Hey all, I just wanted to fill you guys in briefly on what I've been up to in the fandom.

In May I went to Furlandia in Portland, Oregon, to keep up the streak since I've been there all three years and stuff. L

Like last year I volunteered, sticking it out in the Gaming department, which is honestly exactly where I wanted to be anyways. While everyone else is playing and having fun I got to play lots of epic board games, which was neato. Some of the games I ended up playing were Nordgard, Ticket to Ride, Room Party (with the Furry Expansion), and others which I can't remember because it's been too long. During this time I got to hang out with a few friends, and meet a few too: Chase Foxy was my boss, ROFLkitten and her beau Cy the shark were cool.

I also ended up getting recruited last-minute for running the Christian Furs panel at Con, with my co-panelist Jarl. There were about 13-15 furs there, and since it was Pentacost Sunday we talked about that and about Christian unity. It was a fun thing to meet so many good, Christian furs, including folks like  WinterBeast and  HeavenSteed. We ended up getting a bunch of names and contact info down, so I'm going to be organizing those folks into a Christian Furry group here in Portland. I should have done it sooner, so God forgive me, but by Golly it's gonna happen soon. I'm hoping that next year a few Catholic Furs will poke in too. It's hard to be lonely among on-fire Christians, but boy I'd like to go to Mass with a fur or two next year.

I also went to a few fun panels: The Disney Robin Hood movie, which was epic, and  Vesk's science panel. Strangely enough, the Science panel got scheduled directly after the Christian Furry panel, in the same room. Vesk and I had a laugh that it seemed almost like a set up. I think Vesk is a pretty awesome dude though. He let me touch Deoxyribonucleic Acid, which was fun. :)

The rest of the con went swimmingly. The folks at Furlandia are very chill and pretty funny. Halfway through the Con the entire staff started to speak with Minnesotan accents just for fun, which got a laugh from more than a few people.

God bless you all!
~ Geoffrey

Hey there folks. It's my first open forum. Thank's for reading, even if it's a bit long. This is the first in an ongoing series where I post your questions every two weeks, and do my best to answer them. As you can see below they run a wide gamut of topics. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or flat-out disagree below. If you have anything unrelated you want to ask for next time, feel free to drop me a note. God bless you!

Question #1
Why does trying to be a good person feel so incredibly stressful and difficult, with little to no compensation from others? Everyone says that being good feels good, and it does, to a degree, and yet... It is INCREDIBLY stressful, to the point of overriding that feeling. You have to watch how you talk, what you eat, what you do, how you treat people, what you do to entertain yourself, how much you DO entertain yourself, and in general tend to wind up as a stick in the mud with a little bubble of acceptable activities after you've gotten the important, required, dull stuff out of the way. Isn't being good supposed to be more rewarding? Yes, I know the whole heaven thing, and yes, I know we're supposed to be patient for it, and our life here is a drop in the bucket compared to it... And yet, our life here is also the longest thing we'll ever do while alive. So being stuck with a stressful life and a tiny amount of things one can do sort of... Prolongs the experience and makes it rather worse. Anonymous

A: This is a great set of questions which boil down to a few things:

1) Why do good people suffer?
2) Why are people ungrateful?
3) Why do we not love to do good things?
4) Why is good not instantly rewarding?

I’ll acknowledge that this is something people have struggled with for ages, probably since the Fall. I know Job, for example, struggled with exactly these issues. I’ll answer each in turn.

1) Granted that I am not going to solve this issue (which philosophers and theologians have struggled with since the Fall), here’s what we can learn from the people that have come before us. We have to take into account that:

