|
1
|
- St. Michael the Archangel
- Faith Formation
|
|
2
|
- Grace: great mystery of our faith lives.
- How God works in us in the depths of our souls.
- A supernatural gift that comes from God.
- Grace is our connectedness with God.
|
|
3
|
- Grace comes from the Latin gratia which was the Roman translation of the
Greek charis, used to express the action and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
- Grace is free gift.
|
|
4
|
- Uncreated grace
- or actual grace
- Sanctifying grace,
- created grace or
- habitual grace
|
|
5
|
- Uncreated grace or actual grace [grace as mercy] is God communicating
himself to his creatures, the experience of faith, of God's enlightening
and self-revelation. It is God’s
support for us in individual cases.
|
|
6
|
- Sanctifying grace, created grace or habitual grace [grace as
empowerment] is the effect God produces in our souls by his new presence
to us. Sometimes called the “state
of grace,” that ongoing disposition to live and act in keeping with
God’s call.
|
|
7
|
- Grace is the help God gives us to respond and fulfill our calling as
adopted children.
|
|
8
|
- The Holy Spirit, as the realization of the supernatural love between
Father and Son, is the principle source or purveyor of grace. [see
Romans 5:5]
- Grace is a communication of divine love.
|
|
9
|
- Theological virtues: faith, hope and love/charity
- Infused or moral virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.
- Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude,
knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.
|
|
10
|
- Sin is any offense against reason, truth and right conscience.
- it is a failure with respect to
love of God, neighbor and self.
- Sin is a wounding of ones relationship with God and with our neighbors;
all sin has a communal dimension.
- Sin is always a form of disobedience.
- Sin is always rooted in our free-will; it is always a choosing for
something other than God.
|
|
11
|
- Sin is a radical exercise of
- Human Freedom
|
|
12
|
- There are two categories of sin:
|
|
13
|
- Mortal Sin: also called grave sin, involves a (1) serious matter, (2)
sufficient reflection/full knowledge and (3) full consent of the will.
It results in a complete severing of our relationship with God, a loss
of sanctifying grace, an inability to perform meritorious actions. [CCC 1857-1861]
|
|
14
|
- Venial Sin: [from the Latin for pardon] involves less serious matters,
reflection and consent; the consequences are likewise less serious, our
relationship with God is marred but not broken; the supernatural life
within the individual is still alive. [CCC1862-1863]
|
|
15
|
- Death & Judgment
- -Heaven
- -Hell
- -Purgatory
|
|
16
|
- Bodily death is natural, but also seen as the consequence of Original
Sin, and our own personal sin.
- Death is transformed by Christ.
- Our dying in Christ's grace is to participate in his death and
Resurrection as well.
|
|
17
|
- Death is the end of earthly life.
Death is the normal end of our earthly existence. Death lends an urgency to our
lives. Our bodily mortality
should keep us aware of our limited time for fulfilling our lives.
|
|
18
|
- Christian death has a positive spin:
- "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." [Phil.
1:21]
- "... if we have died with him, we will live with him." [2 Tim.
2:11] In Death, we are called to God and end our earthly pilgrimage.
|
|
19
|
- The Church recognizes two judgments:
- Personal judgment that comes after death.
- General Judgment that is part of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
|
|
20
|
- Personal judgment is our initial placement upon death and prior to the
Second Coming.
|
|
21
|
- General Judgment includes the resurrection of the body and an end of
Purgatory/purification.
- After the General Judgment there is only Heaven or Hell ... the Beatific
Vision or those self-excluded from it.
|
|
22
|
- … a state of life in union with the life and love of the Trinity, part
of that community of over-flowing love.
- … the ultimate end and fulfillment of our deepest human longings, a
state of supreme and definitive happiness.
- …is to have possession of the fruits of redemption accomplished by
Christ.
- … a blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ
... a blessed communion with God.
|
|
23
|
- To live in heaven is to be with Christ & to find our true identity
and fulfillment.
- Heaven was opened for us by Christ's death and resurrection.
- Scripture calls it: life, light, peace, the heavenly wedding banquet,
the heavenly/new Jerusalem, paradise.
|
|
24
|
- In heaven God opens his mystery to our understanding: we see God as he
is, face to face, in his heavenly glory.
|
|
25
|
- "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's
merciful love means remaining separated from him by our own free
choice. This state of definitive
self-exclusion from communion with God ... is called 'hell'." [CCC
1033]
|
|
26
|
- (July 28, 1999)
- “Hell is not a punishment imposed by God, but … the ultimate consequence
of sin itself.”
|
|
27
|
- "The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its
eternity. ... The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from
God." [CCC 1035]
- Hell is for those who by their own choice reject Christ's call to conversion,
repentance & responsibility.
God does not predestine any one for damnation. To deserve damnation we must make a
willful choice to turn away from God and maintain that decision to
death. It is God's will and
desire that all be saved & gathered back to himself.
|
|
28
|
- “There is no remission of this judgment, for the freedom of the will is
no longer reversible after death.
