I apologize for the delay, folks. The audio for the class is posted here. Please provide me with some feedback; if you’re not getting what you’d like out of the class, tell me, and I will adjust. This is not just for me; it’s for all of us! Gid bless; see you Sunday!
Beginning Apologetics 8:
The End Times
The Second Coming
I. The Second Coming – What is it?
A. Christ’s return at the end of time
B. The Last Judgment
C. Prophesied in various places in Scripture
1. Matthew 24
2. Revelation
3. 1 John
4. 2 Thessalonians
5. Luke 21
6. Others
II. Who Gets it wrong? And Why?
A. Many Protestant denominations mess this up
B. Stems from a misunderstanding of the prophesies of the Book of Daniel
C. Compounded by the missing books in Protestant Bibles (1/2 Maccabees among others)
1. (How many books are in the Bible (73)
2. How many are the Protestants missing? (7)
3. What are they?
a) 1 Macc
b) 2 Macc
c) Wisdom
d) Sirach
e) Judith
f) Baruch
g) Tobit
D. Lack of familiarity with events around the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70
III. What signs will precede the Second Coming?
A. Sources of the Signs
1. Matthew 24 lists a bunch of them (we’ll review which)
2. Problem is:
a) some are things that happen before the destruction of the Temple
b) Some are things that happen at the end of time
c) Some could relate to both!
B. The Thousand-year reign (The Millenium)
1. There is no official Catholic definition of the Millennium
2. Common view follows St. Augustine (City of God, Book XX, esp. ch 7 9 ) (found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XX.7.html)
a) The number 1,000 is figurative; representa time between first and second coming of Christ
b) Between the two, Christ is reigning through His Church, and the power of Satan is diminished.
c) Closer to the Second Coming, Satan’s power grows (which will bring severe trial for the Church
Pull quote: Rev 20: 7-9 – “
7 6 When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison.
8 He will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, 7 to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.
9 They invaded the breadth of the earth 8 and surrounded the camp of the holy ones and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.
Pull quote: CCC 675:
Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576
C. The Rise of the Anti-Christ
1. References:
a) 1 John 2: 18 – 23:
18 Children, it is the last hour; 9 and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour.
19 They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; 10 if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.
20 But you have the anointing that comes from the holy one, 11 and you all have knowledge.
21 I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth.
22 12 Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.
23 No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
b) 2 Thess 2:3-4
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, 3 the one doomed to perdition,
4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship, so as to seat himself in the temple of God, 4 claiming that he is a god–
c) 2 Thess 2:9-10
9
the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie,
10
and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved.
d) Rev 13 – Read it on your own
2. This guy is the Ultimate false Prophet; he will simultaneously persecute the Church AND seduce the masses
D. A Mass Apostasy
1. References: 2 Thess 2:3; Rev 13:3; Matt 24:11-12; Luke 18:8 (“But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”)
2. There will be a massive falling away from the Christian faith; Many will be deceived by false prophets (including the Antichrist.
E. The Conversion of the Jews
1. Reference: Romans 11 (read the pull quote in the text)
2. The Jews will accept Jesus as the Messiah
F. The preaching of the Gospel to the Whole World
1. Reference: Matt 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations, 8 and then the end will come.”
2. Undoubtedly means more than simply broadcasting the Gospel through media/Internet (though some believe it means exactly that!)
3. Refers to evangelization that will implant the Gospel in every nation and will greatly diminish the influence of non-Christian religions.
G. The Appearance of the sign of Christ in the sky
1. Reference Matt 24:30: “And then the sign of the Son of Man 17 will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn…”
2. Generally believed to refer to a cross
H. Frightening signs in the sky; severe natural and man-made calamities
1. References:
a) Matt 24:29: 16 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
b) Luke 21:25-26: 25 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26 People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens 8 will be shaken.
2. SOME of this occurred in AD 70 (the destruction of the Temple).
3. Should be assumed that even the things that have already happened will have multiple fulfillments/occur to a greater extent.
4. History repeatedly reports upheavals in nature in times of widespread wickedness.
5. We should expect a peak in natural calamities in the time of supreme evil before the Second Coming
6. Man-made calamities (such as the Destruction of the Temple) will obviously increase in times of increased evil.
IV. Why were we given the signs of the Second Coming?
A. Well…why were we NOT?
1. NOT for calculating the exact date of His return
a) Christ flatly states (Matt 24:42) the NOT ONE can know the date of the Second Coming.
b) The exact sequences are not given
c) The time intervals are not given
d) Many of the signs have multiple fulfillments; cannot know if we are expecting a greater fulfillment
B. So…Why were we given the signs?
1. To remind us of the fragility of this life
2. To remind us that, even if we don’t live to see the Second Coming, we will still have a personal “end of the world” at our own death.
