So if demons are fallen angels are we to believe satan was more powerful or had authority over the others?

https://preview.redd.it/lnt9dyawp01d1.jpg?width=1302&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1232a7b1bb35f41ea8e9c9c785a6b281e75d668

Dialogue of Saint Catherine - First Ingredient

The soul cannot live without love, but always wants to love something, because she is made of love, and, by love, I created her. And therefore I told you that the affection moved the intellect, saying, as it were, 'I will love, because the food on which I feed is love.' Then the intellect, feeling itself awakened by the affection, says, as it were, 'If you will love, I will give you that which you can love.' And at once it arises, considering carefully the dignity of the soul, and the indignity into which she has fallen through sin. In the dignity of her being it tastes My inestimable goodness, and the increate charity with which I created her, and, in contemplating her misery, it discovers and tastes My mercy, and sees how, through mercy, I have lent her time and drawn her out of darkness.

Based on the first sentence of the excerpt above, I think we could say, God's love is the first ingredient of our creation and when we die, what's left of His love will be the final measure of our redemption. But I also think the dynamics of that first ingredient of God's most holy form of love got badly damaged in the sin of Eden. This excerpt from The Dialogue is revealing in that respect because our fallen mindset tells us love is something to be gladly received and cautiously given. But God reveals something different to Saint Catherine, that our truest, most inmost desire regarding love is that the soul “always wants to love something, because she is made of love, and, by love, I created her.” Reading that a second time, I noticed there's nothing in there about receiving love, it’s all about the soul's innate desire to generate love for someone else. That's the kind of love God formed us of but not what we've made of it since the fall.

If I understand that correctly it means we're deluded in our fallen world perceptions of our own love. At our center we still possess God's type of selfless, preemptive love, the first ingredient of our creation, from before the fall when we corrupted it into something more selfish. That level of love still lives in us and is still as holy as ever but like a diamond covered in dirt, it's layered over with self-love that came with the fall. Through sin we have defiled the higher, more holy form of love that God initially filled us with, corrupting it into a weaker form of ungodly self-love. We tend to need love returned to us or we withdraw it from another. Many of us withhold love until we first receive it and even then give it back only in proportional measure to what we receive. Those are fallen world versions of the love God formed us with, which is self-generative, free flowing and independent of how others receive or return it. God's love is a fountain pouring love outward for all to partake whereas man's love is a whirlpool, sucking it inward from all who will give.

The love of God is all outgoing and needs no reciprocation to be effective. God was not loved by anyone before the creation because nothing outside of God existed. His preemptive creationary love for us, who didn't even exist yet still served as the spark of our creation and the selfless love of our rejected Savior later served as the source of our redemption. That's the Godly level of  love we were formed of and still possess, rather than the fallen version of love we so commonly think of. And though cut and bleeding by our sin, like Christ Himself, the holy remnant of that love can never be extinguished. 

That type of supernatural love, supercharged with the Divinity of God still lives in us under the sin we covered it with, waiting its release to others as God released it to us. We were not made to be loved nearly so much as we were made to be that type of love. Ultimately the remnant of God's love will triumph over the corruption we pile upon it. Our flesh will die and sin will die with it, leaving nothing but our soul, and that first ingredient, the most holy and selfless love that God made us of. This is the same level of love that resurrected Christ from the grave and saves us to His most Sacred Heart. After death there will be nothing left of us but our soul and the remaining measure of the higher form of love God first gave us. I think our eternal redemption then depends on joining our soul now to the remnant of the first ingredient of our creation, the Godly form of love that seeks to be given outward rather than held tightly within.

Supportive Scripture - Douay Rheims Challoner Bible

Romans 11:5 Even so then, at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.

https://youtu.be/aVaZG6fy1eM?si=8XhiJm-L0I_4Yfv4

Not Catholic in the slightest.

But I do appreciate that it seems like the majority of the people on this subreddit are actually pretty well-rounded, civil and tend to give actual advice and not tear people apart as my experience has been with many Christians both Catholic and Protestant.

I doubly appreciate that a good chunk of y’all are willing to call out people willfully destroying their lives and relationships for the sake of scripture, using it more as a tool to find happiness and a form of enlightenment instead of a rod to beat non-believers.

Sincerely, thanks to the many sane people that are on this particular subreddit.

“If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness”

Here’s my question: There are SO many points in scripture that dictate honoring the father and mother. HOWEVER, I need help understanding how we can come back from “dishonoring” our parents if they’re truly awful, deceitful, treacherous parents that only wish to control, or hurt their children. My husband is estranged from his parents who have spent the past five years punishing him for marrying me. To the point that they’ve falsified court documents, lied under oath, (& more) to remove custody of his child from his previous relationship, etc. they continue to preach their holiness and alliance with God but behind closed doors contact my husband to taunt him and gaslight him. They always used his service in the army as a way to get attention and admiration from others and now they use their ruined relationship to garner pity from their “audience”.

Please help me understand where the line is. I do whole heartedly believe and feel (& see and experience) Gods blessings in our lives daily. In fact in the past five years we’ve been endlessly tortured by my husband’s parents and his ex wife, we have grown more in blessings every year. Ten fold. More money, beautiful home, food, more children (the best blessing of all of them), great friends, wonderful community, etc. so and all of the hate his parents and their associates direct toward us, we continue to thrive. But it weighs on my heart that we have “dishonored” them.

Help me make sense of the feelings please. We live to please God and raise our children to follow Jesus. I’m struggling with this piece. Thank you.

Human history can be seen coming together as a communal song, one which becomes redirected and made new in Christ: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/05/humanity-sings-a-new-song/

https://youtu.be/pwHcI3cJ5yE?si=efyLrGi3Mpoti7XQ

https://youtu.be/5OLqC-XRYBg?si=B7kC2JANTya0MZSA

https://youtu.be/pH-GEOf8qmA?si=hDQIzgYx4oP-_-3q

https://youtu.be/hqjRhzbl10I?si=fJMvOvCIOsyaWTPo

https://youtu.be/UpH7ID-ZqwA?si=ZmecYJ46_Cjz_ZFN

https://youtu.be/Kc2_ljXsWwM?si=JYDL6zUTqzRZGyhV

https://youtu.be/gkzp6hHlBYE?si=dmHrO2rgsUlfQ1MV

Daily mass readings for May 17, 2024; Reading 1 : Acts 25:13b-21 Gospel : Jn 21:15-19 https://thecatholic.online/daily-mass-readings-for-may-17-2024/

Hello, I’m 16 applying for my third job, at a grocery store. I am filling out my application but I cannot remember the exact dates of my past jobs and when I wasn’t working for them, and like how exactly long I’ve known some of my references, like my neighbors. I got to a part where it says “Under the pain of perjury,” then you have to type your name. Im stuck on this not wanting to lie on this. What should I do in this situation?

https://preview.redd.it/gpona2hmxt0d1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b0a292eee9e970aae2ef1e8d85b764916b3dc588

I noticed no one was taking notes in my RCIA class, this would have been helpful:

https://arttherapybybri.etsy.com/listing/1716478514

St. Pachomius, whose feast is today, May 15, is a key figure in the history of monasticism, as promoted a community instead of individualized form of asceticism; this required him to consider what values a community should promote: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2024/05/st-pachomius-and-the-common-good/