In this era of grave spiritual crisis it is not enough to simply know about your Catholic faith. That is why we need a Catholic toolbox will equip us with the practical skills necessary to live our Catholic faith to reach our ultimate goal which is heaven for all eternity. eternity. Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Join us every Tuesday night at 8pm for The Catholic Toolbox as we hand you the tools to go forth, live the faith and change our modern world today. Live on The Voice of Charity. Music. And welcome back to another week on the catholic toolbox the art of practical catholicism i'm your host and founder george manasseh here as we equip you with practical tools to live your faith in in our modern world of today.
And happy feast day to everybody on the Feast of St. Joseph here today, the 19th of March, and we're approaching Holy Week. That is why Dr. Robert Haddad is in the house. Welcome aboard back to the Catholic Toolbox, Doctor. Thank you, George. Pleasure and an honor to be. It's great to have you back. And we're heading towards Holy Week. I couldn't actually believe this whole Lenten season went by me very quickly.
And reflecting more and more on the Passion and the Cross, one wants to reflect a little bit deeper on what is the meaning of Christ's redemptive work on the Cross. What did He come to do? And I know you've been reflecting a little bit on this topic, and that's why you have something very important to share with our listeners here tonight.
Night so let me start off by saying how was your lenten season before we go to the cross oh it's been good so far i did things a little bit different this year with uh particular abstinences etc. I found it a little bit harder than I thought I would. I'll give you one example. It hasn't been a very rigorous sentence for me this Lent, but I decided to drink nothing except water during the weekdays.
And I found that a little bit harder than I thought it would because I'm used to having my milk and biscuits. I'm used to having my tea and coffee or my Coke Zero when I need that energy boost.
Boost and i'm finding that i have to source other things for that energy boost and when i'm only drinking water six days a week but you don't drink coffee do you i do i but not often but i in fact i enjoy a good coffee i enjoy a very good cappuccino decaf cappuccino in particular decaf cappuccino no no caffeine well that's caffeine the better for me but yeah that's that's been that's been in one aspect but otherwise it's it's been good in many ways thanks god uh we've still got
a couple of weeks to go with you know as we lead up to palm sunday and then holy week etc so at my age both at home and at work and in my spiritual life i just take it one day at a time that's absolutely amazing and and very i mean we always hear about you know christ dying on the cross you know from street Greek preachers, some of the great spiritual reflections and meditations on the Passion, many saints.
You know, you hear that Christ came, our Lord came, He died for our sins, He came and He washed us of our sins, of all our iniquities, and we're saved because of that. Now, let's stop and think here, because many people think He saved us from everything. But what is it that he actually saved us from? So that is our sins. Well, he saved us by his cross. And I think this episode is very, very important because generally Catholics know that Jesus died for our sins. Well, what does that mean?
When we look at it, when we dig deeper, because there are different and conflicting theologies here as to the meaning of Christ's cross and what it achieved. achieve. Now, effectively, what Christ did is that through his cross, he reconciled us with God the Father. That's the first thing. Humanity was estranged from God because of original sin, the sin of the first Adam and Eve.
That was a conscious, deliberate sin, mortal sin of infinite magnitude because it was committed by creatures, namely human beings, Adam and Eve, who had full knowledge of the consequences of their actions and gave full consent to do it. So that original sin estranged us from God.
And hence, rather than being children of God by grace, we were reduced to being simply now children of God by nature and wounded because of this original sin in so many many ways, disgraced, shut out of heaven for our eternal destiny, and we became children of wrath, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians. And if we understand original sin, then we'll understand the cross.
So if you bear with me for a couple of minutes, the original sin was a man deliberately choosing to be like God in knowledge. He was tempted, He listened to a lie. He believed that lie. He fell for that temptation, gave full consent for an act, namely eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He gave full consent to attempt to be like God in knowledge, to be exalted and through pride and disobedience. That's the original sin. Now, that sin was of infinite magnitude.
Magnitude some might say or how and why because it's just one act of disobedience eating a fruit off a particular tree but measure the magnitude of a sin in relation to the dignity of the person who's offended and the dignity of God of course the dignity of God he has infinite dignity so the offense was of infinite magnitude, Can we reconcile ourselves with God by ourselves for that sin? The answer is no, because that sin required an infinite reparation, being a sin of infinite magnitude.
