Here is the audio from the class; here are the notes pages, and here’s the PowerPoint Handout.
I enjoyed the discussion Sunday about the question of the lack of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in non-Catholic denominations/rites. I appreciate the thought that went into formulating the questions! I thought I’d try to address that a little more here. Since there are people waiting on the class notes and recording though, I’ll do it in another post!
I am looking for feedback. I am going to teach the course on The Real Presence of Christ in The Eucharist after New Year’s, if I get a consensus that it’s what people are interested in. If you have another idea, please speak up!
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Gospel reading Audio is here. Gospel Text is here.
Homily audio is here.
Who Wants To Be A Saint?
Have you ever thought about what it takes to be a saint? We have feast days of saints all the time; our churches are named after them most of the time. If our children are baptized or confirmed, we probably had to pick out the name of a saint for our child, or help them pick one. There are even cities named after saints: St. Louis; St. Petersburg; St. Paul; San Francisco. Saints are all around us.
But how often do we think about what it takes to be one? The Feast of All Saints, which we celebrate today, was originally established in the fourth century to commemorate the martyrs of the early Church, those who were too many to name, or even remember individually. Later, it was amended to include all the saints who’d died in Christ, all those who, by popular opinion had led a life of sanctity. Today, the Church has extensive rules and processes for canonizing, or officially recognizing, a saint. But the Feast of All Saints recognizes everyone in heaven, saints named and unnamed, and celebrates their lives.
But what does it take, really, to be a saint? And what does it matter to us?
Today’s readings tell us a lot about who the saints are, and how they get to that status. In the first reading, from the book of Revelation, John recounts a vision of heaven, in which he saw “of a great multitude, which no one could count” standing before the throne of God. These people, dressed in white robes, were “the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” These are people who have overcome sin in their lives through the saving power of Jesus’ blood.
Jesus Himself tells us about those who will be with God, in the Beatitudes. These eight categories of those who will be “bless-ed” tell us a lot about how we ought to live our lives; striving to do these eight things outlined by Jesus will make getting into heaven pretty simple! If we can be humble of heart; submissive to God; mournful over the power of evil in the world; eager to grow in holiness; merciful toward the less fortunate; focused on seeing God’s glory; willing to make peace; and willing to suffer for the sake of God’s kingdom, we will be together with God in His kingdom!
But all of that “Church-speak” doesn’t really tell us anything about how we’re supposed to live, does it? The Beatitudes don’t directly address the things that are problems for us…do they?
Maybe they do. Look for a moment. If we are “poor of heart”, then money and things aren’t our first priority: God is. If we have a sense of the greatness of God, then we will also understand why we need to submit ourselves to His will. If the evil we see in the world makes us sad, and if we act to oppose that evil, then we’ll act to lessen its effects on people. If seeking God is the first priority of our lives, then everything we do, every decision we make, will move us closer to Him. And if we work to establish peace among men, and if we accept that people are going to beat us up for it, then we will establish the kingdom of heaven where we are.
It’s really pretty simple. Jesus gives us the formula for achieving sainthood right here in this Gospel text! And when we examine the lives of the saints, we see examples of all of these traits that we can follow. The very reason we keep track of all of this is so that we will understand how to live holy lives!
But if it were that simple, sin would already be defeated, right? If it were just a matter of following eight simple rules, no one would ever have to worry about becoming a saint, would they? Everyone would be a saint!
Reality, though, is that we are constantly pulled in the opposite direction: much in our world is simply not of God, and is designed to pull us away from Him. But, fortunately for us, God gave us tools to use to help us on our way. First, he gave us the sacraments, those outwards signs instituted by Christ to give grace. They are the most important weapon we have in fighting for sainthood.
More importantly, though, God gave us each other. We all have a role to play in each others’ journey to heaven! Look around you. Husbands and wives, your first priority is to help your spouse get to heaven! That’s your job! Parents, as I have told so many of you at baptisms, your job is to keep little Johnny or Jane…out of Hell! Those of you with brothers or sisters, it’s your responsibility to model what it means to be a Christian, to be a saint, for your siblings.
Every one of us in the Body of Christ has a job to do: to help all the other members of that body get to heaven! And if we’re all doing our job, then all of us will join the saints!
