If You Still Need USCCA Books...

Anne is coming this Thursday (9-11) to sell books before the begining of the mornging and evening classes. She has a new shipment in. She is selling them with a 20% discount, $19.95 plus tax. We're hoping we have enough, because this is one HOT class and the demand is high! Both Don and I are amazed at the response! Way to go, people!!! You all are totally awesome! Thanks also to Anne!!!

Preparation for Mass: Friday September 5, 2008

I've used Michael W. Smith before at this blogsite, and back by popular demand (mainly my own demand!) I want to present "Agnus Dei" as the musical score to the crucifixion of Christ from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." As you prepare for Mass this weekend, don't think of it as merely receiving Eucharist, which we do in fact receive, but in addition, think of the Mass as Christ representing himself and His Church as an offering of love to the Father. It is in the Mass whereby you join with Jesus in His total self-giving to the Father with us. Your assistance of Jesus is priceless and a matter of great honor. God bless you all as you set your hearts and minds right to assist and receive Jesus!

If you Need USCCA books...

Students:

If you still need USCCA books, Anne at "On This Rock" bookstore had placed a large order yesterday and will probably get them today or Monday. Please, go to Anne's store to pick them up. The demand for books is very high and I will not be able to bring them to next week's class. The bookstore is located at the old St. Vincent's rectory on the corner of South Park Avenue and Oregon St. Her store occupies the entire first floor. As you pick up your book, check out the gifts, the books, and the "Monks Coffee" she has on sale. You'll fall in love with her store!!!

So again, go to "On This Rock" to get your books and keep your receipt if your are a Religious Ed. teacher for Most Blessed Sacrament Parish and wish to get Basic Certification.

The Four Pillars of Faith Lesson One: The Dogma of All Dogmas

Hey everyone! Thanks for dropping by. I am blessed by the excitement that is in the classes that meet in Oshkosh entitled, "The Four Pillars of Faith."

To review, Lesson I covers Chapter I and V in the USCCA which describe humankind's universal need and desire for God. It is built into our genes. The desire to meet the One who left His fingerprints in our life, and in all of creation is natural to us a creatures, and is founded on God's desire for us. He reaches out to us in so many different ways...in some ways, He literally surprises us!

Secondly, Chapter V deals with the "We Believe in God" section of the creed. In fact, the bulk of the Thursday night segment dealt with God as Trinity and emphasized how this doctrine is the center hub of all the mysteries of God, of the Catholic faith. If you remember anything, please remember... the Trinity is the focal mystery of all mysteries. Let me list them and then feel free to enter comment or questions.

A. The Trinity is God in three distinct Persons, with One divine substance, and is One God, not three Gods. It is a Trinity, NOT a triad of Gods.

B. These three Persons love each other infinitely and form the template of what the Christian life is all about. It can be explained as best by the following (even this is very limited):

1. The Father expresses himself and thinks of himself as any of us think of ourselves...only different! When the Father thinks of himself, he doesn't have a thought bubble like we do, He thinks and expresses himself as another Person, the Logos, the Word, Jesus Christ the Son!
2. The Son, who is the expressed likeness of the Father completely, and is distinct from the Father, and in the same divine substance, loves the Father in return. A love so complete, so loving, so infinite, so powerful, that the love between the Father and the Son becomes yet another Person, The Holy Spirit!
3. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a unity of three Persons, one God, enjoy complete and infinite joy, glory, peace, the good, the True, the Beautiful. It is an existence that is infinitely above and beyond our comprehension.
4. The Holy Trinity desires to share this family unity of the Trinity with us, with people of every ethnicity and tongue. There is more than enough Trinity to go around! This sharing of the divine nature of the Trinity is an idea created by the Trinity, put into place by the Trinity, which forms the pattern of discipleship that Jesus expressed in His preaching on earth. God desires our unconditional love and acceptance of Him. Our discipleship, our total giving of self to Christ and the Gospel, is in truth, the way in which the members of the Trinity are with each other...total self-giving.
5. Our entry into this unity with the Trinity is through Jesus Christ. He is the Prototype, the Door into the Life of the Trinity. So our life as Christians is a participation in the life of Jesus as He is in complete unity with the Trinity. This is NOT something we engineer on our own, but ONLY as we participate in Jesus, in HIS life, in HIS mission, as we follow HIS leadership as set in place by the college of bishops HE chose for us. There are no mavericks in the Kingdom of God. The life we live as Christians is HIS life as expressed uniquely in our state of life.

So the terms of discipleship that Christ lays out is not just an arbitrary set of rules to make us miserable. Since we are being fitted for eternity in union with the Holy Trinity, we must begin to prepare NOW for a Trinitarian lifestyle. We must begin NOW, in our relationships with our family, neighbors and strangers, to live out the example and life of the Trinity. And to do this, the Trinity allows us the supernatural, sanctifying grace to carry it out. Hence, we have the Creed, the Sacraments, the Moral Guidance and prayer to exercise our calling as fellow Trinity lovers and livers.