But you measure the capacity to perform an act of infinite reparation as against the creature that needs to do the act, namely human beings, Adam and Eve. And humans cannot do an act of reparation that is infinitely meritorious. So we were in a dilemma. We were trapped. We consciously committed a sin. We gave full knowledge. We had full knowledge, gave full consent to that sin. So we deserve all the consequences of that flow.
The loss of preternatural gifts, supernatural gifts, the disorders within us, ignorance in the intellect, malice in the will, disordered appetites, desires, emotions, passions. We lost the gifts of impossibility and immortality. We would age. We would become decrepit. We have pain and suffering. We die. We'd be excluded from heaven. We have a destiny if we're unrepentant in hell, and even if we were repentant in Abraham's bosom only. So God didn't have to do anything, by the way.
God could have said, as a strict judge, he could have just said to our original parents, look, you knew the law. You knew the consequences that would flow if you break that law. You deliberately broke that law so you deserve all the consequences and stay as you are. But God is more than a God of justice. He's also a God of mercy, a God of love. And he was aware that Adam and Eve were repentant of their sin.
And also, what about their subsequent generations who would also suffer loss, receive a human nature, inherit a wounded human nature because of a sin they did not commit but the sin of their parents or grandparents, etc.? So God had mercy, he was gracious, and in an unmerited gift, he decides to rescue us. And he rescues us how? In the most wonderful manner. God will become man.
He will join the human family. And in doing so, he becomes the new Adam, the new Lord of humanity and of all creation, by the way. And as true God and true man, having a true human nature and being a member of the family of Adam, he could offer up an act of reparation to God the Father on behalf of the human family that he has now joined. And that act would be of infinite merit because it is owned by a divine person.
The human nature that God assumed in incarnation is owned by a divine person. them. So everything that's done to that human nature is actually done to God, the Son, who owns that human nature. And that's why what Christ did on the cross can be infinitely meritorious, be accepted by God the Father on behalf of humanity, to reconcile us with God the Father.
Now, when we look at the original sin and we look at Christ's actions, Christ's actions, and we go to Philippians 2, chapter 2 here, St. Paul's kenosis passage, Christ does the exact opposite of Adam. Rather than being a man who disobeys in pride to be exalted like God, he is God through humility and obedience becomes man. Rather than being exalted, this Christ God man is totally humiliated and left naked dead on a cross before the whole world.
So you can see that it's an appropriate reparation because it is the complete opposite of the original sin. And Christ on the cross... Is acting as a priest, and he is the Lamb of God. So he's both priest and lamb, and therefore sacrifice, and offers that sacrifice, pleasing sacrifice, Paschal lamb sacrifice to God the Father on behalf of humanity. That act is, that reparation is received. Heaven is open for Christ and for all those who are obedient to him,
who have faith and obedience. it. Heaven now showers graces upon earth for the redemption, for the forgiveness of sins. We can confess, be forgiven, be reconciled with God the Father through Christ. We die in grace, we die in obedience, we die in friendship with God. We will become like Christ. We will be one day resurrected from the dead like Christ, receive a glorified body like Christ, and be in heaven, body and soul, face to face before God,
like Christ is now, and Our Lady as well. So that basically sums it up. That's the Catholic picture. But there are other pictures we need to explore that some people fall into without realizing that are not Catholic perspectives. I mean, what's very interesting is to understand Christ's human nature, and his human nature surely would be conditioned by a sanctifying grace.
Is that not the case? Absolutely. So Christ in his human nature, he assumed the true human nature, of course, from his mother, the Virgin Mary.
And this is another teaching, another dogma. Mary was immaculately conceived, meaning that she was preserved from all stain of original sin from the moment of her existence as an act of appropriateness and preparation for the incarnation, that God would assume a perfect human nature that was not wounded in any way by the original sin or actual sin, and he'll be housed in a tabernacle, a temple, Our Lady, which was not mortgaged to the devil.
So he's appropriately housed in a vessel, namely Our Lady, which was not under the dominion or influence of the devil. So Christ assumes a true human body.
