Well, I hope you're all happy that you've given me a three day long headache. I know I am. Woo- hoo! It has occurred to me to start drinking so I would have some fun before I have a three day long headache. I do love a nip in the eggnog.

Perhaps I can explain the sin and suffering on the cross connection if we walk through the events that caused sin to be taken away but why we still suffer for the reparation of sins. I thought I had done a bang up job of it already but apparently not.

Before I begin, if you are not a Catholic and you persist in the notion that if it's not in the scripture it's not real, or you just read the Bible on your own and this is what you've come up with for what it all means, you're wrong. If you are Catholic and this is what you think, go be a Lutheran. I hear they have great coffee klatches in the church basement.

Here's what happened:

Jesus dies on the cross. The gates of Heaven, which had been closed since the sin of Adam ("Adam" which actually means 'mankind'), are opened.

In fact, while Jesus was dead--and he was really dead--he went to Hell. It wasn't actually Hell, like where Satan lives, it was the Limbo of the Fathers, because before Jesus died on the cross nobody could go to heaven. The gates were closed. Jesus went and got Noah and Abraham and Moses and took them all to heaven.

I've always wondered what happened to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Nothing good, I imagine.

Then Limbo was closed. It closed because it was empty. Then it reopened again for all the little unbaptized babies and the Aborigines. Then it closed again in 1969. It's gone now, like drive-in movie theaters and rotary phones. Gone for good. There are some people who still argue that there must be a Limbo. Tell them to stop it.

I'll tell them: Knock it off.

So Jesus made it possible for everyone to go to heaven by dying for all our sins. He opened the gates of heaven.

It is up to you to actually put on your shoes and walk in there.

If that wasn't the case then there really wouldn't be a Purgatory, or a hell for that matter, or a need for confession or Last Rites...oh wait...we don't call it that any more do we? Scared the pants off too many old folks on the brink, maybe actually pushed them off the brink.....
I think of it as going through Customs, but they don't call it that either. Now they call it "Anointing of the Sick", so there's some hope there that you might get better.

If this isn't the case you can throw out your scapular and use your rosary to tie the bread bag shut.

I'll give up my habit since there's no use for me. I'll dump Sister Mary Fiacre into the drink, since Jesus already paid for that sin, and Sister St. Aloysius and I will take all the money out of the St. Vincent de Paul box in the back of the church since it's on Jesus' sin dime and go to Vegas. Sister St. Aloysius is a genius mathametician--did I ever tell you that?-- and should be great at card counting and odds and the like. And gambling isn't even really a sin. We'll drink and smoke and wear mini-skirts, which might actually KILL someone who saw me in that. But who cares. Jesus loves me. He passed through customs for me 2000 years ago.

Two things you really need to remember:
1. Don't go digging around in the Bible on your own. Why?

What did the angels say to the shepherds when they came to tell them Jesus had been born? Most people would answer, "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men."

Easy Breezy Lemon Squeezy.

But that's not what they said. That's what Luther changed it into.

What the angels actually said was , "Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will." (To men who will put their shoes and socks on and start walking toward that open gate.)

2. There are things that we can't understand. They are called, "Sacred Mysteries".

"Sacred Mystery" is Catholic for "Let it Go."

Either let it go, or...hope you like coffee.