4. The Creation, Angels, Man, sin of Adam and Eve.
CREATION
65. Creator means that God made everything out of nothing.
God is infinitely happy in Himself, He needs nothing and no one.
Moved by His infinite goodness, He created in six days the heavens, the earth and all that they contain.
To create is to bring things out of nothing.
66. God created the world with His omnipotent will, preserves it with His power, and governs it with His providence.
God has created, preserves, governs, and disposes all things according to His will.
Divine providence is the care with which God directs all things, even the smallest, to the end appointed by Him.
Everything that happens is because God wills it or permits it.
Some things God wills and commands; others God does not prevent, such as sin, because He does not take away man's freedom, and also because He knows how to bring great good out of evil.
Since God is infinitely good, wise and powerful, let us love Him with all our heart, let us humbly obey all His commands and put all our trust in Him.
Our present and future are in God's hands, we have nothing to fear, if we try to serve Him faithfully.
THE ANGELS
67. The most perfect beings that God has created are: angels and men.
68. Angels are purely spiritual beings, endowed with intelligence and will.
In heaven, God created the angels and endowed them with ineffable gifts. Angels are pure spirits; they have no body.
69. God created the angels to praise and serve Him eternally.
Just as the monarchs and great men of the earth have courtiers, ministers, pages, who serve them and form a court of honor for them; so also God, King of kings, has His ministers, who stand guard of honor around His throne, pay Him homage, pay Him praise, and serve Him, obeying the least of His desires.
70. God created the angels in a supernatural state of grace and holiness.
71. Not all angels persevered in the state in which God created them: many persevere in it, and are called good angels; others lost it through pride, rebelling against God, and were precipitated into hell, and are called bad angels or demons.
Luzbel, Lucifer, was the most beautiful of them all; but full of pride, he rebelled against God, and said: I will not serve!
A third part of the angels accompanied Luzbel in his rebellion.
Michael, filled with zeal for the honor of God, exclaimed, “Who is like God!”
He fought against Luzbel and defeated him.
Satan and the other rebellious angels were cast into hell.
We call the rebellious angels: demons.
Before the angels sinned, hell did not exist.
God created hell for the punishment of demons and other unrepentant sinners.
The good angels, in reward for their faithfulness, were confirmed in grace and see God clearly.
The angels were in heaven, in a place of probation, as we are now.
The story of the good and bad angels is for us a most useful lesson that we must not forget.
If we serve God, we imitate the good angels, and we will go to rejoice with them eternally in glory.
If we sin and do not repent we imitate the demons and with them we will go to suffer eternally in hell.
Angels are ministers of God.
72. Good angels love us, pray to God for us, move us to good, and protect us in our soul and in our body.
73. The Guardian Angel, who is also called the Custodian Angel, is the angel that God gives to each one of us, to protect us on earth and to take us to heaven.
74. We must honor the Holy Guardian Angel by praying to him, thanking him for his many benefits and following his holy inspirations.
We must have great devotion and respect to our Custodian Angel, trying to avoid sin, so as not to offend his holy presence.
Good angels are represented as children or young people with wings, to manifest their beauty and the speed with which they move from one place to another. [The naked is an abomination to God, there are no holy angels naked neither in Heaven nor anywhere]
Demons are represented in horrible ways, to manifest their great ugliness.
THE MAN
75. The noblest being created by God on earth is man. [God gave us the power to be His children, to those who love and obey His Son]
Man is a rational being, composed of soul and body.
The soul is an immortal spirit.
The soul exercises spiritual acts, such as thinking, desiring, etc.; therefore, it is spirit.
It is immortal, because, being a spiritual substance, simple, has no parts into which it can decompose.
Furthermore, the human soul has been lifted up by God to the supernatural life of grace, to enjoy eternally with Him in glory.
Faith and sound reason tell us that our soul does not die with the body, but will receive reward or eternal punishment, according to their works.
Man is free; he can do good or evil, do one thing or not do it; or he can do one instead of another.
We have the freedom to do evil, but not the right to do it.
For the same thing that one is free to do good or evil, deserves reward or punishment.
Man was the last work of the creation.