And has a true human soul and with that human soul has a human intellect and a human will and we see that operating in the garden of gethsemane let thy will be done not mine, so if christ is god how can he say such a prayer because he's also a true man with a human, intellect uh and a human will which has to conform to the divine will to the plan of god the father And that act of Christ in the garden,
that human intellectual understanding and human willful submission to God the Father, is that act, that that's when Christ seizes the moment, so to speak, and is obedient to the divine plan of redemption. And he does the opposite of what Adam did in the garden. Adam disobeyed in the garden. Christ obeys in the garden. them.
So in every respect, Christ was truly man without being a human person, because here the human nature of Christ has to be owned, but only owned by a divine person to give the merits of Christ infinite value. If the merits of Christ in the passion and death were not owned by a divine person, they could not be infinitely meritorious and atone for all the sins of the world.
I mean, one wonders what the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, how they affected spiritually upon the sins of the Old Testament people. Well, they were offered an atonement for the sins of the people. And that's very clear in many places in the Old Testament. And they were accepted by God so long as the person who was repentant and paying for the animals or the grains or the libations, that is the liquids, were being sacrificed in the temple as long as they had a truly repentant heart.
But those sacrifices in many ways prefigured Christ, particularly the Passover lamb. So Passover was an eight-day festival, eight-day feast of unleavened bread. On the first day of unleavened bread was the Passover meal. And so I would, as a father, go to the temple with a one-year-old male spotless lamb that was perfect without any broken bones. And that lamb would be sacrificed, and all blood will be drained from it.
And then it will be skewered with two sticks in the shape of a T. Tea and I'll take it home. I'll barbecue it and consume it with my family in the Passover meal together with other foodstuffs, et cetera, bitter herbs and, and you know, the unleavened bread, the Mozzat bread, et cetera, and the, and the cups of wine, et cetera. And that lamb.
Was offered in sacrifice in the passover meal and the high priest on the day of atonement every year separate festival also offered up animal sacrifices and atonement for his sin and the sins of the people right and that but that lamb in particular was a pre-figment obviously of christ who is the paschal lamb for the whole of humanity and and john in his gospel particularly chapter chapter 19, is making that point because he's telling us that when Christ at the sixth hour
is being prepared for crucifixion, in the temple, they are actually engaged in the day of preparation for the Passover, which involved the sacrifice of the lambs, up to 250,000, by the way, in Jerusalem on that same day. And so, yeah, animal sacrifices were accepted by God in pre-Christian times as a form of preparation of that people for the coming of the Messiah and his once and for all perfect sacrifice, performed in time, that is on Mount Calvary.
But in principle, they weren't sufficient to pay for sins because sin was an infinite offence against God. That's right. Exactly right. They were not sufficient in any way, shape or form. But they were what was prescribed by God in the pre-Christian era. So that was the best humans could do in anticipation for the coming of Christ.
So all those who were good people from Adam and Eve onwards woods were repentant, you know, the patriarchs, the kings, the judges, the prophets, whoever they were, if they had holiness in the pre-Christian times, it's because they received God's grace in advance in lieu of the cross. So whatever good they did with these sacrifices was done in response to divine grace, but to God's grace.
But the point you make is very, very important. None of these sacrifices could have been infinitely meritorious and therefore opened the gates of heaven. So those good people who are faithful in those sacrifices and had true hearts, they would not go to hell because they were faithfully obedient, but they could not go to heaven. They were locked out. They were in Abraham's bosom or in the underworld.
Or he'd say in the creed, he descended into hell, which is Hades in Greek, the underworld. world. But the point I want to also add here is that I'll ask you a question, George, and see if you can catch the error in what I'm saying. Christ's merits on the cross were sufficient. Is that a true statement? Christ's merits on the cross were sufficient.
It's a hard one. It's a hard one. What would you think and what would you say if I was to to tell you here publicly that Christ's merits on the cross were not sufficient. Would I be right or wrong? I think you'd be right. Yeah, you're gambling, man. You're correct. I explain why. Because this term, Christ's merits were sufficient, is actually a Calvinist term, right? Sufficient only for the elect. Right?
Because according to their theology, systematic theology, the TULIP acronym, the L in the word TULIP is limited atonement. Christ on the cross only died for the elect. And Christ's grace is irresistible. So Christ's grace is efficacious for all those he died for, only the elect. The majority are not the elect. Christ didn't die for them. end. So Christ's merits were not infinite because if they were infinite, they would be sufficient for the whole of humanity.
