2. Remedies on Sin
Previews lesson we saw that God’s answer to the problem of
sin: Jesus Christ, The Son of God, became man & freely offered
his life for our Salvation.
Through Jesus’ Suffering, death & Resurrection we are
save from our sins and reconcile to God.
Let’s began by looking our description verse for this lesson:
Fight the good fight of Faith, Take hold of the Eternal life to
which you are called. (1Thimothy 6:12)
Jesus death on the Cross reconciles us to God, but we still
have to fight against our tendency to sin.
It is our job to make used of all the means available to us, in
our struggle against sin.
God made the GRACES in our Redemption (Jesus’ suffering,
death…) abundantly available to us through
Prayer
Penance
& specially the Sacraments of the Church.
3. Everything Jesus Did & Thought
We call everything that Jesus did and Thought;
everything that He handled on to his apostles,
and they in turn, handed to their successors de
Bishops, and which come down to us: The Deposit of
Faith is sum up in ―The CREED‖.
But there is also a Deposit of GRACE
We can think of it as a bank, and we make
withdrawals from this bank (this Great deposit of
GRACE) –its great of abundance of Grace that Christ
has wan for u—by using all the means of Grace that
are available to us.
It is only by Grace that we can overcome sin, and
live as children of God.
Today we will talk about 3 means of Graces that
are specially helpful to us in the struggle against sin
1) Prayer
2) Penance
3) Sacraments of Reconciliation & Holy Communion
4. Lets talk about Prayer
How Prayer helps us in the fight against
sin?
Well, it strengthen our friendship with God!
We have said that SIN is: turning away
form God.
MORTAL SIN: Breaks us ours friendship with
God. It is like turning your back on God
completely.
VENIAL SIN: weakens our friendship with
God, but doesn’t, break it. It weakness our
friendship with God, but it doesn’t breaks it
completely.
And when we pray we are facing God,
and we are having a conversation with Him
So Prayer strengthen that friendship, instead
of turning away from God, it’s turning towards
5. Prayer
Jesus wants to spend time with you
There are different type of prayer:
ADORING GOD AND THANKING GOD is one way to
pray
Thanking God just for who He is
God is the Creator of the whole world & everything in
it;
and He hold it in existence all the creation.
He loves believers and unbelievers
He is merciful and patient
He is good & He is loving
And He is always, by our side, even though we ignore
it.
6. Prayer
So we praise & thanks him for all he has done, for everything that He
is given us:
The nature, the animals, the plants
The universe, the starts, the planets
our eyes, hands,
Our abilities, talents
our parents, friends,
food to eat, cloth to wear
People from different races,
(with all their riches in cultures, languages, customs & traditions)
Everything that we have is given to us by God, So we need to spend
time in prayer thanking Him for all these blessings.
7. Being Silent
Also sometimes we want to be silent.
Sometimes we should be silent &
thoughtful in the presence of God.
We simply want to be quiet… Revelation
most of the time occurs in the peace of
our heart, during this time.
8. Being Silent
We want to be quiet in the presence
of God, and remembering
that God is always thinking about us!
And God is everywhere with us,
especially in those difficult moments,
“Blessed are those who mourn, for
they will be comforted. .. “Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they will be
satisfied.
“Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness, for the
kingdom of heaven belongs to them…
“Blessed are you when people insult
you and persecute you and say all
kinds of evil things about you falsely
9. Memorized Prayers
Sometimes it is difficult to think in the words to say,
when you are praying, and this is a good time to use prayers
memorized:
Our Father
Hail Mary
Glory Be
The Psalms, etc.
And we can also make “ACTS OF FAITH”
Just saying: Our God I believe in you
“ACTS OF HOPE”
Saying something like: ―God I hope in you‖ you have save me,
and I continue to be save, and help me with your GRACE.
“ACTS OF LOVE”
Saying: God I love You!
Also we can make “ACTS of CONTRICTION”
We can say: God I am sorry for my sins, and ask forgiveness.
10. Morning, Meals & Night Offerings
Another wonderful prayers to say is the
Morning Offering to God,
to begin your day by offering everything that
you have, and everything that you are to God.
Also we can pray to God in our own words,
at meals
and at nights before going to sleep, too. You
can simply tell God what is in you mind
You can also ask things that you need for
yourself, or for other People.
We have Prayer as a mean of growing in
Grace, and turning Away from Sin and
getting closer towards God;
11. PENANCE
Now we going to talk about PENANCE.
Some people love Lent: Lent is a happy time because
Lent is a time to doing Penance.
And Penance is not something sad. It is something
happy because it means turning back to God.
Penance means turning back to God and being healed
from our sins, and this is a happy thing!
Every single one of us is a sinner, everyone!
