Chapters 15, 19 and 20 Frank Sheed

Question 1

1. Upon what does Sheed say our understanding of Our Blessed Lady depends?

Answer 1

totally upon our understanding of her Son.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 159). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 2

2. In defining the Virgin Mary to be Theotokos the Council of Ephesus in 431 said she is mother of God; __________________________________________________________________.

Answer 2

The child she conceived and bore is God the Son.

“Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”

Question 3

3. Why does Sheed not think it sufficient to call the Virgin Mary the mother of Jesus’ human nature?

Answer 3

natures, we have already noted, do not have mothers. She was mother, as yours or mine is, of the person born of her. And the Person was God the Son.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (pp. 159-160). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 4

4. What was it that Sheed says that made the Virgin Mary supreme in holiness?

Answer 4

It was her response to the grace of God that made her supreme in holiness—higher even than the highest angel, the Church tells us.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 161). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 5

5. According to Sheed, what is the “one special element” in Jesus’ power to give that we might overlook in regard to the Virgin Mary?

Answer 5

Because He was God, He could give His mother gifts not only before He was born of her, but before she was born herself! This is the meaning of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 162). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 6

6. Sheed rightly says the Immaculate Conception refers not to Christ’s conception in Our Lady’s womb, but_____________________________________________________________.

Answer 6

to her conception in the womb of her own mother.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 162). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 7

7. In his discussion of the Immaculate Conception, Sheed said that from the very first moment of the creation of the Virgin Mary’s soul had, by God’s gift, ______________________________________.

Answer 7

But from the very first moment of her soul’s creation, it had, by God’s gift, not natural life only but supernatural life. What this means quite simply is that she whom God chose to be His mother never existed for an instant without sanctifying grace in her soul.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 162). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 8

8. What two-fold answer does Sheed give to the question of how could God be the Virgin Mary’s savior if she had had grace always?

Answer 8

To save men from their sins is a great mercy of God; but to save this one woman from ever sinning was a greater mercy, but still a mercy.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 163). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 9

9. What does Sheed offer as to the meaning of the dogma of the Assumption?

Answer 9

It means the taking of Our Lady, body and soul, into heaven.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 163). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 10

10. According to Sheed, the Virgin Mary is our mother not simply because she is Christ’s mother, but she is also our mother in the _____________________________________________.

Answer 10

supernatural order, the order of grace, that she is our Mother.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 165). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 11

11. According to Sheed, that the words of St. Paul that there is one Mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5), Our Lord, Jesus Christ, does not make our prayers for another unnecessary; it ___________
    ______________________.

Answer 11

it makes it effective.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 166). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 12

12. In what sense did Sheed say we are to be “co-redeemers”?

Answer 12

Everyone’s prayers can help others, but the holier, the more.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 166). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 13

1. What does Sheed say decides bliss or woe of the soul after death?

Answer 13

Where the soul goes at death is decided by what we love.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 206). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 14

2. According to Sheed, by the end of life the will has made its choice, what options does he offer?

Answer 14

Love of God takes us to God. Love of self as distinct from God takes us to a separation of self from God. Our Lord (Matthew 25.41) condenses the reality of hell into two elements—departure from God, everlasting fire.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 207). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 15

3. According to Sheed, what are the two forms of the perversion of the supreme truth that “God is love”?

Answer 15

The commonest is the feeling that hell and a loving God cannot be reconciled; if hell exists God is not love or, alternatively, since God is love, hell cannot exist.

Less common, subtler, but if anything, more dangerous is one that can be found among many devoted Christians—a whole-hearted acceptance of hell, an almost luscious delight in the invention of tortures to be inflicted by a raging God upon sinners (in whose number they themselves evidently are not). They will associate this with God’s love, but in such a way that love has a meaning unrelated to any known among men.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (pp. 207-208). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 16

4. What are the 4 things Sheed says that we actually know about hell?

Answer 16

That it exists; that it came into existence with the fall of Satan and the angels who joined him in rebellion; that it is a place of suffering; that it is eternal.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 209). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 17

5. How does Sheed answer the question, “if Christ’s blood cleanses from all iniquity, what there is left for Purgatory to cleanse us from”?

Answer 17

it simply removes the obstacles that we have interposed to the cleansing power of His blood.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 213). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 18

6. According to Sheed, how are the defects of nature removed in Purgatory? “

Answer 18

By direct action upon them, the most direct action possible, namely suffering.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 214). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 19

7. According to Sheed, “the acceptance of suffering is a reversal of the process of _______.”

Answer 19

sin.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 214). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 20

8. What reason does Sheed give that man does not lose all consciousness of self in heaven?

Answer 20

God still deserves praise for having created us of nothing, still deserves gratitude; to lose all consciousness of self is no good basis for praise or thanksgiving.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (pp. 216-217). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 21

1. When does Sheed say the human race will have achieved its highest triumph?

Answer 21

When all who are to be incorporated in it (The Mystical Body) are incorporated, the human race will have achieved its highest triumph; there will be no point or even meaning in bringing new men into existence. This world will end.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 220). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 22

2. Why does Sheed quote Daniel 11, “he shall make no account of the God of his fathers”?

Answer 22

There will be a vast Apostasy. Antichrist will come—a man, not a demon,

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 220). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 23

3. According to Sheed, what will the resurrection of the body mean to the saved?

Answer 23

At last they will know what it is to be a man—not a mess, as so many of us are for so much of our lives. Nor is it only to the worst, the messes among us, that the experience of total manhood, integral manhood, will come new. Even the holiest have not known in their earthly life the complete subjection of body

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 221). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.

Question 24

4. What condition of soul and body first planned by God does Sheed say will have been restored to all men in heaven?

Answer 24

The soul is completely obedient to God (in an ecstasy of union that unfallen Adam never knew), the body, now glorified, is completely obedient to the soul.

Sheed, Frank. Theology for Beginners (Illustrated) (p. 221). Aeterna Press. Kindle Edition.