But the whole of humanity is not saved. So the Catholic position is actually a far superior one. Christ's merits on the cross were super abundant, infinite, infinitely meritorious. And they atone for the sin of Adam and Eve and the sins of the whole world from Adam and Eve until the end of time. So why isn't everyone saved then? You know, St. Paul says to St. Timothy, 1 Timothy 2.4, God will all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
Christ's merits on the cross are infinite. So why isn't everyone saved when we look at the Gospels and the parables of Christ and the teachings of John the Baptist, etc.? It's because of free will. We're still free. and we choose, people choose to reject the gift, reject the grace, to say no. Christ's grace is resistible. The Pharisees resisted it. The scribes resisted it. This difference between Catholicism and Calvinism, and I don't regard Calvinism in this sense at all as Christian.
Absolutely. And we're going to stop there and take our break and we'll be back to continue this discussion. So for those tuning in here, stay tuned with us here on 1701 AM, Voice of Charity Australia. We'll be back after the break. God bless. And we're continuing our discussion with Dr. Robert Haddad on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, on what he merited on the cross.
We're going into a deep discussion about that. So don't forget to tune in here live on Voice of Charity on 1701 AM or other platform you listen through. So, Robert, we're continuing our discussion and you discussed Calvinism. And the fact that our Lord's merits are not sufficient on the cross. That is correct? Yeah. Not sufficient meaning far more than sufficient. Infinitely meritorious.
It's a bold statement. It's a bold statement. Christ's merits on the cross were super abundant, meaning they're infinitely meritorious. Not sufficient as in limited, limited atonement only for an elect few.
You and and we said at the end of the first session if people are lost it's through their own fault god does not will anyone to damnation god does not cause anyone to sin we and people end up being damned because of their own choice their own abuse of their own freedom so to get this right our lord died on the cross for our sins in line with the old testament where in the the old testament animals were being offered us up as sacrifices to atone for sins but surely in principle sin
is an infinite offense against god which requires an infinite atonement and who is infinite but god that is why our lord became flesh and and offered himself as a sacrifice to the father in place of the animal sacrifices now that his sacrifice is sufficient to atone for our How sin. It's more than sufficient. It's more than sufficient. It's infinitely meritorious. And Christ is a substitute for us on the cross. And this is another point we need to make.
You sometimes hear the phrase, you know, Christ was punished in our place. And people have no problem with that. They hear it and they go, yeah, yeah, Christ died in my place. He was punished on my behalf. And that's what's called penal substitution.
That's another Calvinist doctrine. doctrine christ is a substitute for us but he's not strictly speaking a penal substitute he is punished but within the context of being a sacrificial substitute as i said earlier we could not do that act of infinite reparation because we're only creatures so christ does the act in our stead and what does he do he dies in our place to offer an infinitely meritorious is sacrificed to appease the wrath of God the Father. That's why he's the Lamb of God.
The Lamb and Old Testament sacrifices were not punished in our place. They are sacrificed in our place. Exactly. And that makes a huge difference to Christian theology and what we do. But I believe Jesus is a penal substitute. Then I have to believe he suffered the punishment due to sin, which was not just being bashed and hit and spat upon and mocked, But he also had to go to eternal damnation.
The punishment for sin ultimately is hellfire. But Christ does not suffer eternal damnation in our place. But then the retort is, okay, but you Catholics, you say that he went to hell. He descended into hell. But that's not the hell of the damned. It never was believed by the church fathers that Christ descended to the hell of the damned.
He descended to the Hades, the underworld, and those parts of the underworld, namely Abraham's bosom, where the repentant were with Abraham waiting in prison, so to speak, before he fell into heaven. Yeah, yeah. And also in purgatory. Now, Christ, according to one reading, Catholic reading, meaning could have appeared to the damned in hell to show that he was the Messiah. That he was the one who has now died on behalf of humanity. But he didn't suffer hellfire as such.
Christ was not a penal substitute. He sacrificed himself. He freely gave himself to be sacrificed on the cross on our behalf. So what that means for us in our personal lives is very significant.
