God is not old. He just always is.

"Therefore, you correct little by little those who trespass, and remind and warn them of the things wherein they sin, that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord."

-- Wisdom 12:2

I shared that with a few friends. That's really good. Thanks.

I tried to explain Christmas was pagan to my first grade teacher.

I've come a long way.

Baptism does not take the place of grace. It IS grace -- and a channel OF grace.

How can the Christian be assured of eternal life?

My old quasi-Christian church taught we needed to "qualify for entrance into God's kingdom" through a life of obedience.

But what was the standard for passing the qualification test? I never knew. It was disconcerting.

Now I know the plain truth. In the simplest terms: repent, be baptized, and believe the gospel; then be sure not to die in the state of mortal sin.

That doesn't necessarily make it easy, but it makes it clear.

If we as Christians have eternal security (i.e., are "once saved always saved"), then why should we ask for God's forgiveness when we commit a new sin?

Isn't it already forgiven? What happens if we don't ask God to forgive us our trespasses from today?

Truth: The #eternalsecurity doctrine ends up nullifying the importance of daily repentance.

It would be a legalistic view of God if we think we can choose to turn away from him through intentional serious sin, but then say it doesn't really matter because I "accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior" when I was 14.

We have to name and claim our sins whenever we commit them so we can offer them to God -- so he can heal us and forgive us. Not just in the past, but now. Right now.

Jesus never tells us we no longer need to ask, seek, and knock. It's not one and done. He says we need to endure to the end.

I still reflect on how shallow my former religion was:

🗓️ We emphasized that Saturday (definitely not Sunday) was the true day of worship.

🥩 Real Christians don't eat pork.

✝️ Easter is pagan, and you can't even fit 72 hours between Good Friday and Sunday morning.

🎄 Christmas is pagan, and December 25 was not Jesus' birthday anyhow.

🇺🇸 🇬🇧 You can't understand the Bible if you don't know the promises to Abraham are fulfilled in the Unites States and British Commonwealth.

☘️ The Trinity is false -- there are two God Beings: the Father and the Son.

🌫️ No one goes to heaven.

🔥 There is no everlasting hell.

📖 You would believe as we do if you just let the Bible interpret itself.

There were many more, but it was these kinds of things that made us stand out. These were the things true Christians believed; others were "counterfeit Christians."

It's extra sad when I see friends and family growing old with this kind of malnourished, non-salvific, false faith.

God have mercy on us all.

Beautiful.

If the Church started as an acorn and over time grew to be a beautiful oak tree, it doesn't seem right 2000 years later to chop off limbs in a supposed effort to look more like an acorn or anything else.

It might help us to see Christmas for what it is and to think of it accordingly if we stop using the word "Christmas" for a while - - and instead use a longer, more descriptive name, such as:

**The Feast of the Incarnation.**

It changes our perception for the better.

If we took it seriously, who then would ever listen to Mariah Carey singing "All I Want for the Feast of the Incarnation Is You"?

This is the first I've heard of Ventoy. I had to look it up -- it looks great! Thanks for mentioning it.

If the Apostle Paul was #Protestant, he would have started his own church.

Jesus did not die as our Substitute; he died as our Representative.

He did not suffer, die, and rise again *instead* of us.

All of us will suffer, carry our crosses, and die. But we must choose to do so in Christ.

Because if we are joined to Christ, then we will likewise be raised *with* him and *in* him.

Beautiful.

At our Latin Mass, sometimes we sit behind some screamin' kids. We have no children of our own, but we are not usually bothered by the cries and nose pickings and other distractions, because we are so happy young families are there.

I sense parents are more bothered by or worried about their own kids than the other parishioners are. To us it is the background noise of life.

There is no Christmas without Jesus being born of his human mother, who of her own free will said, "Let it be done to me according to your word."

Mary's central role in our salvation must not be undermined.

It's encouraging to hear that the OCIA class at the Cathedral in Toledo, OH, is the largest its been in decades.

Young based dudes are coming in.

I'm 51 years old, prospering and in good health. I have an awesome wife, and we have NO children.

(We're actually Catholic, so we don't contracept.)

I have no problem telling young couples to generously make babies. That's what we're supposed to do. It is a great blessing on so many levels.