It is fixed at that point."
|
|
29
|
- The souls in Hell exist in "infinite blame and suffering; not as
much suffering as they deserve, but one that is without end.“
- But "the suffering of the damned is not limitless, for God's ...
goodness sends his rays there, even in hell. He who dies in mortal sin deserves an
infinity of suffering in a time without end; God's mercy, however, brings
it about that only the time has no limit but not the intensity of the
suffering --- that has a limit."
|
|
30
|
- The idea of Purgatory developed around reflection on the meaning of
praying for the dead.
- St. Basil: "place for the purification of souls ... a cleansing
fire."
- St. Gregory of Nyssa said that after the soul left the body it
"will not be able to participate in divinity, unless purgatorial
fire will have purged away all stains on the soul."
|
|
31
|
- (1) faith in God's holiness which cannot stand contact with anything
not holy and pure.
- (2) not all the dead have attained
- absolute purity.
- (3) in the oneness of the mystical Body of Christ the living can
intercede for the dead.
|
|
32
|
- Councils of Lyon II (1274) and Florence (1439) (1) the souls of the
truly penitent just who enter death insufficiently cleansed of sin are
cleansed after death; (2) prayers of the living faithful can help
relieve the suffering in purgation.
Trent (1563) defined doctrinally that there was a purgatory.
- Nowhere is place, duration or the nature of the purgation [fire, etc.]
found as dogma or doctrine.
|
|
33
|
- Romano Guardini--purgatory is a painful realization, coming into God's
light and seeing ourselves as God sees us. In surrendering to the will of God we
are cleansed of our imperfections and made new, ready for eternal life
with God.
|
|
34
|
- Karl Rahner--purgatory is a process of maturing and change, a process
that makes one more perfect for heaven.
|
|
35
|
- Peter Fransen--purgatory is a punishment self-inflicted, a realization
of our offenses in light of God's perfect love which causes us a pain we
could not bear in the world.
God's love and our realization burns up all remnants of
self-love, ingratitude and refusal --- in this way Purgatory is also an
experience of greater joy than we could experience on earth.
|
|
36
|
- Ladislaus Boros--purgatory is a meeting with Christ and having to
sustain the fire of His loving gaze which is our ultimate purification, over
in an instant. Duration is not so much a question time as the degree of
the intensity of the purification needed by each individual.
|
|
37
|
- Richard McBrien--a purgation of residual selfishness so that we can
become one with God. The
suffering of Purgatory is not external but the intrinsic pain we feel
when we are asked to surrender our ego-centrism in place of God-centered
love.
|
|
38
|
- George Maloney--a localization of the place where punishment and
purifying healing takes place ... a place of self-inflicted punishment
and healing therapy.
|
|
39
|
- Robert Ombras--the state or condition for those lacking or imperfect in
their response under grace to the redemption of Christ ... a freeing
from the lingering effects of sinfulness.
|
|
40
|
- Peter J. Kreeft--a part of heaven, not gloomy but joyful, a place of
sanctification, not justification ... a place of spiritual education ...
Heaven's kindergarten.
|
|
41
|
- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger-- In this doctrine the Church holds fast to
one aspect of the intermediate state -- if one's fundamental
life-decision is finally decided and fixed at death, one's definitive
destiny need not necessarily be reached straight away. This intermediate state is called
Purgatory.
|
|
42
|
- Catherine of Genoa's [1447-1510]: Purgation and Purgatory: Heaven or
Hell, the Beatific Vision or Eternal Damnation, are determined "at
the moment of death," as the soul passes from life into death. In death the will is no longer
subject to change. The
determination proceeds from whether there is "a sin-asserting will
or a remorseful one. There is no
remission of judgment, for the freedom of the will is no longer
reversible after death." Catherine recognizes Purgatory an aspect
of Heaven.
|
|
43
|
- Catholic theologians agree:
- (1) that there is a Purgatory; which is an aspect or locale associated
with heaven.
- (2) Purgatory is not a place but
rather a state or condition or process;
- (3) Most agree that there is duration involved according to the needs of
those to be purified;
- (4) It is a process of maturing and letting go of residual resentments
and selfishness, a freeing from the lingering effects of sinfulness.
|
|
44
|
- Infants who die in the grace of God have no sins or the effects of sin
... these have no debt of temporal punishment to be paid. We can say that someone can avoid
Purgatory altogether if the debt of temporal punishment has been
"paid off" in this life.
Our own suffering united to that of Christ can be a means of
paying this debt, along with prayer, charity and works of mercy while
still in the world.
|
|
45
|
- The concept begins with St. Augustine's (354-430) statement that
unbaptised infants go to Hell.
Scholastics and later theologians speculated that these were not
damned but eternally deprived of the Beatific Vision. No council has define Limbo. The most generally acceptable theory
regarding unbaptised infants today stems from the notion of a final
fundamental option. This makes
God's salvific will truly and effectively universal and it makes
Christ's death for all truly operative for everyone.
|
|
46
|
- Mary & the Communion of the Saints
|
Notes