If I believe Christ is only a penal substitute, he took the punishment due to sin so i'm protestant theology if i believe in christ i'm saved i i am and i'm not only saved i'm forgiven of all sin past present and future and i have no punishment due to for me anymore for any of my sins because christ has been punished in my place for all my sins so that's why they reject penances and purgatory but for catholics when we believe in And Christ,
we accept him as a sacrificial substitute, the Lamb of God, who died in our place to offer an infinitely meritorious sacrifice. And when we come to believe in him, we are meant to imitate. So Christ opens heaven for himself. He wins resurrection and a glorified body for himself. He does the same for us. He opens heaven for us, merits resurrection from the dead and a glorified body for us. and the forgiveness of sins.
But if I sin after baptism, I still have to say sorry for those sins and I still have to make up for the damage caused by those sins. So wait, Jesus did not suffer for the temporal punishment due to sin? So he didn't wipe away sin and the punishment with it? So what did he pay for? He paid to save us from the eternal punishment due to sin, which was hell.
But when I accept Christ and I'm baptized, the sacrament which flows from Christ's side, Christ wins this grace for humanity because he merits the forgiveness of sins for humanity. Baptism flows from Christ and washes away all our sin and all the punishment, both eternal and temporal, due to our sins prior to baptism.
Okay, now, but if I commit sins after baptism, I still, I can't rely on Christ's cross and say, hey, Christ died for all my sins and I've already been forgiven for every sin I commit until the end of time. I don't have to do anything about those sins I commit after baptism. That's false theology. But the sins I commit after baptism, I still have to repent of those sins. I have to ask ask for forgiveness. Metanoia, I have to change my
mind and turn around. I have to make up for the damage caused by my sin. So Christ does not save me from the temple punishment for my sins committed after baptism. I have to respond to God's grace to do the acts of reparation in this this world, for the sins I've committed, when I ask for forgiveness, I'm forgiven of the eternal punishment due to that sin.
And if I die without doing the temple punishment due to that sin, then I'll do that temple punishment in purgatory, okay, which is the application of Christ's merits, infinite merits, one on the cross, directly by Christ to my soul, to purify me of any excessive attachment to creatures, excessive self-love, any other imperfections that I may have, and also for me to be forgiven of the venial sins that were unrepentant of or the temple punishment due for forgiven mortal sin.
Now, that's rather complex, and that's one reason why it's hard to teach this. It's hard for people to get their heads around this. And in comparison, Protestant theology is simpler, but it's not reflective of a proper understanding of Christ's merits on the cross. So to get this straight, Jesus died for our sins, for our actual sin that we commit, the offense against God. And we are able to be washed clean of our sins, of just the offense against God, so that we don't go to hell. That's right.
When we die, but we still have to pay and take responsibility for that sin. Ourselves. The sins that we commit after baptism. Exactly. And the attachment due to sin that's there. We have to do penance to disconnect or decrease the magnetic attraction back due to sin through sanctification. That's right. We still have disordered appetites, passions, emotions. We still have the conflict. We can go back to that sin. We have that attraction back to that sin. You know, even after we go to confession.
Yeah, we still have the wounds of original sin. So it's not this idea that our Lord died on the cross, redeemed us of our sins, and wiped away the temporal punishment due to sin, the attraction due to sin. It's all still there. Well, he does wipe that all away when we receive the baptism in the name of the Trinity, which flows from Christ. The life after baptism, Christ has still merited for us the forgiveness of those sins and therefore the escape from hell, damnation for those sins.
If we are repentant of those sins in the name of Christ, but for the damage we do in this world to others or etc., that punishment must be served in this world. There's two punishments for sin, eternal punishment and temple punishment. Eternal punishment is what Christ saves us from immediately through the cross.
And temple punishment, we are also saved from that if in the name of Christ we do and responding to Christ's grace, we repair the damage done for those actual sins committed in this world by us after baptism. And if we don't do it in this world, will we do it in the next? So, I mean, gee, Catholicism is a very demanding religion. Well, actually, honestly, the demand upon us is really the demand to love, to love God.
If we love God above all things with mind, body, heart, and soul, love the neighbour as ourselves, then we'll be living the most perfect Christian life we could possibly live, right? And that's the best way to avoid sin.
It's just that it sounds complex, but it's really, to put it in a simple term, in case people are listening and they might feel a little bit lost, Christ's death on the cross was infinitely meritorious and one for himself and for us, the opening of heaven, the forgiveness of our sins, and resurrection and the glorified body and eternal life in heaven with that glorified body.
