The Christian Vanguard

Why do lingering feelings of guilt, shame, doubt still haunt us after we have confessed our sins which we think are the cause for such feelings? St. Thomas Aquinas may have some insight into the issue here when he says, "...passion is properly to be found where there is corporeal transmutation." Which is just basically to say that when you have a certain emotion, there is a corresponding bodily change. When you feel fear, your heart races, you begin to sweat. When you see the woman you are infatuated with, you have a slight pain in your stomach. When you see your wife walk over to the bed to fulfill marital duties, you also have an appropriate physical response.  And is well known, there is a difference between your passions and your intellect, or your will, in this case. When our intellect craves for something, we don't "feel" it like we feel our emotions. If I feel hungry, I have a bodily reaction to it, and is very immediate. When I feel sad, I have an ...

I control every part of my body. Punch me in the face, and you have punched me. Shoot me in the foot, and you have shot me. I am present at every part of my body. If you were to cut off my toe, I would no longer be present with that toe. Just because other things are present, like cells, bacteria, blood, etc., it doesn't mean I am not there or that I am the cells or I am the blood. We might be able to understand God's omnipresence the same way. This might panentheism though, and I could totally be wrong. Thoughts welcome.

In the movie Avatar, a human soldier takes on the body of a Na'vi. He is truly human and truly Na'vi. There is not two beings, but two natures in one incarnation. In Christ, God took on a human body. There was not a human mind and a God mind in one body. But the two natures of God and Man are present in one person. Avatar is commonly translated in English as "incarnation". This is an easy and fun way to understand the hypostatic union .

What is the Rosary? The Rosary is technically not the necklace. The Rosary is a prayer. The necklace is just supposed to aid you in your prayer, since the prayer is so long. Because the Rosary is so long, you risk focusing on where in the prayer you are at, instead of focusing on the Mysteries. So you finger the beads as you pray. Once your fingers come to the end of the necklace or to certain points, you know to change or stop. The basic structure is this: You start off at the bottom with the crucifix, do the sign of the cross and you recite the apostles creed. Then you have a few hail marys. Then there are a few sets of ten beads, for ten hail marys, also known as a decade. There are four decades for the four types of mysteries. During the hail marys, you ponder the mysteries of christ as Mary pondered them as described in Luke 2:19.