God's Greatest Attribute is His Mercy

This quote "God's Greatest Attribute is His Mercy" is another quote that my teacher, Mr Cole loves to say. He told us an interesting story earlier in the year about a teacher that he had in college that he learned this saying from. He said that there was a rumor that if you wrote "God's greatest attribute is His mercy" at the bottom of your test, he wouldn't fail you no matter how bad you did. That is something along the lines of what he told us, but he has brought this quote and started using it in our class in certain situation. I think this quote is very interesting because when you think about it, God has to forgive and have mercy on everybody because no body is perfectly sinless except for Jesus and Mary.

At the very beginning of time, in the first book of the Bible, we already see God's Mercy and forgiveness. Because of the free will we all sometimes make mistakes and do stuff we shouldn't do. We see these mistakes from the beginning of time when Adam and Eve eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God told them that they could eat from any other tree except for that one but they disobeyed him. After Adam and Eve, we see more mistakes made throughout the Old Testament. The world becomes so filled with evil at one point that he selects Noah to build an arch and save his family and one of every type of animal, and God sends a flood that kills everybody and takes all the evil with it, but original sin still remained. We see God's mercy when he makes the ultimate sacrifice and sends his only begotten son down to earth to die for our sins. While on earth Christ establishes the Church, the Sacrament of Salvation and the Sacraments as a way for us to receive God's grace and his salvation. God forgives all of our sins that we make everyday, we just have to pray, repent, and ask for forgiveness. For me, that is why God's greatest attribute is His mercy.

The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive

In our Theology II class a frequent term used is "the glory of God is man fully alive," but what does this really mean.  That question is the question that Mr. Cole will not stop asking. At the beginning of the year, we answered this question and he asked us to answer it again. Here is my reflection on St Irenaeus's quote from about 185 AD. 

Well I think that we can all a agree that God created the world and he did it to express his love for us. God is a perfect being that did not need to create the world and can not gain anything by creating the world. Therefore, God did not create the world for his personal gain, but share his glory with the world.  God truly expressed his love for us by creating us.  So the Glory God is when he manifests himself and his goodness through creation.  God created us, human beings, to be in communion with him.  One problem, when Adam and Eve committed original sin, we fell out of communion with God and could no longer fulfill our one true task.  So God sent his only son to redeem us by sacrificing himself on the cross.  Again, this is God showing his everlasting and  generous love for us.

The next step we must take to understanding the glory of God is man full alive now that we know what the Glory of God is.  Man fully alive is a person doing what God would want us to do, making the morale Christian decision and helping others.  An easy way to do this is when you are presented with a difficult situation, think with your heart and not your head.  This will usually get you going on the right track and you will often make the right decision. God also created us to work, so we can glorify God through our work. In our respective jobs, we should work hard to do the best we can. Now that we have an understanding what man fully alive is, we can begin to piece the phrase together.  So if the glory of God is creation and man fully alive is someone a good morale decision, when we put them together it takes on a new meaning.  The glory of God is man fully alive means that when a Christian is acting as God wants him to, then he is showing the world the Glory of God through his actions and works.  I hope that this helps explain the confusing and unanswerable concept of "The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive."

Confirmation: The Laying on of Hands

Confirmation is the perfection of the graces given in Baptism. The sacrament gets it roots from the story of Pentecost where Christ sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles giving them the courage to preach the Gospel. The Early Church called this sacrament the Laying of Hands because an Apostle would lay his hands on the newly baptized and confirm his baptism. Confirmation completes Baptism by bringing the the confirmand- the person receiving the Sacrament- fully into the Mystical Body of Christ and perfecting the graces that had been given in Baptism. The confirmand receives the same rush of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles experienced at Pentecost. Confirmation reaffirms the person's identity as an adopted child of God and strengthens the person's ability to proclaim the Gospel through words and deeds. Confirmation confirms one's baptism through the laying on of hands and anointing with Chrism.

Baptism: Initiation into the Church

The Sacrament of Baptism is one of the three Sacraments of Initiation by which a person becomes a full member of the Church. Baptism is a new birth in water and the Spirit by which we are cleansed of both Original Sin and actual sin. Baptism connects us to the resurrection of Christ and allows us to be saved. Jesus says that unless a person is born of water and Spirit he can not enter the Kingdom of God. He commands the Apostles to go and Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit highlighting the importance of Baptism in Salvation. After we participate in Baptism, we become part of the Mystical Body of Christ and we become an adopted son or daughter of God. Although we are forgiven of Original Sin through Baptism, we retain the consequences of Original Sin such as death and the inclination to sin. Baptism opens the path and the ability to go to Heaven, but we still must live a Christ like life. Baptism initiates us into the Church and gives us the sanctifying grace needed to enter into the Kingdom of God.