Compared to the sects, the Catholic religion can seem difficult to summarise. This is a summary of the faith for helping elderly converts understand what must be believed.
God made Adam and Eve in a state of friendship with himself. This state of friendship, the state of grace, was tied to their nature such that if they preserved it during procreation, they would have passed it naturally to their offspring.
But they sinned and disobeyed God. They lost this state of grace because of their disobedience. They no longer had the grace to pass to their offspring. So all their offspring were born without this grace, and as it were, in a state of non-friendship with God. This state of being without grace, without God's friendship, is what the Church calls original sin.
All mankind lost the privilege of being born in the state of grace due to Adam's sin. All men sinned in Adam. And without this grace, man's senses started to rebel against his intellect and will. The loss of the grace that caused knowing and loving God led to utter foolishness and baseness in man.
What a disruption of God's design. He could not leave things this way. He, out of supreme love for man, decided to Himself repair Adam's sin and restore mankind to the lost friendship!
Oh, the communion of saints. This union of the Mystical Body of Christ is truly signified by the Most Holy Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Just like to the brain in the human head is connected billions of nerves and blood vessels, to Jesus Christ the Head is connected every Catholic, living or dead!
And each time a Catholic receives Holy Communion, he acts as if to tighten his embrace of Jesus, increasing his expression of love. He, like one connected through a nerve or blood vessel to the brain, pulls more influx of grace to himself through the deep embrace in Holy Communion.
Now imagine what love must not exist between them all who enjoy this tight embrace, this continuous influx from the all-loving head!
Knowing the “facts” about God is something within our powers to “know,” To “assenting” to these facts to become “truth” to us is the work of the Holy Spirit.
We can know yet not believe. Just as Jesus said, “no one can come to me unless the Father draws him.” Supernatural grace is given to believe. We can want to believe even if we know, unless it is given for us to believe, we simply cannot.
That is why to think that other religions stands in the same footing with Catholic Faith is simply not possible, because it is the work of God, not by human effort, as these other religions believe that it is a matter of doing the right stuff. For unless the Lord open the gates for you, no one can enter.
God made Adam and Eve in a state of friendship with himself. This state of friendship, the state of grace, was tied to their nature such that if they preserved it during procreation, they would have passed it naturally to their offspring.
But they sinned and disobeyed God. They lost this state of grace because of their disobedience. They no longer had the grace to pass to their offspring. So all their offspring were born without this grace, and as it were, in a state of non-friendship with God. This state of being without grace, without God's friendship, is what the Church calls original sin.
All mankind lost the privilege of being born in the state of grace due to Adam's sin. All men sinned in Adam. And without this grace, man's senses started to rebel against his intellect and will. The loss of the grace that caused knowing and loving God led to utter foolishness and baseness in man.
What a disruption of God's design. He could not leave things this way. He, out of supreme love for man, decided to Himself repair Adam's sin and restore mankind to the lost friendship!
All Catholics, living and dead, are united.
Oh, the communion of saints. This union of the Mystical Body of Christ is truly signified by the Most Holy Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Just like to the brain in the human head is connected billions of nerves and blood vessels, to Jesus Christ the Head is connected every Catholic, living or dead!
And each time a Catholic receives Holy Communion, he acts as if to tighten his embrace of Jesus, increasing his expression of love. He, like one connected through a nerve or blood vessel to the brain, pulls more influx of grace to himself through the deep embrace in Holy Communion.
Now imagine what love must not exist between them all who enjoy this tight embrace, this continuous influx from the all-loving head!
Knowing the “facts” about God is something within our powers to “know,” To “assenting” to these facts to become “truth” to us is the work of the Holy Spirit.
We can know yet not believe. Just as Jesus said, “no one can come to me unless the Father draws him.” Supernatural grace is given to believe. We can want to believe even if we know, unless it is given for us to believe, we simply cannot.
That is why to think that other religions stands in the same footing with Catholic Faith is simply not possible, because it is the work of God, not by human effort, as these other religions believe that it is a matter of doing the right stuff. For unless the Lord open the gates for you, no one can enter.