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Today’s paragraphs are the IN BRIEF
We have completed Chapter 1 of Section 1 of Part 1 in 6 days!!
The IN BRIEF is six bullet points
Six VERY SHORT SENTENCES
Pretty simple
Today is an “End of the Week Review”
We recognize that human beings, by our vocation and our nature, are RELIGIOUS BEINGS
That means something UNIQUE
We are made FOR GOD
And we are going TOWARDS GOD
We are ONLY HAPPY if we find ourselves IN GOD
We only experience FULLNESS OF LIFE if we recognize OUR SOURCE!!
OUR ORIGIN!!
OUR DESTINY!!
How can we speak about God?
We can only speak about God by ANALOGY
BUT…
We can also speak about God with ACCURACY even if it is merely by ANALOGY
Today is a shorter day
BUT…
It is really helpful to not forget about what he have heard so far
And to dive more deeply into this or at least be reminded of what we talked about
So let’s pray!!
Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise. We ask you to please open our minds, open our hearts to receive your truth. Open our hearts to not only hear what is true about you, but to really allow the truth to change us. Because, Lord God, you are true. You are THE truth. And when we apprehend you, when we grasp you, when you grasp us, you set us free. Because you are the God who gives life and you give liberty. But you give life and liberty through this paradoxical step of self-surrender. And we surrender ourselves to you. That’s when we experience true freedom. That’s when we experience true joy. That’s when we experience what it is to live. So Lord, please help us to live today. In your name, we pray. Amen”
Six sentences on Day 6!!
The first sentence reminds us that man is, by nature and vocation, a RELIGIOUS BEING!!
What is a NATURE?
What is a VOCATION?
NATURE is what a thing IS
It is the what-it-isness of a thing
So what is a human being?
The WHAT-IT-ISNESS of a human being IS a body-and-soul COMPOSITE
We are MATERIAL so we have BODIES
We are also SPIRITUAL so we have SOULS
We are BOTH OF THOSE
So the NATURE of a human being aka the WHAT-IT-ISNESS is to recognize that we live and move in our bodies
We have life in our BODIES
We also have life in our SOULS
So we are a BODY-SOUL COMPOSITE
SO by NATURE we are RELIGIOUS BEINGS
We are animals on this earth
BUT…
We are also SPIRITUAL ANIMALS and SPIRITUAL BEINGS that are called to have COMMUNION WITH GOD
Man is by NATURE and VOCATION a RELIGIOUS BEING
So if NATURE is the WHAT-IT-ISNESS of a thing
VOCATION, which comes from the Latin VOCARE, means “to call” or “to be called”
We are CALLED TO BE RELIGIOUS BEINGS
In the human heart there is this CAPACITY
In the human heart there is this DRAWING
In the human heart there is this DESIRE
YOU HAVE IT!!
Because here we are on Day 6 listening to The Catechism
So far, it’s been like “Ok, when is this going to get good?” (It’s been AMAZING since Day 1 for me, how about you? If so, throw your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care. And if you love how Fr. Mike teaches us about the Faith then everybody say, “OH YEAH!” 😉😁)
Maybe you LOVE the last couple of days
BUT…
There is a certain element of wanting MORE out of this
The Church says, “YES! EXACTLY!”
Not just more INFORMATION
I WANT MORE HIM!!
We are RELIGIOUS BEINGS!
That’s what you are BY NATURE
The WHAT-IT-ISNESS of a thing
It is also what you are CALLED TO
There is a CALL that has been PLACED ON YOUR LIFE
You are alive ON PURPOSE
The very FACT that you exist REVEALS that God WANTED YOU TO EXIST
GOD LOVES YOU
God doesn’t HAVE to love you
BUT…
God CHOSE to love you when He CHOSE to create you!!🤯🤯🤯
You are alive ON PURPOSE!!
That’s what it is to say by our very NATURE and VOCATION we are RELIGIOUS BEINGS
We can live a fully human life ONLY if we FREELY LIVE by our bond with God
St. Augustine says, “When I am completely united to you, there will be no more sorrow or trials…”
We need to clarify this
This does not mean that the circumstances and situations of our daily lives will not have tragedies
Will not have trials
Will not have sorrow
BUT…
When we are completely united with God Himself, WE ARE FULL OF HIM!!
OUR LIVES OUR COMPLETE!!
That’s one of the reasons for JOY
One of the best definitions of JOY is, “An abiding and pervasive sense of well-being”
We may not be happy all the time
Happy seems to be a state of mind
Happy is, a lot of times, associated with pleasure
We may have talked about that before (Fr. Mike has talked about JOY a lot. You can search on YouTube for the many talks he’s given on JOY but here’s a homily about JOY: "Who You Are Now, is Who You Are" + 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Fr. Mike's Homily) 😁)
JOY is the sense that I KNOW that God EXISTS
JOY is the sense that I KNOW that God KNOWS MY NAME
When I am united to HIS WILL, I have a sense of my life being complete
There is nothing REALLY lacking even if in any given moment, I am lacking food or drink or health
Even if it gets to the point that I am lacking life
Life will STILL be complete
Why??
