#catholicism explained

Is God He or She?

This article first appeared on Catholic Stand. A couple of months ago, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, while addressing the House of Representatives about a second President Trump impeachment trial and the GOP’s unwillingness to convict him, stated, “So we could have called God herself [as a witness], and [the impeachment trial] would not have happened.” An article posted on the…

Jesus, Scripture, and the Catholic Church teach that water baptism is necessary for our salvation. It washes away our sins, infuses our souls with grace, and puts us in communion with God and His Church. Still, many wonder why we need water for baptism. Why can’t faith in Jesus be enough? Accordingly, this article will lay out the reasons for water baptism. Let us begin with the Catechism of the…

In a previous article, I wrote about moral perfection in this life, but I focused on contrasting mortal and venial sins for the purposes of helping us to remove sin from our lives and grow in holiness. In that article, which you can find by clicking here, I briefly mentioned deification, of which eradicating sin from one’s life is a part. When studying deification, you will sometimes read or…

Recently, I received a couple of questions that I would like to address in this article.  The questions were: 1) Can God lie, and 2) can He suffer. I’ll begin with this – why would God lie?  First, as the One who answers to no one because of His eternal and infinite power, he has no need to deceive others.  In other words, it’s not like He’s going to be in trouble if He lies.  His omniscience…

Many thanks to the Homiletic and Pastoral Review for publishing this article. In a previous article published at HPR, I wrote about moral perfection in this life, but I focused on contrasting mortal and venial sins for the purposes of helping us to remove sin from our lives and to grow in holiness.[1] In that article, I briefly mentioned theosis (or deification) of which eradicating sin from…

Scripture does not tell us explicitly that God created Adam and Eve full of sanctifying grace, but it implies that God did. Therefore, this article will explain how we can know that God created Adam and Eve full of grace. Catechism On Adam and Eve Being Full of Grace The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “ The first man was not only created good, but was also established in friendship…

The truth that we need to stop sinning is evident for Christians.  We believe that God calls us to moral perfection, gives us the grace to achieve it, and gives us His Son as the supreme example of holiness.  However, we still make excuses for sinful behaviors, or we find ourselves believing that God cannot perfectly sanctify us in this life.  Therefore, this article will provide a roadmap to…

Two thousand years ago, the eternal Word came to us as the Primordial Sacrament to make grace visible and to sanctify us.  He gave us the example of sacrificial love to show us how to love God and others.  He gave us the sacraments as sensible signs that communicate grace to sustain us and to help us grow in grace during His physical absence.  Finally, He gave us the Church as the universal…