Why do these nitty-gritty details matter?

[Emily2014]

Daddy Girl did not mention Mass. She referred to “sitting in the Church”. I understood this to mean just popping in for a visit.
Mass cannot be equated with that, which is why it didn’t occur to me. Sorry

 

[PelagiathePenit]

Daddy Girl did not mention Mass. She referred to “sitting in the Church”. I understood this to mean just popping in for a visit.
Mass cannot be equated with that, which is why it didn’t occur to me. Sorry

Oops. Sorry. I understand what you mean now. I thought she meant going to mass. Oops, she meant just showing up. Oops. I guess it is important to read things literally NOT BETWEEN THE LINES.

 

[abook]

As you said love, also called charity, is indeed the greatest virtue, and St. Thomas Aquinas even says that no true virtue is possible without charity , and shows this by referencing (1 Corinthians 13:3): “If I should distribute all my goods to the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”. Now that we know that charity is the greatest virtue we have to know precisely what charity is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1822) says that “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”. All true charity is directed towards God, and Jesus himself, when asked what the greatest commandment is, said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."(Matthew 22:37-38). So if we truly have the virtue of charity we will love God above all other things, and if we love God above all things we will wish to keep his commandments as Jesus said “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”(John 14:15). To answer your question about why fasting is important, fasting allows us an opportunity to show our love for God, and become like him by uniting our sufferings with those of Jesus on the cross. It is important to go to mass because the mass is God’s greatest gift to mankind, it is through mass that the merit of Christ’s death on the cross is applied to us, and in the mass that He comes down to us in the form of bread and wine as a sign of his infinite love for us. Imagine that you were homeless and in terrible poverty and another person put themselves into large debt to buy you a house, and you decided not to live in the house, and to never speak to the person who bought you the house. This is how it is with people who don’t pray or go to mass, Jesus died a painful death on the cross for us so that we may receive Him in the Eucharist, receive forgiveness of our sins in confession, be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so that when we pray we may call God our Father.

 

[Dorothy]

As you said love, also called charity, is indeed the greatest virtue, and St. Thomas Aquinas even says that no true virtue is possible without charity , and shows this by referencing (1 Corinthians 13:3): “If I should distribute all my goods to the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”. Now that we know that charity is the greatest virtue we have to know precisely what charity is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1822) says that “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”. All true charity is directed towards God, and Jesus himself, when asked what the greatest commandment is, said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."(Matthew 22:37-38). So if we truly have the virtue of charity we will love God above all other things, and if we love God above all things we will wish to keep his commandments as Jesus said “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”(John 14:15). To answer your question about why fasting is important, fasting allows us an opportunity to show our love for God, and become like him by uniting our sufferings with those of Jesus on the cross. It is important to go to mass because the mass is God’s greatest gift to mankind, it is through mass that the merit of Christ’s death on the cross is applied to us, and in the mass that He comes down to us in the form of bread and wine as a sign of his infinite love for us. Imagine that you were homeless and in terrible poverty and another person put themselves into large debt to buy you a house, and you decided not to live in the house, and to never speak to the person who bought you the house. This is how it is with people who don’t pray or go to mass, Jesus died a painful death on the cross for us so that we may receive Him in the Eucharist, receive forgiveness of our sins in confession, be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so that when we pray we may call God our Father.

Excellent post! But…please…please…next time make paragraphs every few sentences so it will be easier to read.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

If given a choice, I think God would much prefer that a person spend an hour helping a friend or making dinner for the family or jogging or pruning the rosebushes or listening to music or taking a class or reading a book or volunteering at a soup kitchen or washing the dog…than sitting in church.
All those actions celebrate being alive and celebrate our love of others…they themselves are a form of devotion and prayer.

.

And being in church is not?

And that hour on Sunday is the ONLY hour in which your ‘options’ could be done, so that “Church” is taking that AWAY from your 'choices?

Ai yi yi yi yi. Your misunderstanding of Catholics and Catholicism is very troublesome. You diss Catholic teaching (uh, yeah, Mass attendance where we share not only fellowship with everybody else in Church but we also have the highest possible relationship with GOD HIMSELF in the Eucharist) is not just devotion and prayer, it is the HIGHEST devotion, prayer, communion, union, and LOVE we can receive or offer.

And you want to say that GOD HIMSELF would “rather” that we skip this because well golly gee, all those other things are SO MUCH BETTER, according to a random Internet poster.

No thanks, I’ll stick with God’s word and His Church.

 

[St_Francis]

As you said love, also called charity, is indeed the greatest virtue, and St. Thomas Aquinas even says that no true virtue is possible without charity , and shows this by referencing (1 Corinthians 13:3): “If I should distribute all my goods to the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”.

Now that we know that charity is the greatest virtue we have to know precisely what charity is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1822) says that “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”. All true charity is directed towards God, and Jesus himself, when asked what the greatest commandment is, said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."(Matthew 22:37-38).

So if we truly have the virtue of charity we will love God above all other things, and if we love God above all things we will wish to keep his commandments as Jesus said “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”(John 14:15).

To answer your question about why fasting is important, fasting allows us an opportunity to show our love for God, and become like him by uniting our sufferings with those of Jesus on the cross.

It is important to go to mass because the mass is God’s greatest gift to mankind, it is through mass that the merit of Christ’s death on the cross is applied to us, and in the mass that He comes down to us in the form of bread and wine as a sign of his infinite love for us.

Imagine that you were homeless and in terrible poverty and another person put themselves into large debt to buy you a house, and you decided not to live in the house, and to never speak to the person who bought you the house. This is how it is with people who don’t pray or go to mass, Jesus died a painful death on the cross for us so that we may receive Him in the Eucharist, receive forgiveness of our sins in confession, be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so that when we pray we may call God our Father.

You have to hit the return button two times to make a line-space paragraph break. (I too had trouble with this when I first started.) Also, for those of us with less-than-stellar eyesight, more paragraph breaks is def. better

 

[newcatholicwife]

Love does have a fair amount to do with sex, you know. Sex also creates human beings, which is a pretty big deal.

Also, if your mom knows that you love her, is it important that you visit at Christmas or call her on Mother’s Day? If your wife knows that you love her, is it important to bathe, pick up dirty socks, and do something special for her birthday and anniversary? Shouldn’t they be satisfied with you being a loving, honest, kind person (who doesn’t pick up socks, observe birthdays, bathe when asked, or visit)?

More seriously, having a strong devotional life is very helpful in figuring out whether we are actually being loving, honest and kind. Lots of people who aren’t nice at all think that they are.

My husband says that the great value of the teachings on sexuality is that they are very objective. We may not know whether we love our neighbor enough (we could always love him just a little more), but it is very hard to kid ourselves if we are committing adultery with his wife.

I really liked how you described going to church as visiting our fathers home. Some could say Im with Him everytime I pray. Which is very true but a little way to look at it is everytime we pray its like talking on the phone. But when we go to mass we are visiting Him and honoring Him in His own home. Going to mass is so much more but I think this might be a little analogy…