles, etc. The book of Genesis alone has 5 authors, and several literary styles, including the epic poetic, mythical and historical narrative. Chapter 27 of Genesis is not the same style or author as chapter 7. Certainly the Bible contains myth, allegory, prophetic writings, poetic writings, parables, etc. But it also contains historical narratives and more biographic information as well. It doesn't discredit the Bible to call a myth a myth, anymore than it does to call a miracle a miracle.

Your first "premise" fails.

And would fail regardless, technically, since Christianity didn't come from the Bible.

"2. On Bible Claims vs. Scientific Claims

From an objective, scrutinizing view, there is no reason to believe one story in the Bible over another. We cannot honestly engage shades of truth here. Either the books in the Bible are historically true or they are not. Since they almost ubiquitously contain material which would make the scientific person skeptical, we can chance to say the same standard applies to the book as a whole; either it happened, or it didn't. Therefore, it is no less plausible to disbelieve the Jesus myth than the myth about Enoch (the nine-hundred year old man) or Adam and Eve (the creation myth wherein God pats the first humans out of clay).

Here's a hint: humans, like all other complex organisms, reached their present condition by millions of years of natural selection through the self-preservation of certain greedy genes. We can observe this happening today. Anti-biotic resistant bacteria are a good example. Ever have an older relative in the hospital who got a staph infection? Then you know what I'm talking about.

Furthermore, we've mapped the entirety of the human genome - it happened at the school where I earned my Bachelor's Degree, UC Santa Cruz, and some of my very own professors in genetics and chemistry took part in the project. I can say with some authority that we (humans) now know our ancestry beyond a doubt, and it's simian.

Even Pope John Paul II said evolution is a historical fact. People did not come from clay."

This is a pathetic argument. That John Paul II endorsed evolution should have given you a clue that your approach to Biblical hermeneutics was flawed.

You're attempting to treat multiple works of literature as mutually dependent when those works are not even individually dependent. That one section of a book is myth doesn't make the entire compilation mythical. Your entire "premise" here thus fails.

"3. On Correct Argumentation

By definition, intellect, or "reason" is the ability to revise one's beliefs in light of a superior argument. Human beings have reason. It is what sets us apart from lower animals. If you do not use your reason, you are not participating in any kind of human activity."

This is problematic on several accounts. First, by definition "reason" is the ability to form conclusions through facts and inferences, etc. This can involve revising belief, but doesn't necessarily. And your definition lacks the actual substance of reason.

Also, not using one's reason is impossible. Everyone uses it. And human activities are not solely delineated by using reason, indeed, one could argue such a philosophy leads to madness, not humanity. Poetry, for example, is not "rational" as you would say, but it is sublimely human.

"Taking simple, empirical data from the world around you should make it easy to determine that the physical laws of the universe do not change. Measure things. Perform experiments. Find out for yourself."

David Hume adequately demonstrated the flaws in an empirical world view long ago. Empiricism says NOTHING certain about the future, it only tells us that certain things have happened in the past, and are likely to happen in the future. And that's only if one axiomatically accepts it, which is, in itself, an illogical presupposition.

"Miracles, as they appear in the Bible, can only possibly be one of three phenomena. A, that an outside (or "supernatural") force actually interferes with the laws of the universe; B, that someone witnessed a coincidence and hyperbolized it in the reporting; or C, that the event was made up entirely, and is fictional."

I cannot think of a fourth option presently, so I will grant you this.

"Considering the Bible was written in a time when allegory was the most common form of journalistic reporting and most people still believed spitting on a wound was an appropriate way to cure it, it is far more reasonable to assume one of the latter two."

This is a major problem. You haven't proven anything regarding any of these points yet. I could easily rejoin that it was also a time when people were paranoid about false prophets and magicians, and so wouldn't believe any such event lightly.

You've failed to remove the first option, so far.

"Seriously Hoss, let me clue you in on something: things that are impossible to do now - again, such as walking on water, resuscitation after days of true biological death, and wine magically turning into blood - were just as impossible 2,000 years ago. The miracles in the Bible were written in a time when people would actually believe these stories upon hearing them without demanding further proof. Unfortunately today, we have inherited these stories from our parents and must break out of the cycle of our own volition."

This assume materialism to conclude materialism. Circular reasoning.

"Just because you were taught to "believe" something, doesn't make it true. There's a much greater power in the universe than belief; it's called observation."

Just because you observe something doesn't make that observation true. Radical skepticism defeats all.

"4. On Self-Deception and Intellectual Dishonesty In Christians

To believe the stories in the Bible, you must create strange rationalizations that do not hold up to true intellectual scrutiny. This brings us to the issues of self-deception (delusion) and intellectual dishonesty in Christians."