And so everyone has to do penance, and this is why the
church has set a side certain days and seasons of
Penance.
Like LENT for example, is a time for the whole Church,
for everyone to be penance together.
In addition to Lent every Friday for example, is a day of
Penance.
Friday is a day of Penance for remember Jesus died for
us on Good Friday.
And we want to show him, in a special day, how much
we love Him and are grateful to HIM for what He has
12. 3 Traditional Forms of Penance
Penance shows God, you want to turn
away from sin and turn toward Him.
The best way to do Penance is to do what
you suppose to do, the best as you can.
There are 3 traditional forms of Penance
in Church:
1. Prayer
2. Fasting
3. Good Works or Almsgiving
ALMSGIVING is giving to the poor
ALMS is simply an offering for the poor and it
can be money or food, or something like that.
So Almsgiving is simply giving to the Poor, is
another word for good works (it can mean any
as Charity)
13. ALMSGIVING
How Can You Do Good Works?
How Can You Give Alms?
a) You can give your friend, or someone in need
something that they wanted,
b) Or give something that you know they want it, or
need it,
c) Or let say you save a little money, instead of
buying a new dress or another shoes, for yourself,
you can give that money to the poor.
d) Or you can put that money in the poor box in your
Church
e) Another thing you can do, it’s just try to notice
when other people need something, and then do it for
them.
f) There are many different way to give Alms: Maybe
someone needs a wheelchair, or need to go to the
doctor, or to the dentist… & we may have the
possibilities to help them.
14. FASTING
HOW CAN YOU FAST?
You can deny yourself, and some desires:
(affections, things, food, technology, vanity, etc) For
example:
a) you can resist desire to eat some deserts,
b) Or avoid to listen some music, or avoid to play
with some things or technology, etc.
c) Turning off all electronics at home, like TV,
Internet, cell phones, etc.
d) Or Avoid people who gossip, or play back jokes,
etc.
That’s a way of Fasting, because you have to
deny yourself.
a) Or maybe instead of eating 3 cookies, you eat
only 1.
b) Another way can fast and deny yourself, it’s
maybe be quiet sometimes if it is not necessary to
talk
You sometimes can say: No Thank You! to
some PLEASURE, or to some enjoyment.
15. 2 Sacraments
We have been talking about all the ways God gives
us to Overcome our sins, and turn towards Him.
We ready talk about Prayer, and Penance.
Now we going to talk about 2 SACRAMENTS that
are specially helpful in overcoming sin. and turning
back to God
1) The Sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation
2) The Sacrament of Holy Communion
SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION: is also called
Penance or Confession
And that’s makes perfect sense because we just
said about Penance:
It simply means turning towards God, and away from
Sin. And that’s what we do when we go to
confession
CONFESSION is telling our sins to a priest, for the
purpose of asking forgiveness from God.
And this is a very good thing for us, it makes us to
look our sins and take responsibility for them.
16. Sacrament of Reconciliation
You probably see that is true
through your own life;
It makes a difference when you tell
a friend you are sorry for something
that you did, instead of just being
sorry.
Telling sorry, it just makes you to
really know that you are done
something wrong:
You say it for yourself
and you say it to him,
and it is forgiven!!!
17. Moral Sin & Venial Sin
There is a difference between Moral Sin & Venial Sin
VENIAL SIN harm our friendship with God
MORAL SIN breaks our friendship with God. The word Mortal means
Deathly
Moral Sin is a serious sin
and it puts at death the Life of God (Grace) in our soul
We have to confess all our Mortal Sin, ant least once at year.
Not confessing a sin, it’s like hiding a wound from a Doctor
And that would be a silly thing to do.
We never get better if we hid it from the Doctor or someone that it
can help su to cure our sick
And that’s what is like, if we are a shamed to telling our sins
to a priest. We should never be ashamed!
Remember in the SACRAMENT OF CONFESSION, we receive
the Grace of God,
which strengthen our Will
& enlighten our reason
& makes us holy.
18. Reconciliation/Confession
When we go to Confession, it’s really Jesus who
forgive us.
The priest say the word: ―I absolve you in the name
of…‖ but God is the only one who forgives sin.
This is not a problem because when the priest is
ordain, Jesus give them a special power to act in His
name.
So when the priest said: ―I absolve you‖ it is actually
Jesus saying it.
Now we have to confess Mortal sin at least once a
year,
but you don’t have to confess Venial sin, as long you
have a perfect act of contrition in your soul, and ask
God for forgiveness
(You don’t have to, but is highly recommended & a
good thing to do) Why is that?
Well is make you more aware of our faults
Just like when we take the effort to tell our friends, we
are sorry, instead of just thinking of it.
