Sunday, December 28, 2008

1Tim 4, 8-9 Devotion is valuable in every respect

(1Tim 4, 8-9) Devotion is valuable in every respect
[8] for, while physical training is of limited value, devotion is valuable in every respect, since it holds a promise of life both for the present and for the future. [9] This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance.
(CCC 2095) The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity inform and give life to the moral virtues. Thus charity leads us to render to God what we as creatures owe him in all justice. The virtue of religion disposes us to have this attitude. (CCC 2096) Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion. To adore God is to acknowledge him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists, as infinite and merciful Love. "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve," says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy (Lk 4:8; Cf. Deut 6:13). (CCC 2135) "You shall worship the Lord your God" (Mt 4:10). Adoring God, praying to him, offering him the worship that belongs to him, fulfilling the promises and vows made to him are acts of the virtue of religion which fall under obedience to the first commandment. (CCC 2144) Respect for his name is an expression of the respect owed to the mystery of God himself and to the whole sacred reality it evokes. The sense of the sacred is part of the virtue of religion: Are these feelings of fear and awe Christian feelings or not?... I say this, then, which I think no one can reasonably dispute. They are the class of feelings we should have - yes, have to an intense degree - if we literally had the sight of Almighty God; therefore they are the class of feelings which we shall have, if we realize His presence. In proportion as we believe that He is present, we shall have them; and not to have them, is not to realize, not to believe that He is present (John Henry Cardinal Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons V, 2 [London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907] 21-22).

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