To qualify as delusion, an individual must hold to a false belief in light of invalidating evidence. To prove anyone is delusional, you must prove their belief to be false. Good luck.

"I challenge you to answer, honestly, the following questions:"

Ok.

"Why doesn't God heal amputees? He heals everyone else miraculously, right? But neither you nor I have ever seen an amputee grow back a leg."

No, actually He doesn't heal everyone else. Healings are quite rare. And it's nonsensical to speak of "healing" amputees. Amputation is a medical process designed to save someone's life, not an illness or injury in and of itself. And amputees still alive for us to talk about have already healed, their wounds have closed, and their lives are not in danger. Unless you're suggesting that amputees are somehow less capable of living a long and full life?

"Isn't he supposed to be loving and just? What's with the discrimination? Does he hate amputees - are they one of the "abominations" he forgot to mention in Leviticus?"

He is loving and just. Since amputees are not prevented from living life, or from being happy and fulfilling their telos, there's no issue in regards to either.

"How about Jonah surviving in the belly of that whale? Wouldn't he be partially digested after three days?"

LOL. God gave him a magical forcefield.

"How come nobody wrote about Jesus until forty years later?"

No one actually knows the exact dates of writing of any of the epistles or Gospels. I see you like to take the later dates for your points, but as you cannot demonstrate it, there's no point in continuing.

"How come none of the Gospel authors were people who actually met him?"

You don't actually know this, you do realize that, correct? Why, I expect later on you'll make an argument about how the authors' names aren't in the books, so we don't know they wrote it.

But by the same token, we don't know that they weren't written by people close to Christ, etc. Your own skepticism defeats you.

"5. On Christian Plagiarism Of Earlier Religions

This one is my favorite. There are no less than two dozen pagan gods of the ancient Mediterranean region who predated Jesus, and yet somehow had many of the same traits as him. Early Christian apologist Justin Martyr claimed this was the work of the Devil - that he foresaw Jesus' birth and implanted false gods in history to draw people away from the True Messiah."

Justin Martyr had an excellent underlying point, though few realize it. There's no reason why those figures cannot be archetypes or prefigurations or even deceptions. The only argument you've mustered against it is one of ridicule.

"Makes total sense."

As I said, all you've said against it is an argument from ridicule, a logical fallacy.

"On a more serious note, I can name for you more than twenty gods of that region and period whose mythologies claim they were born of a union between God and a human female, whose birth was heralded by a bright star in the East (Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, for those who don't practice astronomy), who were adored by wise men, who walked on water, who fed the hungry, who resurrected the dead, who were crucified and rose again, or who even had the same birthday as Jesus - December 25th - the pre-Christian Roman holiday of Saturnalia!"

LOL. No, you can't. To start, because Christ's birthdate isn't December 25. And I'll happily go through every single one of those with you, if you'd like.

"I'm not going to name all of them, but I will name a few:Mithra of Rome,"

Mithras was not born, he spring out of a rock. He didn't have apostles, nor was he attended by wise men, but three shepherds did pull him out of the rock in a cave, which is where similarity with Christ ends. He didn't die, nor was he resurrected, instead he killed a bull with some zodiac figures. And since his Roman mystery cult forbade the writing down of its secrets, that's about all we know of Roman Mithras.

"Attis of Frigia,"

Not associated at all with Dec. 25, technically is a story about a shepherd boy, and son of the Lydian king who is killed by accident on a hunt. Nothing to do with Christ. The myths that do bear some resemblance POST-date Christianity by some two hundred years. And technically, we know nothing about whether his mother was a virgin or not, nor does he match up with Christ after that.

"Hercules and Dionysis of Greece,"

Neither was born of a virgin, neither was crucified, neither was resurrected, neither had wise men or apostles, etc. No theological similarities, or even superficial similarities here.

"Krishna of India,"

No entity in Hinduism matches Christ, since every thing is merely a dream of Brahma, destined for death when Brahma awakes. But putting that aside, Krishna is just one aspect of Vishnu, and while he has a saving role, he certainly is in no way theologically similar to Christ or Christianity.

"and Horus of Egypt.."

LOL. The worst of the worst. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis, conceived by Isis after she had sex with Osiris' dead body and a dildo she constructed to replace his dismembered member. Definitely not a virgin. Nor does Horus die, though Set does blind him. He is resurrected, but he does have his sight returned to him (the whole day and night bit, the sun being his eye and all). Etc. etc.

"Surprise!"

Surprise! You've relied almost exclusively on the scholarship of Freke and Gandy, two scholars who are the laughing stock of modern ancient religious study.

"Christians plagiarized earlier religions."

Even in the ones you've posted here, quite a few are the other way around.

"I cannot spell it out any clearer than that. Knowing this, how can one believe anything Christian doctrine teaches?"

