Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻.

I'm a Catholic, a husband, a father - beatitudinem! Non nisi Te, Domine!

[Peadar Tóibín TD @Toibin1]

A man can't get pregnant. It's that simple.

It's not orange or green, it's science.

Trying to leverage orange and green shows a position weakness.

The journalist in this discuasion is wildly inaccurate.

[Mark Lambert @sitsio]

That's an excellent clarification. The Church's answer is that the damned were already separated from God before Christ's death. Christ descended only to the "hell" of the righteous dead (the Limbo of the Fathers or Abraham's Bosom), not to the hell of the damned.

In other words, before Christ's Resurrection there were different "states" of the dead:

The righteous, who had died in friendship with God, were awaiting the Redeemer. They could not yet enter Heaven because Christ had not yet accomplished our salvation.
The wicked, who had freely rejected God, were already experiencing the consequences of that separation.

When Christ descended to the dead, He did not give the damned a second chance, nor did He empty Hell. Rather, He proclaimed His victory and led the righteous into Heaven.

Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) gives us a glimpse of this distinction. Lazarus is comforted in "Abraham's bosom," while the rich man is in torment, and between them is "a great chasm" that cannot be crossed. The Church has traditionally understood this as illustrating the different states of the dead before Christ opened Heaven.

So, the opening of Heaven changed the destiny of the righteous who had been waiting for the Messiah—it did not change the state of those who had already definitively rejected God.

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

@sitsio Excellent, this is the clarification I couldn't give my son. Thank you once again for helping me with these questions! We will be sure to pray for your intentions at our nightly prayers this evening, God bless Mark, Cheers🙏🏻❤️

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

Hi Mark, hope you're well! I'm looking a little help with a Q my daughter asked me, that has me stumped: "If God the Father is our Father and Jesus is his only son, does that mean Jesus is our Brother?" What is the catholic view on this? Any advice would be appreciated
@sitsio

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

@sitsio Amazing, thanks a lot for that Mark, can't wait to tell him you said it was a brilliant Question.

Though to to qualify a little, I think he meant, what happened to dammed souls prior to the opening of heavens gates? Were they already in hell or were they held with the righteous?

[Mark Lambert @sitsio]

That's a brilliant question and one that even grown-up theologians have thought about! The short answer is no. When Jesus died, He opened the gates of Heaven, not the gates of Hell. The line in the Creed, "He descended into hell," can be confusing because the English word hell used to mean the place of the dead. It does not mean that Jesus went to the place of eternal punishment where the damned are.

Before Jesus died and rose again, even the holy people of the Old Testament (like Abraham, Moses and David) could not yet enter Heaven because His saving work had not been completed. They were waiting in what the Church has traditionally called the Limbo of the Fathers or Abraham's Bosom (see Luke 16:22).

When Jesus died, He went to them to announce the Good News that salvation had been won. It's rather like a victorious king arriving to unlock the prison doors for those who had been faithfully waiting for him. He didn't go there as a prisoner—He went there as the conqueror.

So did anything happen to Hell itself?

Yes—but not because its gates were opened. Quite the opposite. Jesus invaded the devil's kingdom, defeated sin and death, and took away the devil's power over those who belong to Him. As Scripture says:

"He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the Cross." (Colossians 2:15)

And in Revelation, Jesus says:

"I have the keys of Death and Hades." (Revelation 1:18)

So the picture isn't that Hell was opened to let evil out. It's that Christ entered the realm of death as the victorious King, broke the chains of death for the righteous and opened Heaven for humanity.

I love the way children ask these questions because they're often imagining it almost like a castle with two great gates. In one sense that's not a bad image! But the Gospel story is this: Jesus didn't unlock Hell—He raided it. He unlocked Heaven. Hope that helps!

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

@sitsio ...descended into hell, but he'll here, if I understand correctly is more of a limbo, holding place etc? Were the gates of hell opened also when Christ died?

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

@sitsio On the same night my daughter asked her question (after our prayer), my 10yo son asked the next question "When Jesus died on the cross for us and the gates of heaven were opened, did that mean the gates of hell were also opened?" I again wasn't sure, I know the creed says Christ

[Mark Lambert @sitsio]

@KieranMaxwell Yes that’s pretty much it!

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

@sitsio Thank you so much for taking to time to reply. Yes, I think I understand. So we are Jesus's brother in an adopted sense? Due to God's grace, allowing us to partake in Christ's Sonship through the same adoption so to speak?

[Mark Lambert @sitsio]

Yes He is our brother -the Catholic Church has always held this, but not in the same way that He is the Son of the Father. Jesus is the eternal Son of God by nature. He is the only-begotten Son of the Father, eternally generated, "God from God, Light from Light." His Sonship belongs to Him by His divine nature alone.
We, by contrast, become sons and daughters of God by adoption through grace. Through Baptism we are incorporated into Christ and receive the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry, "Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15). We are not God's children by nature but by participation in Christ's sonship. Because we share in Christ's adopted sonship, Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers. (Heb 2:11, Jn 20:17). Does that help?

[Brian Holdsworth @briankeepsworth]

I know a priest who is a fantastic juggler. Come to think of it, I can't imagine why he's never performed it during mass. After all, juggling is good and mass is good, so it's 2x the good, really.

[Peadar Tóibín TD @Toibin1]

Féile an Phobail was founded by people who were censored by Section 31.

It was founded by people who were deplatformed by the establishment

They should not censor & exclude those they disagree with

Especially on an ideology that damages children & women
https://t.co/ACGQW2Aiph

[Robert Nugent @DecreviD2BC]

Incredible win for Mayo after 75 years!

[Kieran Maxwell 🙏🏻. @KieranMaxwell]

@DecreviD2BC Mayo abú!!! Comhghairdeas a chara! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[IMPERATOR @IMPERATORAUS]

In his Summa Theologiae, St Thomas Aquinas maintains that the body adjusts itself to the operations of the soul.

Virtue softens the heart, strengthens the will, and enlightens the intellect, whereas vice hardens the heart, weakens the will, and darkens the intellect.

Modern society is collapsing because modern man is vicious.

[GaelsForFairPlay @GaelsFairPlay]

We are one of the groups that was invited to speak at this event.
Feile an Phobail's comments are a punch in the guts to the 20,000+ women and girls in the north of Ireland who play Gaelic football and camogie.
Wanting female players to have fairness, safety, privacy and dignity in their sport is not anti-rights.
Asking our governing bodies to ensure that all males, no matter how they identify, compete in the correct sex category so that female players can have fair and safe sport is not anti-rights.
We note with deepening concern the level of abuse directed at women by those who pushed for this event to be cancelled. These are ordinary women, living in the very same communities as those seeking to strip them of their right to speak.
This is not right.

[BBC News NI @BBCNewsNI]

The Women's Rights Network Northern Ireland has said it is "shocked" that Féile an Phobail has cancelled an event it was due to hold during the festival in west Belfast https://t.co/AlnBc6REWQ

[The Irish News @irish_news]

JK Rowling to fund legal challenge against Belfast’s Féile an Phobail following ‘anti-trans’ event cancellation https://t.co/ZP6ZSy13qm