3. To help us to understand the need for vigilance and discernment
4. To remind us that while Satan is powerful, God is MORE powerful.
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Folks, the books didn’t come as quickly as I’d hoped. Ah, well; they’re a small company, and they’ll get them here before next class I am sure.
In the meantime, the first section is posted as a .pdf file at this link. Please download and print it, and take notes; we should have the books to distribute for everyone at the next class.
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I just watched the movie The Family Man with my wife a little bit ago. In this film, Jack (Nicholas Cage), an obscenely successful Wall Street arbitrage trader, Meets Cash (Don Cheadle), a thug who threatens to rob a store in which Jack is shopping on Christmas Eve late. Turns out old Cash is not what he appears, and in response to a comment Jack makes about “having all he needs”, cash zaps Jack into a “glimpse” of the life he could have had if he’d made different decisions early on. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend the movie, especially if you are a family man yourself. Ladies, you have permission to not watch it, and to not force your husbands to watch it againt their will :-).
What I found intriguing, and even touching, about this movie is the subject of this post. The point of the movie, without spoiling the plot for those who will rush out to Blockbuster to rent it, or onto Netflix to have it sent to you, is that fulfillment in life comes in many forms, and it may not be in the form you think. Typical motivational movie stock, right?
This is what struck me.
I am a 1982 graduate of the United States Military Academy; I count that time as among the most formative of my life. I have classmates who are general officers; I have classmates who are presidents of companies (all you cellphone users, my classmate Brett Commoli runs your insurance company!). I have former roomates who are senior State Department employees. One of my classmates is a senior vice-president for the Brazilian operation of a large US firm.
Many of my classmates would qualify as rich; many others are influential, and will be rich later in their lives. I graduated with men and women who are doctors, lawyers, captains of finance and industry; in short, the folks I went to school with are some outstanding people!
Others of us, though, have not aspired to such lofty positions. Some of my classmates are stay-at-home moms; some are schoolteachers. a few are pastors. Like me, they have chosen, or had choices placed on them by their circumstances, to be people of simpler means and simpler aspirations. They will never own apartments in New York; they will never jet off to tahiti for a vacation. Some won’t even be able to pay their kids’ way through college without financial aid. They will remain solidly middle-class all their lives.
But in the final analysis, just as the characters in “The Family Man” found out, their bank balances are not the pint of this thing we expperience as life. Those who have achieved much are to be applauded; I am proud of every one of my sister and brother classmates who has reached to heights that we could only imagine as twenty-somethings leaving the Academy. But there are more ways to achieve success than to earn a large salary, or to command the respect of large numbers of subordinates.
My classmates who are staying at home to raise children are raising the next generation of leaders in our nation. Those who are ministers are nurturing the souls of those placed in their care. The corporate drones are providing the living that keeps their families going. And they are all, hopefully, happy in their states in life. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul, the Bible asks (Mark 8:36)? In the end, it profits one nothing. So, while I might dream of what might have been, I have to be mighty thankful for what is: a wife who loves me, four daughters who think I am the smartest man in the world (OK, three, but the seventeen-year-old will come around in a coule of years!), a home that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and a job that allows me to return home each day knowing that my efforts have actually improved someone’s life. I could be richer; I could be prettier (OK, well, maybe that’s a stretch…I look pretty good!); I could have more education or a position of more authority. But all of those things, in my life, require some trade-offs that I am not willing to make. I am working to be as happy in the here-and-now as our situation warrants.
God places each of us where He wants us to prosper. While we can force our way into other places, ultimatelym, we will only really be happy in the place God has called us to. My place is here in Bartlett, TN, with my wife and family, working both for my company and for the Kingdom of God. Everything that isn’t consistent with that place, with those missions, is ultimately going to make me unhappy.
Thinking about what your life could have been like “if only…”? Take a peek at the movie. And consider what your life is like now. How has god gifted you? How are you making the best of what your life is like right now?
Some of us, most maybe, are blessed beyond our wildest dreams…
If we can just see it.
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Link to audio of the Gospel is here.