Even someone as demonstrably ignorant as yourself should realize that every similarity claimed in these instance is a superficial one. Christian THEOLOGY is vastly different from the beliefs presented by these myths. Thus Christian doctrine is rather different as well. But you, of course, don't know anything about Christian theology, concerned as you are solely with appearances...

"How do you even begin to separate what was invented from what was borrowed? You can't. It's too muddled together. I will expound this point further in the next section."

Actually, it's pretty easy. We analyze the periods, the dates, the myths themselves, and then use proper scholarship.

For example, Mithras? Attis? These were, prior to the Romans, religions with absolutely no similarity to Christ. The references we have to anything at all that could be called, "Christlike" comes after the dawn of Christianity. And even in those cases, these were mystery religions. Mystery religions were called that because their rites and beliefs were only known to the fully inducted, never to initiates and never to be written down. Half the things claimed about them are supposition, the other half bald faced falsehoods.

"7. On Messianic Archetypes

If you are skeptical of the aforementioned information, and you should be, as doubt is the seed of all knowing - feel free to investigate the matter for yourself. One hugely recurring problem I find when debating with Christians is that they either know very little about other religions or are ignorant of their existence entirely."

Try me.

"This seems counter-intuitive to me, as it strikes me as terribly important that one make the most educated decision in choosing a religion, if practicing the "right" religion is important to that person."

For once, we agree.

"For example, you wouldn't want to choose a religion based on plagiarism, would you? Or one that literally absorbed every earlier belief system it encountered through endless politicizing and the diplomacy of the sword?"

Lol, no indeed. Ironically, there's no account of "diplomacy of the sword" from Christianity until well after every religion you've mentioned. And Christianity, interestingly, rejected every syncretic movement that attempted to blend it with other religions, like Manichaeism. Hence all those declaration of anathema and heresy that came out of the early Councils.

"Well, the truth is, that is exactly what happened. Religion is alot like language. The reason languages from the same general regions bear many similarities (such as Portuguese and Spanish, or French and Italian) is because they ARE very similar. Words and ideas are exchanged across national and ethnic borders just as often, if not more so, as material goods, and their impact is often much greater. Yet somehow, people tend to think the ideas they were raised to believe in belong solely to them."

Interesting theory. Proof?

"A good example is American junk food. What is American about hot dogs, pizza, and hamburgers? Literally nothing - all of these foods originated in Europe. Yet Americans have put simple twists on them and patented them as wholly original to the United States. Is it beyond you to think the same couldn't happen to gods?"

It's not beyond reason. In fact, the entire Mediterranean pantheon likely arose in just such a fashion. The problem, of course, being that the Jews and Christians condemned and eschewed all such attempts to make their God just one of the many.

"Well unfortunately for you, it does, and did. The development of the Jesus character is not difficult to trace, even two thousand years after the fact. It would behoove you to research the exchange of Mediterranean deities in that time period... again: see Mithra of Rome, Attis of Frigia, Hercules and Dionysis of Greece, Krishna of India, and Horus of Egypt."

All dealt with. Haven't you got anything new?

"The last should be of particular interest to you, as his mythology is the most similar to Jesus', to a chilling degree. This should come as no surprise to you, as it's written right in the bible that the Hebrews came out of Egypt."

Lol, Horus is almost as far from Jesus as you can get.

"The cold, hard truth is, it was an old story then, and it's an old story now. These messianic archetypes - the man that is god, the man who conquers death - existed long, long before Jesus came around. They were old news when soap was a cutting-edge technology, before written language was even invented. They are ancient fucking history. Jesus was not the antitype of these messianic figures, he was their distillation."

And Jesus was indeed the anti-type, for the ones that actually did pre-date Christianity, which was a scant few.

But most of those aren't "messianic" in any sense, regardless. None of them had anything to do with salvation from sins, for instance.

"8. On Christian Ethics

Western civilization may have been "built" on Judeo-Christian values - at least the "don't kill" and "don't steal" parts - but we have become a modern society and have adopted the scientific way of thinking. These values were purposefully left out of the founding documents of the United States of America, over two centuries ago - and replaced by secular, Enlightenment values!"

Is this seriously your next argument? Your thesis was to demonstrate that Jesus is a fictional character. How is this at all relevant?

"While Christian ethics have indisputable merits, maintaining the dogma in its entirety is no longer necessary, especially when we consider the violence and segregation it has caused throughout the ages."

Claims without evidence bore me.

"Furthermore, philosophically speaking, Christian ethics are severely outdated."

Not at all.

"Since the Enlightenment, the Western World has seen far superior ethicists to Jesus of Nazareth."

Not really.

