As Advent begins, may we reflect upon Jesus, our Savior, who by the riches of God’s grace took on flesh by being born of the Blessed Virgin to be the perfect blood sacrifice for our redemption and for the forgiveness of sins (see Ephesians 1:7). By contemplating God’s holy word, praying daily, and filling our souls with sacramental grace through His Church, let our belief and repentance grow virtues of faith, hope, and love to produce the fruit of joy and peace.
“...God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4), in His infinite wisdom founded His one, holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic Church with sacramental confession that forgives sins through His priests (see Matthew 16:15-19; John 17:17-23, 20:21-23; Luke 10:16).
Granted, it’s hard to humble ourselves before God and man by confessing our sins, but it’s reassuring to hear absolution spoken in the name of the Blessed Trinity from the priest by the divine power given to Him and thereby know our sins are truly forgiven.
“When it arises from a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called ‘perfect’.... Such contrition remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 1452).
“...I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven” (Matthew 12:30-32). “There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss” (CCC 1864).
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:14-16).
“...unless you repent you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3).
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:22-71).
Here Jesus links salvation with baptism, confession and the Eucharist, which are sacraments validly administered through the Catholic Church. Since a validly ordained priest is required for confession and the Eucharist, the sacrament of ordination must also be linked with salvation making the Catholic Church paramount in salvation (www.catholic.com).
“Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition [see 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17], the Council teaches that the Church...is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church [see Colossians 1:18]. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism.... Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it” (CCC 846).
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