a. God is love, and wills only good for us.
b. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
c. God doesn’t need anything from us, He is self-sufficient.
d. God does no evil.
e. God created all things.
f. All things were created good.
g. Some things are evil. (Either physically evil to cause suffering, or morally evil like Satan.)
h. Thus, if e, f, and g are true; there are things which God created good and became evil afterwards.
i. If a and h are true, then it was by something other than God’s will that such things became evil.
j. If i and f are true, then turning evil couldn’t have been ‘in the plan’ or naturally occurring. The turn requires free will apart from God’s will, which could (and did) choose evil.
k. If j is true and free will exists, then due to e and f God created this free will and it is good.
l. If k and d is true then God would not do evil by violating our free will, which is a good gift He gave us.
m. If l and j are both true, then God allows us to choose evil which would cause us to suffer, and that accounts for some part of it. Likewise, God allows us to choose evil which causes other people to suffer, and that accounts for another significant chunk of it.
n. It can be observed that the free will choices to do evil are as wounds to our soul. We call people who do such ‘wicked’, ‘twisted’, ‘broken’, which all show this.
o. It can also be observed that when one heals, there is often as much or more suffering felt than the actual wound itself.
p. Notably, surgery entails the infliction of suffering or physical harm in order to do a greater good to the body.
q. Similarly, we can observe that athletes punish and discipline their bodies, causing themselves suffering, in order to gain in strength.
r. To achieve the greatest effects and self-mastery, athletes require a trainer to work with them.
s. Our Lord Jesus is the Great Surgeon of Souls.
t. God the Father, like any good Father, teaches us to ‘walk on our own’, so to speak, in the moral life. He instructs us and disciplines us, per the book of Proverbs.
u. If o,p, and s are true, then God may at times send us suffering without violating a, because the suffering is serving the good purpose of healing our souls from moral evil, per n.
v. If q, r, and t are true, then God may send us suffering to build us up and teach us moral virtues.
w. Finally, scripture states that suffering is sometimes given to reveal the glory of God, per the story of the demoniac. The disciples asked who sinned, and Christ answered that there was none, this was allowed to reveal the glory of God.
x. Those in whom the glory of God is revealed are blessed and a sign for all to convert to Christ more fully.
y. All those who receive suffering from God, for any of the good and often mysterious purposes mentioned above rightly ought to consider themselves blessed, forgive those who caused them to suffer, and unite their sufferings to the Cross in gratitude.
Granted, none of the above said it would be easy to take, or to be grateful for. But that’s part of the package deal. If suffering were truly easy to bear, it wouldn’t be suffering. Yet, the suffering is good, because God uses it for good purposes. I hope that helps.

2) Unfortunately a lot of people can’t help being ungrateful. They don’t realize what they’re doing. People can be incredibly short-sighted. Giving folks the best of yourself can seem humdrum to them, or can even feel like you’re upstaging and attacking them. Or they may not even realize what good you’re attempting to do for them. Then again, others can see what you’re doing and take advantage of it, or be mean about it. The broader culture doesn’t have a real way to teach gratitude except through families, which are struggling to teach anything of value, let alone gratitude. That comes from the Fall, and the only things to be done about it are to not rely on gratitude for your emotional wellbeing, and to model gratitude for them. Even that much will help you to be happier and will force people to face their own ingratitude.

3) Just like the fall makes people ungrateful, it also made it so people are somewhat selfish. We’re pretty much born that way. Just look at any baby, they’re constantly trying to please themselves or escape from things they don’t like. This doesn’t mean people are bad, just that they are born without the virtues.

Virtues are ready and joyful habits of doing good, and usually they have to be trained in order to be present in the soul. We literally have to practice loving to do what’s good rather than what merely slakes our desires or quells our fears. Now, this goes radically against the modern culture that says ‘if I feel like I want <x>, who are you to tell me that’s wrong?’ Or, more commonly, ‘feelings aren’t wrong’. We can see that this is a harmful and false way of thinking with by looking at things like cannibalism, greed, or unjust discrimination. “I feel like I want to eat your hand, who are you to tell me that’s wrong?” “I am, because that’s my hand.” “I don’t feel like exploiting my workers to get lots of money is bad, who are you to tell me I can’t?” “I don’t have to be anyone in particular, the truth is that those people have dignity and feeling and exploiting them is wrong.” “I feel like white people are universally unjust and discriminatory against everyone else.” “Your feeling is wrong because it doesn’t take into account the many white people who worked for universal civil rights in our country.”


What does this mean for us? It means we just need to practice loving what ought to be loved and hating what ought to be hated. Love the good, hate evil, with all your strength. Don’t say ‘I’m too weak’, as that’s an excuse. Just be as strong as you can and commit to improving for God’s sake. If you’re a fan of anime, consider the anime where warrior-type characters are forced to face their own limitations. Some skulk, but the ones really worth emulating are the ones that almost blindly push themselves to get better because that’s the only path forward.

