Expert: Griff Ruby - 3/1/2004

Question
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Followup To
Question -
Partly the result of the film "The Passions of Christ", I am reminded again that somehow I am responsible for Christ's crucifixtion.  How can that be.  I feel no guilt or responsibility, please explain why I should.  Thank you.  Ryland Roesch
Answer -
My extreme apologies for the delay, as I have had precious little access to the computer lately.
If you recall the parable of the sheep and the goats, at the end, with the sheep on His right hand and the goats at His left, each asks "When did we ever see You hungry or thirsty or in need of clothing or shelter or in prison or sick, and give you sustainence or covering or visit You?" and He replies that "To the extent you did/didn't do these for the least of my bretheren, you did/didn't do them for Me."
Every sin we do makes us just like those in power who wanted Him dead at all costs, even willing to resort to any lie, cruelty, subterfuge, connivery, or other slimy behavior just to bring it all about.  One small but important aspect of the confessional is that in there we formally admit our own sin as the sin that it is.  No longer can we pretend our sins are not really sins.  Here they were, Annanias, Caiaphas, and suchlike, in charge of God's own sacred temple, charged with all the most high and sacred of all duties, and yet when the long-promised Messiah arrives rather than follow Him they seek to destroy Him - as if killing Him would make the hard truths He spoke somehow go away.  They got that way through their own sins.
If you think "Well, Jesus was with them there back then, but now He is gone so how can anything I do touch Him in any way; what harm could I possibly do to Him?" you have missed one of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity - namely that of His Mystical Body being itself still in the world and guaranteed to be so to the end of time.  That Mystical Body is the Church which He founded and which exists to this day.  That Church now exists in one of Her most humiliated circumstances, one of being in exile from nearly all Her former houses all around the world and having been driven underground.
That Church is manifested in those who dare to speak the truth to the world, even at great risk and cost to themselves, without any thought of gain or compensation or even thanks.  When we sin, and especially choose to remain in our sin, we give ourselves yet more reason to desire the suppression of the truth and make ourselves just like those in the film who sought Christ's own death.
See the abuse heaped on Mel simply for making this movie.  It doesn't come from "Jews" but from any and all who hate the truth and who hate Him who is Truth (some even using charges of "anti-Semitism" (good grief, what nonsense! - Jesus Himself is Semitic!) as a cover for their own dirty motives), and who would gladly crucify Him again today, personally, were it possible.  Well, it is possible.  And such persecution continues to be done all around the world.
With every sin we make ourselves like them; with every repentance we return to conforming to the image of Christ and make ourselves (with His Divine help) more like Him.  In this season of Lent may we also unite our sufferings to His that we may be even all the more like Him and all the less like those who sought His crucifixion.
I hope this helps - God bless!

Follow up question{  Let's assume that I am a new born baby!   Thank you, Ryland Roesch


Answer
The newborn baby has no personal guilt, but merely shares in the inherited sin of Adam.  As such he or she is innately selfish and unconcerned about God and about others, but since this is not the result of their own guilt, were such to die while still in such a condition, the general consensis of the Church (long accepted) is that such a child, having not attained the use of reason and so guilty of no actual sins, would end up in Limbo, a place of human natural happiness, but something clearly short of Heaven.