Expert: Marco - 10/15/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hi! I have two questions.
1) I read that Mother Teresa said, "We should give until it hurts." What are your thoughts on that statement? I know that a lot of Catholics would try to "romanticize" that statement by dubbing it "redemptive suffering"
but to me.. giving until it hurts is the heighth of self-destructive/defeating behavior. Doesn't God love us so much
that he wants us to be happy and he wants other people and (to treat)ourselves with dignity too?

2) Do you find that the Sacrament of Reconciliation helps to keep one a kind and honest person?

ANSWER: Dear Savannah,

first of all let me say that as  catholics we have to accept all the official teachings of the Church. These official teachings are given in the cathechism.
Mother Teresa's words are NOT official teachings; a catholic is then free to disagree with her.
God gave us the Church as a guide for us to understand the saving truth. However, the Church does not replace our personal conscience. The Church gives us the fundamental elements for our faith, and on these elements, each christian must develop a personal relationship with the Lord.
Mother Teresa has then interpret the teachings of the Church in a certain way, but this does not mean that each of us must have the same interpretation.
Certainly God wants our happiness; our good actions can help others to find the true faith and the true happiness.
Good actions often requires some sacrifices.
Certainly mather Teresa has done great sacrifices to help others, and this is a very admirable fact.
Nevertheless, her words can never replace our personal conscience.

2) Yes, I think the sacrament of Reconciliation helps us to improve our spiritual life.

Your brother in Christ,

Marco
PS I would like to add some considerations of mine

Why does Hell exist?

God loves us infinitely and He desires to lead each of us to the eternal life  and to the true happiness. But God is perfectly Holy and Good; God cannot tolerate evil because evil is uncompatible with His good and holy nature.
So, we cannot go to heaven as long as we are not completely purified from our sins and sanctified.
Our sanctifcation is necessary for us to go to heaven.
God desires to sanctify us, but He has given us a free-will, so God needs our consent in order to purify and sanctify us. God respects our choices and therefore God cannot santify those who do not want to be sanctified and purified, those who do not want to stop sinning, those who do not want to live a holy life.
These are those who go to hell.


If God knows everything, why did He create those souls who go to Hell?

The fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of grace, will yield a true and deep love for God.
God knows that the fear of eternal punishment is sometimes the only means to induce some sinners to repentance and conversion. So the salvation of these souls justifies the eternal punishment of those souls who refuse to repent and be converted. In other words, without an eternal punishment, fewer souls would be saved.
Therefore the existence of an eternal suffering in Hell is justified as an instrument to induce more men to repent and therefore be saved.

Why did Jesus have to suffer on the Cross?

I think this is the most impostant question!

I believe that each of us needed know that God was willing to accept such a terrible suffering for us, in order to really trust God. Every man needed that proof of love, and God, who knew this, has accepted to give him what man consciously or unconsciously asked to Him. Jesus had to suffer and die that way to convince us about God's goodness and God's love towards us. It is man's obstinate distrust against God that has forced God to give man that proof of love, the proof he needed to trust God. By His death on the cross, Jesus destroys our distrust and our doubts, and He gives us the strength to believe in Him and trust Him. This means that each of us is personally responsible of Jesus ' sufferings and death. This distrust, this lack of faith in God is just the essence of the original sin. Christ's Passion has reconciled us to God because it has uprooted from our heart, our distrust and doubts about God; it has satisfied our (conscious or unconscious) desire and need of a proof of love, so that it has given us the strength to trust God and feel loved by Him. I can summarize my thoughts as follows: Salvation implies a deep change of ourselves. God has the power to change us but He wants to do that with our consent. Man cannot really accept to be changed by God and he cannot be in comunion with God as long as even a shadow of doubt and distrust remains in his heart ( it must be stressed that such a distrust may exist even without the man is aware of it, at the unconscious level). God had to destroy every shadow of doubt and distrust in our heart and He has chosen to give us the greatest proof of love that may exist: Christ's Passion.

I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of  God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
The explanation of these aguments is rather long and Allexperts allows only to give short answers. You can find such arguments  in the following site

http://xoomer.alice.it/fedeescienza/englishnf.html

where  I analyse the incongruencies of the materialistic conception of the mind, on the basis of our present scientific knowledges about brain and matter.
This analysis points out how the laws of physics  prove that the   brain cannot generate consciousness, which existence implies  the presence in man of a unbiological/unmaterial element. The problem of consciousness is then strictly connected to the one of the existence of the soul and, consequently, the existence of God.
In the first article entitled “Mind and brain...” you can find a general discussion of the mind and brain problem from a scientific point of view.
In the second article entitled “Scientific contraddictions in materialism”
you  can find an explanation of the fundamental inconsistencies of  the  typical arguments used by materialists, such as the concept of emergent, macroscopic or holist property, complexity, information, etc.
In the section called “FAQ: answers to  visitors' questions” you can find the answer to many typical questions, such as "Are there any scientifically proved miracles?", "Does the existence of the universe imply the existence of God?", "Can science explain God?", "Can science establish which is the true religion?", "Can science explain consciousness in the future?", and many others.

I hope this may help,

please ask again if you should need some clarifications,

Your brother in Christ,

Marco


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: What about the fact of the Resurrection and that Jesus conquered suffering and death? Don't you think we as Catholics focus on the Passion too much at times and not enough on the "Good News?"

Also...If we develop a spiritual, personal relationship with God
rather than a religious one...won't that create a deeper love between God and man?

I thought that we are already sanctified because Jesus took
our sins to the Cross? If we accept that by faith, is it enough?  If its not...why bring our sins to the cross?

Answer
Dear Savannah,

I think that the mistery of the Cross and the Passion of Christ is something each of us must meditate upon.
In my previous answer I explained my personal interpretation of such mistery, the result of my personal meditations.

A personal, spiritual relationship with God is necesarily a religious relationship. Yor second question makes then no sense to me.

You are wrong when you write that we are already sanctified because Jesus took our sins  to the Cross.
According to the teachings of the Church, santification is a process lasting all of our life. In fact, if we still commit some sins, even venial sins, we are not completely sanctified yet.

Your brother in Christ,

Marco