What does it take to be a saint? The Church has a lengthy process for “making saints”; it can take decades sometimes for the Church to officially recognize a saint.
But brothers and sisters, we all have the job, as Christians, of striving to become saints. Sainthood isn’t easy; the lives of the saints are full of sacrifice. But that sacrifice has a goal: To be with God in heaven.
We’re not alone on that journey. Everyone here around us should be helping us toward that goal. And God wants us all to be with Him in Heaven.
Think about it: who’s helping you to become a saint? Who are you helping? What’s holding you back from becoming a saint? And who might you be holding back?
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And I was actually able to answer it! Here it is:
Hope that you and your household are having a great week.
“Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind.” and “As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make Shall endure before me, says the LORD, so shall your race and your name endure.”
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Here’s the audio for this class; here are the presentation notes, and here is the powerpoint notes file.
I didn’t capture the questions from the class this week; my beautiful assistant wasn’t available! If there is a specific question you desired to have answered, PLEASE drop it in the comments box below!
God bless!
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back in the summer of 2008, I posted this challenge to the parish. I was serious then, and I am still serious. I’ve had one mother of ten take me up on my challenge; I told her that I could only count her older at-home kids, since the younger 5 are all under the age of 9, and had to go where she goes… 🙂
Eucharistic Adoration is the single best gift that any of us can give to God and to the parish. Spending time before the Blessed sacrament, especially in prayer for the parish, will bear more fruit than any other thing we can do.
So…go back and read my post. the challenge was this: I will spend an hour in Adoration for every three people who commit to an hour during the week. I’ll pray for those folks, and I will pray for our parish an d our city. And I will spend as much time as it takes to answer this commitment I am making.
So…how would you like to make me stay up at the church? All it takes is showing up! Adoration hours are from noon to 10:30 pm every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, except for national holidays. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is prayed at noon, 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm each day; Evening Prayer is celebrated at 5:30 pm, and Night Prayer is celebrated before Reposition at 10:00 pm.
So…who’s showing up?
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Thought I’d go ahead and post this week’s efforts. The audio file is posted here; the notes file is here, and the PowerPoint is here.
An interesting question, actually, a few of them, came up during the class and after. The first (which I disparaged a bit before taking it seriously — Sorry, Gail) was from the review of the problems with the Dispensationalist view of the church, which we discussed on 10/4. I was asked for the Scripture references that name the Church as the New Jerusalem. The citations are listed in the text; but to review briefly, here they are:
Rev 21:2 – “I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Connect that to the moniker of the Church as the Bride of Christ; If the Holy City is adorned as the Bride, and the Church is the Bride, then the Holy City is the Church.
Rev 21:9-14 –
9 One of the seven angels who held the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come here. I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 He took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It gleamed with the splendor of God. Its radiance was like that of a precious stone, like jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a massive, high wall, with twelve gates where twelve angels were stationed and on which names were inscribed, (the names) of the twelve tribes of the Israelites. 13 There were three gates facing east, three north, three south, and three west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve courses of stones as its foundation, on which were inscribed the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”
The Holy City has gates named after the 12 patriarchs; that’s the way into the city. The foundation of the city is the Twelve Apostles…now, what else has as its foundation the Twelve? That’s right, class…The Church!
Eph 2:19-22 –
19 So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. 21 Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; 22 in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Another description of the “household of God (The Church) as equivalent to the Holy City that descended from heaven in John’s vision, built upon the Twelve Apostles. I know it’s convoluted a little bit, but this is how we interpret Scripture. These all add up to the Church being referred to as The New Jerusalem!
A second question was brought up again after class by a very attractive member of the class (at least to me); she asked how we could explain to a Rapturist/Dispensationalist that their view of Israel , namely, their fixation on the new Jewish secular state of Israel, was misplaced. After all, she pointed out, God gave them that land as their eternal home, For ever and ever! I briefly covered this when Emma Conroy brought it up, but to reiterate: The Covenant between god and Israel was not made in the Promised Land. Israel became the Covenant people of God when, at Mount Sinai, Moses received the law, and the People of Israel agreed to abide by it in exchange for their covenant relationship with God.
