Catholicism 101: Forever Learning and Living the Faith
Learning the Catholic Faith is a lifelong process. For many of us, it may have had a rocky start from a lack-luster classroom experience, being a disinterested student, or a lack of exposure to the teachings of the Faith. Catholicism 101 is here to fill in the gaps from your Religious Education experience as well as serve as an aid in your lifelong learning of the Faith. Not only will we talk about WHAT the Church teaches, but WHY she teaches it. Hopefully along the way we will find ourselves falling deeper into the heart of Christ as we learn more about His heart for us.
"Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope." 1 Peter 3:15
Have a question about the Faith you’d like to have answered on the Podcast? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/zorQwuUGtSdukzjc6
Emily Gipson | Director of Catechetical Formation - St. Mary of the Woods Catholic Church | Whitesville, KY
Catholicism 101: Forever Learning and Living the Faith
BONUS: Made in His Image & Likeness (Theology of the Body)
What does it mean to be human? If we’re made in His image and likeness, what does God look like? What does God sound like?
Join us for this BONUS episode of Catholicism 101 as we discover how our human wants and needs reflect certain truths about God and his love for us!
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Luke 12:49)
“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” –St. Catherine of Siena
Resources:
· TOB for Free | Theology of the Body Institute
· Why Are We So Terrified of Death? | Theology of the Body Institute
· Why God Gave Us Bodies | The Thesis of Theology of the Body
Have a question about the Faith you’d like to have answered on the Podcast? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/zorQwuUGtSdukzjc6
· The Theology of the Body is the first major teaching of Pope St. John Paul II’s papacy given over a series of 129 Wednesday audiences at the Vatican. Contrary to what you may or may not have heard, it is not reducible to “Catholic Sex Ed,” it is this (in a certain sense) but it is also SO MUCH MORE! This teaching from John Paul the Great is an in-depth biblical reflection on (1) what it means to be human and (2) the call of man and woman to become “one flesh.”
o What does it mean to be human?
§ “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to Himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for: the dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God.” (CCC 27)
§ The Basic Human Needs:
· Physiological – basic survival (food, water, warmth, sleep)
· Safety – protection and safety
· Love & Belonging – connection and community w/ family & friends
· Esteem – confidence, self-worth, recognition of goodness
· Self-Actualization – realization of one’s full potential and the journey to ‘become who you truly are.’
o “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” –St. Catherine of Siena
o “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” –Jesus (Lk 12:49)
· “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” –Jesus (Jn 10:10)
o Life – Physiological, Safety, Love & Belonging
o Life more abundantly – Esteem & Self-Actualization
§ God does not want you to simply survive; He wants you to truly live—to flourish, and to become the person He created you to be!
· Who was I created to be? What is my full potential?
o Personal particulars vs. universally as a human person (personal vocation vs. human vocation)
§ Personal Path to holiness = Vocation à Priesthood, Religious Life, Marriage, Single-Life
§ Universal Call to Holiness/Vocation as a Human Being (Christian Anthropology)
· “Christ…fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear.” (Gaudium et Spes 22)
o In order to know what our supreme calling is—who we were created to be, living out our full potential—we have to know who God is, and Jesus reveals the Father to us!
· Who is God? God is Love. – The Lord is Longing for you!
o Songs about wanting love
§ “Make You Feel My Love” by Adele
· I know you haven't made your mind up yet / But I will never do you wrong / I've known it from the moment that we met / No doubt in my mind where you belong.
· I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue / I'd go crawling down the avenue / No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do / To make you feel my love.
§ “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton
· You're as smooth as Tennessee whiskey / You're as sweet as strawberry wine / You're as warm as a glass of brandy / And honey, I stay stoned on your love all the time.
o *do not blame the good things that God has created for your abuse of them* | “everything in moderation” & “Christian, know thyself”
§ “Lover” by Taylor Swift
· Can I go where you go? / Can we always be this close forever and ever? / And ah, take me out, and take me home (forever and ever) / You’re my lover / Darling, you’re my lover.
o “When we say ‘God,’ what do we wish to express? This... is all that we yearn for.” –St. Augustine
§ Every experience of human desire is a small share in the experience of God in his longing for each and every single one of us.
· These songs are so easily heard as singing to our significant others, but taking the love songs that speak to your own heart and listening to them as God singing to you is a true experience of prayer.
· “Not only my soul, but every fiber of my flesh, is made to find its peace, its fulfillment in God.” –Pope Benedict XVI
o Sign of the Cross
§ We always speak of dipping our hand into the holy water font and making the sign of the cross as a reminder of our baptism, that we have been claimed for Christ. But, we must also remember that it is not only our heart and soul that have been claimed for Christ, but our bodies as well. “I was created for and am destined to forever be fully united with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—body and soul!”
· Divinization!!! – Being divinized means that we are being made ready to FULLY participate in God’s inner life. Not only will we rediscover ourselves, but we will rediscover one another and experience all people in their fullness as made in the image and likeness of God.
· The FULLNESS of Communion with God happens at the end of time—the Resurrection of the Body at the Marriage of Christ and the Church!
o Resurrection vs. resuscitation:
§ Resuscitation = aims to restore vital functions back to normal
§ Resurrection = supernatural restoration & revival à super-natural (above and beyond what is natural and normal)
· At the resurrection of the body we are not resuscitated and walking around like zombies or with our normal health; we are made NEW and reunited with our very same body that has been supernaturally revived and elevated!
· Your soul is not the only part of you that is divinized, but your body is too!! Your body is the VISIBLE MANIFESTATION of your soul, and when your soul is separated from your body, we call that death.
o St. Thomas Aquinas said that the souls in heaven are actually in a quazi-human state until the resurrection of the body at the end of the age.
“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:22-23)