Link to audio of the homily is here.
Have you ever had to go through something, and you just didn’t know how you were going to get through to the other side? All of us have; when we’re young, it might be something as simple as moving to another part of town and changing schools. Later in life, maybe it’s an important assignment that we just can’t figure out. As we grow toward adulthood, perhaps we lose a close relative or friend to death. All of these things can be hard, depending on our age.
Or maybe we end up in a bad work situation, or worse, we end up unemployed, and we have no prospects of getting another job. Or we end up suffering from a grave illness, or we lose a parent, or a child, or a spouse to death. These things can all make us cry to heaven, asking God to just “take me now, Lord!” Or they can even make us reject God altogether, and make us think we don’t need a God who can’t do any better by us than that.
If we were left on our own to get through all of these situations, if it was on us to figure out how to get through, alone, we’d never make it through. But we aren’t alone. And we have something to sustain us, someone to give us strength, even in the worst of times.
Why was Elijah running through the desert to Horeb? Why did he leave everything he knew? Elijah was running for his life. His work situation, as prophet of God, had gone really badly; after he killed the prophets of the false god Baal, the wife of the king decided Elijah had to die, too. So Elijah was running to save his life. And you know Elijah got tired. Not just physically tired; Elijah was spiritually tired. And he just wanted to give up, lie down and die, because he couldn’t understand how things had gone so wrong. Ever felt that way?
But God didn’t let Elijah just starve, or die of thirst, did he? Instead, God sent Elijah heavenly food and drink to sustain him for his journey, not once, but twice! God had things that He still wanted Elijah to do, so God fed him for the journey!
In the Gospel, Jesus connects Himself to that same food in the desert. He hears the Jews murmuring as He explains who, and what, He is. The Jews cannot understand Jesus’ reference to Himself as “bread”; after all, they know his parents. And Jesus explains further to tell them that His flesh is the bread he’s giving! Jesus claims that those who eat his flesh won’t just make it through their journey: Jesus tells them that those who eat His flesh will live forever!
The Jews, of course, were scandalized. No one ate people. So what Jesus was saying was nonsense, at least at first hearing.
But God fed the Israelites in the desert. And God fed Elijah on his way to Mount Horeb. God had already performed fantastic miracles for His people. And Jesus is the ultimate miracle! Jesus gives us his flesh to eat, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, from this altar. And the food is for the same purpose. God fed the Israelites so that they could continue their journey to the Promised Land. God fed Elijah under the broom tree so that he could continue his journey to his next mission. And Jesus feeds us with His Body and Blood so that we can do what He has ordained us to do!
And what is it that Jesus calls us to do? What is it that He calls us to be? Paul gives us insight in the second reading. Christ calls us to “…be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us”! Jesus feeds us, in order to strengthen us to live in the Holy Spirit! And He feeds us to give us eternal life!
But …how are we supposed to believe that God actually feeds us through Christ’s body when we line up and stick out our hands? After all…that’s just a little round wafer. That’s supposed to be God? Jesus? And how does that help us with all this…junk in our lives? Is the Eucharist going to get me a job? Or bring my wife, my brother, or my child back?
Brothers and sisters, the answer to those questions…is yes. Yes, Jesus will help us! Is He going to make things just like we want them to be? No! But what Christ will do is this: He will give us the strength to make it through! Out of work? Come to Jesus! He’ll sustain you and guide you as you search! Someone died? Come to Jesus! Jesus has the words of everlasting life! Our relatives and friends who die in Christ will rise with Him! Spouse cheating on you? Come to Jesus! He will strengthen you against the pain, and He will work on the heart of your spouse to bring them back to Him!
Whatever the hurt, if we can bring it to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, we will receive strength to live through it! We are all drawn to Christ through the Father, just as Jesus said: we’re here this morning! And now that we’re here, we can receive the Bread of Life, and live forever! All we have to do…is believe!
Life is a journey. And during that journey, we all go through things that seem too hard to survive: death, disappointment, and despair, are all part of our human experience. They can sometimes pull us into a hole we can’t see a way to climb out of.
God, however, has a different way planned for all of us. We have all been drawn to Christ, by God, through our baptism. We have all received the gift of faith from God; it’s why we came in here this morning. And God does not leave us to figure all this out on our own!
Jesus said: “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven”. When we receive that Living Bread from the hands of our priest, we are given the strength to live as “imitators of God”, His beloved children. And nothing can really hold us down.
