Confirmation Class 1:6 - Morality
Take Home Study Guide
Jan 13th, 2013
Freedom & Truth:
- True freedom is the ability to choose the good, not merely to do what you want.
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To claim that one thing is right and another wrong is to believe in an objective truth.
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To believe in objective truth is to admit to a higher order or God.
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If God and objective truth exist, then our choices have consequences.
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The natural law means: the way things are meant to work.
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To help us live freely God revealed the fullness of Truth in Jesus.
o The fullness of Truth that leads to freedom is summed up in the Greatest Commandment, to
love God and neighbor.
Reconciliation:
- Sin is an offense against God and the Church.
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Conversion is the process where you turn from your sin, admit your mistakes and seek forgiveness
from God and the Church, and are restored to communion with both. In a word, you reconcile.
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Only God can forgive sins because all sin has eternal consequences
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Jesus entrusted the Apostles and their successors with the authority to forgive sins in his name. (Matt
15:19)
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Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God.
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Through admission of his sins, man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty of, takes responsibility for
them, and thereby opens himself again to God and to the communion of the Church in order to make a
new future possible.”
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“The whole power of the sacrament of Reconciliation consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining
us with him in an intimate friendship.”
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In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the priest stands “in persona Christi”, in the person of Christ.
What is Sin:
- Sin is an act of the will, a failure to love God and neighbor.
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“Venial sin damages the relationship with God; mortal sin destroys it.” – Peter Kreeft
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For a sin to be considered “mortal” (deadly), it must meet three criteria:
1) It must be of grave matter,
2) It must be freely chosen,
3) The person must know it to be grave matter.
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If a person dies while in the state of Mortal sin, then they cannot enter heaven.
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Only God may judge if someone deserves to go to hell or not.
o As Christians we estimate a person’s value in who they are, not in what they do.