God gave them The law. Following its commandments made one a part of Israel. Complaining about how big the folks in the Promised land appeared was what made an Israelite wander in the desert for forty years, till everyone in that generation was dead! And god took the People of Israel out of the land on several occasions (as Susie Lovato pointed out – seven). The Babylonians came and dragged them off to captivity for 80-odd years; the Assyrians had a turn at them, and several others brushed Israel from the land. But at no time did the Jews stop being a Covenant people! It’s kind of like our roles as parents. Our children are our children; we have a covenant with them to care for them and provide for their needs, as long as they obey the rules. But nothing is implied in that relationship that says they won’t be punished for wrong-doing. A mild infraction of the Covenant might warrant a time-out., or loss of privileges, or even a spanking; a more serious one, maybe involving civil law enforcement, might mean forcible separation from the family and imprisonment. that child does no tstop being a part of the covenant just because s/he is in jail;s/he does, however, forfeit for a time the privileges of membership in the family covenant.
Finally, Ann Marie asked me to go over again the question of who’s left behind at the time of the Second Coming. This refers to the passages from Matthew 24: 38-41 and Luke 17:22-37. Many of our Dispensationalist separated brethren will refer to these passages as support for their interpretation of 1 Thess 4:17 as referring to a secret rapture. The problem comes in looking at who is taken, and who is left behind in each of the examples cited. These passages refer to God’s judgment on sin! Sodom was destroyed because there were no righteous people in it except Lot and his family (who were told to leave). After Judgment, those left behind were…the righteous! the same thing applies to Noah and his family at the time of the flood. God judged the world wicked except for Noah and his offspring; therefore God cleansed teh face of the earth of the unrighteous, and left behind…wait for it…the righteous!
So much for wuestions this week. Please let me kno wif there are others; I will do my best to answer them!
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Here is the audio for today’s class. Here is a handout from the PowerPoint slide show, and here are my presentation notes. You should find links active in the pdf for the presentation notes; if not, please let me know via email at chip.jones@stann.cdom.org.
On another note, I would appreciate any feedback anyone wants to offer about the class. Is the pace too fast or too slow? Is the content form outside the text too much/not enough? Are you getting what you need?
Don’t feel compelled to write me an “attaboy” message; if I don’t hear from you, and you keep coming to class, I will assume you like what we’re doing. If there is something you wish we were doing, though, by all means, tell me. We’ll get right on it!
As always, if you have questions, please direct them to me on Facebook, or at the email address above. And remember we don’t have class next week (Fall break!). Please be safe; I look forward to seeing everyone on October 18!
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Audio for this week’s Gospel is here.
Audio for the Homily is here.
Comments appreciated.
Back when I was engaged, I am sure that I heard the words in today’s Gospel. I am equally sure that I wasn’t listening at all. After all, what 23 year-old is focused on the Bible and its implications on his life? I was much more concerned about my job in the Army, my next duty station, and whether Ann Marie would still want me when I got back from overseas than I was about discerning the meaning of a passage of Scripture (I don’t think I even owned a Bible back then…).
I was a product of our culture, a culture which looks at marriage as a convenient contract between two people, and which looks at children as a matter of convenience and “choice”. So in looking at marriage, our culture didn’t prepare me to think about “higher things”; everything that Jesus referred to in the Gospel today went right over my head.
But have you ever thought about what it means to be “one flesh” as Jesus declared in today’s Gospel? The implications of that declaration are huge. And they mean something, not only to couples who will marry, but to the whole Church.
In the Old Testament reading, God creates woman to “complete” the man Adam. Something was missing in Creation after everything else was made. What was it that was missing? A suitable partner for the man! According to the story, the man Adam had dogs, and cats, and cattle, lions and tigers and bears to hang out with; none of them was a suitable partner for the man. So God took something out of Adam, and from that created the first woman, Eve. So Eve contains what was now missing from Adam, and she completes him, makes him whole.
A lot of time passed from the creation of man until the Pharisees were hassling Jesus; and so had a lot of sin in the world. The Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a question about divorce, which was a legitimate practice under the Law. They wanted to put Jesus in the position of contradicting The Law, so that they could then punish Him. And Jesus put it right back in their faces: “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment.” And then, Jesus pointed to the creation story: God created male and female to become one flesh.
It’s interesting to see how these teachings play out in our modern world. One flesh. Jesus says we’re to join with our spouses and become one flesh. And that teaching is supposed to drive our conduct in and outside of marriage.
