Good answer on that passage. Please tell me what I should tell my Mom when she says she is "offering it up for her sins" whenever she endures discomfort, pain, aggravation or anything else that is negative in her life? Is that what Catholics are usually taught, that they must suffer for their sins to make it to Heaven? Are we not to praise the Lord because HE did the suffering for all our sins?
If yo’ mama thinks that her suffering earns her access to heaven, that’s terrible, IMHO.
If she views it as something which, combined with — oh, how can I express this — a continuous reaching for the hand of IHS will — struggling for words here — be like swimming toward the middle of Ezekiel’s river which flows from the temple and spreads life all around ... the middle where the flow is deepest and strongest, then she may well have a point.
Though our emotions and moods depend on what we eat and do and on our internal chemistry, if repentance and humility are not accompanied with confidence and joy, even sometimes a grim merriment, then IMHO we’re doing it wrong.
For that there is only one remedy: to cast oneself before the throne of mercy.
How’s that for an answer? Is it okay?
One thought: My beloved atheist Episcopal friend (! No. Really. Stop laughing!) said to me that “you Catholics) are all about the crucifixion, while we Episcopals are about resurrection.
I snippily replied, “If you don’t see how, at this present time, the two are identical, you understand neither.”
Put THAT in your incense burner and smoke it!