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Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine by Thomas L. Kinkead
page 91 of 443 (20%)
one hundred dollars; so I go to a slave owner and say: I want to sell
myself for one hundred dollars. He buys me and I soon squander the one
hundred dollars. Now I am his property, his slave; I shall never earn
any wages and shall never be able to buy my freedom. No other slave can
help me, for he is just in the same condition as I myself am. If I am to
be free, a free man who has the money must pay for my liberty. This is
exactly the condition in which all men were before Our Lord redeemed
them. Adam sold himself and all his children to the devil by committing
sin. He and they therefore became slaves. They could not earn any
spiritual wages, that is, grace of God to purchase their liberty; and as
all men were slaves one could not help another in this matter. Then Our
Lord Himself came and purchased our freedom. He bought us back again,
and the price He paid was His own life and blood given up upon the
Cross. In His goodness, He did more than redeem us; He gave us also the
means of redeeming ourselves in case we should ever have the misfortune
of falling again into the slavery of the devil--into sin. He left us the
Sacrament of Penance to which we can go as to a bank, and draw out
enough of Our Lord's grace--merited for us and deposited in the power of
His Church--to purchase our redemption from sin.

60 Q. Did God abandon man after he fell into sin?
A. God did not abandon man after he fell into sin, but promised him a
Redeemer, who was to satisfy for man's sin and reopen to him the gates
of Heaven.

"Abandon" means to leave to one's self. Adam and his posterity were
slaves, but God took pity on them. He did not leave them to themselves,
but promised to help them.

"Gates of Heaven." Heaven has no gates, because it is not built of
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