Catholics kneel before The Power of Jesus at Every Catholic Mass. It is amazing how often The Book of James tells us to “Be Catholic”!
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Question 1: “How often does The Book of James tell us to ‘Be Catholic!’?”
Answer: “Start counting!
1:1 “Address and greetings: From James, servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Greetings to the twelve tribes of the Dispersion. (St. James, a Catholic Bishop Personally Ordained by Jesus, sets the Historical Scene by writing to all Twelve Tribes of Israel, including The Ten Northern Tribes who were taken ‘beyond the Euphrates’ in 721 BC by the Assyrians.)
1:2-3 My brothers, you will always have your trials but, when they come, try to treat them as a happy privilege; you understand that your faith is only put to the test to make you patient, (St. James teaches his fellow Catholics to see our ‘tests of Faith’ as a “Happy Privilege”!)
1:4 but patience too is to have its practical results so that you will become fully-developed, complete, with nothing missing.
1:5 If there is any one of you who needs wisdom, he must ask God, who gives to all freely and ungrudgingly; it will be given to him. (Only Catholics are blessed with the “wisdom” to ask God for the ‘wisdom’ to let us Think Clearly about Every Word of Jesus, including: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys of The Kingdom of Heaven.”)
1:6-7 But he must ask with faith, and no trace of doubt, because a person who has doubts is like the waves thrown up in the sea when the wind blows. (This is a brilliant analogy! Many ‘waves’ are popular fads created by ‘waves’ of public opinion. Those ‘waves’ are destroyed when the wind changes or when they run into solid ground. Every person driven by ‘doubt’ is a living ‘wave’ who is likewise destroyed!)
1:8 That sort of person, in two minds, wavering between going different ways, must not expect that the Lord will give him anything. (If we let ourselves be blown around by the winds of popular opinions, God will give us nothing.)
1:9 It is right for the poor brother to be proud of his high rank, (The poor are right to be grateful to God for sparing them the sins of greed and gluttony destroy their soul.)
1:10 and the rich one to be thankful that he has been humbled, because riches last no longer than the flowers in the grass; (May all who are “rich” use our assets to help others so we may have approval from the ‘poor brothers’ who include Catholic priests and religious who far outrank us in God’s Approval.)
1:11 the scorching sun comes up, and the grass withers, the flower falls; what looked so beautiful now disappears. It is the same with the rich man: his business goes on; he himself perishes.
1:12 Happy the man who stands firm when trials come. He has proved himself, and will win the prize of life, the crown that the Lord has promised to those who love Him. (May we all be blessed to live and die in obedience to Every Word of God!)
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Question 2: “Does ‘Temptation’ come from God?”
Answer: “‘Temptation’ does not come from God!
1:13 “Never, when you have been tempted, say, ‘God sent the temptation’; God cannot be tempted to do anything wrong, and He does not tempt anybody. (Any “temptation” to disobey Any Word of Jesus comes from sinful desires.)
1:14 Everyone who is tempted is attracted and seduced by his own wrong desire. (It is our fault if we let our minds and souls be corrupted by giving into sin.)
1:15 Then the desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it too has a child, and the child is death. (Sin leads to mistakes. Those mistakes take form in ‘death’ that may kill us and others.)
1:16 Make no mistake about this, my dear brothers:
1:17 it is all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is given to us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light; with Him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change. (Of all the denominations, only The Catholic Church was specifically “given to us by The Living Light from above! Proof? The Catholic Church has not “altered” This Pro-Life Teaching: ‘Life must be protected from conception until natural death.’)
1:18 By His own choice He made us His children by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all that He had created. (We are Catholics because God chose us to be among His’His children’!)
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Simple Reasons to be Catholic. https://catholicfundamentalism.com/
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The best book of the last Century is “The Diary of St. Faustina”. It lets us begin to understand how much Jesus loves our soul. https://www.saint-faustina.org/diary-full-text/