Feeling down? Feeling like you just can’t go on? Let Christ refresh you in this meal we’re about to receive! Christ is the Bread of Life. Christ is our food for the journey.
Take, and eat…and believe!
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And words are not sufficient to describe the experience. However, being me, I had LOTS of them at the liturgy; here’s the link to the audio file of my homily:
Homily for Funeral Liturgy for Amiee Nicole Myers, born July 25, 2009, died July 27, 2009
Please pray for Mary (Hastings) and Dusty Myers, for their son Jacob, and for the repose of the soul of little Amiee Nicole Myers, born on the Feast of St. James, July 25, 2009, and born to eternal life on July 27, 2009, after 43 special hours of life with her family.
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Have you ever considered what it means to be “called” to do something? We talk about vocations often in our diocese; the word “vocation” is an English word which is derived from the Latin root “vocare” which simply means “to call.” We are blessed to have a large number of men in our diocese in formation for the vocation of priest; we also have women and men who are considering consecrated life as religious brothers and sisters. These are what we usually think of as “vocations”.
Sometimes we refer to single life, or married life, or even our choices of profession as doctors, or lawyers, or nurses, or whatever as vocations. And while it is true that all of these things are exercises of the gifts God has given us, even those things don’t exhaust the list of “vocations “ to which God has called His people.
Consider this: Everyone is called. Everyone responds. What we each have to decide is this: What are we being called to be? And what are we being called to do?
Take a look at today’s readings. Amos, in our first reading, is being invited to get out of the northern kingdom by one of the priests of Bethel. Basically, Amos is stirring up trouble by telling the people of Israel that Jeroboam’s kingdom will be brought down. So naturally, the priest wants him to leave, thinking he’s one of the professional false prophets from the southern kingdom. Amos corrects him, telling him that his job was to herd sheep and trim trees; at least, it was until God got hold of him, and sent him to be a prophet.
The Gospel gives us a little more perspective. Remember that Jesus first called His disciples, making them “fishers of men”; He next gave them authority. The story in this weeks Gospel picks up where Jesus actually sends them out into the countryside to exercise that authority; as the text says, “The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”
The second reading connects all of this magical, mystical stuff to us: “In him you also, who have heard the word of truth … and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” The writer of Ephesians is telling the Church (including us) that we have all been adopted into Christ, and redeemed by His blood, and now sealed with his Holy Spirit for the tasks we are sent to do!
Amos received a call from God to be a prophet. He was a simple shepherd before that, with no particular skills or distinction. Yet God sent him to go prophesy to a king. Likewise, the Apostles were all simple men…before Jesus called them. He called, He gave them authority…and then He sent them to preach the gospel, to cure the sick, and to cast out demons!
God is still calling people to His service, brothers and sisters. Someone in this very room…is being called to the sacramental priesthood. Someone in this room…is being called to religious life. Others among us are called to the sacrament of Matrimony, to live faithfully as members of “little churches” within our families, transmitting the faith to our children. Still others among us are being called to life as single men and women, to live lives faithful to God’s call.
All of these “vocations” come from God. All of them are hard. And all are places where God sends his Holy Spirit to aid us.
But…there’s more, brothers and sisters, and it’s important that we see it, and act on it!
At the Mass, every Mass, we encounter the Living Christ, first in the assembly of His people, then in His Word read and preached, and most importantly and most perfectly in the Most Blessed sacrament, the Eucharist. And then, having been nourished and strengthened, we hear the priest or the deacon say, “The Mass is Ended, Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”, or similar words. At every Mass, we are all sent out on mission, just as the disciples were, to serve the Lord. That service can take a lot of forms, but at the end of the day, it’s a calling, a mission from God, to every one of us, to Love Christ and to serve Him!
And how do we serve Christ? How do we love Christ? We love and serve Christ by keeping His commands! We love and serve Christ by loving one another! And we love and serve Christ by being faithful to “the word of truth, the gospel of salvation”, that the letter to the Ephesians talks about!
This should be life-changing for us! We have received Christ truly present in the Eucharist, and then we are sent to love and serve Him by being His presence in the world! No matter who we are, even if we’re smelly shepherds like Amos was, God has called us to be witnesses to Christ, fed us for the journey, and sent us into the world!