4) Good is not instantly rewarding because the world isn’t merely mechanical. The world is a story. In stories the author will allow bad things to happen, sometimes even with no visible hope for the characters. Yet every trial and struggle and all the bad things are used by an author for good. In the best stories things work out in the end, and God is a great author. You can be sure that every single good and every trial you go through are both tallied, considered, and that each part of your life is valuable to God, no matter how insignificant. Every good is seen by God as the baby steps and accomplishments of a young child. I’m certain it makes God smile, which is reward of itself. And one more thing, about eternal life. Your eternal life, your life in Heaven, can and should begin on this Earth. Heaven is a state of blessed unity with God, and so if you’re not starting it on Earth that’s a problem. Focus on that goal, and things will go well.

Question #2
What is the exact nature of the social order instituted by God, in no uncertain terms, and why is it that way rather than another way? – Haimric

A: I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a social theorist, nor am I political theorist. That said, here’s what I understand the basics to be:

1) The Trinitarian God is the King and Lord of all creation.
2) The Trinitarian God raises up and lays low nations according to His will.
3) He established a Church to rule and care for His people on Earth, with a Steward as the visible head and final arbiter of that Kingdom except with respect to the King’s decrees, which are immutable and eternal. This Steward has authority over all nations in matters of faith and morals, even where those matters intersect with laws of that nation.
4) The nations are free to organize themselves lawfully (that is, by ordinances of reason according to the common good, by those who have care of the community, and when such ordinances are duly promulgated), so long as they are obedient to the Church where it has authority as granted by God, and to the Natural Moral Law.
5) There are forms of government which more readily meet the moral demands upon nations (Theocracy, Feudalistic Monarchy, Democratic Republics, Distributist economies), and those which naturally defy such demands (Communism, Fascism, Despotic Tyranny, Autocracy, Sharia Law).
6) Nations, aside from meeting the moral demands of God, may be judged by the degree they promote the four transcendentals: Goodness, Truth, Beauty, and Unity.
7) Those nations which uphold the moral order and promote the transcendentals are good nations. Those which violate the moral order and/or suppress the transcendentals are bad nations.
It’s notable that the building block of any good society, Godly or Pagan/Secular, is the family. In the family is where all goods and ills in society begin, and as such the protection of the family is a paramount concern of the state.

Likewise, the state must defend the helpless who rely on it. This is where the ‘preferential option for the poor’ comes in, and is reason #28568728275 why Roe v. Wade was such a terrible case for everyone involved.

As a final note, St. Augustine in the City of God was of the opinion (to quote a paraphrase of Msgr. Charles Pope) “God is less concerned about the political system as he is about politicians.”

Question #3
What was your first favorite Disney movie? – Rio2

A: It was Bambi as a child, before I could remember anything. Used to burst into a little cubby ball of tears at the Meadow Scene. Fantasia was my favorite after that. Though now I’m unsure if I prefer Fantasia or Robin Hood. The latter was what made me furry.

Hello everyone, no it's not a trick. I'm back on FA! It's been a while, so I'm glad to see you all again.

In order to celebrate me coming back on, I want to offer a new series for you all: Geoff's Open Forum. The Open Forum series will be a series of journals in a question-answer format where I respond to your questions about anything you folks want. I'll be favoring questions about religion, history, stories, and nerdy topics, but you guys can set the topics if you want.

Here's how it'll work: You folks send me questions in PM, and I'll collect them over the course of the two weeks. Then I'll pick a theme that matches your questions and answer all the questions based on that. Again, themes could be historical, religious, political, or if it's all over the map I'll just call it 'open forum' and answer anything I can. I'll write up a journal giving the questions and the answers I've collected, and then you're all invited to comment and question to your heart's content.

If you're interested, feel free to PM me at any time. You can request to be anonymous, and if you want to talk about something controversial or if you disagree with something I've said earlier, you'll likely get your questions answered first.

God bless you all, and I'm looking forward to seeing you all again.

Below is a poem by one of the Catholic literary greats. I hope you enjoy.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

http://www.catholicvote.org/catholi.....homosexuality/

The above video is about Catholicism and it's relationship with same-sex attraction. There's a bit of violence in the beginning, but this is neither about rabid fundamentalists nor homosexual retaliation. It's about a third group of people, folks who are faithful Catholics but experience deep-seated and sincere homosexual attraction.

I think this is an important video for both secular pro-homosexual folks and Christians. Carve out the time for it, watch it. It presents a side of the issue more people need to see.

