Confession

So today I went to confession (had to bike 7 ish miles to get there...) I love how God respects Humans so much that He became a man... and I love how He continues to respect each and everyone of us, as both spiritual and physical beings, in the sacraments... especially reconcilliation, ain't nothing better than being cleansed body and soul by the person of Christ.

Anyhow, I went to St. Anthony Mary Claret, for confession, and I decided to stay and participate in Mass... I mean really... do you have to pull my arm to make me go to mass? What's better than participating in heaven? I really liked mass at St. Claret, because they respected the Eucharist so well! and I always love it when bells are rung at mass, reminding us that the angels and our brothers and sisters in heaven are at that very moment on bended knee in union with us, worshiping Jesus, and remembering his one sacrifice for all times.

The priest also gave a good homily.

I've been reading Fides Et Ratio (faith and reason) lately, and I'm so completely amazed how brilliant and reasonable Pope John Paul II is...

I was reading it thursday and I was struck by one particular passage that I've been sending to my good friends. The passage strikes me because of its amazing depth... it deals with the word of God, some philosophical abuses by some today, with what it is and then it shows us the incredible hope it offers.

"There are also signs of a resurgence of fideism, which fails to recognize the importance of rational knowledge and philosophical discourse for the understanding of faith, indeed for the very possibility of belief in God. One currently widespread symptom of this fideistic tendency is a “biblicism” which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scripture the sole criterion of truth. In consequence, the word of God is identified with Sacred Scripture alone, thus eliminating the doctrine of the Church which the Second Vatican Council stressed quite specifically. Having recalled that the word of God is present in both Scripture and Tradition,(73) the Constitution Dei Verbum continues emphatically: “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture comprise a single sacred deposit of the word of God entrusted to the Church. Embracing this deposit and united with their pastors, the People of God remain always faithful to the teaching of the Apostles”.(74) Scripture, therefore, is not the Church's sole point of reference. The “supreme rule of her faith” (75) derives from the unity which the Spirit has created between Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church in a reciprocity which means that none of the three can survive without the others.(76)"

Fides Et Ratio, paragraph 55

The thing I found so amazing whas how it talked about the word of God being the unity of both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition (I had never heard it so explicity stated) and then goes on to say that the unity of "Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church" means that no one of them can live without the other and still be considered the living word of God. If you neglect the Scriptures, you neglect Christ, if you neglect the Traditions, you neglect Christ, and if you neglect the Magisterium, you neglect Christ, and if you neglect Christ in anyway, you only posess a semblance of the dead word of God, not the full living word. Ever since the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost has Tradition and the Magisterium existed... they are older than the canon of Sacred Scripture itself! But so many today neglect the living action of the Holy Spirit granted to the Apostles, and handed down, to our very day in the Catholic Church. Through the same actions that Christ used to comission the Apostles... by his very breath.

John 20:22-23
"And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.'"

<>A physical sign of a spiritual reality... the very first Sacrament, given by Christ after His death... I think it's interesting that when He gave the Apostles the Holy Spirit, He also gave them the Authority to forgive sins!

Anyhow... I think I'm on a tangent from my original point... in fact I don't think I can remember my orignal point... c'est la vie. Well... here is the quote that Fides Et Ratio is referring to from Vatican II's document Dei Verbum (the word of God):

10. Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2, 42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort. (7)

DEI VERBUM, paragraph 10