Are you spying on my conversations??

I say that all the time.

I have seen "I deserve to be happy" ruin too many lives and families. It's that and YOLO.

Back in the AOL and Yahoo days, they were IMs. "Instant Message" was a fair term at least back then.

One day Jesus might say, "Sell all your Bitcoin and follow me."

I can tell you from my years of experience in going to #Confession:

I've never viewed it as a "work" I could do to cause God to owe me forgiveness.

To me, it is a humbling encounter in which you "tell on yourself" and receive the gift of undeserved forgiveness. No sin is too big for God to forgive, and that is so good to know.

But saying, "I don't have to tell my sins to a man! I can go straight to God!" -- I might guess that person does not have a habit of examining his conscience regularly or even confessing every specific serious sin every time to God (I could be wrong about that; it's a generalization).

We Catholics go to Confession for the sake of confessing with humility, for absolution (guaranteed unless one is not sorry for one's sins), and for special strength to resist future temptations to sin.

We don't earn forgiveness, but in light of the Judgment after this life is over, we sure will take it. Praise be to God.

John 20:23

Yes!!! And that order for us is (1) our intellect, (2) our will, and (3) our passions. Get those out of sequence and we're out of order!

There is zero chance Jesus was able to sin during his early ministry.

Why?

Persons -- not natures acting alone -- commit sin.

Although Jesus had acquired a human nature (i.e., body and soul), he was still a divine Person -- NOT a human person.

He was and is a divine Person with two natures: human and divine.

Merely having a body does not mean we will sin. The opposite is true as well (consider that bodiless demonic spirits are sinful).

To insist Jesus COULD have sinned is to say he was not a divine Person -- which would mean we have no Savior.

Human persons during this life can sin, but a divine Person can never sin under any circumstance.

Jesus' earthly life was a great test (during which he suffered in his humanity), but it was no gamble.

It was a pure, sacrificial act of love. ✝️

Yours is the true definition of religion. That is clarity.

Our secular society obscures truth and harms us all when it tries to redefine words like family, woman, marriage, and abortion.

There are Christians who also spread confusion when they claim "Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship."

What does that mean? Should we presume to be "irreligious"? Does religion preclude relationship?

I don't think "religion" means what they think it means.

Everyone misspeaks, but we should be careful with our words so we don't mislead others -- or ourselves.

Interesting. I remember that Catholic Answers debacle when their version of AI came out.

I hope this effort works out better.

Because the anti-biblical "Bible alone" theory is self-refuting, practicing it gives rise to countless heresies.

Without the Church over the course of 2k years issuing dogmas that act as doctrinal boundaries, one ends up not knowing with confidence even the fundamental truths of Christianity.

We wouldn't know what the NT Scriptures were without the Church, or whether they were even God-breathed.

So that alone (i.e., sola scriptura) is what makes Protestantism a tragic and dangerous heresy.

What do you think the inerrancy of the pope means?

You are correct. He was wrong, not speaking as a good Catholic there.

May God have mercy on his soul.

Catholics: Don't let your guard down and allow non-denominational Evangelical Christians (or even other Catholics!) to persuade you into thinking we are all on the same path because we all follow Christ and believe in His Word -- as if we are merely different brands of the same product.

We are not the same.

If we were the same, they would not wholeheartedly reject the source and summit of the Faith -- the Eucharist -- even believing Eucharistic adoration is idolatry.

If we were the same, they would not reject the basics of the Faith, like the answer to sin: sacramental baptism and confession.

If we were the same, they would not reject Saint Paul's explicit command to hold fast to oral Tradition.

Recognize that their foundational beliefs come straight from the Protestant heresy. Yes, Protestantism is a serious and dangerous heresy.

Indulging in false ecumenism is to perpetuate a lie, and it serves neither the truth nor your non-Catholic friends. And it's a scandalous example to fellow Catholics, with the potential to weaken their faith.

Catholics must speak the truth in love.

Just got my new Roman Psalter in the mail. Published by nostr:nprofile1qqsx53l5x2ft36a9swmyemxxfyhj0qzucg37pp3f86xum7eyxpt8dxqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43q38evjw. Looks good.

Thanks!

MY REAL-LIFE CONNECTION TO POPE LEO

Sure, I'm Catholic, so the bishop of Rome is always significant to me. But I have a closer connection to Pope Leo in particular (I promise I'm not making this up):

I have met and shaken hands with a man who spoke to someone on the phone whose dentist's sister is the neighbor of the pope's brother.

True story.

I'll pray a Hall Mary for you now. Thank you. Dominus vobiscum!

Any good ideas from the conference?

Wife of Catholic apologist Trent Horn has brain cancer and will have a brain operation tomorrow. Laura is a nice, funny, and chatty faith-filled woman.

She and her husband released a podcast about it yesterday.

Please pray for the surgery's success and for healing, but especially for spiritual perseverance and fidelity to the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilj3CDGGkQg

The United Church of God denies the doctrine of the trinity primarily by arguing that the Holy Spirit is not a Third Person, but a power.

I'd say their more fundamental error is believing that the Father and Son "are two separate Beings that comprise the God Family." UCG thinks one day there will be many more than just two.

That's straight-up pagan polytheism, which goes against everything traditional Catholicism stands for.

It's chief among the reasons I insist UCG and others like the cannot be properly call "Christian."

Is it best for me to buy your book through Lulu the "traditional" way, or would you rather send a copy yourself and receive Monero for it?

Some say Catholicism is false because true Christian tradition was corrupted beyond recognition within the first couple centuries.

Yet many who say this also claim ancient Babylonian religion under Nimrod remains alive and well and intact throughout the world -- best represented by Catholicism.

How does Nimrod keep a religion going for four or five thousand years -- but Jesus can't hold the gates of hell off his Church for a century?

There is a false gospel I grew up with that says "God is reproducing himself."

But it's a logical absurdity to say God can create a:

- creator of all things

- self-existent being

- omnipotent being

- etc.

It's as nonsensical as saying God can create a squared triangle.

You're right. I'd say we will have a full perspective on both God's mercy and his justice. It's not that his mercy is good and his justice is bad; both are good. And we will know that, and we will be happy in his execution of justice.

From our perspective now, we think of people here who can avoid destruction if only these poor souls will repent. We want them to make the right choices. But that opportunity closes at death. The situation is different at that point.

Just as we don't "feel sorry" for demons who made their definitive choice long ago, neither will we feel sorry for others whose final choice was hell. Certainly not when we are perfected in mind and spirit in God's presence (rather than viewing everything from our current, carnal, earthly perspective).