This account is under construction! Things are bound to disappear, reappear, and change in marvelous fashions. Do not be alarmed! My page may actually be active when I'm finished with it. God bless!

 GeoffroiDeCharny

Brothers and Sisters,

I (Geoffrey) want to first of all say how happy I am for Matthias and his family, that they are going to have their little Angie baptized. I'm very glad for the good care and love that they have shown her, both physically (I assume they're excellent and devoted parents, judging by Matthias' character) and spiritually. I have no doubt that they will fulfill their vows to raise Angie up in the Faith. Congratulations.

That said, I also have something for which to thank God. My wife (whom I will call 'Lucy') and I are about nine weeks pregnant, and expect our first child sometime in January. We found out on Mother's day, and have been working hard since to prepare our little apartment. We're overjoyed, and can't thank God enough.

Now we come, though, to the ‘meat’ of the journal, something which I feel it is important to share among you, my Brothers and Sisters, along with the larger community here at FA. I read a blog called BadCatholic in which a Fransican University of Steubenville student and ardent Thomist presents solid Catholic commentary in the (sometimes shocking) language of the secular culture. I began to read it because it has several articles on pornography and how to best fight it in both your own soul and in the wider culture, but today I stumbled upon his response to a “gay” catholic priest’s “coming out.”

The Priest, Fr. Gary M. Meier, is releasing a second edition of his book “Hidden Voices, Reflections of a Gay, Catholic Priest,” which apparently is causing some controversy in the Church. Some may say we should be scandalized. After all the Church teaches that homosexual acts are gravely disordered. (CCC 2357) Others, likely including some Christian groups here on FA, may consider it a triumph and feel that congratulations are in order. Needless to say, people will talk. People will point fingers, and claim that the Church is either too lenient to this priest or that we are too ‘old-fashioned’. Either way, Fr. Meier’s voice has been heard by Marc (the author of BadCatholic), and his response was spot on.

The response was to get to the root of the problem, which is a cultural and philosophic one. He recognizes that the problem in Fr. Meier’s thinking is that he labels himself according to what he’s sexually attracted to, or what he does, reducing his God-granted personhood to “gay”. Others may reduce themselves to being “straight”, and others “pansexual”, or “zoophiles.” We label ourselves, and we tend to label others as well. The pernicious example of that old and dry accusation of “Priestly Pedophiles” reduces men, however sick or twisted, from the divinely crafted Image of God to a thing which only puts on clerical robes and preys on altar boys. Homosexuals may, in a strange though rare misogynistic twist, be antagonistic to females by labeling them “breeders.” Outside of the sexual realm, we may reduce people to politically ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, as if these were adequate ways of describing thousands and thousands of complex human beings.

The reason we do this is because it’s rather easy. I could point a finger at a person, call it a thing, and dismiss it offhand because of my preconceived notion of what that means, in a matter of seconds. The truth is hard to face, so we prefer to mask it with words that ultimately mean “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” To give an example, I’ll express some of the things I run in to when evangelizing family and friends. I personally, being a sinful man, spent a lot of time dismissing the beliefs of those in my family who practiced Wicca without really listening to them, simply because it was “Wiccan religious banter”. More recently, preferring what I consider to be more faithful to the Liturgical Tradition of the Church, I have been guilty of ignoring some of the more recent traditions (such as the hand-holding during the Our Father). This is in part because I don’t really get why it’s there, and haven’t really asked questions about it. Others, and one can see this especially in online debates, prefer to talk at a person and decide for them what they believe. A friend of mine here on FA did that to me recently, deciding for me that because I pray to Mary I must consider her a sort of God. When I told him I don’t consider Mary a god he ignored me and insisted I do. I assume this was because of his training, not because he wanted to win or simply didn’t care. He was told that Catholics worship Mary, and so I was an ‘idolater’. End of story.

Now we have to ask, how do we as faithful Catholics approach this situation? The same way we always do: we love people. We don’t just love people in the sense the world expects, but we go beyond all expectations, giving every last bit of ourselves in imitation of Christ the King. We need to tear down this language of labels in the public square, in scientific circles, in private conversation, and we need to love people. We need to be welcoming to all people, including those who have same-sex attraction. (CCC 2358) We need to care for the needs of others, including rapists, murderers, bigots, and churls by helping their reforms. We need to be understanding (in the sense of seeking to understand) the creeds and philosophies of others, and to have respectful dialogue with them. It works. That was how I became Catholic. (Though, to be honest, I wasn’t always kind back, for which I am sorry.)

In general, this love will mean two things:

1.) We must love our neighbor as ourselves. We must look at our sinful or mistaken neighbor and see that, except for the grace of God, that person would be us. We must look at them as a whole person, and not label them according to certain characteristics. We must value their good, and pity their evil.

2.) We must love God first and foremost. Since God is Truth, we must hold to Truth as if our lives depended on Him. Because they do. We must constantly be looking outside ourselves and into the Face of God, which can be found literally everywhere. God reveals His truth in nature, in the Scriptures, through miracles, through the Family of God (read: the Church), and in each and every person.
But also this love will mean change in our very way of doing things. We must, as the Church Christ established, stop pointing fingers at people. Our labeling is harmful. It sets a bad example and encourages false ideas. By stating that someone’s a liberal or conservative Catholic we are saying that ‘there is more than one type of Catholic’, and often we’re putting ourselves at odds unnecessarily with our Brothers and Sisters. Let’s say I describe myself as a “conservative Catholic” for being pro-life and holding to a traditional understand of marriage. Then I describe my brother as a “liberal Catholic” for embracing abortion and sanctioning homosexual actions, then I am implying that those things are just a different kind of Catholicism. At least for us Catholics, we must hold to the teachings of Christ and say “this is the Catholic faith, there is no room to fudge it.” If we don’t, we’re leading our Brothers and Sisters into sin.

We must also learn who we are as a faith. If we don’t, we will crumble. We will be, as we already see, a house divided. We must look outside ourselves, to Christ and His Church, in order to love fully. We must learn the Truth before we can give Him to others. We must learn our relationship with other faiths, we must learn what they actually teach, and we must engage them on their ground. We must know the people of other faiths, and what they believe, better than they do, so that we can help them to grow in their journeys towards God.

Lastly, we need to lead people in righteousness. We need to lead by obedience. We need to lead by path-finding in the academic and political world. We need to lead in the arts. We need to lead through service and mercy. We need to ask the questions that need asking, because that is how we meet the needs of our fellow men. We need to see the wounds of the world accurately, not through the lenses of labels, and we need to treat those wounds accordingly. We need to be ready for thanklessness or hostility, we need to be ready to defend our own and give of ourselves completely. We need to be ready intercede, because we are the body of Christ, and the body of Christ was offered on Calvary.

So how should we, practically, respond to Fr. Meier? How should we act towards each other when we fail? The response must be to hold firm in the Truth, as given by God through His Church, but to do so with love and with encouragement towards the Good. We must be among our sinful Brothers and Sisters (within reason, so as not to approve sin or have our own salvation jeopardized), and we must encourage them in their growth towards God. We must always be respectful of them as the image of God, and never reduce them to their sins. We must sow seeds among them, must not push those seeds down their throats, and must surround them with good examples. The Church is a hospital for the sinful. Let us be hospitable and loving to those who need us.

+JMJ+


See the original here.

[edited on 6/1/13 @ 1:00 PM due to all the links being broken.]

To my fellow Christians on FA,

As it is, many of us hold differing beliefs on the Bible. There are some who hold to a 66 book canon, some to a 73 book canon. Some believe that the Jews had the final say in the canon of the OT, and some that the Christians did. We disagree on timelines, on authority, on the proper translation of the texts. In the following post I hope to clear up the timeline of the Bible, and I will follow with more posts at a later date. I'll start off by saying what I do not intend to prove, then what I'm assuming, and then get to the meat of the issue. I hope, by the end of this series, that you will have a clearer understanding of the history of the Canon and the role it has in Christian belief.

What I do not intend to prove: That any Christian denomination is full of dishonest or bad people. Ad hominem attacks are not welcome in any meaningful debate, especially not a Christian one. I also do not intend to prove that we cannot trust our Bible. I will cover issues of authority and whether or not we can trust these authorities, but I intend to both expose false authorities and propose God's authority as the only authority in the matter, and show how he expresses that authority.

I consider these to be 'a priori', or common assumptions:

1.) God exists and has shown himself to us through public revelation.

2.) Public revelation includes a specific set of divinely inspired documents we will call Sacred Scripture, or the Bible. The table of contents for this Bible we will call the Canon.

3.) God has given mankind the grace to know authoritatively which books are divinely inspired.

4.) We can know where the grace mentioned in statement 3 rests.

Divisions over the Canon of Scripture

To begin with we must identify the major divisions in this question: Protestants largely use the 66 book Canon, Catholics tend to use a 73 book Canon. The Catholic Canon holds the entire NT in common with the Protestant Canon, but disagrees on the content and number of OT books. The common Protestant claim is that Catholics added the books, the common Catholic claim is that Protestants removed them. As an important aside, Jews tend to agree with the Protestant OT rather than the Catholic OT, and we shall see why later. The Orthodox canon I have not been able to locate, but I'm sure Gypsi could help us out.

The reason for these two major canons is an academic one. Protestants tend to quote the Masoretic text as the definitive Jewish canon of scripture. The Masoretic text is in fact the current Jewish Canon, and includes only the 66 books. Catholics consider the Septuagint, a Greek translation containing the fuller 73 book OT, to be the definitive OT canon. The disputed books and verses are called Deuterocanon by Catholics, and Apocrypha by Protestants.

Scripture Timeline

Below is a timeline of events in Scriptural History, as much as is relevant for this discussion.


3rd-2nd century B.C. Translation and completion of the Septuagint in Alexandria. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity 2010 p.125)

2nd Century B.C. The first Dead Sea Scrolls are buried in Qumran. Scrolls would continue to be buried till ~= 70 A.D.

0 A.D. The birth of Christ.

33 A.D. The public ministry, death and resurrection of Christ.

52 A.D. Biblical authors begin to write the NT, quoting primarily from the Septuagint. (Beginning with 1st Thessalonians.)

90-100 A.D. Last work of the NT is written. ( Ending with Revelations.)

175 A.D. Mileto, Bishop of Sardis, complies the first Christian list of inspired books.

382 A.D. Pope Damasus, prompted by the Council of Rome, lists the present Catholic Canon of 73 books as inspired. St. Jerome begins his work translating this Canon into Latin.

393 A.D. Council of Hippo approves the 73 book Canon.

397 A.D. Council of Carthage approves the 73 book Canon.

405 A.D. Pope St. Innocent I approves the 73 book canon and closes the Canon of Scripture. (Consulenti tibi, Pope St. Innocent 1) Jerome finishes his translation of the 73 book canon into Latin. He places the deuterocanon in a section called "Hidden" (Greek Apocrypha) due to his inability to find Hebrew copies to translate.

6th Century A.D. Work begins on the Masoretic Text. (Encyclopedia Brittanica)

10th Century A.D. Completion of the Masoretic Text. (Encyclopedia Brittanica)

1532-1534 A.D. Martin Luther moves the Deuterocanon (Sections of the OT found in the Septuagint but not the Masoretic Text) into a section called "Apocrypha: These Books Are Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read." This is also partially based on the inability to find copies of the texts in Hebrew. At the same time he labels Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelations as Antilegomena or disputed books. The disputation of the NT books is rejected by all Christians, including Lutherans, though Protestants largely adopt the disputation of the Deuterocanon.

1947-1956 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered, providing 2nd century B.C. copies of Protocanonical, Deuterocanonical, and non-canonical books in Hebrew.

This has been a brief summary of the development of the Canon from a historical standpoint. Where I have left parts out please bring it to my attention and I will happily review and update my information.

~Edited and reposted from http://fursforchrist.com/viewtopic......p;p=1709#p1709

Reposted from www.furaffinity.net/journals/catholicfurries/

Reflection #2: Get back up!


For those of you (to wit, three people) who read the last Lenten reflection, you know that I (Geoffrey) promised to offer a reflection each day. I have failed this, and in doing so I broke a promise to you and did so before God. I readily admit this, and ask your forgiveness. I also ask God's forgiveness for this. It affords me a good chance, however to offer you this next message. Many of us are struggling with our Lenten commitments, and I want you to know that even if you have failed, it is possible to get back up.

As Catholics we know that resisting sin and loving God with all of our selves is hard! We fail, and that is what human beings do. Outside the grace of God, we fail miserably. When in a state of grace, we still can fail! We aren't going to just flip a switch and say 'well, I'm glad that's over'. There's going to be struggle, and we won't always win. Well, all I can say to you is that you have to get up, brush yourself clean, and keep going. Get up and go on! It's as simple as that!