For example: This teaching tells us that our sexuality should be reserved for marriage, when we become one with our spouse. And it tells us that we should not contracept, because all forms of artificial contraception interrupt the union of spouses, and keep them from becoming one flesh.
It tells us that our marriages are intended to be permanent. Not perfect, just permanent. And it tells us, as we read further in the Gospel today, that the products of our marriages, our children, are special in the eyes of God, and that we should not only care for them, but strive to make them holy.
And Jesus teaches us all of this even in the midst of a culture that sells us the exact opposite message. Jesus teaches us that the perfect unity of marriage is a gift from God, a gift that that our First Parents compromised in The Fall, but that we are now able to reclaim through grace. And He encourages us to strive to achieve that grace!
But…what if we’re already divorced? What if we’re contracepting? What if we’re… sterilized? What if we’ve already tried marriage and it just didn’t work out for us?
Brothers and sisters, all of these are realities in our lives. If we aren’t personally in those situations, we know lots of dear friends who are. And I wouldn’t stand here and tell you “Too bad…there’s no hope for those folks”… because that would not be true!
Jesus, and his Church, both call us to a high standard. Our marriages, and our children, deserve our best effort to try to achieve that standard. But when something goes wrong, when our best efforts fall short of the goal, we still have God’s mercy to fall back on. Divorced? That doesn’t kick you out of the Church! Go talk to our priests. They will help you understand your situation, even if it’s been years! Contracepting? Come talk to any of us; let us help you understand what the Church teaches, and how beautiful it is. And consider trusting that God created you correctly, and fertile. Sterilized? Again, our priests can help you, first to understand why that wasn’t the best decision, and then to understand how to move beyond it. No one will judge you. All of us just want to help!
At the end of the day, God gave us the gift of marriage to let us help each other to get to heaven. And He gave us the gift of children to let us be co-creators with Him in building His kingdom!
“One flesh”. God calls us to be one flesh. And all that went right over our heads when my wife and I married. And I don’t think our experience was unusual!
But in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, and the Pharisees, what God has called us to. Marriage is no small thing; it’s not just a contract between two people to hang out together. Marriage is the sacrament which creates ONE out of TWO. Marriage joins together a man and a woman just as Christ is joined to His Church. And marriage is important enough that we ought to do everything we can to strengthen it against the assaults of this world.
So much in the world works against marriage. We have to take hold of all that God provides us to help us on our journeys together. If you’re married, ask yourself:
“What have I done to become more united to my spouse today?”
If you’re not married, the question is: “What am I doing to become more united to Christ, and to His bride, the Church, until I marry, if that’s God’s will?”
Strong marriages, and strong families, are what build up the Church. And God’s grace is the glue that binds those strong families. Ask for His help. And see what happens!
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Folks,
Three classes down, and no one has been hurt, yet! Here’s the audio file for the class; hope it’s useful. Here’s the outline in Word 2007 format; if you need the converter, you can find it here. Finally, here are the notes pages for the PowerPoint presentation I used. If you’re listening at home, I would recommend printing the presentation and taking notes on it, or printing the outline and following it.
There were two questions asked before and during this class; the first was about a reference from 1 Peter 4:6: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead 2that, though condemned in the flesh in human estimation, they might live in the spirit in the estimation of God.” The question was whether this verse could serve as a proof text for praying for the dead, in the same sense that 2 Macc 12:44-45 can be used. I have searched a few of the resources I have at my disposal, and I would have to say that I don’t think so; 2 Macc 12:44-45 is a proof text for Purgatory, while the verse above really aims in a different direction. This verse refers to, it seems, the effectiveness of the Gospel even for those who are now dead (but who heard the Gospel preached while alive). It’s not a reference to use, so much, about things that will help the dead who are not yet in Heaven; it’s more a reference to the effectiveness of the Gospel on the souls of those who have already died. Prayer for the dead aims to improvethe lot of the dead; this verse refers to the Gospel’s positive effect in general on them. Convoluted answer; if anyone can do better, throw it out there in the comment box!
The other question, which was also a comment, was about a particular verse and its applicability to those who have left the Church. I am still trying to find the specific reference, and when I do, I’ll answer it here!
See y’all next week; take care, and God bless!
Tall, Bald, and Called 