SIN! and virtue...

RCIA this week was about sin and virtue. Our teacher later said he should have made it about virtue and sin lol.

As always I took notes but this week I forgot to pick up a copy of the powerpoint presentation..

So here is a brief synopsis of what we talked about. By no means is this complete as I take notes in spurts.

We talked about people. What people are. We are made in God's image first of all. We talked about what separates us from animals and plants.
- Soul
- Free Will
- Abillity to recognize God
- Intellect
- Conscience
- Reason
This of course spawned a debate in my mind because I fully believe my puppy has free will! When he stands there with the frisbee in his mouth and he knows I want it but decides to run the other way.. That seems like free will to me! :-) Or when our husky years back planned out an attack on our cockatiel..

He laid it out like this

God                  ~ Pure Spirit
Angels              ~ Pure Spirit
Man                 ~ Both
Animals            ~ Pure Matter
Plants               ~ Pure Matter
Rock               ~ Pure Matter

We discussed Virtue. Virtue is basically a good habit. A vice is a bad habit.

Virtuous people freely practice good.

We discussed the Cardinal Virtues of prudence, fortitude, justice and temperance.

We discussed the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (love)

The Holy Spirit draws us to God and increases theological virtues.

We discusssed some gifts of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom, understanding, right judgement, knowledge, courage, reverence (wonder and awe)

and of course the Fruits charity, joy, peace and modesty.

Then we discussed sin. We discussed how it damages our relationship with God. We discussed why we are drawn to sin. Of course this is because of our fallen nature. But we reckoned it to being like a magnet or I thought like a micro-chip that continues to draw us. Of course there is also the fact that sin is usually fun and/or exciting. Usually only for a short time but true none the less.

We discussed personal sin, mortal sin and venial sin.

I know this is really brief. We had lots of discussion this week! Usually we don't do alot of talking in class but this week was great. We discussed the holocaust and the implications of those decisions on the soldiers and guards who participated.

Brandon had his 1st Scrutiny as well. It was very beautiful although we discovered that he seems to be allergic to incense in large doses! He started sneezing and his eyes were turning red. It was awful! We are going to try benadryl next time to see if it helps.

We also had dinner at Dad's house yesterday. It was lovely, beautiful weather and good food! We were the only ones that came this week but it was great!

Don't forget to enter my 100th Post Contest!!