Vocations come in many shapes and sizes. When we hear “vocation”, our first thought is often the Men in Black, our priests and our seminarians, who are public signs of God’s call to His service. If we’re older, we also think of religious sisters and brothers, some of them in habits, donating their lives to God’s service in a specific area or field. We might even think of our trade, or our rofession, as a “vocation”, because we feel particularly gifted by God to work in it.
But brothers and sisters, we all have a much more basic call, one that every single one of us shares: We are called to love and serve God in the world in which we live. We each have a religious vocation, to witness Christ in our lives, no matter where we’ve been placed.
Everyone is called, without exception. Every time we attend a Mass, we receive Christ, and we are sent on a mission by God. And no matter what the obstacles appear to be, God has given us the strength to do all He’s called us to, through the Christ whom we receive.
At the end of Mass, you’ll hear me say it: “Go; you are sent!”
God is calling us, all of us, and sending us somewhere.
What do you hear God calling you to do?
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Audio will be here when I get it posted later today; sorry I have been kinda quiet lately, but trust me, it’s been for the best!
Homily:
If you Google search on the word “love”, you will come up with a list of about one billion, seven hundred twenty million entries. To print the definitions page alone takes twenty-three pages!
And the page hits are all over the map. Some describe physical love, some describe philosophical underpinnings of our different approaches to love, some make fun of love, and some don’t really seem to have anything at all to do with love. Maybe that just goes to show that looking for love on the Internet is a sure-fire way to get confused about it.
In the New American Bible, the Church’s official English translation of Sacred Scripture, the word “love” occurs 537 times. In the New Testament alone, the word “love” 251 times. Love is important to us as Christians.
But knowing what love is…that’s even more important. Understanding what love is, and what it is not, makes living the life Jesus calls us to live that much easier.
But what is it? What is love?
The world we live in equates love with a lot of the wrong things. The world, for example, would have us believe that love, and sex, are the same thing. Particularly on television, and in the movies, we know that two people care for each other because they are in bed together! Most of the time, the people aren’t married to each other; they sleep together because they “love” each other. Love equals sex, in this view.
Commercials are a different story. Advertisements often equate love with…stuff. The more we give someone, our spouse, our “significant other”, our children, our older parents, the more we love them, the propaganda goes. The stuff replaces the relationship. The stuff substitutes for time. And the stuff becomes the reason to work even harder, to work longer hours, in order to pay…for more stuff. Love…equals stuff.
According to our times, a lot of things are supposed to be true expressions of love. But they aren’t.
It’s interesting that when Jesus speaks of love, He doesn’t talk about any of the things I’ve talked about. For Jesus, love is simple. What does He say in the Gospel? “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Love…is self-sacrifice for others. Love…is putting the other’s life ahead of one’s own. Love…is caring for the other! It’s pretty simple, really!
John explained more in the second reading. He said: “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.” Our example of love comes from God! God loved us. God sent His Son to die for us, so that our sins would not land us in Hell. And God calls us to love him, and to love one another, as He loves us.
Jesus asks the apostles to remain in His love. And He tells the apostles that the way to remain in His love is to keep His commands. He even tells them why: “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and your joy might be complete.” Finally, He tells them what His commandment is: “This I command you: love one another.” So by loving one another, by laying down our lives for each other, we achieve what God has planned for us: eternal life!
But it seems so hard, doesn’t it? “Laying down one’s life for one’s friends” sounds so…final. It sounds like we’re supposed to literally die in order to prove we love God!
But that wasn’t his point, brothers and sisters. Most of us are living the kind of life to which Jesus was referring every day! Parents who work hard to provide for their families and to teach their children the ways of God are laying down their lives for their families, and loving as Jesus loved! Those who care for an ailing spouse or child; those who help to take care of an elderly parent or neighbor; those who volunteer in our school, are all sacrificing some of themselves, laying down their lives to an extent, and obeying Christ’s command!
Some among us are doing even more. Our priests are married to us all, and serve our community by completely donating their lives to us. Consecrated men and women, those in serving the Church in religious vocations, lay down their lives for the Kingdom every day.
Do we fail sometimes? Absolutely. Sin, by it very definition, is selfishness. And whenever we fail to love the other more than ourselves, whenever we place our own interests above caring for another, we sin. But God still calls us to that radical love Jesus expressed in dying for us: he calls us to lay down our lives for our friends.
What is love? Love is sacrifice. What is love? Love is following God’s call to put the other first. It may take Google over a billion and a half pages to explain love, but it only takes us as Christians a few.