"Kant and Mill, for example, created life-affirming ethical systems that can be applied to a wider range of people without destroying their culture or beliefs about where the universe came from and what kind of sex they should consider perverse."

One major problem with your analysis. If sex is a matter of morality and ethics, then you've just contradicted their systems as more ethical.

More important than that is that you've changed standards. These men didn't create a more ethical or moral system, they merely changed the standard by which ethics are judged. If you change the standard, no comparison is possible. I cannot say that Churchill was funnier than a dog is hairy.

"Truly, there is no reason to cling to the old way any longer. We have adopted science and reason in every other aspect of our lives... why have we retained the ethics of the Bronze Age?"

This is rhetoric, not reason.

"It makes no sense. Why should we continue to believe it is better to be tribalists than to be humanists?"

Humanists haven't added anything to the Christian moral scheme that wasn't already there, and they've lost something important. The community. I'd rather have a tribe than be alone.

"This mentality is not compatible with a just, egalitarian society."

Define "just" for me. :-)

"Besides, Jesus may tell us to love one another, but he also says we should maintain the Old Testament in its entirety - no cherry-picking - which means we technically must condone rape, incest, slavery, and genocide (!)."

Actually, He said He came to fulfill it. When you understand what that means, your point will not longer apply.

"If we can do away with these parts (and we have), why not do away with the whole thing?"

Actually, in strict point of fact, it was the Church in western Europe that destroyed slavery between 500 and 1500 AD. And it was the Church that battled rape, incest, and genocide.

It wasn't until the "enlightenment" that human chattel in particular became acceptable again, for the supposedly scientific rationalization that Africans couldn't be human.

"9. On Doing Away With Past Fictions And Looking Towards The Future

In the grand scheme of things, it would generally be permissible for one to believe in Christian ethics if it were readily understood that Jesus was not a historical person, that the story is allegory. However, if you are a Christian, you probably do believe that Jesus was a real human being. This is a threat to both the advancement of science and the absolution of religious conflict in the world, two issues that are paramount to our survival as a species as our planet nears carrying capacity and is dangerously on the brink of overheating."

You haven't proven your thesis yet, are you going to attempt to, or waste another "premise" talking about an ethical system you clearly don't understand?

Christianity and science are not mutually exclusive, thank you for the straw man. If what you said was true, Gregor Mendel wouldn't have discovered genetics, LeMaitre wouldn't have discovered the Big Bang, etc.

"Why, you ask? Because believing these stories, of which the Jesus character is the paragon, creates too slippery a slope for other theocratic nonsense to take hold in society. For example, the mindset that human beings can literally survive death. How many soldiers would we send to die if everyone believed this is the only life?"

The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Try again.

"Or, what about the philosophy that preserving the existence of cell clusters which bear no conceivable human traits is somehow a better aim than alleviating actual human suffering?"

No conceivable human traits aside from a complete set of human DNA, the only thing that determines one's species?

And what's wrong with suffering?

"Or that sex is harmful - but killing, bigotry, and total obedience to clandestine authority are healthy practices?"

Sex isn't harmful. Maybe you should get a clue as to what Christianity actually teaches? Try reading Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.

"Or that blood sacrifice is a value modern societies should endorse?"

Ironically, Christianity states that sacrifice is not needed at all in modern society.

"But Jesus WAS a real person, you say! There's a plethora of evidence! No, not really, unless you count the Gospels. In which case you are practicing intellectual dishonesty and should revisit section 4."

I've never found that claiming something makes it true. That goes for theists and atheists. Remember your lecture about how believing doesn't equate to truth? Your beliefs here? Don't equate to truth. Put up or shut up, kid.

"The Gosepls are secondary sources at best."

Unknown.

"Here's why: if a historical Jesus really lived between 0 and 33 CE, then we know beyond a doubt that at least forty years passed before the earliest Gospel, the one written by Mark, was scribed. Because the aforementioned gospel discusses the destruction of Solomon's temple, we know it was written in or sometime after 70 CE."

Not only is it not known that Mark's Gospel was written first, it certainly isn't accurate, nor intellectually honest to claim that the writing date is 70 AD. We don't know the writing date, and what's ACTUALLY offered is a range, with 40AD being the low end, and 70 being the high. You're being intentionally deceptive.

"Given the average lifespan of the period, it is most likely the author or authors were infants or young children when Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have lived and been crucified."

Technically, we don't know the ages of the Apostles, though we do know that John, at least, was a child.

"Moreover, the Gospel writers are not themselves mentioned in the Gospels, and they make no claim to actually having met Jesus."

Bravo sir, you've shot yourself in the foot. The authors don't speak, so from the works themselves, we know nothing of them. Of course, if the books claimed to be written by someone, you'd just argue that anyone can write a book claiming to be written by someone important, and that proves nothing.