Because we would be ENTIRELY FULL OF GOD
St. Augustine is saying, “There is nothing more that I am waiting for.”
How many of us are searching CONSTANTLY for what FAILS TO SATISFY?
Maybe the next thing…
Or maybe the next thing…
Maybe you remember in The Book of Ecclesiastes and here is Qoheleth writing in the voice of Solomon (Oh if you did The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike, you BETTER remember this 😉 https://www.thebibleinayearstudyguide.com/day-149 )
Ok I have POWER but that doesn’t satisfy
I have WEALTH but that doesn’t satisfy
I have RELATIONSHIPS but that doesn’t satisfy
I’m really WISE and I’ve accomplished GREAT THINGS but that doesn’t satisfy
BUT…
When we find God, then we realize, “OH! There is NOTHING MORE that I am waiting for!!”
We may not have COMPLETE union with God in this life on this Earth
But there is NOTHING MORE that I am waiting for
I am just diving MORE AND MORE DEEPLY into Him
WHICH IS JUST INCREDIBLE!!
Paragraph 46 says, “When (human beings) listen to the message of creation and to the voice of conscience, man can arrive at certainty about the existence of God, the cause and the end of everything.”
Paragraph 47 says, “The Church teaches that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty from his works, by the natural light of human reason.”
This is asserting a couple of things
Faith and science are NOT INCOMPATIBLE
Faith and science are NOT OPPOSED TO EACH OTHER
IN FACT…
That has been one of the most PERVASIVE MYTHS that has been put forth by our culture
Our culture asserts that FAITH and SCIENCE are ANTITHETICAL TO EACH OTHER
THEY CANNOT BE!!
THEY COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE!!
Why?
Because FAITH is asking questions about SUPERNATURAL REALITIES
What is the TRUTH about SUPERNATURAL REALITIES?
SCIENCE is asking what is the TRUTH about NATURAL REALITIES?
We know that TRUTH and TRUTH can NEVER CONTRADICT ONE ANOTHER
Truth can simply be defined as WHAT IS
So we know that WHAT IS TRUE about SUPERNATURAL REALITIES can NEVER CONTRADICT WHAT IS TRUE about NATURAL REALITIES
Another way to say it is that the questions SCIENCE asks are WHAT IS THIS? HOW DID IT COME TO BE?
The questions RELIGION asks are WHY IS THIS? and WHO MADE IT?
So these are two sets of DIFFERENT QUESTIONS
We can look at the world around us and ask, “What is this? How did it come to be? How does it work?”
These are great questions!!
The WHAT and HOW are the questions of SCIENCE
BUT…
WHO and WHY is the question of FAITH!!
WHO made this?
WHY did this WHO make this?
WHO did this person make this for?
These are the questions that will NEVER CONTRADICT EACH OTHER!!
Why?
Because the answer to the question WHO and WHY will NEVER CONTRADICT the answer to the question WHAT and HOW
Hope that makes sense!!
It is SO IMPORTANT to understand that contradictions CANNOT EXIST between GOOD SCIENCE and GOOD RELIGION
The Church says, “We can know with certainty about the existence of God.”
So wait a minute!!
With CERTAINTY?
What do you mean by that?
We recognize that we can ALWAYS question what we KNOW to be true
Does my mom REALLY love me?
I know that she SAYS she loves me
I know that she served me and my sister for so many years of our lives
I know that she still reaches out to care for us
BUT…
I can always DOUBT what I KNOW to be TRUE
I can always QUESTION what I KNOW to be TRUE
That does not make it any LESS TRUE
That does not make it any LESS CERTAIN
We can look at this world and see that it EXISTS
Therefore, there must be SOMETHING or SOMEONE that BROUGHT IT INTO EXISTENCE
This world had a DESIGN so there must be a DESIGNER
Think about this…
Everywhere we look in this world and everywhere we look in our lives, whenever we find DESIGN, there is ALWAYS A DESIGNER
That reality is consistently true EVERYWHERE WE LOOK
Because of that, we can have a certain degree of CERTAINTY
We can ALWAYS question what we KNOW to be TRUE
BUT…
That DOES NOT make it any LESS TRUE!!
That DOES NOT make it any LESS CERTAIN!!
BUT…
We recognize that objective truth CANNOT CONTRADICT objective truth
We also know that OBJECTIVE TRUTH cannot be replaced by SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES
That’s one of the reasons Paragraph 49 quotes Gaudium et Spes, “Without the Creator, the creature vanishes.”