All the sins we commit before baptism, are washed away through baptism, which comes from Christ's cross, his side on the cross. All sins we commit after baptism are forgiven through acts of contrition or of their serious sins, mortal sins, through the sacrament of penance that Christ also gave to us, the first thing he did after his resurrection from the dead, as we read in John 20, 21 to 23.
And we have to do penance in this world for the sins we commit in this world in our lifetime because we have a moral obligation. Through justice to repair the damage we've done to others because of our sin. We either do it in this world or in the next. That sums it up. I mean, I often reflect about what life would be like if confession absolved you of your sins and the temporal punishment due to sin and the magnetic attraction back to that sin and.
I mean, it's profound. It really gets us involved. I mean, we just, I mean, it really engages us to take responsibility for our actions. And it's quite sanctifying. It puts us into the state of penance so that we try harder. We grow in holiness from that opportunity. I'm just trying to make sense of that. I'll give you some quotes from the scripture that reinforce how we must be people of sacrifice as Christians. Matthew 10, 38, we are told to take up our cross.
So life in this world is meant to be an imitation of Christ's life. We take up our cross in the struggle against temptation and concupiscence to do good and avoid evil. Now, Romans 12, 1, St. Paul says, our bodies, make our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
So we have to always be doing things out of acts of love for God and neighbour, being sacrificial, that is, live unselfish lives, but also as a living sacrifice, we must be doing things to get the meaning of the Spirit over the flesh. That's why we do things such as abstinence and fasting as an example and almsgiving during Lent. Then Christ talks about, St. Paul again talks about almsgiving specifically as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.
Now, all these acts we do when we're in friendship with God through Christ, when we are in a state of grace, are meritorious in the eyes of God. So anything we do in a state of grace, that's good works that are meritorious, done out of faith while in a state of grace, we will be rewarded for that by God in heaven with a greater glory. Should I say anything else here? Hebrews 13, 16 says. Praise, such sacrifices are pleasing to God. So we are meant to be people of sacrifice in our life.
And the last one, which is very famous, Colossians 1.24, St. Paul says, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church. Ah, that's a very dangerous quote. What could be lacking in Christ? Yeah, I wouldn't believe it unless it came out of the mouth of St. Paul. What can be lacking in the afflictions of Christ, especially as I said that his merits on the cross were infinite?
What's lacking is that Christ the head has done everything for us, infinitely meritorious on the cross. But Christ the body, that is the church, which is united to the head, must conform to the head, must be like him. So we must be people of sacrifice as well. well, self-denial and love of others. And that's when St. Paul did his penances and suffered in the body. He was making up, so to speak, in inverted commas, what was still to be done by Christ in the body.
And that's why we are meant to be people. When we do these actions, we're not saying Christ's merits were insufficient and we're trying to add to his merits to make them sufficient.
No what we're doing we are doing we are imitating christ in his life in his sacrificial life and we are uniting our good works and penances and etc to him to his infinite merits on the cross it's not saying we're adding to something we believe is insufficient no we are uniting our our good works to him, to his infinitely meritorious action on the cross. Absolutely amazing. I mean, it's a very profound thing to really realize and delve into. These are accusations that are held against Catholics.
If we say, you know, I'm fasting, I'm doing penance for my sins, then the response could be from some type of Protestant, and whether Reformed or Lutheran or Evangelical, et cetera, well, you shouldn't be doing penance because then if you do penance, you're saying that Christ's merits on the cross for you were insufficient and you're trying to add your own merits and that's blasphemous. That is not what is happening here.
We believe, unlike then, sadly, that Christ's merits were infinitely meritorious. We are not adding to his merits. We are uniting ours to his. And it's because we unite ours to his, that is how they get meritorious value in the eyes of God the Father. I mean, it possibly could be as a consequence of the theological belief of sola fide, of faith alone, that works. You got it. It could possibly lead to that understanding. I mean, that's what I am for.
You've got that. It flows from faith alone, Christ alone. There's no need to do that penance. That's right.
Everything's wiped away. way when when they say christ alone well christ alone christ is the only redeemed right and as to repeat myself again and again his merits were infinite on the crop but they in their interpretation of christ alone is that christ has been he is our substitute he is punished in our place he takes the punishment for us there is we believe in him we're forgiven our sins and there's There's no punishment we ever have to do for our own sins.