Thankfully, Christianity is not a "religion of the Book" a la Islam. We have outside sources and Tradition which guide our understanding of such things, which is where we got the names of the authors.

"None of the apostles who walked with Jesus nor anyone who even met him wrote accounts to that effect."

As I said before, if you don't know who wrote the Gospels, how do you know this is true?

"Granted, there are certain mentions of a "Christ" in the writings of Mediterranean historians from that time - not Justin Martyr or Pontius Pilate, sorry, but those are proven forgeries -"

You're referring to Josephus. Unfortunately, what's proven about Josephus' work is that certain parts are forgeries, not that the whole account is a forgery. Enough remains outside the forgery to substantiate Christ.

"yet if are a serious Christian, you know "the Christ" simply means "the Anointed," a title taken up by many rabbis of that time. In not ONE of these documents is a man named Jesus, or Yeshua of Nazareth mentioned.""

No, the "Christ" refers to the Messiah, a title not taken up by many rabbis of that time, since they knew better. The anointing of a chosen one of God was a mark of Davidic Kingship, the Jewish Kings were always so anointed. Any rabbi taking that title would be proclaiming himself king of the Jews.

And as Jewish rabbis would not likely be calling themselves by the Greek word "Christus" as opposed to their OWN word, "Messiah" your theory has another problem.

"In conclusion, the Gospels which discuss the life of Jesus of Nazareth are at best hearsay, almost certainly hyperbolized, and at worst complete fabrications."

You've failed utterly in your attempts to demonstrate this.

"What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at least four decades after his death, everyone in the world, including his sworn followers and students, simply forgot their Messiah existed."

No. False. Completely false, and utter non sequitur.

What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at MOST four decades after His death, a Gospel was not yet written.

Paul's epistles, however, predate that Gospel, and that's assuming the latest possible date for Mark's Gospel.

And since the epistles and Gospels were written for already existing Christian communities, I'd say they didn't forget anything. Sounds more to me like they were so busy running around the Mediterranean converting people, they didn't take time to write as much down.

Forgetting? Hardly.

"If that doesn't cast upon you a serious shade of doubt, then nothing will, and perhaps I'm not "the fool"."

No, unfortunately you're definitely a fool if you think anything you've written here would cause us doubt. This was not only poorly researched, filled with vague conjecture and non sequitur, it was terribly written as well. You never demonstrated your thesis, you simply assumed it, and used that assumption to try and prove it! Then you abandoned your thesis to talk about completely unrelated nonsense for two sections, then returned to restate the same fallacious crap, and finished without even a proper conclusion.

If you turned this in in a class on religion, I'd fail you.

Good Friday

Most of my recent posts have been edited and finalized versions of older essays, or arguments lifted from current debates. But as it is Holy Week, and most particularly Good Friday, I thought I'd change things up a bit.

This is only the second post I've written expressly for this blog, so we'll see how it goes.

After some soul searching, and counsel from a fellow apologist, I've decided that a post themed to the suffering of Good Friday would be appropriate. But being me, I've decided to add my own little twist. In one of the books I'm working on, I explore an idea that I call the Hidden Joy. I think of it as the final element of mysticism. But what's the first step on the mystic path?

That, I think, will be my specific subject today. And while I cannot better, or even equal the great Saints, Mystics and writers who've gone before me, I hope to at least present a respectable echo of their message.

Good Friday marks the date of Christ's Passion and Death upon the Cross at Calvary. In addition to this being the most noteworthy time of suffering for Christ, it's also perhaps the most poignant affirmation of the Christian path which we are to follow.

It can rightly be said that, "The way of Christ is the way of the Cross." And the imagery of Christ's Passion and Death is something found throughout the Gospels as Christ continually instructs His disciples in the necessity of taking up their crosses and following Him. And the disciples being the disciples, at that time they didn't understand, but later they would. For the modern Christian, the way of the Cross refers to everything from watching dramatized accounts in film to performing the Stations of the Cross meditations, or even to the common understanding that all our burdens in life, and our struggles, are part of our own cross to bear.

For the Christian mystic (and in one sense we are all such mystics), the way of the Cross is an imitation of Christ, and imitation of Christ is the first step to the piercing of mystery that is the heart of mysticism. If we seek understanding of the God who became Man and walked among us, the very first place we will turn will be to that God's suffering. There is no more common or powerful element to the human experience than suffering, and so it is through suffering that God taught us to truly know God. God knew well that we would identify first and foremost with pain.

There is a lesson in every aspect of the Way. Each step down the via dolorosa, each fall by the Lord beneath His burden, each helping hand along the way, each tear down His mother's face, each nail into the flesh, each thorn into the scalp, each lash down the back, each betrayal by a close friend, each abandonment by a disciple.