Now, this is heavy stuff. I've asked you to think through this and begin to ponder the greatness of the calling that God gives us. Read again, paragraph 260 in the CCC:

The ultimate end in the whole divine economy is the entry of God's creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity. But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity. "If a man loves me," says the Lord, "he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him." John 14:23

For your meditation on this, read the prayer of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity that follows this paragraph:

O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.

May God bless you in your meditations, and open your eyes to the glory, that not only awaits in eternity, but is your to experience now as you journey through life.

Again, please comment or put in any questions you may have. PAX!!!

New Study Coming to Town: "The Four Pillars of Faith!"

"The Four Pillars of Faith" is a Catholic Faith study series sponsored by the Green Bay Diocese Department of Education and is based on the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults. This website has been started in anticipation of this study series and allows for further discussion on the chapters in the US Catechism that will be covered each week. Because many people from all over will eventually tap this site, discussion is not limited to those in the Green Bay Diocese who participate in the program. Anyone who reads the Chapters listed in each week's study may comment, if the comments pertain to the subject matter. We will have weekly posts on Friday that recap the week's topics and will allow you to work with the material presented in a forum that allows discussion with others.

For those who are in the southern part of the Green Bay Diocese, near or in the Oshkosh area, "The Four Pillars of Faith!" will meet on Thursdays, starting September 4th, running consecutive Thursdays until November 20th. There will be two classes each Thursday, one which meets from 9 to 11AM and the other which meets from 6 to 8PM. We will meet at the St. Peter's site on High St., in McKeough Hall in the lower level. The classes are geared around lecture and discussion that will appeal to various learning styles. You will not be bored, believe me!

The cost is free unless you don't have an USCCA book. The cost then will be the purchase of a catechism; it is necessary to have one in order to participate. Hope to see you there!

Cardinal Newman on Modern Liberalism

Wow! It's been over a week since I last posted and I'm so sorry. Hope all is well with you!

Today, I'd like to add to the post below entitled "What It Means to Be Catholic." I don't want to wear this topic out, but I also want to add to what has already been stated that gives what I have said some support. Ignatius' "Catholic World Report" has an excellent article on Cardinal Newman and liberalism entitled "Cardinal Newman's Hour." You will find that though some of our more dissenting authors and theologians look to Newman for support, he actually devastates their liberal positions, chastising them for holding to such aberrant views that have such moral and eternal consequences. Here's an excerpt that will certainly grab your attention:


The Church … regards this world, and all that is in it, as a mere shadow, as dust and ashes, compared with the value of one single soul. … [S]he holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse.

Could you imagine a bishop or priest nowadays saying anything close to this? Perhaps, though unlikely. Here again is the Blessed Newman on the nature of liberalism as a heresy:

That truth and falsehood in religion are but matter of opinion; that one doctrine is as good as another; that the Governor of the world does not intend that we should gain the truth; that there is no truth; that we are not more acceptable to God by believing this than by believing that; that no one is answerable for his opinions; that they are a matter of necessity or accident; that it is enough if we sincerely hold what we profess; that our merit lies in seeking, not in possessing; that it is a duty to follow what seems to us true, without a fear lest it should not be true; that it may be a gain to succeed, and can be no harm to fail; that we may take up and lay down opinions at pleasure; that belief belongs to the mere intellect, not to the heart also; that we may safely trust to ourselves in matters of Faith, and need no other guide, – this is the principle of philosophies and heresies, which is very weakness.

Take time to read this article and glean for yourselves what impacts you. Feel free also to share in the comment section below. For more on the same topic, read the explosive tract from the 19th century Liberalism is a Sin found on the EWTN website. It's a lengthy article that cannot be read in one sitting. I suggest putting this site in your "Favorites" and refer to it. Dr. Sarda does a splendid job breaking down the error of "Liberalism" and why it is listed on the Church's Syllabus of Errors. Perhaps you'll see how pervasive this deadly contagion is in our midst.

May your reading bear precious fruit, loved ones, and "St. Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our defense against the wickedness of the devil..."

More Posts to Come!

Sorry that I haven't posting anything since Wednesday. For the most part I've been busy. I attended a wonderful training seminar at the Green Bay diocese put on by Scott Hahn's St. Paul Center for Evangelization. The training centered on a six week bible study called, "The Bible and the Mass." Totally awesome, powerful and relevant, which if done properly and bathed in prayer, this teaching could help MANY people fall in love with Christ in the Eucharist all over again!

Also, I've been reworking Wednesday's post, "What It Means to be Catholic." I was frustrated, since I had a lot to say and it kept coming out muddy. I hate it when that happens. So I reworked it about 7-8 different times on Thursday and Friday. So if you have visited and found it different each time...that is the reason.

There will be more postings tomorrow. Until then, have a great Lord's Day. I'll share some of my learnings with you all! Also, I have an announcement of a class that a friend and I will be presenting this fall. More fun than we can contain, believe me!

Pax!