What is love? John said, “God is love.” He also said: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”
God sent Jesus to make the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, so that we could live forever with God in heaven. This is love. And we love by doing the same thing. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”, Jesus said.
Who are we laying our lives down for? Because that’s who we love.
Let’s go love someone.
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Audio of Classes: Session 5
Session 6
How to Answer Tough Moral Questions
Contraception
February 15/22. 2009
•I.Introduction
•A. The controversy surrounding the Church’s teaching on contraception has created a great crisis in the Catholic Church.
•1. Stubborn refusal on the part of many to accept Church’s absolute prohibition on all types of contraception.
•2. Polls indicate the vast majority of the laity, and a large % of clergy, reject Church’s teaching on contraception.
•B. Humanae Vitae (1968) was greeted by a chorus of dissent.
•1. Secular media condemned HV as hopelessly out of date.
•2. Response of many bishops = lukewarm; some openly opposed it
•3. Public dissent weakened the Church at a time of fighting secularism and the sexual revolution
•4. History will record that HV was one of the most important documents of all time; rebellion against it was one of greatest tragedies suffered by the Church.
•II.History
•A. Humans have a strong sexual instinct. Not surprising that people would want to contracept to avoid responsibility.
•1. Ancient Egyptian docs (1900 – 1000 BC) give recipes for contraceptives.
•2. Onanism (premature withdrawal) common in ancient world. Gen 38:9-10 (1500 years BC)
•3. Ancient Jewish Talmud mentions contraceptives, as do Aristotle (Greek) and Pliny (Roman historian)
•4. Contraception was widespread in ancient world. And the Church condemned it
•a) Didache
•b) St. Hippolytus (Refutation of all Heresies): condemned women who take drugs to make themselves sterile
•(1) St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom all condemned contraception.
•(2) All Church Fathers who mention contraception condemn it. NOT ONE APPROVES IT.
•(3) Likewise, NO Catholic Bishop or theologian condoned it until modern times.
•B. Problem of contraception isn’t new; dates back to the beginning of the Church. Reasons for becoming so entrenched toady:
•1. Birth control pill appeared on the market in the 1960’s.
•2. Sexual revolution.
•3. World-wide uprising against authority.
•4. Governments began to lift restrictions against contraception.
•5. Counterfeit moral systems were substituted to justify sexual sins.
•C. A Deluge of evil influences drowned out the Church’s defense of the truth until she seemed like “a voice crying out in the wilderness”.
•III.Methods of Contraception
•A. Barriers: condoms/diaphragms
•B. Spermicides: kill a sperm cell before it can fertilize an egg
•C. Birth Control Pills
•1. Hormones (estrogen/progesterone) with three functions:
•a) Prevent ovulation
•b) Prevent fertilization
•c) Prevent implantation (abortifacient)
•D. Intra-uterine devices (IUDs)
Change the character of the uterine line to prevent implantation (abortifacient)
•E. New products:
•1. Depo-provera = injectable depot-forming progesterone
•2. Norplant
•3. RU-486 (abortifacient)
•F. Sterilization
•1. Vasectomy
•2. Tubal ligation
•G. Correction/Explanation
•1. There may be some conditions for which a woman needs to take hormones found in birth control pills.
•2. This use would fall under the principle of double effect; the INTENT has to be to ONLY to treat the medical condition, NOT to contracept.
•3. If ANY other means of treating condition are available, they should be chosen FIRST.
•IV.Church Teaching on Contraception
•A. Church teaching is based on the natural law.; public revelation enriches/enlightens.
•B. HV teaches the following:
•1. Marriage and intercourse are by their nature designed for procreation and rearing children.
•2. Our sexual instinct must be kept under control even in marriage.
•3. Sexual acts are noble and worthy in marriage, even if couple infertile due to factors outside the will.
•4. For legitimate reasons (physical/economic/social/psychological) a couple may limit the number of children through moral means.
•5. The marital act (yuck!) has two essential meanings/purposes, both of which must be safeguarded/respected:
•a) Unitive (love-giving)
•b) Procreative (life-giving)
•c) A spouse who pressures his partner to have intercourse without regard to her condition violates unitive/love-giving aspect.
•d) A couple who engages in intercourse while contracepting attacks the procreative/life-giving aspect
•6. Direct sterilization is prohibited.
•7. No action taken before/during/after intercourse intended to render it infertile is permitted.
•8. Both Direct sterilization AND contraception are intrinsically evil, always wrong, no matter the circumstances/intentions.