Each sin which He took upon Himself.

That lesson, simply, is that we will know this pain and this path, if we follow Him. We will all walk down a personal via dolorosa in this life. But we will never walk it alone.

And as we take our own steps down the walk of human life, we shall call to mind the path of Christ, so that with every step we take, every breath, every tear drop, and every sin forgiven, we can become closer to God through the Grace of His Son. When He steps, we step. When we fall, He falls. When He dies? We shall die, and like Him rise again to Eternal life.

Anyways, for the moment I'll conclude this. Good Friday is for more important things, anyway.

God Bless, and may you know some small measure of the Lord's Passion this day.

Is Catholic tradition as important as the Bible?

In order to properly answer this I will have to clarify the terms being used. The answer to the question asked is no, Catholic traditions (please note the lower case "t") are not just as important as the Bible.

The question most people mean to ask is whether Catholic Tradition (likewise, please note the capital "T") is equal to the Bible. The answer to this is a most emphatic yes! Now here's the reasoning:

Sacred Tradition, like the Sacred Scriptures, is considered to be divinely inspired revelation to us, and thus equally important with Sacred Scriptures as a source of revealed Truth. Sacred Tradition, also like Sacred Scriptures, comes from the teachings of Christ and the Apostles/early Church Fathers. The difference between the two is that Sacred Tradition comes from oral teachings, while Scriptures are, of course, written.

In a larger sense, Tradition encompasses both the oral and written components of the Deposit of Faith, especially as much of the Bible is in fact based on oral accounts and eye witness testimony, (NB: this refers to the NT Gospels and Acts, as well as the OT). Much of the Bible was not written simultaneously with Christ performing His actions or living His ministry, but instead after the fact, and there is no absolute certainty that the authors of the Gospels actually were with Christ every step of the way, (certainly only John and Matthew could make such a claim, and there is some dispute as to whether it was the Apostles themselves or their students who wrote their Gospels). But in the more specific sense that we're currently using it, Sacred Tradition refers to the inspired teachings passed down orally and held in the Deposit of Faith as equally inspired revelation with Scriptures.

The next question to be addressed is, of course, how do we know they're inspired?

There are several ways we can recognize Tradition to be equally inspired with Scriptures. The first is Scripture itself tells us so. The end of John's Gospel tells us point blank that not all of Christ's actions were recorded in the Gospels, and that it would be, in fact, impossible to record them all because there were so many. While this may be hyperbole as to the scale, we can certainly rest assured that there are many things Christ said and did that were not recorded in written form. Where can we access these teachings? Obviously though His spoken teachings and the teachings of His Apostles who heard them. Moreover, 2 Thessalonians 2:14 says quite clearly, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle." And the context of this verse is equally important. It is the culmination of a chapter dealing with the signs of error that are to come, and the mistakes in belief in doctrine that Paul's predicts will become prevalent. His answer to the worries of the Thessalonians is that to avoid these pitfalls, they must hold fast to the traditions which they have learned. The mentioning of both types of traditions demonstrates for us that each is a valuable source of tradition and equally worthy of being held onto. Thus, Scriptures themselves state that both oral teachings and written teachings are to be held to equally.

The next proofs are logical points.

Logical point 1, we know that the teachings of Christ and the Apostles were inspired, thus it stands to reason that if what was written down of their teachings was inspired, what they said in oral instructions was also inspired. Now, of course, for an atheist this won't be particularly satisfactory, but this argument isn't meant for atheists. If a non-Christian wishes to debate this issue, I'll write a separate post.

Logical point 2, oral teachings precede written teachings. It is an important point to note that the written teachings do not exist in a vacuum. And even outside of the compilation of the Bible itself, the vast majority of the works in the New Testament were written after events and teachings took place. This applies not only to the Gospels, but also especially to Acts and most of the Pauline Epistles. The Apostles, especially Paul, were generally not writing to places they hadn't yet visited. In the scattered cases that they were, they certainly weren't writing to places where the faith had not yet spread. In both cases what remains clear is that the oral teachings came first, generally from Paul or one of the other Apostles, and the letters were follow ups (or the occasional advance letter) dictating things that the various communities needed to beware of, or stop doing. In fact, we can directly infer from many of Paul's correctional epistles that they do not present the sum message of the Gospel Paul preached, for they dwell on specific points that many cities needed to improve upon, rather than being treatises and teachings on the entirety of the Christian faith as a whole.

Logical point 3, this is a fine point, and hardly necessary after the others, but I think I'd like to include it. The only authority that is capable of declaring materials as inspired or not has declared Sacred Tradition to be such. This authority is, of course, the Catholic Church, established by Christ, Headed by Christ, His earthly Body of believers, which is constantly guided by the Holy Spirit. This is the same authority that assembled and selected the works found in the Bible, and by that authority declared them inspired. If you are to accept this authority by accepting the Bible's Inspired Truths, then you must accept the same authority which accepts Tradition to be equally inspired.

