The Unity of the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is One, which is one of the four marks of the Church. When we say that the Church is One, we affirm the unity and solidarity of the Church. This unity of the Church does not really come from her members, but it comes from God himself. He is the source of the Catholic Church. The Church is One because of her uniqueness, meaning that Jesus established one, single Church, the Catholic Church, that is in accord with the will of God. The Catholic Church is the only Church with unity of doctrine, of Sacraments, and of government under a single leader, the Pope. The Catholic Church celebrates the Seven Sacraments that were instituted by Christ when worshiping in unity. And, there is unity in the Church's leadership, for, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders,  the teachings of Jesus and St. Peter are continued without breaks or interruption because of apostolic succession. You can hurt the unity of the Church by causing heresy, schism, or apostasy. All of these are very serious, but schism is the worst form of harming the Church's unity because it causes an entire group of people to separate itself from the Catholic Church and the truth. And, heresy, which is a false teaching, can be very misleading to the one who proposed it and those who fall into belief of it. Ecumenical Councils are often put together in order to absolve this false teaching from the people who were misled and to clarify on the proper truth.

Some examples of schism are those of the Orthodox Churches and the churches formed during the Protestant Reformation. These churches are not completely wrong with all of their teachings, and the Catholic Church recognizes elements of salvation within them, such as the Sacred Scripture, some or all of the Seven Sacraments, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Those people that are born into these churches are known as separated brethren, but they are not held guilty for not knowing the truths of Catholicism because it is not their fault. Sin is what cased all the divisions within Christianity, and misunderstandings make even more greater these divisions. Catholics are supposed to become involved in ecumenism, which is the task of working toward Christian unity. We should all make an effort to understand the positions of each other and look for areas of agreement in order to build in Christian unity. To help reach unification, all Christians must pray for a greater manifestation of the unity that Christ desires for his Church here on earth.
 

Christians Persecuted

          During the time of the persecutions, Christians would be asked if they believed in Christ, and if they responded yes they would be killed, thus becoming martyrs. This is what a Christian should do, because you must never deny your faith. Denying your faith means that you are denying Christ, and denying Christ means that you deny the Redemption brought about by Christ. There were probably some people who simply were born into Christianity or just chose to become Christian but choose to deny the faith under pressure just so that they could live. Obviously, that is extremely wrong and God should be always first in our lives. What truly matters is communion with God. Our life on Earth is short, while our life after Earth is eternal. On Earth, we either choose God (heaven), away from God (hell), or desire God greatly but are not fully ready to live with him in heaven (purgatory, which is a cleansing state in which you eventually go to heaven). What I am wondering is what the teaching is about those who denied their faith to live, but then proceeded to live saintly lives and greatly help others, which they could have not done if they were dead.
          The Church has no clear answer to this and the topic is up for much debate, but according to the Bible, one should never deny Christ and in John, Galatians, Matthew, Luke, Romans, and many others it encourages being persecuted for the faith. This makes perfect sense, as your life is the greatest thing one can offer to another. For sure, denying the faith is a grave sin. Another question is what about Reconciliation? Also, when under great pressure, everyone is human after all, and we make mistakes. Even Peter, the rock of the Church, denied Christ three times in a row. God is an all-loving God, and if you are truly sorry for your sins and repent, God will forgive you. Ultimately, we cannot judge others as God is the only one who can judge us as he is the only one who knows what is going on in our hearts. The only things that can be said with certainty are that denying the faith is a sin and requires repentance and that martyrdom for Christ and not for the fame of being a martyr is looked upon greatly by God. 

Temptation and Sin

All of us, as flawed humans, experience temptation and even choose to embrace this temptation and commit a wrongful act that is against God's will. I, like everyone else, choose to sin when I am tempted to go against the will of God and embrace an immoral thought. We experience these feelings because of the sin our parents Adam and Eve chose to commit when tempted by the Devil himself. The Devil tries to tempt us through fear and through the distortion of the truth in his attempt to pull as many of us as possible away from our loving Father in Heaven. Suffering, death, and concupiscence are all effects of their decision to eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Because of this concupiscence, an inclination to sin, we are often tempted to make the wrong decision that ends up harming our relationship with God. We should be cautious and careful when facing temptation, for we do not want this temptation to lead us to sin and hurt our relationship with God and our neighbors. Sin  and temptation are not the same, but one can lead for the the other to occur. Temptation is the enticement to do wrong while sin is actually doing that wrong. So, by being tempted and thinking of an action that is immoral does not mean that you have sinned. For, even Jesus Christ was tempted by the Devil when he was fasting in the desert, but he did not sin because

he resisted the temptation and chose to follow his Father's will. There has to be a choice of falling to temptation and of doing the wrong thing for there to be sin. We should live in imitation of Jesus as he is a living example of how God wants us to live our lives. We should resist temptation and grow in our relationship with God as we avoid sin and seek holiness.

Also, your neighbors that surround you can heavily affect your decisions to sin. They can try to tempt you to commit an action that you may not be very comfortable with, but you decide to do it in order to avoid seeming different and being ostracized from the group. Those who fall into temptation and commit a sin may try to get you into doing the same thing so that they can feel better about themselves. But, you should remain true to God and realize if an action is wrong, not doing it if it is. I often see many wrongful actions that are committed in movies, and I hear much sin going around in songs. And, I often find myself thinking about wrongful actions and trying to convince myself that they are okay to commit because everyone else does them. Then, I remind myself to remain prude when watching and listening to these things, and I resist most temptations but end up falling to some of the temptations that I experience because of concupiscence and because I am not perfect. But, although we as humans are sinners and suffer from the action of our first parents, we should try our best to resist temptation  and avoid sin.

A good example to help explain the difference between temptation and sin is the expired bag of chips example. If you are looking in you pantry and see an expired bag of delicious chips on the ground, you remain healthy as long as you do not pick it up and eat from it although you may be attracted to grab it because you are hungry. In this example, the bag of chips is the object that has the potential to harm you physically, but you do not harm yourself unless you grab the bag of expired chips and commit the wrong action of eating them, going against the healthy and right decision. The bag of chips is the thought that has potential for sin, but you do not commit the sin as long as you resist the temptation of opening the bag and eating from it, which represents you executing the immoral thought and sinning, going against the will of God and actually harming your relationship with him.

The Real Presence

Is Jesus really present in the Eucharist that Catholics receive during Mass? The answer to this question is yes.   The bread that is offered during Mass is Jesus' own flesh and the wine that is offered is his own blood. When I go to Mass and receive this very important sacrament, I usually just walk off with Jesus' body and blood in my mouth and do not think much of it. I don't really keep in mind that I am receiving the graces of the Holy Communion, and I don't exactly acknowledge that Christ suffered and died for us to live eternally in Heaven with God at that very moment. I feel that many people experience the same thing too, for we see it as routine and as something ordinary, when really it is something wonderful and great. It is much like paying attention to and realizing what you are professing when you pray and go to Mass. 

Jesus is present in his Church through the Sacrament of the Eucharist. His sacramental presence in the consecrated bread and wine, making it Jesus' body and blood, is called the Real Presence. The Meal at Emmaus symbolizes Christ's sacramental presence in the Eucharist, for Jesus, risen from the dead, disappeared with his physical presence shifting to this sacramental presence. Also, the Eucharistic presence of Jesus reveals the Kingdom of Heaven because we receive Christ, who is the King of Heaven and earth, when we receive the Eucharist.