•9. When a necessary medical treatment renders a person infertile, this is not immoral (double effect).
•10. If spouses have legitimate reasons to limit number of children, NFP is permissible. (Explain NFP)
•11. There is an essential difference between NFP and contraception:
•a) With contraception, intercourse is perverted from natural purpose/meaning by blocking the procreative aspect.
•b) With NFP, intercourse takes place in an entirely natural way. Women are periodically infertile; couple chooses to have sex only during those times.
•c) Nature eventually renders a woman infertile; sexual relations remain moral after that time.
•d) Limiting family size only becomes evil when our intentions or our methods are evil in themselves.
•V.Answering Objections to the Church’s Teaching
•A. Two Categories: Christian/Non-Christian
•B. Christian objections break down further into Catholic and non-Catholic
•C. Catholic objections
•1. I accept the Church’s authority, but the teaching on contraception has never been proclaimed ex cathedra.”
•a) Arises from a misconception that the only infallible doctrines are those proclaimed by the solemn Magesterium (general councils/ex cathedra definitions)
•b) The Church also teaches infallibly through the ordinary Magesterium. (ref. CCC 891-892, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 25); most infallible teachings come from here.
•c) Church’s teachings against contraceotion have a 2000-year history; Bishops virtually unanimous in condemning contraception.
•d) Vademecum for Confessors on Certain Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life, section 4, describes teaching as “definitive and irreformable”. This means infallible.
•e) Clear papal teaching is still always binding even if one does not accept HV as infallible.
•2. “I have a right to follow my conscience.”
•a) Yep.
•b) But before the right comes the duty to properly form one’s conscience.
•3. “I am choosing the lesser of two evils.”
•a) This only works when the only choices are BOTH evil.
•b) There is a NON-evil choice available: Natural Family Planning.
•4. “It might be wrong, but I am doing it for a good intention.”
•a) Some pastors will misguide couples and tell them that it’s OK to contracept if both spouses agree. It may lessen their subjective guilt – they really just didn’t know – but it’s still objectively evil. (example of murder)
•b) Some pastors will say that we shouldn’t disturb couples who contracept “in good faith”. Quoting theological concept that it’s better to leave people alone if there is no hope they will accept the Church’s teaching, otherwise we turn an objective sin into a subjective one. Must be properly understood.
•(1) MUST not presuppose that someone will not accept the Church’s teaching.
•(2) A confessor may NEVER tell a penitent that contraception is OK. At most, he can defer the question until the penitent is more open.
•(3) Even if he decides to leave someone “in good faith”, he must patiently catechize, exhort and admonish in hope of bringing the person to the truth.
•c) Leaving someone “in good faith” (a valid concept) is frequently misapplied to let people who know better off the hook. If a couple know the Church’s teaching, they cannot contracept “in good faith”.
•D. Non-Catholic Christians
•1. Non-Catholic Christians will not want to hear about the Magesterium, or about natural law. But they accept the authority of the Bible.
•2. History:
•a) Before 1930, not ONE Christian denomination accepted contraception. No theologian, no denomination supported it before the 20th century.
•b) All the Protestant reformers condemned contraception as unbiblical.
•c) The Anglican Church was the first Protestant denomination to allow contraception in 1930. Ask: Why would they follow the Anglican Church?
•3. Sacred Scripture: There is only one Bible passage that explicitly describes a contraceptive act. Gen 38: 6 – 10 (Onan is struck dead for contracepting with his dead brother’s wife)
•a) Levirate law prescribes a mild punishment for not raising up children for a dead brother
•b) Onan was KILLED.
•c) Reasonable to conclude that he was killed for his contraceptive actions.
•4. Fruits of Contraception:
•a) Any reasonable person can look at the results of widespread contraception and see it isn’t in accord with God’s will.
•b) Many are seeing the connection between contraception and rampant divorce/sexual immorality.
•c) Many in the pro0life movement see that the contraceptive culture planted the seed for the abortion culture.
•E. Conclusion
•1. Once Protestants recognize the evil of contraception, their next step should be to abandon the error of “Bible-alone”.
•2. It was the Magesterium that has held the line against the evil of contraception, infallibly interpreting Sacred Scripture, the natural law, and Sacred Tradition.
•3. The fruits of the 20th century :abortion, widespread homosexuality, pornography, genocide, world wars, and massive apostasy from Christianity, coincide with the prevalence of contraception.