19. Confessing Venial Sin
When we confess our venial sins, it makes
us bring to them to mind, and tell them to the
priest,
And so it gives us a better idea of what they
are, and not only that,
when we confess our faults, we get
(receive) a special Grace to OVERCOME
those particular faults, and that helps us to
fight against them.
Also when we go to confession regularly &
receive God’s forgiveness, it helps us to be
more forgiven to other people when they hurt
us,
because we know God is forgiving us,
So we want to forgive other people
20. Confession & Contrition
An important part of going to Confession, it is
what we called CONTRICITION
CONTRITION is the sorrow for sin, and the firm
intention or resolution not to sin again.
Contrition is not necessary a feeling, it doesn't
mean you feel sad necessarily, (although we can
feel sad, and that is a special Grace)
The most important about Contrition, it is that it
is a firm intention not sin again.
It doesn’t mean that you are not afraid that you
going to sin again, but it does mean that you
going to Try with the help of God’s Grace, with
God!
There are 2 kind of Contrition
1. Perfect Contrition
2. Imperfect Contrition
21. Perfect & Imperfect Contrition
PERFECT CONTRITION: is sorrow for sin because we
have offended God, who is good and who we love above
all things.
IMPERFECT CONTRITION: is sorrow for sin because
we are embarrassed, or we are afraid of being punished,
either in this life or the next life.
Now some people think or say:
That we Catholics think that we can do whatever we
want, and then just go to Confession, and it doesn’t
matter (as if Confession is magic or something similar)
But this is not True!!
In order for our sins to be forgiven in Confession, we
have to be truly sorry for Him who loves us
Or we need to have at least Imperfect Contrition:
a) this is the contrition you feel when you sorry for sin at
least because it make you feel foolish,
b) because you know sin is not a good thing
c) or because you are afraid of punish
At least you have to be sorry for those reasons.
22. Penance
At the end of Confession the priest gives us
Penance:
a) usually a prayer
b) some good work
c) Or something to express our sorrow for sin
PENANCE helps us to express sorrow for our sin.
When we do penance that the priest gives us, we
are trying to make it right, and this is a good thing to
do because it is in keeping our dignity as Children of
God.
We said in the preview lesson that we are made in
God’s Image and likeness.
This means that we have FREE WILL, and because
we have this free will, we can freely choose God, or
we can also freely choose what’s wrong.
By doing the penance, the priest gives us,
1. we’re expressing our sorrow for sin
2. and we freely choosing to try to make it right
again.
23. Consequence of Sin
Because Penance means turning back to
God, it helps to take care of the
consequences of Sin.
And what are the consequences of sin?
The Consequences of Sin is an increase of
our tendency to sin, which we called
CONCUPISCENCE
And it simply means that once you turn
away from God, it is easier to keep turning
away from Him.
But when we are making an Act of
Penance, we are turning back to God, so
this lessen our tendency to sin again.
Acts of Penance lessen our tendency to
sin; this is why Penance is a happy thing,
24. Holy Communion
We have talk about Prayer, Penance, & The
Sacrament of Reconciliation,
So now let’s talk about the next mean of Grace,
that God gives us to help us in the struggle against
sin, and this is HOLY COMMUNION.
Communion is another word for Friendship, During
those precious few minutes, after we receive Jesus,
in the Blessed Sacrament, we are closer to Him
more than any other time
When we receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we
are choosing Him.
We said that sin is turning around & away from
God…Well, when we receive Holy Communion is
just the opposite of that!
In Holy Communion, We are turning toward Him
and stretching our hands toward Him saying: that
we love him, and we want to be closer to Him.
25. Holy Communion
When we receive Jesus in the Eucharist we’re
saying:
Yes Lord! I believe that you died for me.
Yes Lord! thank you for giving your life to save me
from sin.
Yes Lord! I want to receive your Grace, and your
help so that I can live as a Child of God.
Just as we have to nourish our bodies with
material food, and drink, so we also have to
nourish our souls with Spiritual food,
And Jesus loves us so much! that He gave us
Himself in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
He gives us His Own Body and Blood as food for
our souls.
What more Jesus could it done for us, than to
give his own flesh and blood to be the food of our
26. Holy Communion
To be worthy to receive Jesus in the Holy
Communion, we have to be free from Mortal sin.
There are certain conditions that we have to
meet:
1) We need to be free of Mortal sin!
2) We have to observe Fast requirement
WE have to be free of moral sin, and this make
sense because otherwise,
How can we, at the same time, be turn away
completely from God in mortal sin, and be turning
towards Him? It doesn’t make sense, it is
impossible!
Therefore, we have to be free of mortal sin to
receive Jesus in the Holy Communion.