The final issue to be addressed (at least in my mind) is, are they both necessary?

To this I must give a resounding yes. While most, if not all, of the Truths necessary for salvation are found in the Bible, there are still several problems with taking the Bible alone instead of both. The first problem is that you're still missing part of divine revelation. With an incomplete picture it is impossible to know if you have everything right.

More importantly, while many of the points in both Scripture and Tradition certainly overlap and thus support each other, if we are to take each source separately then we have no way of checking or supporting the message of each. Taking the Bible alone, for example, results in a huge interpretive problem because no individual has another, independent source of Truth with which to compare the Bible, nor the authority of the Church to interpret Scriptures correctly. This results in manifold errors in interpretation, and gives rise to the epidemic of small churches constantly splintering apart because people disagree over how to interpret various passages of the Bible.

This has been illustrated perfectly by modern Christianity in America, but has essentially been present in every single Protestant church since Luther. While the initial Reformers broke with the Church, the vast majority of subsequent breaks have been among the Reformers' groups. The Anglicans and Episcopalians are breaking apart right now. The Lutherans have divided into several synods. Methodism is splintered, the Baptists fragment more every day, and non-denominationalism is on the rise as people realize that they can't mesh their interpretation with anyone else's. The reason this is a problem is because these people don't always agree on what's necessary for salvation, thus even if all the points necessary are present in the Bible, people are still missing them. Moreover these incessant breaks breed ill feelings among those who should be brothers in Christ, and also breeds ignorance of what their fellows believe and teach. Just look at those who denounce Catholics as statue worshipers, or cannibals if you don't believe me.

Moreover, personal interpretation becomes an exercise in egotism instead of guidance from the Spirit. We logically know that the Holy Spirit does not and cannot have multiple personality disorder. Yet we have literally 33,000+ denominations of Christianity, all of which claim their particular version is correct, and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Logically put, this is impossible, and it is dangerous to Christianity as a whole. This problem can be remedied by having another source of Truth with which to compare to the Bible and thus understand it more fully, and an authority which we can deduce is inspired that can guide us in interpreting Scriptures and Tradition so that we avoid the pitfall of interpreting it for ourselves instead of how God meant it.

So yes, Tradition is just as important as the Bible, just as inspired, and just as necessary. But Catholic traditions, not so much.

The Arbiter

Matthew 16:18

"18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven."

Matthew 18:15-20

"15 But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. 16 And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. 17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican. 18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven. 20 For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Matthew 28:17-20

"17 And seeing them they adored: but some doubted. 18 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. 19 Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."

In Matthew 16:18 Christ clearly demonstrates that the Church is to be built on Peter. In fact, even if you don't agree that this verse establishes Peter as the Head of the Church, it doesn't matter for my purposes. What matters is that Christ is clearly establishing a Church, and granting to at least Peter certain authority, designated by the Keys (a tie in to Isaiah 22) and the authority to bind and loose. Christ also says that this Church He is establishing will not be defeated by the Gates of Hell. Thus even the power of Satan and Sin and Death cannot triumph over it, for Hell is all of these things.

In Matthew 18:15-20, Christ again mentions the Church. He gives a three fold means of true rebuking when a brother in belief falls astray. First offer a private rebuke. Then offer a rebuke with the aid of witnesses. Then take the matter to the Church. What Church could this be? The Church Christ referred to that He would build of course. And Christ not only established that Church on Peter, but also promised it would not fail. Christ now goes on in this passage to give the same authority of binding and loosing to ALL of the Apostles. So now, as Christ speaks to us about the authority of the Church to hear and settle disputes, Christ gives to all the Apostles the authority necessary to settle those disputes, that of binding and loosing. Christ even goes so far as to say that when two Apostles consent to something, it shall be given, and that if even just two or three of the Apostles meet in His name, Christ will be there among them, thus guaranteeing that He will be the one guiding their decisions.

Finally Matthew 28:17-20 demonstrates that Christ, given all power and authority, commissions His Apostles to go out to the world, to Baptize, and to teach in His name. Coupled with the authority Christ already gave them, He now commands them to go to the world and teach, the Commission of the Church. And not only that, but Christ explicitly promises that He will be with them to the end of the world.

Thus we have an arbiter of truth for us, established by Christ, which is an Institution, and not an individual human.

That Church, we see, is founded on Peter, or at the very least on the Apostles as a whole. The Apostles are given authority, AND a specific commission to teach what Christ taught. Christ promises that the Church will never be triumphed over, nor that Christ will ever leave it, even until the end of the world. Which means that the Church must to still be here. And thus that the Church must still have that same authority. So where is it?

