Are we ready yet for the celebration of the feast of feasts tomorrow? Easter Sunday, in the Roman Catholic catechesis, is heralded as the culmination of the liturgical calendar, of all the events celebrated in the church calendared.
If on Sundays, the faithful are discouraged to do things that are against one’s sanctification, the more that he should make himself new or unblemished by sin on Easter Sunday. This presupposes that in the days preceding, that is from Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, to the Easter Triduum of Holy Week, a baptized Catholic is believed to have had that metanoia, a change of heart. He is deemed to have obtained that heart that is fully disposed unto God’s will – man’s holiness.
From cradle to grave, Christians are destined to be holy. However, the sinful nature of humanity cascaded down from their forebears Adam and Eve, as the Holy Scripture speaks of. The Biblical teaching of the concept of “original sin” brings everyone’s mind his sinful nature.
This mark of arrogrance and betrayal, now called the “original sin” and which Christian teachings say was created by the so-classified “first parents Adam and Eve” is not without remedy, the Bible so declared. This “birthmark” inherited by every new born from the “first parents” is washed by the graciousness of God through the Sacrament of Baptism. Nonetheless, what was removed by the sacrament was the blot of Adam and Eve’s arrogrance and obstinacy as so understood in Holy Bible’s Book of Genesis.
Inspite if such grace of that brought about some kind of re-birth of a person after his Baptism and same vow to defy evilness renewed in the Sacrament of Confirmation, man’s sibful nature prevails. It is no more the original sin, but man’s own folly, the natural propensity to defy God’s will of man’s holiness. As propitiation, the atonement of man’s sinfulness, God Himself gave another recourse, this time not a mechanical one, but an offer that is bound with certain conditions to attain God’s will of man’s holiness.
Christ Jesus, as the Bible conveys, died as atonement for man’s sins, a ransom for his defiance of God’s will of man’s holiness, the image and likeness of Him. Upon the Messiah’s name Jesus every knee shall bow and only thru whom one gets to the Father, thus Christians would commonly invoke in their supplication “In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen!”
Are the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation enough to fulfill God’s will of man’s holiness? Certainly not, if Riman Catholic teachings are obeyed. Man should couple his avowal to defy what thwarts his sanctification with concrete efforts prompted by sincere heart that is geared away from his sinful nature. This only comes with deluberate submission to God’s will, availing when necessary the Sacrament of Reconciliation. One could not, of course receive the Holy Host, the embodument of Christ Jesus, in the Holy Eucharist if he is in the state if sin or dredged in mortal sin.
God’s mercy and compassion is endless. Albeit it flowing like spring that never dries up, God’s unconditional love and affection should not be abused or else taken for granted. The countless chances He gives for man to attain that level of sanctification should be paired by latter’s resolve to be a reflection of God’s pureness and indiscriminate care for every one. Sanctification is that way which only comes with metanoia – a complete change of heart. (Eileen Nazareno-Ballesteros)
