The Penny Catechism - FAITH
WHAT IS FAITH Faith is a supernatural gift of God which enables us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed.
WHY MUST I BELIEVE WHATEVER GOD HAS REVEALED I must believe whatever God has revealed because God is the very Truth and can neither deceive nor be deceived.
HOW ARE YOU TO KNOW WHAT GOD HAS REVEALED? I am to know what God has revealed by the testimony, teachings, and authority of the Catholic Church
WHO GAVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DIVINE AUTHORITY TO TEACH? Jesus Christ gave the Catholic Church divine authority to teach when He said "Go ye, and teach all nations" Math.28:29
Here we have more dangerous stuff from the Penny Catechism. I was just today speaking to someone from my old town who expressed to me all the dangers that lay in religion. He was not a Christian and lacked the insight to believe what I believe. His conversion will only come through the Holy Spirit and the giving of the supernatural gift of Faith by the Holy Spirit. I can pray for him that such a thing will happen. And that is the wonderful gift the Holy Spirit gave me through my parents - the gift of faith. They did so by having me baptised, bringing me to Mass, and helping me learn my Penny Catechism. Of course as an infant I did not understand what the Catechism was saying in any great measure but as I grew older my knowledge of the Catechism led to my understanding of it. There are very strange scholars around who presume that you should not teach a child anything unless they understand it, I remember this as the excuse not to teach First Holy Communion Children about the Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact as a child and in common with all other children I had no difficulty in accepting the presence since I trusted my parents, teachers, and priests. And somewhere behind all this was the Gift of Faith.
Of course at the root of all their false teachings was the loss of Faith. They no longer believed it was credible to accept the Authority of the Catholic Church. They were uncomfortable with professing this belief in the Church because so many of their friends were Protestant and anyway they were turning now to the idea that God loved us so much that there was nothing we needed to do to return that love. We could bask in the love of God, forever proclaim the love of God, and somehow there was nothing required of us except giving to Cafod or some other Charity. Because God loved us so much our sins did not matter and anyway we just committed little sins and could ignore calls to holiness since it was just an ideal. Living a chaste life became an ideal, the Sacrament of Marriage and lasting marriages became an ideal, devotions to saints who apparently did not live our sort of life became meaningless, and as for going to Mass every Sunday well, that perhaps was expecting too much. We have so easily forgotten that the First Commandment is about our behaviour exhortng us to love the Lord our God with our whole heart and our whole soul, with our whole mind and our whole strength. In other words God wants us to return that love "If you love me keep my Commandments" A good start is by talking to him and obtaining his graces in Confession. Any lay person who aspires to hold the Blessed Sacrament in his or her hands as a Minister of Holy Communion should at least be someone who goes to Confession.
WHY MUST I BELIEVE WHATEVER GOD HAS REVEALED I must believe whatever God has revealed because God is the very Truth and can neither deceive nor be deceived.
HOW ARE YOU TO KNOW WHAT GOD HAS REVEALED? I am to know what God has revealed by the testimony, teachings, and authority of the Catholic Church
WHO GAVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DIVINE AUTHORITY TO TEACH? Jesus Christ gave the Catholic Church divine authority to teach when He said "Go ye, and teach all nations" Math.28:29
Here we have more dangerous stuff from the Penny Catechism. I was just today speaking to someone from my old town who expressed to me all the dangers that lay in religion. He was not a Christian and lacked the insight to believe what I believe. His conversion will only come through the Holy Spirit and the giving of the supernatural gift of Faith by the Holy Spirit. I can pray for him that such a thing will happen. And that is the wonderful gift the Holy Spirit gave me through my parents - the gift of faith. They did so by having me baptised, bringing me to Mass, and helping me learn my Penny Catechism. Of course as an infant I did not understand what the Catechism was saying in any great measure but as I grew older my knowledge of the Catechism led to my understanding of it. There are very strange scholars around who presume that you should not teach a child anything unless they understand it, I remember this as the excuse not to teach First Holy Communion Children about the Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact as a child and in common with all other children I had no difficulty in accepting the presence since I trusted my parents, teachers, and priests. And somewhere behind all this was the Gift of Faith.
Of course at the root of all their false teachings was the loss of Faith. They no longer believed it was credible to accept the Authority of the Catholic Church. They were uncomfortable with professing this belief in the Church because so many of their friends were Protestant and anyway they were turning now to the idea that God loved us so much that there was nothing we needed to do to return that love. We could bask in the love of God, forever proclaim the love of God, and somehow there was nothing required of us except giving to Cafod or some other Charity. Because God loved us so much our sins did not matter and anyway we just committed little sins and could ignore calls to holiness since it was just an ideal. Living a chaste life became an ideal, the Sacrament of Marriage and lasting marriages became an ideal, devotions to saints who apparently did not live our sort of life became meaningless, and as for going to Mass every Sunday well, that perhaps was expecting too much. We have so easily forgotten that the First Commandment is about our behaviour exhortng us to love the Lord our God with our whole heart and our whole soul, with our whole mind and our whole strength. In other words God wants us to return that love "If you love me keep my Commandments" A good start is by talking to him and obtaining his graces in Confession. Any lay person who aspires to hold the Blessed Sacrament in his or her hands as a Minister of Holy Communion should at least be someone who goes to Confession.
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