Peter and Paul both make it quite clear in their epistles that those called the "episkopos" and to a lesser degree the "presbuteros" are the authorities that guide the Church. Episkopos is the word in the New Testament for bishop/elder/overseer/ancient in the Church. And Presbuteros is the word for a priest/elder in the Church.

If you doubt that I speak the truth concerning these positions and their authority in the Church, please consult I Peter, most especially chapter 5, verses 1-5; consult I Timothy, especially chapters 1 and 3, with special emphasis given to the first parts of each chapter; consult Titus, most especially chapter 1; and finally consult Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 especially, though other chapters are also useful.

Peter in his epistle notes that the episkopos are authoritative in the Church alongside the Apostles, and that those who are not episkopos are to obey.

In I Timothy, Paul directs Timothy, who is an episkopos, in Timothy's charge, that is teaching and guiding his flock in Ephesus. He also instructs Timothy in what kind of men to appoint to various positions, including those of the episkopos and deacons.

Likewise in Titus, Paul instructs Titus in what men to ordain to the presbuteros and episkopos, and likewise, he tells Titus that he left him in Crete "that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and shouldest ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee:" clearly demonstrating that the Apostles passed authority to the episkopos, and that authority was authoritative that they could bring order, and also that they could ordain others to authority to aid in the task.

And finally in Acts, chapter 15 shows us two very important things. We are shown the Council in Jerusalem, in which the Church decides that Gentile converts do not have to abide by Jewish dietary law. But by the Church, who is meant? Who is referred to? Verse 6 says "And the Apostles and episkopos assembled to consider of this matter." Then Peter, Paul, Barnabas and finally James the Lesser speak on the subject, and draft a letter to be sent, a formal teaching that says the Gentiles do not have to abide by the whole of Jewish law.

And then at the end of Acts 15, verse 41 tells us that Paul departs, and travels through the various regions and visits the churches in each and "commanding them to keep the precepts of the apostles and the episkopos."

Thus we have it that the episkopos are equal in authority to the Apostles as the heirs to the Apostles, and thus are the logical ones to turn to settle all disputes within the Church, just as Christ commanded us to, as those with authority like to and stemming from the Apostles.

Now, there only remains the matter of finding those episkopos and their Church, and this is easily accomplished.

There are only a couple Churches in the whole of the Christian world, the Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church, that can show you every single person in the line of their episcopal descent all the way from the Apostles, with valid ordinations at the hands of an episkopos (just as Paul instructs Timothy and Titus).

I will now give you just such a list, the list of Popes of the Catholic Church, all the way from Peter. It also provides the starting and ending dates of their terms as Popes, and for most gives a link to an article about that Pope and his life.

http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/articles/popelist.htm

BTW, while members of the clergy of the Church now are referred to as bishops and priests in common speech, the actual names of their positions as that of the Episcopate and the Presbyterate, a fact little known outside the Church. The word "pope" as well, is an ancient Greek term used to refer to the episkopos. It comes from papas and means father, and the Pope merely referred to the papas/bishop/episkopos of Rome as the successor of Peter.

So. The Church exists. It has the authority to solve disputes. Christ guides it's decisions. And it is located in the Catholic Church.

Oh, and some final things for you to consider concerning the Church, other than what we just went over.

Paul says to the Ephesians, "Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things." If the Church is subject to Christ, and the Church is the source of the teachings you mentioned, then the true source of those teachings is Christ. So says Scripture.

Paul says to Timothy, "But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." The Church is the pillar and ground(foundation) of the truth. If this is so, and Scripture says it so I will trust it to be so, then the Church as pillar of truth cannot teach a false doctrine. So if you believe otherwise, the Bible clearly demonstrates that you're incorrect.

Paul says to the Colossians, "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the church:" Christ's body is the Church. Persecute the Church and you are persecuting Christ. Is THAT something you truly wish to do?

The Apologist's Prayer

"Lord God Almighty,
Make me a channel of thy will
An instrument of thy hands
And a speaker of your Truth

Father in Heaven,
I ask your blessing in this work
I seek your aid in all I do
For without you I can do nothing

Christ, Head of the Church,
Grant that I may share your love today
Seeking good for all in the face of evil
For without you I can serve no one

Holy Spirit, Paraclete,
I pray for your inspiration this day
Let my own heart be silent and my tongue be yours
For by myself I can say nothing.

Oh Justin Martyr
Lead me by your example
And withhold not your prayers for me
Since without them I stand alone

I am weak, make me strong Lord
All too arrogant, teach me humility
When angry, help me love more
And when I falter, lend me your Spirit."