Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 63

Christ freely. To know that God had indeed sent His only begotten Son into the world to unify
His people with Him. Had they been able to open their minds and hearts to the gift of the Holy
Spirit, they would have been able to understand, to know, the errors of their ways; to be
convinced of sin, to receive redemption through the Cross of Christ. The cross not identifiable to
them as they believed, “Christ’s mission on earth was not to redeem mankind by his suffering
and death on the cross, but rather to instruct man how to liberate his soul from sin by the
reception of the consolamentum” making resurrection of the body unnecessary, no cross, no
Christ. 156 This heretical thought is what Pope Innocent III and Dominic de Guzman as well as
many others sought to rectify in the Lanquedoc. Their love of God and His Church compelled
them to want to help to lead His people into unity with Him. Through His grace they sought to
shed light on the gifts of welcoming the holy Spirit into the lives of those consumed by false
teaching. To open the Albigensians hearts, and minds, through words and deeds so they would
receive the fullness of Christ into their lives, to be united with the eternal Father.
156
Albert Shannon, OSF, The Medieval Inquisition, (MN: Liturgical Press, 1984), 6