•4. Contraception is no the product of enlightenment: it’s simply the product of an evil age.
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Repent and Believe!
Repent…and believe. “Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” That’s what He said in to today’s Gospel reading.
“To turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one’s life.” This is how the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word, repent.
“Believe in the Gospel”. To believe (Also from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary) is “to accept as true, genuine, or real”.
So by textbook definition, Jesus’ call as He returns form the desert is pretty easy to understand: “Turn from sin. Amend your life. And accept God’s Gospel as real and true.”
This is all God asks of us as Christian men and women: “Be good. And believe Me.” That’s it!
But if that’s it…then why’s it so hard? And how are we supposed to do it?
Well…the forty days of Lent can help us to get our arms around that.
Today’s readings give us a push in the right direction. The first reading reminds us of the promise God made after the Great Flood was over; God had just finished “rebooting” the Earth because of the evil of the people. He only saved eight, according to the story; Noah and his family had been the only people on Earth to avoid sliding into the evil of the times. The Flood punished the sin of the people, and washed that sin away through forty days of rain, so that humanity could start over with God.
In the second reading, Peter tells us that God renewed His relationship with humanity again with Jesus: “Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.” Christ’s death gave us a chance for a new life in God. And Peter tells us that the baptism we receive is not just a bath for the body: that baptism saves us: we make “an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”.
The Gospel brings back the forty days with Jesus’ time in the desert being tempted by Satan. When Jesus returns from the desert, He goes to Galilee and proclaims that “the kingdom of God is at hand.” Then what does He tell the people? “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”
The forty days of Lent begin with these readings because they set the tone. Lent should be all about two things: repentance, and belief; turning from sin, and believing in Jesus Christ and His saving work on the cross. This is the constant call of Lent: Repent…and believe.
All of us who are baptized have promised these things before, or had them promised for us. The Rite of Baptism recalls the time of the Flood as a sign of our baptism. And after the prayer over the baptismal font, those to be baptized are asked to do two things: to renounce Satan, and to profess their faith in Jesus. Repent…and believe.
This baptismal call to repentance is the same call we hear during Lent. Lent is a reminder for us that we have already been cleansed and reborn to life in Christ, but that we often fall short of living out the new life we received through baptism. Lent calls us to recall what God has done for us through Jesus; Lent calls to us make a return to the faith we professed at our baptism. We are called to repent…and believe.
But what do we need to repent for? What is it that we’ve done that’s so bad, so serious, that we need to turn away from it and do something different?
That answer is different for each one of us, I think. And no, the vast majority of us aren’t running around committing mortal sin after mortal sin, guaranteeing us a place in Hell. But Lent gives us a chance to really examine our lives, to ferret out those places where we are being less faithful than we ought. Lent gives us a chance to look at our choices in life, and to decide if we’re where we should be. And it’s a chance to take on some of the hard things in our lives, not just to give up chocolate for six weeks!
Lent gives us a chance to try to expose the lies that the Evil One sows throughout our culture: the lie that we can do whatever we like, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else; the lie that the Church is hopelessly out of touch in some of its teachings, and that we can ignore those that cause us discomfort; the lie that we are ultimately in control of our bodies and our lives, and that God is OK with it.
Is there an abortion in your past that you haven’t healed from? (Men, I am addressing this to you, too.) Pray about it; God wants to heal you and set you free! Contracepting in your marriage? Pray about it, and consider attending at least one Natural Family Planning class with the Diocese, to see if God is calling you to something different, something new. Consider using this Lent to work with the big things in our lives that hold us back from full union with God.
Will it be tough? If we’re going in the right direction, yes it will be tough! The last thing Satan wants is for us to catch on to his lies! But if we really open ourselves up to the grace God freely offers us, we can see past the lies, to the truth: that God has already given us everything we need to live as He calls us to, if we will only use it!
Jesus’ call as He returns from the desert is pretty easy to understand: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Turn from sin. Amend your life. And accept God’s Gospel as real and true.
This is a challenging call, to be sure. And much of what the world throws at us turns us away from that call.
But Lent can give us a chance to turn back. Lent can help us to make a break with anything in our lives that holds us back from repentance…and belief.
There is something in every one of our lives that is holding us back. And Jesus’ call as he came from the desert still has meaning for us. Repent…and believe.
Repent…and believe. And accept the grace God freely offers us to help our unbelief.
Then…stand back and see what happens in our lives!
Tall, Bald, and Called 