I understand that when we are older and need assistance, my wifeand I will have no family to help us or care for us. And when one of us dies, the other will be all alone.

It's a cross from God we will bear. It will be okay. But one should never choose this path for the sake of fun now, for convenience now, for independence now.

That's a terrible trade-off you will regret if you had a choice.

Use your imagination and consider what it will be like the moment after your death, even when your body is still warm.

It's the inevitable time when, ready or not, things get real -- when you know exactly what's up.

See yourself approaching your ultimate "Come to Jesus Moment," which is to say, your personal judgment.

Will you wish your priorities had been different, even moments before, while you were still breathing? Will you wish for a do-over?

At that point, there are no do-overs. No second chances. Hard stop.

Your do-overs and second chances are graciously given to you now, in this life. Make use of them, and don't turn back, because you never know when you'll get your toe tag.

Repent of sin and be baptized. Look to Jesus and follow where he leads. Not only can you avoid an unbearable eternity of regret and misery, but you can enjoy the free gift of peace and love and joy with your God and Father forever.

I will pray for his soul and for your consolation right now.

Funny, because I've been through many Catholic Bible studies.

Have you ever heard of the extremely popular Catholic podcast called "Bible in a Year"? You should check it out. It goes verse by verse through the word thing.

The Catholic Church has no problem with translating Scripture into different languages as long as they aren't heretical translations.

Translating into the common tongue is a good thing. There have always been Catholic translations of the Bible in many languages.

Remember that even the KJV came out *after* the Douay-Rheims

(Catholic English Bible) was published.

But even today I would condemn the Jehovah's Witness Bible (New World Translation), for example, and even stop its publication if I could -- not because I hate the Bible (quite the opposite), but because it is a bad and heretical translation of something holy.

I was a "King James Only" guy until I read the Protestant writer James R. White's book entitled "The King James Only Controversy" in the mid-1990s. It changed my whole view in one weekend. Really good.

Another helpful book is "Where We Got the Bible" by Rev. Henry Graham. It dispels the common Protestant fiction of how the Catholic Church opposed the translation of the Scriptures into the common tongue.

That's good. I've never experienced too many good Bible studies with Protestants and nondenominationals, because many traditional Catholic interpretations tend to be rejected by nondenominationals. I hope that hasn't been your experience.

Elaborate a little more?

The reason Hell is bad is NOT its undesirable location 📌 or poor climate control 😓🔥.

It's bad because its inhabitants are in a fixed state of mind or soul that opposes the love of God. It is eternal hopelessness, the irreversible deprivation of all goodness by their own choice in this life.

Likewise, heaven is not a location; it's our immediate face-to-face relationship (as it were) with our Creator and Father, who fills our every hope and desire with his love ❤.

Don't presume your eternal fate:

✝️ "Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12).

Because the stakes are so high, the most important hour of life is the hour of death.

Examine your conscience and pray an act of contrition every day 🙏, because you never know when that last hour will come for you. 💀

Yes, that is an explicit one, that verse. Clear as day. All Bible-believing Christians need to accept that verse, too.

Sweet.

I am disinclined toward reading PDF books. Easier to read text that flows on an e-ink e-reader.

Thanks for looking into that!

"Then [Jesus] said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home" (John 19:27).

If you want to be a disciple, you should do the same: Take Mary into your home, your heart. Jesus gave her to us as our Queen Mother.

Everyone, without exception, will go through four of the "Last Five Things":

(1) Death

(2) Judgment

(3) Heaven

(4) Hell

(5) Loss of any and all crypto

Live this life accordingly.

The Word did not stop being God and turn into a man instead.

Rather, he remained God and acquired or assumed to himself a human nature, which is to say, a human body and soul. He didn't change into something else, but added to himself. That's an important distinction to make.

If we insist that God stopped being God when he became a man, then we reject the truth that he is the great "I AM." Instead we make him out to be the "I USED TO BE."

If that were the case, he wouldn't have been truly God from the start -- just like using a pencil eraser to erase permanent ink would mean it wasn't really permanent ink to begin with.

It's indeed a world of difference. The TLM is very prayerful, is very reverent, is very noble.

Through its liturgy, it encourages rather than discourages belief in the Real Presence of the Eucharist.