And if we are not free from mortal sin, it has to be
confessed before come to receive Jesus in the
Blessed Sacrament.
27. Fasting
The other condition is that we have to observe the
Church’s law in fast required before Holy Communion
What is the Church law?
It says we can not eat or drink: we do not eat or drink
for 1 hour before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist
At less serious sins, our venial sins don’t make us
unworthy to receive Jesus in Holy Communion, but can
keeps us from receiving/getting all these Graces God
wants to give us.
God wants to gives us Grace; He loves to pour His
Grace upon us & to helps us to live as his children.
He made us to be with Him forever and that’s why he
wants to give us Grace.
Therefore, we want to do everything we can, to
receive all the Graces that God wants to give us in the
Eucharist,
So what we can do, is try to be more fervent in our love
for God
28. Acts of Faith, Hope & Love
And to be free ourselves from deliberate
venial sin, we can also prepare ourselves to
receive Holy Communion for making
“Acts of Faith”, “Acts of Hope” & “Acts of
Love”
I believe in you God
I Hope in you God
I Love you God.
And also “Acts of Sorrow” for our sins.
Other things that we can do is just try to be
neat & clean and modest in appearance
It is an important thing to go to Communion to
receive Jesus inside of you,
Just as we were dress up for any other important
events, in our lives, we should dress up and look
nice, when we receive Jesus in the Holy
Communion.
29. Closer to Jesus
It is such a great Grace to receive Jesus in the Holy
Communion
We are never worthy enough of it, but it is a great
privilege that God allows us to have
We should treat each Holy Communion as if it were
the only Communion we were going to receive in our
whole life.
It is a greater privilege to receive Jesus in the
Eucharist; We are closer to Jesus when we receive Him
in Holy Communion.
So what do we do after we receive Jesus in the
Eucharist?
When we go back to our pew and we are kneeling &
praying, we just have a conversation with Him:
a) Adore Jesus
b) Thank Him for all His blessings
c) Renew your promises to love Him & to obey His laws
You can also ask Blessings for yourself and for others.
30. Spiritual Communion
We can also make a SPIRITUAL
COMMUNION: when we cannot receive Jesus
in the Eucharist.
This just mean simply ask Jesus to come
spiritually into our soul, when we cannot
received him really in the Holy Eucharist.
Remember that Jesus has given his life for
you, and you want to say to Jesus:
Yes my Lord! I want to continue to give my
whole life for you.
God give us so many Graces, and when we
receive Him in Holy Communion, we are more
closely united to our Lord, we grow in love for
God & our neighbor
We can not get any closer to God that when
we receive Him in the Holy Eucharist.
31. Communion Increases Sanctifying Grace
When we receive Holy Communion, it
increases Sanctifying Grace.
SANCTIFIYING GRACE: The Grace that
makes us Holy and like God
Remember that’s why we are made for; we
always want to have more of his Grace, we
need more of his Grace;
a) It Strengthen our Will
b) Illuminate our intellect/reason
c) Decreases our tendency to sin
d) Increase our empathy & love for our neighbor
When we receive Jesus in Holy
Communion, He helps us to avoid moral sin,
and He forgives venial sin.
Receiving Holy Communion
lessen our inclination or desire to sin
And it help us to practice good works.
32. Turning towards God
Remember SIN is turning away from God,
It is Choosing ourselves,
Or our won will over God’s
Everything is about us, instead of others
But when we receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we are turning towards
God, and this is why it lessen our desire to sin.
We receiving all this Grace through the Power of The Holy Spirit
The wonderful benefit we have of Holy Communion: it is that its Grace is
leading us to do good works for God and for our neighbor.
33. Mary a Good Example:
With her good example, Virgin
Mary is leading us to do good works
for God & our Neighbor, too.
Right after she receive Jesus in her
womb, she went in haze, in a hurry to
visit her cousin Elizabeth, who also
was with child (pregnant)
Mary went to Elizabeth to help her in
her needs.
This is how we want to imitate
Mary, and ask God for her help
We too, want to rush out to serve God
& our neighbor.
We also want to take Jesus to others
with our actions and good works.
34. A. So far, we have learned about the Creation; how God made everything from
nothing, for humans beings, to enjoy & take care.
B. He created humans being in His own images & likeness
Intelligence
Free will
Goodness & Love
C. We learned how human beings turned away from God at the beginning of
the History through their sins.
D. But God send His own sin Jesus to save them from sin
E. And Now HE made all the Graces of our redemption abundantly available
to us through the Church, and especially in PRAYER & THE SACRAMENTS
I leave you with a final thought:
Always keep in mind we are made for God!
And our true happiness would come in loving Him & Serving Him in this life and
then we will be Happy for eve in Heaven.
Conclusion: