Catechism Research – Section G
Section G
GENERAL CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION: A communal form of the Sacrament of Penance in which, in a case of grave necessity, a priest may give absolution to all persons present at one time, after they have made a general, but not individual, confession of their sins. For the absolution to be valid, the faithful must have the intention of individually confessing their sins in their next individual reception of the Sacrament of Penance (1483).
GENESIS: The first book of Bible, which describes God’s creation of the world and humanity, and the drama of sin and the hope for salvation (120; cf. 289, 337, 355).
GENUFLECTION: A reverence made by bending the knee, especially to express adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (1378).
GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: Permanent dispositions that make us docile to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The traditional list of seven gifts of the Spirit is derived from Isaiah 11:1-3: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord (1830).
GLUTTONY: Overindulgence in food or drink. Gluttony is one of the seven capital sins (1866).
GOD: The infinite divine being, one in being yet three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God has revealed himself as the “One who is,” as truth and love, as creator of all that is, as the author of divine revelation, and as the source of salvation (198, 279).
GODPARENT: The sponsor of one who is baptized, who assumes a responsibility to assist the newly-baptized–child or adult–on the road of Christian life (1255).
GOSPEL: The “good news” of God’s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is this Gospel or good news that the Apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the entire world (571, 1946). The Gospel is handed on in the apostolic tradition of the Church as the source of all-saving truth and moral discipline (75). The four Gospels are the books written by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John which have for their central object Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son: his life, teachings, Passion and glorification, and his Church’s beginnings under the Spirit’s guidance (124, 514).
GOSPEL, LAW OF THE: The New Law, prepared for by the Old Law in the time of the Old Covenant, is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and revealed. It is the work of Christ, expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, and of the Holy Spirit, by whose grace it becomes for us the interior law of charity (1965).
GRACE: The free and undeserved gift that God gives us to respond to our vocation to become his adopted children. As sanctifying grace, God shares his divine life and friendship with us in a habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that enables the soul to live with God, to act by his love. As actual grace, God gives us the help to conform our lives to his will. Sacramental grace and special graces (charisms, the grace of one’s state of life) are gifts of the Holy Spirit to help us live out our Christian vocation (1996, 2000; cf. 654).
GUARDIAN ANGELS: Angels assigned to protect and intercede for each person (336). See Angel.