My definition of TRUTH is “what is”
A statement is either TRUE or FALSE to the degree that it conforms to WHAT IS, to REALITY
We have such a thing as OBJECTIVE TRUTH which is something that is TRUE OR FALSE regardless of whether I know it, like it, or believe it
It is truth INDEPENDENT OF ME
We also have SUBJECTIVE TRUTH and SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES
I like pizza!
I like cherry coke zero! (pepsi is yuck 🤢🤮)
I like driving over the speed limit!
But YOU might say that you don’t like pizza, cherry coke zero, or driving over the speed limit
So that is true for YOU
But it is not true for ME
That is SUBJECTIVE TRUTH
Why?
Because it is about the SUBJECT
We know that we don’t merely have SUBJECTIVE TRUTH
We have OBJECTIVE TRUTHS
Objective truth can NEVER BE REPLACED by subjective experiences
This is why we can state, “Without the Creator, the creature vanishes.”
If all we had was SUBJECTIVE TRUTH
MY truth vs YOUR truth
THEN WE VANISH
If all we had was this ACCIDENTAL UNIVERSE then meaning VANISHES
One of the things that marks modern human life is a CRISIS IN MEANING
Is there ANYTHING that means ANYTHING???
Because if this world is ACCIDENTAL then the answer is NO
If all there is is MATERIALISM
If all there is is JUST STUFF
There is just THINGS and NOT SOULS
There is just MATTER and NOT SPIRIT
This world is merely an ACCIDENT
That means…
Then EVERYTHING you and I do
EVERYTHING you and I are
IS MERELY ACCIDENTAL!!
IT HAS NO ULTIMATE MEANING!!
That means everyone is merely SUBJECTIVE
We have SUBJECTIVE LIFE
We have SUBJECTIVE VALUE
Our lives have SUBJECTIVE MEANING
But human beings in this world were BROUGHT INTO BEING by an OBJECTIVE CREATOR
Who had a PURPOSE for creating this universe
And has a PURPOSE for creating YOU
Without the CREATOR, the creature VANISHES
Without a God who has MADE THIS WORLD, meaning COMPLETELY DISAPPEARS
HOPE THAT MAKES SENSE!!
Fr. Mike underestimated how “short” this day was supposed to be 😉
Paragraph 48 says, “We really can name God, starting from the manifold perfections of his creatures, which are likenesses of the infinitely perfect God, even if our limited language cannot exhaust the mystery.”
We can speak of God with accuracy
At the same time, ALL OF OUR LANGUAGE WILL FALL SHORT
Fr. Mike read this book that said that every healthy baby is born with the ability to speak ANY LANGUAGE
Our mouths, tongues, and voice boxes become more and more limited to speak other languages as an adult
Our brain matter makes it more difficult
Our accents
We develop certain ways of moving our mouths and tongues
How many people who do not grow up speaking Spanish or Italian can roll their R’s?
That’s kind of the idea
BUT…
We are all born with the CAPACITY to speak ANY language with ANY accent in ANY way, shape, or form
There are over 7,000 languages that exist RIGHT NOW
Babies have the capacity to speak ANY of them
BUT…
If we don’t EXERCISE the capacity to speak in even ONE language, we won’t be able to speak AT ALL
Does that make sense?
To learn that one language, we become limited
But also by learning that language, it provides us with something solid to say
Something analogously is true when it comes to talking about God
There is FAR MORE about God that we could EVER SAY
We will never actually FULLY CAPTURE the TRUTH of WHAT and WHO God is
BUT…
Scripture and Reason and our Human Language gives us the ability by looking at the ideas of perfection of reality around us and says, “Ok that’s a glimmer. That’s a hint that points to the INFINITE PERFECTIONS OF GOD.”
So yes, it limits us
And at the same time it gives us a language with which to speak
Hope that makes sense!!
Seems pretty accurate!!
This was Fr. Mike’s first IN BRIEF
He thought 6 sentences would go so fast
But here we are 20 minutes (and an hour and a half for me 🤣) later
Fr. Mike is praying for YOU
To kind of get some traction is a little bit difficult
BUT STICK WITH IT!!
We are going to get DEEPER AND DEEPER into this
Things are going to get more and more complex
BUT…
SO MUCH MORE PROFOUND!!
Pray for Fr. Mike
I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!
Scripture References & Reflections
- compiled by Andrew Adamany
Bible Translation - RSVCE
CCC 45 "Man is made to live in communion with God in whom he finds happiness: "When I am completely united to you, there will be no more sorrow or trials; entirely full of you, my life will be complete:" (St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 28, 39: PL 32, 795}."
Ecclesiastes 5:10
"He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain: this also is vanity."
1 John 3:2–3
"Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure."
Revelation 21:3–4
"and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”
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