Man should honor the Creator in other creatures and treat them carefully and responsibly. Man, animals, and plants have the same Creator who called them into being out of love. Therefore a love of animals is profoundly human. [344,354] Although man is allowed to use and to eat plants andContinue Reading
Yes. Man is the summit of creation, because God created him in his image (Gen 1:27). [343-344,353] The creation of man is clearly distinguished from the creation of other living things. Man is a person, which means that through his understanding and will he can decide for or against love.Continue Reading
Yes. We can call on angels for help and ask them to intercede with God. [334-336, 352] Every person receives from God a guardian angel. It is good and sensible to pray to one’s guardian angel for oneself and for others. Angels can also make themselves noticeable in the lifeContinue Reading
Angles are pure spiritual creatures of God who have understanding and will. They have no bodies, cannot die, and are usually not visible. They live constantly in God’s presence and convey God’s will and God’s protection to men. [328-333, 350-351] An angel, wrote Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is “so to speakContinue Reading
Our faith calls “hell” the condition of final separation from God. Anyone who sees love clearly in the face of God and, nevertheless, does not want it decides freely to have this condition instead. [1033-1036] Jesus, who knows what hell is like, speaks about it as the “outer darkness” (Mt.Continue Reading
Heaven is God’s milieu, the dwelling place of the angels and saints, and the goal of creation. With the words “heaven and earth” we designate the whole of created reality. [325-327] Heaven is not a place in the universe. It is a condition in the next life. Heaven is whereContinue Reading
“God allows evil only so as to make something better result from it” (St Thomas Aquinas). [309-314, 324] Evil in the world is an obscure and painful mystery. Even the Crucified asked his Father, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Much about it is incomprehensible. One thing,Continue Reading
The completion of creation through divine providence is not something that happens above and beyond us. God invites us to collaborate in the completion of creation. [307-308] Man can reject God’s will. He does better, though, to become an instrument of God’s love. Mother Teresa during her lifetime strove toContinue Reading
Yes, but in a mysterious way; God guides everything along paths that only he knows, leading it to its perfection. At no point in time does something that he has created fall out of his hands. [302-305] God influences both the great events of history and alsost the little eventsContinue Reading
“The world was made for the glory of God” (First Vatican Council). [293-294, 319] There is no other reason for creation than love. In it God’s glory and honor appears. To praise God, therefore, does not mean applauding the Creator. After all, man is not a spectator to the workContinue Reading