Many of us feel intense guilt and even fear when we sin or fail in our promises. I won't say feeling bad about these sins are wrong, because they're good! We need to understand, though, that Christ has Divine Mercy. Our stones of sin, which way us down so heavily, will disappear in that ocean of Mercy if we just take those sins off and throw them down. There is always, always forgiveness in Christ if we but admit our sins and faithfully ask for Christ's forgiveness.

Imagine how many times Christ has forgiven you. Realize that what you have been forgiven was enough to have you killed many times over. The Divine Judge had all the right in the world to strike you dead like he did Ananias and Sapphira. (Acts 5) Instead, He forgave you, and did so with complete Love. The entirety of Heaven throws a party when you, in any form of contrition, come back to the Lord and seek His forgiveness. You are forgiven as the good father forgave the prodigal son.

There is only one catch. If you want to stay in a state of grace, you have to leave behind the sin you committed and continue on. Forgiveness is always possible, but only with repentance! This is the purpose of Lent, to make you more truly aware of your failings. This is not to bind you in guilt, but so that you may be aware, more fully alive, and offer up these new-found sufferings and failings to God. Turn back from your sins and failures, Brothers and Sisters. Seek the Lord from this moment onward, repenting, confessing, and being perfect as Christ, with his empowering commands, desires you to be perfect. You can do this, but only by clinging to God. Brothers and Sisters, pray for each other and seek righteousness with every breath. I have faith that God's saving grace will sanctify you unto salvation, that final perseverance in the Lord.

Activity: Find a good examination of conscience, and search your soul. As you find the stain of sin, offer it up to God. Commit yourself to confessing your sin, and find one way to remove each from your life, no matter how small.

"Love the Lord with all of your heart, mind, should and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

Above are the two commands which Jesus Christ gave his people to be the central tenets of our faith. A lot has been said about them, and exactly how we perform them has been hotly debated in recent years. In the name of sectarian beliefs there have been wars fought over who is truly fulfilling these commands. This can be seen in the religious violence of the Irish Catholics and the English Protestants. It was the cause of the French Wars of Religion. This violence and hatred has made us Christians lose sight of our true strength, which is the love of Christ.

The love of Christ is something that all denominations share. We all agree that or love for Him is something we must do with our whole self. We have to give ourselves wholly up to Him. We must bend our will to Him, we must meditate on His will, we must open our hearts to Him, and we must carry out all of His commands. We do this of our own free will, because before we even existed He knew us and loved us. He died on the cross on Calvary. By His blood we are able to partake in His grace, and by His grace alone we are justified. We love Christ, then, because He is worthy of our love in a way we could never be. He loves us and has been calling us to His side since before we were lovable, and by His continuing grace He works diligently to make us in His own image.

But what about loving our neighbors? And what, also, about loving our enemies? Christ calls us to both, and yet we seem to have dropped the ball rather hard. We have forgotten the lessons we learned from Christ's love. Christ's love for us is what redeems us, every day of our life. It is truly to be known as our strength, because without it we cannot be justified. Why then should we deny that love to others? For when we attack our neighbors, when we attack our enemies, we deny not only the love Christ has put in us, but we deny the chance to share that love with others. When we attack each other over religious differences it is doubly sinful. Not only do we refuse others the love of Christ, but we use the Lord's name in vain. To say that God wills the violent beating or bitter combat of sectarian violence is to put God's name where it just doesn't belong.

How then can we best use our strength? Surely God does want us to confront evil, to correct our brothers, and to defend them against injustice, doesn't He? Of course, but we must do so in accordance to God's love, not through our bitterness. We must treat all men with kindness, because Christ so loves the world. Remember that we must treat them with the same love we have for ourselves. This means that if you wish to meet with kindness, be kind to others. If you do not receive kindness back, then keep your chin up and continue to be kind to everyone you meet.

A word of warning must be said, though. There are those out there who will seek to manipulate you for your kindness. We are called to be self-sacrificing people, but remember to ask yourself a certain question as you do this. Do my actions glorify God, or do they forsake God for the benefit of a human being? You must keep God foremost in your mind, and you must not forsake Him, unless you come in danger of hellfire. Our Lord will never betray you or lead you astray.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.