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Text Box: the “doing” or “failure” is a sin. To transgress is not always a sin, but it does include failure to do a good when readily possible and recognized, and may even include the failure to recognize the possible good which could be done. But pursuit of this avenue will take us too far afield from the direction we wish to pursue. When Jesus asked the Pharisees and lawyers if it was lawful to heal on the sabbath day, and they declined to answer, He was teaching them the reality that their pride in knowledge of the letter of the law had blinded them to the spirit and the intention of the law. Basically, the spirit and intention of the law’s prohibition against any kind of physical labor on the sabbath day was to provide time for worship of God, thanksgiving to God, and rest for humans. It was not intended to prohibit the doing of good, and especially was it not intended to prohibit being holy. And, curing the ill is both good and holy, and for an ill person in desperate circumstances, it is an immediate necessity the withholding of which would be both evil and sinful. By advising prudence in seating one’s self when a guest, so that one is not asked to move to a lower place so that another may take the preferred place, and also so that one may be moved from a lowed place to a higher and more preferred place, Jesus was giving an instruction against blindly acting in a prideful manner. He was especially warning against presumption which often has pride as its foundation. One’s sense of self esteem, or of self worth, often are exaggerated beyond a reasonable level by one’s pride leading one to think or to act in a presumptive manner without the right so-to-do. As did the Pharisees and lawyers, and, perhaps, as do many of both the “common folk” as well as the “celebrities” of today. Even though most of us do not really believe we have a problem with pride, a little mental activity in the preventive maintenance mode would prove to be

Text Box: beneficial to most of us in restraining pride. For what we actually seek in the spiritual improvement arena is the assistance of God the Father, that we be strengthened in our inner man by the Holy Spirit, that we be made mighty in inner strength of holiness, the intellect of the soul overriding both the impulses and the rebellion of the flesh, the intellect never succumbing to becoming an accomplice of the flesh. Ref: Eph. 3:13-21; Luke 14:1-11 +

Text Box: thyself,” . . . ? No. Some of them love themselves to the exclusion of all others and of all else. Some of them loath and hate themselves, are devoid of love of self. Being without even sufficient self love to enable the seeking of eternal salvation for themselves, they lack the ability to love themselves and to love others, or anything. When asked why they follow their course, many of these people will spout well practiced phrases which often initially sound and seem reasonable but which upon reflection and the even the most bare of inspection are easily revealed as meaningless noise. When the request is made, of those who cite to Sacred Scripture, to give logical, rational explanations which maintain concordance with traditional Sacred Scripture or traditional - and not modern - translations of Sacred Scripture, and required to abandon their own false interpretations, they fall silent. Of course, those who do not pretend to base their positions in Sacred Scripture will posit a logic which is self defeating and meaningless on its face - often being so ridiculous as to be laughable were it not for the spiritual and therefore temporal damage they wreck. Saint Paul constantly reminds us in a multitude of subtle as well as straight forward ways, that it is not sufficient for the attainment of eternal salvation that we be good, but that it is necessary that we be holy. Some fortunate individuals apparently find this to be an easy task. Undoubtedly they have attained a measure of success in their attempt to focus on the attainment of holiness. Undoubtedly they exerted more effort in that endeavor than those of us who who still struggle. But they are fortunate not in having been given anything which we have not been given. They are fortunate in that they have exercised the fortitude required to

Text Box: inappropriate sexuality for public consumption, and the member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or member of any other organization which lacks the Sacraments and Apostolic Succession, who prowls the streets of the cities, and drives the country roads, seeking victims to lead away from the Sacraments and the True Church? There is no difference between the two, for both seek the eternal damnation of their prey. They can not and do not, “love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind,” for they do not believe in the Lord God - they believe in a god they have created, they do not know the true God, or if they know Him they oppose Him, they reject Him. One can not and does not love another whom they do not know, or who exists only in their own mind, or whom they oppose and reject. While it is quite possible to love one whose actions or purposes one opposes or rejects, it is not possible to love one whom one opposes and rejects. And it is never possible to love one whom one does not know or who does not exist or who exists only in one’s mind. Do these promoters of evil and damnation, “love thy neighbour as

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