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Text Box: Not only is there no prohibition against the Church - a religion - effecting the government, the Church actually has the right to effect the government. That right is also guaranteed in the First Amendment, for people belong to the Church and the Constitution guarantees the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The Church - religions - through their members - people - are also guaranteed the right to make their positions known because the government is able to do nothing which will result in abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. When Prohibition was the law of the land there was an attempt to make real wine unavailable to those religions which use real wine as part of their liturgical religious worship. That attempt failed because of the religion provisions of the First Amendment. The ability of the government to effect religion is so restrained that even an attempt to effect a religion must be based in an explicitly stated constitutionally guaranteed right and an explicitly stated obligation of the government to protect such right, plus the right and the obligation must be of the ultimate magnitude. There is but one such right and obligation which comes to mind and it is best stated in an example. The government is able to and must stop people from sacrificing virgins to the volcano god. The virgin’s right to life is guaranteed by the Constitution. The government has the obligation within its geographic borders to protect this right which belongs to citizens and non-citizens alike. The people can sacrifice something which they own which is not human, and are guaranteed this right, and no one, no agency, no organization, not even the Environmental Protection Agency, PITA, SPCA, the Broccoli Protective League, or The Society for Preservation of the Last of a Species which will be Extinct When This Last One Dies, has the right or ability to

Text Box: sinner usually experiences self loathing based in their having diminished their love for God, or even abandoned their love for God, for something - a sin - which they actually did not and do not desire or want. The sinner’s knowledge and realization they want to love God, and that they have diminished or abandoned their love for God disgusts the sinner. This disgust and self loathing for having diminished or abandoned their love for God is a good situation and a path to holiness if it is joined with a resolution to never again abandon or diminish their love for God. It may be that from time to time the person fails in this resolution, but with the resolution as part of an active, shall we say, love life for God, the person will be assisted by God in winning the war for eternal life. There are, of course, sins which we have gotten into the habit of committing, or which are based in some form of habit. Such sins may generally be broken down into three segments: first is the trigger, second is the response which is a sin, third is an anticipation of gratification of some sort. The gratification may no longer exist or may have become of very short duration or diminished greatly in effect or even have been replaced with disgust or loathing but the gratification existed at some time in the past and was the reinforcement for the sin response to the trigger. To overcome this type of sin one should work on replacing the response to the trigger with something which is acceptable to God and anticipate gratification of a type acceptable to God. This may require some thought and planning but with love for God as both inspiration and goal success is attainable. The Virgin Mary was never faced with any of these quandaries to the extent many of us experience, not necessarily because of any special privilege granted to her by God, but because through conscious and intentional exercise of her human will she made love for God the major aspect of her very essence. Of course she was assisted in attaining this by her parents, Saints Joachim, whose name means Yahweh prepares, and Anne,

Text Box: whose name means Grace, and her apparently having virtually lived in the temple at Jerusalem until shortly before her marriage to Saint Joseph. But that great love for God which the Virgin Mary had and has is not beyond the reach of anyone, even us old sinners. Therefore a sinless and holy remainder of life is also within our reach. Ref: Is. 8:10-15; Gospel: Luke 1:26-38 +

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