Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 70 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 70 - Part II. How does God draw us out of the whirlpool of evil?

(Youcat answer - repeated) God does not just look on as man gradually destroys himself and the world around him through the chain reaction of sin. He sends us Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer, who snatches us from the power of sin.       

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 421) Christians believe that "the world has been established and kept in being by the Creator's love; has fallen into slavery to sin but has been set free by Christ, crucified and risen to break the power of the evil one…" (GS 2 § 2).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) “No one can help me” — this maxim of human experience is no longer accurate. Wherever man may have strayed by his sins, God the Father has sent his Son there. The consequence of sin is death (cf. Rom 6:23). Another consequence of sin, however, is the marvelous solidarity of God, who sends us Jesus as our friend and Savior. Therefore original sin is also called felix culpa ( happy fault): “O happy fault… which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” (Liturgy of the Easter Vigil).

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 412) But why did God not prevent the first man from sinning? St. Leo the Great responds, "Christ's inexpressible grace gave us blessings better than those the demon's envy had taken away" (St. Leo the Great, Sermo 73, 4: PL 54, 396), and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "There is nothing to prevent human nature's being raised up to something greater, even after sin; God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good. Thus St. Paul says, 'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'; and the Exsultet sings, 'O happy fault,…which gained for us so great a Redeemer!'"(St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, I, 3, ad 3; cf. Rom 5:20).       

(The next question is: Why are the reports about Jesus called “the Gospel”, “the Good News”?)

Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 70 - Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 70 - Part I. How does God draw us out of the whirlpool of evil?

(Youcat answer) God does not just look on as man gradually destroys himself and the world around him through the chain reaction of sin. He sends us Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer, who snatches us from the power of sin.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 410) After his fall, man was not abandoned by God. On the contrary, God calls him and in a mysterious way heralds the coming victory over evil and his restoration from his fall (Cf. Gen 3:9, 15). This passage in Genesis is called the Protoevangelium ("first gospel"): the first announcement of the Messiah and Redeemer, of a battle between the serpent and the Woman, and of the final victory of a descendant of hers. (CCC 420) The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:20).    

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) “No one can help me” — this maxim of human experience is no longer accurate. Wherever man may have strayed by his sins, God the Father has sent his Son there. The consequence of sin is death (cf. Rom 6:23). Another consequence of sin, however, is the marvelous solidarity of God, who sends us Jesus as our friend and Savior. Therefore original sin is also called felix culpa ( happy fault): “O happy fault… which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” (Liturgy of the Easter Vigil).

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 411) The Christian tradition sees in this passage an announcement of the "New Adam" who, because he "became obedient unto death, even death on a cross", makes amends superabundantly for the disobedience of Adam (Cf. 1 Cor 15:21-22, 45; Phil 2:8; Rom 5:19-20). Furthermore many Fathers and Doctors of the Church have seen the woman announced in the "Proto-evangelium" as Mary, the mother of Christ, the "new Eve". Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from Christ's victory over sin: she was preserved from all stain of original sin and by a special grace of God committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly life (Cf. Pius IX,  Ineffabilis Deus: DS 2803; Council of Trent: DS 1573).     

(This question: How does God draw us out of the whirlpool of evil? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 69 - Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 69 - Part II. Are we compelled to sin by original sin?

(Youcat answer - repeated) No. Man, though, is deeply wounded by original sin and is inclined to sin. Nevertheless, with God’s help he is capable of doing good.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 1264) Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence, or metaphorically, "the tinder for sin" (fomes pectin); since concupiscence "is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ" (Council of Trent (1546): DS 1515). Indeed, "an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules" (2 Tim 2:5).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) In no single case are we obliged to sin. In fact, however, we sin again and again, because we are weak, ignorant, and easily misled. A sin committed under compulsion, moreover, would be no sin, because sin always involves a free decision.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2515) Etymologically, "concupiscence" can refer to any intense form of human desire. Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of the human reason. The apostle St. Paul identifies it with the rebellion of the "flesh" against the "spirit" (Cf. Gal 5:16, 17, 24; Eph 2:3). Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man's moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins (Cf. Gen 3:11; Council of Trent: DS 1515). (CCC 985) Baptism is the first and chief sacrament of the forgiveness of sins: it unites us to Christ, who died and rose, and gives us the Holy Spirit.     

(The next question is: How does God draw us out of the whirlpool of evil?)

Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 69 - Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 69 - Part I. Are we compelled to sin by original sin?

(Youcat answer) No. Man, though, is deeply wounded by original sin and is inclined to sin. Nevertheless, with God’s help he is capable of doing good.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 405) Although it is proper to each individual (Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513), original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.      

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) In no single case are we obliged to sin. In fact, however, we sin again and again, because we are weak, ignorant, and easily misled. A sin committed under compulsion, moreover, would be no sin, because sin always involves a free decision.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 1263) By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin (Cf. Council of Florence (1439): DS 1316). In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam's sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God. 1263  

(This question: Are we compelled to sin by original sin? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 68 - Part III.

YOUCAT Question n. 68 - Part III. Original sin? What does the Fall of Adam and Eve have to do with us?

(Youcat answer - repeated) Sin in the strict sense implies guilt for which one is personally responsible. Therefore the term “Original Sin” refers, not to a personal sin, but rather to the disastrous, fallen state of mankind into which the individual is born, even before he himself sins by a free decision.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 390) The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man (Cf. GS 13 § 1). Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents (Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1513; Pius XII: DS 3897; Paul VI: AAS 58 (1966), 654).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) In talking about Original Sin, Pope Benedict XVI says that we must understand “that we all carry within us a drop of the poison of that way of thinking, illustrated by the images in the Book of Genesis…  The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbors the suspicion … that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside… Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God. … And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death” (Pope Benedict XVI, December 8, 2005).

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 418) As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin. (This inclination is called "concupiscence"). (CCC 420) The victory that Christ won over sin has given us greater blessings than those which sin had taken from us: "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:20).      

(The next question is: Are we compelled to sin by original sin?)