Hell is not a threat by God. It’s a diagnosis of the stakes for which we play and the consequences of being the sort of fallen creatures we are in the sort of universe this is with the sort of God who made it. When the doc says “If you persist in your behavior without change you will get liver cancer and you will die” he’s not threatening you. He’s stating a fact. The cancer is not being sent by the doc to kill you. It’s the fruit of the stuff you are doing. The doc is there to heal you. But the healing requires the diagnosis.
Jesus’ diagnosis is that our race is sick with sin. Hell is the fruition of a life obstinately ordered toward sinful selfishness. The endstage of sin is hell just as the endstage of cancer is death. It’s not an extra added punishment for sin. It’s just what sin fully is. So it’s not something God does to us. It’s something we do to ourselves. God is not Daddy Dearest, standing there threatening to shove you into the box of scorpions forever “to teach you a lesson” if you don’t clean up your room this minute. He is the guy on the beach waving his arms and trying to get the oblivious (and contemptuous) bathers out of the surf and into the Land Rover that will speed them to high ground before the tsunami makes landfall. He has done and continues to do absolutely everything—including die—to make sure that we don’t lose the life of grace for which we were created. In short, he is Emmanuel—God with us—not against us.
Read more via Scruples and the Fear of Hell |Blogs | NCRegister.com.
Category Archives: All Things Catholic
Heart’s Desire
O, my Lord,
I enthrone You
In my heart.
Bowing before You,
I take refuge
In Your Mercy.
I clasp fast
The hand of the Virgin,
She, who bore my Savior,
Now, holds my entreaties
In her Immaculate Heart.
In Mary’s bosom,
The Fire of Your Love
Refashions my heart’s desire,
That it may reflect
The desires of Your Most Sacred Heart.
Here, I appeal to You,
In the melodic voice
Of the Mother’s purity.
Copyright 2013 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival
It’s time once again for Sunday Snippets. We are Catholic bloggers sharing weekly our best posts with one another. Join us to read and/or contribute. To participate, go to your blog and create a post titled Sunday Snippets–A Catholic Carnival. Make sure that the post links back to here, and leave a link to your snippets post on our host, RAnn’s, site, This, That and the Other Thing.
My posts this week:
Jesus King of All Nations
Voter’s’ Voice–Michael Taylor–Congress Must Act
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary after Holy Mass
O Maria
Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary after Holy Mass
O MARY, most holy Virgin and Mother, behold, I have received thy most beloved Son, Jesus Christ, whom thou concievedst in thy spotless womb, bore, nursed, and held with thy sweet embraces. Behold Him at whose sight thou willst rejoice and be filled with every delight. With love I humbly return Him and offer Him to thee, to hold once more, to love with all thy heart, and to offer to the Holy Trinity as our supreme act of worship for thy honor and glory and for my good and the good of all the world. Therefore I ask thee, most loving Mother, to ask God for forgiveness of all my sins, abundant graces to help me serve Him more faithfully, and for that final grace that I may praise Him with thee for ever and ever. Amen.
Voter’s’ Voice–Michael Taylor–Congress Must Act
August 8, 2013
Dear Friend,
The Obama Administration’s contraceptive/abortifacient/sterilization mandate will begin to be enforced against nonprofit religious schools, charities and health care providers on January 1, 2014. In the weeks to come, Congress must decide whether to address this problem before that deadline.
Members of Congress should continue to be urged to co-sponsor the Health Care Conscience Rights Act (H.R. 940, S. 1204), and to work for its approval in the next "must-pass" bill needed to keep the federal government operating. Government must not force Americans to violate their religious and moral beliefs on respect for life when they provide health care or purchase health coverage.
Congress is now in its summer recess (August 5-September 9). The recess presents special opportunities to contact your Members and urge their support for H.R. 940/S. 1204. Members will be in their home districts and states. They will be learning what is important to their constituents, and this will influence their actions when they return in the fall. Please consider taking one or more of the following actions:
- Meet with Members in their local offices.
- Ask questions at town hall meetings.
- Step forward to talk with Members at county fairs and other public events listed on Members’ schedules.
- Write letters-to-the-editors for local papers and newsletters in response to stories or editorials related to conscience rights.
- Participate in radio and TV call-in shows. Members and their staffs read the local papers and track local media.
Always be polite and respectful. Full contact and scheduling info can be found on Members’ web sites at: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.
Of course, if you have not yet sent e-mail messages to your Representative and two Senators urging support of H.R. 940/S. 1204, you can do so by clicking on the link below. A note: You also will be able to send a separate message to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) using his special Speaker’s web form.
Some background. Under the new health care law, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requires most health plans to cover “preventive services for women,” including drugs and procedures that many citizens find objectionable for moral and religious reasons. These objectionable items include sterilization, FDA-approved birth control (such as the IUD, Depo-Provera, ‘morning-after’ pills, and the abortion-inducing drug Ella), and “education and counseling” to promote these to all “women of reproductive capacity,” including minor girls. Under the final rule released by HHS on June 28, the mandate allows only a very narrow exemption for a “religious employer,” chiefly aimed at what HHS calls “houses of worship.” Other religious organizations offering education, health care and charitable services do not qualify for the exemption. The mandate will be enforced against them beginning January 1, 2014, under an “accommodation” that only changes the way the objectionable items must be provided to all employees and their dependents. There is no exemption or delay for individuals, or for businesses owned and operated by families with moral or religious objections.
Thanks for all you do in support of life!
Michael Taylor
Executive Director
Click the link below to log in and send your message:
https://www.votervoice.net/link/target/nchla/Mt629RzE3.aspx
Wife’s Prayer
Wife’s Prayer
O merciful Lord God, who in the beginning didst take Eve out of the side of Adam and didst give her to him as a helpmate: grant me grace to live worthy of the honorable estate of matrimony to which Thou hast called me, that I may love my husband with a pure and chaste love, acknowledging him as my head, and truly reverencing and obeying him in all good things; that thereby I may please him, and live with him in all Christian serenity. Keep me from all worldliness and vanity. Help me, O Lord, that I may, under him, prudently and discreetly guide and govern his household. Let no fault of mine aggravate any sins by which he may be especially tempted; enable me to soothe him in perplexity, to cheer him in difficulty, to refresh him in weariness, and, as far as may be, to advise him in doubt. [Give me understanding so to fulfil my part in the education of our children, that they may be our joy in this world and our glory in the next.] Grant that our perfect union here may be the beginning of the still more perfect and blissful union hereafter in Thy kingdom; and this I pray through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