76. God created man to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life, and then to enjoy Him in eternal life.
A hundred years ago, and even less time, we did not exist.
We now exist, we are in this world.
In some time, maybe very soon, we will die.
It is very fair and reasonable, then, that we find out seriously:
Who has given us the being we have? What are we for in this world?
What will become of us after death?
Reason, illuminated by faith, tells us that:
God created us to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this life, and then enjoy Him forever in the other.
The end for which God has created us is so high and excellent that it cannot be more so.
The angels in heaven and Mary Most Holy have no other higher end.
Our end is infinitely great.
We are on earth to serve God and win heaven: For nothing else.
Therefore, we must put all our efforts and diligence into this.
We serve God by keeping His commandments.
True religion teaches us what these divine commandments are.
77. The first man was Adam, whose body God made of clay, and joined to it an immortal soul which He created out of nothing; and the first woman was Eve, whom He took out of Adam's side, endowing her likewise with an immortal soul.
Adam was created in the image and likeness of God.
God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”.
The Lord formed the body of the first man out of clay, breathed on his face and breathed into him the rational soul, giving him life.
The first man was called Adam.
God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. Let us make him a helper like him.”
When Adam was asleep, God took out a rib from him, and with it he formed a woman, and presented her to Adam, who accepted her as his wife.
The creation of the first man and the first woman in the manner already indicated is not impossible.
God, being omnipotent, can bring things out of nothing; all the more reason why He can change one thing into another.
The first woman was called Eve.
78. We men are all descended from Adam and Eve.
79. God created Adam and Eve very good and happy, infused them with the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace, and also communicated to them other extraordinary gifts.
80. God placed Adam and Eve in a delightful place, called Paradise on earth.
Adam and Eve, adorned by God with sanctifying grace, were full of happiness, free from death and other miseries.
Everything obeyed the voice of man.
God granted these gifts to Adam and all his descendants, on condition that Adam did not eat of the fruit of the tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
81. God imposed upon Adam and Eve the precept that they should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The purpose of this prohibition was to test the fidelity of our first parents, and to demonstrate their recognition of God's supreme dominion over all things.
SIN OF ADAM AND EVE
82. Adam and Eve, tempted by the devil, disobeyed God.
Eve, deceived by the devil, who presented himself to her in the form of a serpent, ate the forbidden fruit, and also ate Adam, invited by Eve. This sin was of pride and grave disobedience.
83. Adam and Eve, through their pride and disobedience, lost in the act sanctifying grace, and were subjected to ignorance, passions and all kinds of miseries.
84. God also cast out Adam and Eve from the earthly Paradise, and condemned them to suffer and die.
85. Adam and Eve deserved hell; but they did penance, and God forgave their sin.
86. All the children and descendants of Adam and Eve inherited that sin, and being born in a state of deprivation of grace, we are subject to pain and death.
87. This sin is called original sin.
88. Only Mary Most Holy has been preserved from original sin.
All the descendants of Adam, by natural generation, have inherited original sin, except Mary.
Jesus could not have it, because His divine person is incapable of sin and did not proceed from Adam in the same way as other men.
Mary did not have it, by special privilege, in anticipation that She would be the Mother of God.
We celebrate this privilege of Mary on December 8th, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
The sin of Adam brought to mankind the deprivation of God’s grace, ignorance, evil inclination, death and all other miseries.
For original sin, we, when we begin to exist, do not have the grace of God and other gifts that we would have had, if Adam had not sinned.
Original sin is voluntary, and therefore guilt in us, only because Adam committed it voluntarily, as the head of mankind.
We, in contracting original sin, do not sin by our own will; for this God does not punish, but simply does not reward with heaven the one who dies with only original sin.
The children of a father who has wasted his wealth are poor; so it is with the descendants of sinful Adam.
God owed nothing to Adam and his descendants.
The original grace and all other supernatural gifts were graciously granted, on condition that Adam fulfilled the divine precept.
It is, therefore, very just that the descendants of Adam inherit original sin.
89. God had mercy on men, and to save them He promised and sent a Redeemer.
90. The Redeemer whom God promised and sent to men, is the very Son of God made man.