So that's Christ alone. He's done it for us. So if we're trying to do any penance for our sins committed after baptism, we're somehow saying that we don't believe Christ's merits. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's only consequential. Yeah. This is absolutely profound. But look, Holy Week's coming up. And how do we tie this in through some practical tools?
So what are some three practical tools? how we can immerse ourselves in the passion of our Lord, understanding properly as we've gone through, what he's paid for, and our role and our cooperation in salvation and sanctification to do penance. What are some three practical tools for us, Robert, that we can take action with leading up to this Holy Week that's coming up? The first act is to be thankful to God for redeeming humanity. Thank you. Thank you to God for the grace, the gift of redemption.
Thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ that came to us through the Blessed Virgin Mary to become man when God didn't have to do that. It is an unmerited gift from God. That's the objective redemption. That's what St. Paul is really talking about in Ephesians 2, 8 to 9.
It's not through any works of our own but the grace that of god and we we connect into that we gain the benefit of that initially through faith but then in verse 10 we are called to do the works that god expects us to do in faith so the first thing is acts of appreciation and thanksgiving to god the father for redemption through jesus christ yeah secondly is to actually say to ourselves, how do I feel called to imitate this Christ who died on the cross for us?
How am I going to be a person of sacrifice as well? And generally, that's through agape love, unselfish, sacrificial love. And so I say, really, this should be every day for the rest of our But in the remaining period in Lent and Holy Week, et cetera, and when we celebrate, you know, the Tridium and all that, et cetera, ask yourself, how can I every day be specifically that person of sacrifice? What can I do as an act of love of God and neighbor that is self-denying,
that conforms me to Christ as a person of sacrifice? Mortification. Yeah. And that actually benefits someone else. Benefits someone else. So maybe exactly, okay, so sacrificial mortification, leading up to land. Mortification, I was going to come up to that as the third point. Okay. So my second point is how can we mean people have sacrificed that benefits someone else? Yes.
Right like for example like take that up yeah take that up leading up to holy week you know we have i'm at the dinner table and i see a really nice bunch of grapes and i know it's the only bunch of grapes left and i want to eat it but i say no because i know one of my children likes it as well and i'll leave it for one of my children right the third thing is the mortification how are we We being in the interior, people of self-denial when it comes to ourselves.
And that's the real battle. That's the everlasting battle until we die. Or as St. Francis de Sales would have said and did say, you know, self-love dies 15 minutes after we do. Okay, that's how strong it is. So how can we be people of mortification to get the dominion of our spirit over the flesh?
Because that is a principal cause of so much sin in the world today, pride and sensuality, excessive self-love manifested in our love of ourselves above others and also manifested in the unbridled exercise of our passions and appetites. Of course, we need to do more practically to have people understand what Christ did on the cross. Jesus died for my sins. We teach that, but very few people actually know what that means.
Jesus died for our sins, meaning he was the lamb on the cross who offered a perfect sacrifice, infinitely meritorious, in obedience and love to God the Father, in opposition to the original sin of Adam, which merited from the Father for Christ himself, resurrection and a glorified body, heaven, And the same for us. And we need to have that understanding that we're only going to get to heaven because of what Christ did on the cross.
And that's why we look at a crucifix and we should have an understanding. Something that looks horrible, that's ugly, objectively. You know, a dead man naked on the cross is something ugly and horrible. horrible. But when we understand what it really means, it's actually the most beautiful thing in the universe. It is God becoming man freely as a grace, as a gift unmerited to save us from ourselves, from our sin, from damnation, from hell, from the devil.
And that is an act of perfect love and self-sacrifice. So that's another thing I'll add. Let's look at the cross this remaining weeks of Lent and leading up to Holy Week and understand the cross and love that act of beauty, that act of total self-giving love. Yeah. And I highly recommend everybody find a parish or visit some other parish during this Triduum or the Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Vigil.
You know, it's great to venture out to other parishes, especially the cathedrals of whatever diocese that you're in. I find it very helpful to take up. and Bishop Richard Umbers, the Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Sydney, has come up with a great initiative of encouraging everybody to take up the seven churches' devotion, the devotion and the visiting of the seven churches, which I don't know whether or not it originated in the East as a tradition.
