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To: 2sheep, victoria delsoul
ping
19 posted on 09/30/2001 1:49:33 AM PDT by Sir Gawain
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To: sirgawain
This gave me a lot to think about. For years I've been thinking that the main thing America needed to do is to be humble and repent. Here comes a blow that looks a lot like things God has done in the past to kindle that response, the kind of suffering that had Israel weeping in sackcloth.

That might be so. However, as a Catholic Christian, I totally reject the idea that all things are God's doing. Let's start from the beginning. In Scripture and in Catholic theology, Lucifer was the principal fallen angel who must lament the loss of his original glory, bright as the morning star. He grew envious of God and thought himself as being even more powerful than God. He was the chief Angel and the closest to God. This first sin of Satan was not precisely pride, but rather a species of spiritual lust.

The Devil and the other fallen angels were spiritual or angelic creatures created by God in a state of innocence. They became evil by their own volition. It is also known that man sinned by the suggestion of the Devil, and in the next world, the wicked shall suffer perpetual punishment with the Devil.

This was before the sin of our first parents, which is ascribed to the instigation of the Devil: "By the envy of the Devil, death came into the world" (Wisdom 2:24).

The existence of Satan does much more than simply add another source of temptation to the weaknesses of the world and the flesh. Its presence means a combination and an intelligent direction of all the elements of evil. The whole Church and each one of her children are beset by dangers: the fire of persecution, the enervation of ease, the dangers of wealth and poverty, heresies and errors of opposite characters, rationalism and superstition, fanaticism and indifference. It would be bad enough if we had to face these forces working separately without any definite purpose, but our souls' peril incalculably increases when all varieties of evil may be organized and directed by a vigilant and hostile intelligence.

Thus we should repent our sins and mend our ways: "Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand again." But, we should never attribute to God that which is the Devil's work, which we recognize by its fruits through the gift of spiritual discernment.

61 posted on 09/30/2001 5:50:04 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul
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