Church Full of Sinners & the Truth

[CRATUS]

While handling and seeing the real world of what it is. Some sinners are worse than others. I still wonder how we are all sinners. Like I stated before, some people seem fall rather easily into serious mortal sins, while some rarely sin. Some people seem to have no need for a belief in God or church attendance, they prove to be well able to manage themselves well. When I look at Catechism and the Bible, who can honestly live up to all that? Some disagree with it, ignore it, etc. There is always something wrong and that needs to changed, altered, etc. I should accept this sinful world as it is, but what is life without hope?

Some people complain that church people gossip and they should know better. While, I agree. I ran into this problem. What should I expect? All those bible stories begin to seem more and more impossible to me. What is the point in the church having all those rules if most will violate them?

 

[CRATUS]

There are lax reverends, churches in debt, corrupt priests, poverty, etc. All those saint stories seem like fantasies.

 

[Srid611]

I heard someone on the radio talking about saints yesterday and she said a very helpful thing. Saints point us to God. where their stories seem fantastic is where love is fantastic. God’s Love and Mercy is just that. Don’t loose sleep over the lives of saints being some unattainable ideal. They are an example and a compass. They point to God and they show us how following him can have fantastic effects in our lives…

 

[JackVk]

I know this seems cliche, but the Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints. All those saints, those poker-faced characters you see in stained-glass windows? They were just as sinful as you and me. We have glossed over their faults, like how Augustine was a playboy or when Louis de Montfort punched a drunken heckler.

I, too, have been struggling with the idea of “who can live up to all that?” I figure I will just do the best I can, and not lose sleep over it all. I know I quote Game of Thrones a lot, but it can seem like the words of Jaime Lannister: “you have to forsake one vow for another”.

Trust in God’s goodness and clemency. He understands we’re not perfect. Love that imperfection, and let Him take care of it.

 

[fhansen]

There are lax reverends, churches in debt, corrupt priests, poverty, etc. All those saint stories seem like fantasies.

The typical priest, for example, isn’t necessarily any different from the rest of us in terms of holiness. The saints are rare birds who pursue the knowledge of God, who pursue God, much more intensely and earnestly. They become spiritual heroes and heroines for the rest of us. We can’t fault the Christain faith just because its greatest zealots are otherwise relatively few and far between. From the Catechism:

**827 "Christ, ‘holy, innocent, and undefiled,’ knew nothing of sin, but came only to expiate the sins of the people. The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal."299 All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners.300 In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time.301 Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness:

The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.302

1428 Christ’s call to conversion continues to resound in the lives of Christians. This second conversion is an uninterrupted task for the whole Church who, "clasping sinners to her bosom, [is] at once holy and always in need of purification, [and] follows constantly the path of penance and renewal."18 This endeavor of conversion is not just a human work. It is the movement of a “contrite heart,” drawn and moved by grace to respond to the merciful love of God who loved us first.19**

 

[Gliggle]

In the next life we will be perfect, but only if we accept the grace of God in this life. I too am often reminded how I know many non-believers who live very good lives. I often think many Catholics are amongst the worst sinners, and perhaps that is why they need so much of the grace that practicing Catholicism provides; particularly in the form of the sacraments, such as the Eucharist and confession. Imagine how awful all us Catholics would be without this. Jesus came to call sinners. This isn’t an empty statement, he knew we needed him or we would be lost.

Also your idea that it’s impossible to follow God’s laws is an illusion. There is nothing as easy as rejecting sin when we are ready; it is what our heart desires, to turn fully to God, and when we do this, sin becomes repulsive and horrifying, yes, even all those impossible sounding rules, because at last the heart realizes that to sin knowingly is to rend away a piece of yourself and grind it into the dust. Honestly. No longer appealing.