It was Roman. It was Roman originally. As far as I'm aware, I can be corrected on this. I think it was St. Gregory VII. No, sorry, St. Gregory the Great, earlier, much earlier. So late 6th century, early 7th century. From the West. Yeah. From the West. So to visit seven churches on Holy Thursday night. And it's a great tradition to take up, I think. And you can, I mean, seven churches isn't too much.
They can be as far or close. Many people go as far around Sydney to visit the cathedral on each side, and they travel a lot, and many pilgrims do an overnight pilgrimage. But find out if there's a group in your parish or in your diocese that's visiting seven churches or even doing a Good Friday night walk or a Good Friday walk. These are great devotions to take up to immerse yourself in the suffering. Can I say something here, George? Sure. That's excellent what you're saying.
And I've been around a little bit longer than most now. I'm 60 this year and I'm surprised at how fast I'm aging. But I've seen... A lot since the mid 80s and yeah we're in very very dark times in the world and in the church.
Generally we all know all the kpis are heading south but what i've seen in the last decade especially in sydney metropolitan area with marinites with croatians with filipinos with with other groups, right, is as a rising crescendo of young people getting involved directly in activities like this. You're seeing men's ministry exploding in Sydney. Big shout out to them. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Just the men's rosary alone. I mean, it's just absolutely fascinating.
There are hundreds of men standing outside and praying the rosary.
Unthinkable. unthinkable in the mid 80s 90s even in the 2000s unthinkable but grace is really flowing at a certain level in the church to build these lay ministries so young men older men same for women older and young let's get this momentum happening especially leaders of a new generation generation you know i'm around for a certain number of years and no one is around forever so it's so exciting to see these things happening i've
got young adult children now i'm excited to see what they do how they get involved in the church in different ways yeah and and there's a lot of energy happening there's a lot i'm just fascinated over the past 10 years as well from from more of a millennial perspective, just how many lay ministries there are, how many men's groups. There's a million men's groups happening. There's still not enough. A million women's groups. There's still not enough, I would say.
There's not enough, but I think it's booming. I think there's a lot of grace, as you said correctly, Robert. There's a lot of grace being infused into the church, at least in Sydney, at least in Australia, and I think we have a long way to go and a lot to do. This is a call to everybody listening here today. Pray and discern. I think use this Holy Week and this opportunity to finalize the Lenten season. Enter into the Passion Week and come out with a renewed vision.
Commitment or a realization of what god is asking of you to contribute to the church as lay people especially yeah if everyone does if everyone just lives out their baptism the church would recover you know overnight virtually i don't think that these positive movements also not of course a response to grace but it's also a reaction against the madness of contemporary society the woke is and people have had enough.
People have had enough of the sexual revolution destroying everything, destroying our understanding of sexuality, destroying relationships between men and women, pitting men and women at war with each other, promoting fornication culture, promoting adultery, promoting divorce and remarriage, promoting same-sex relationships, promoting transgenderism. And just absolutely guttering any concept of objective truth and reality.
People are reacting to this. We're sick of it. It's like that movie from 1977, Network. Most of your audience wouldn't know that movie, but the news reporter eventually just screamed out the window and said, you know, I'm sick of this, and I'm not going to take it anymore. And that's how we should be. We're just sick of this, the lies of the sexual revolution, which are the lies of the devil, and we're not going to take it anymore.
We want goodness. We want truth. We want beauty. We want reality. Exactly. And I think that's what's happening now. Definitely what's happening now. But thank you so much, Dr. Robert Haddad, for being with me here on the show tonight. You're most welcome, George. And keep up the great work you're doing. God bless you. Thank you so much. And thank you for tuning into the show this week here on The Catholic Toolbox. toolbox.
May God bless you through this Passion Week as you enter into Holy Week and may you come out with many blessings and a renewed vigor to continue living a life of holiness. Until next week, God bless, take care and take act. In this era of grave spiritual crisis, it is not enough to simply know about your Catholic Catholic faith.
That is why we need a Catholic toolbox to equip us with the practical skills necessary to live our Catholic faith to reach our ultimate goal, which is heaven for all eternity. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Join us every Tuesday night at 8pm for The Catholic Toolbox, as we hand you the tools to go forth, live the faith and change our modern world today. Music.