Father David Meconi - Friday Afternoon Session 2 - Defending the Faith

I want to thank Pat Madrid I've learned a lot from his books search-and-rescue which actually hasn't worked on any of my family but the surprised by truth series you know Catholics and Mormons do share this that we both believe that we will be God and that's the topic that I want to introduce that there are some overlaps in how we approach the faith it occurred to me during Pat's talk to that Muslims and Mormons have a lot in common that both their founders were visited by angels just not the ones they think think about that when I was an undergraduate at Marquette I ran into this young man named Scott Hahn and I've known Scott for a long time and was around when he converted and he too has been a mentor of mine in many ways I told him I've always wanted to do one of these defending the faith conferences and his response was yeah when we get a Jesuit Pope so here we are the name of my talk is the Catholic understanding of deification deification is a Latin term meaning becoming God this theme came to me one day I was walking in Edinburgh Scotland and I was in the traditional Jesuit habit a khaki shorts and a t-shirt and a woman approached me and asked me if I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and it was a moment of grace because I said you know I do but I don't want one and her mouth fell and she said you want a relation I can't understand the Scots but she said you don't want a relationship with Jesus Christ I said no I I don't I said with you and my friends and the Saints I'll have a relationship but with Jesus I want something more I want I want Union and she said that's not in the Bible and she didn't know she was dealing with a wringer I said Galatians 2 19 and 20 there's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me that relationship literally means side to side that's where your lats are right a relationship means side to side but in Union we can allow Christ to become one with us that his words can become ours that our actions become Christ's do you remember when you were little and you would do things for Jesus I grew up in Michigan and I don't know what st. I read but there was a saint who would walk to Mass with a stone in his shoe to help save souls I don't know the link between my uncomfortable feet in purgatory but I was impressed by this and I used to do this it was hardly heroic there's only about two blocks but you do things for Jesus you know at the beginning and then you hit what mid-20s thirty and your knees start hurting your back aches and you have to do things with Jesus you realize the need for grace right but I want to challenge you today to start thinking of the preposition in your life as as Jesus that you want to love your spouse as Jesus does you want to be a light in your parish as Jesus or Mary would be that the goal of the Christian life isn't simply to have our sins forgiven it isn't simply to be saved it's to become another Christ it is properly understood to become God Pat Madrid is right Jesus did keep his promise he did stay with us until the end of the age he did not leave us orphans because he instituted the Holy Eucharist and in his wisdom you see the Eucharist Jesus kept his promise he is God made flesh and I always asked my non Catholic Christian friends how was Jesus present to you well he's here spiritually oh no no Jesus isn't spirit Jesus is God made flesh but you see that flesh that bread that wine they don't have hands to go and serve the needy they don't have ears to listen to the lonely they don't have feet to go and work on behalf of truth but you and I do right and so the more that we understand what the Eucharist means we understand that we are needed to make Christ's promise real that he did keep his promise he is with us but he needs us I grew up on a vineyard in Michigan we have a winery called st. Julien so all my t-shirts growing up @sj on them it was inevitable that but Jesus says I am the vine you are the branches and we always think how much the branches need the vine that's true but you see without the branches the vine can't bear fruit and so I challenge you today to understand that you are extensions of Christ that we use the phrase now alter Christus to refer to the priest but you know that term in Latin was originally part of a Roman baptismal formula that a child is baptized to become another Christ that the very stuff that you and I take for granted our humanity our friendships our desires our passions our intellect our love of food and wine and and and breeze and summer days our humanity the very stuff that you and I oftentimes dismiss is the very stuff God needed to save the world that God didn't save the world from heaven he didn't save the world as spirit he saved the world as a man here doing the very daily things that you and I are entrusted with and so when we think about becoming God what I want you to think about is not some celestial planet what I want you to think about is how we grow an intimate union with God and God's people so I made a handout for you today to give you some of the more salient quotes and all of this is rooted in Genesis that you and I are made in the image and likeness of God that you and I are the only creatures that are made for relationship this is what makes human living dramatic that a dog is a dog and a you know a horse is a horse GK Chesterton asked the question he says have you ever read the 12 volume history of the cow it's pretty boring right but you and I are made for relationship that the key to true human flourishing is to find our well-being not in ourselves but in another why because we're made in the image and likeness of another and we're made in the image and likeness not of just a god but of a Trinity a Trinity of persons I tell my students that st. Louis University God is a what term just as what are you you're human but who are you ah now we're onto the mystery of your life we're made in the image and likeness not of some static almighty being out there were made in the image and likeness of a divine community of persons who give themselves fully to one another and receive the other think of it this way how many humans are in this field house I asked beforehand they say maybe 800 to a thousand so all right let's say 800 how many persons are in this Fieldhouse 800 you and I are our own humanity you're like me but you're not exactly me we don't share the exact same what the church fathers called suppository is different it's specifically the same but your instantiation of who you are is not the instantiation of Who I am but now think about God how many gods are there this is being recorded so you want to make sure one right but how many persons in God three so you see the difference the father doesn't have his own divinity he shares it perfectly with the son and the spirit what makes the father father who he is isn't what he is its relationship the father is 100% upon the son 100% dependent upon the son to be the father if he didn't have a son he couldn't be father he doesn't have an identity to himself he has no autonomy his entire nature of who he is as father is 100% the son you and I have been affected by our parents you and I well you have had children but you have stayed generally the same you are who you are before and after your kids you've changed somewhat right hopefully you've become a little more patient probably a little more gray a little more tired and we've all had friends come in and out of our lives and so when you think about the person on whom you're most dependent how dependent are you 10% 20% 30% none of us are wholly affected by the life of another human all right our parents and many of our parents in this room are gone but we remain but in the Trinity if the father were to disappear he couldn't but if he were the son to because the sons entire identity is the one who has begotten is dependent upon the father and I point this out because when Jesus says be perfect as my Heavenly Father is perfect I think as Americans and as men especially I think we can tend to think of perfection in terms of autonomy aloofness the more perfect I become at something the less I need you to help me the richer I become the less I need to depend on a handout that usually in our fallen kind of industrial and efficiency minded soul we think of perfection in terms of Independence but maybe Jesus is telling us to be perfect as his father is perfect that the father finds his entire well-being in the son that the father finds who he is in the flourishing of the one he's begotten and in between the Spirit that you and I are called to grow in reliance and dependence upon one another if you're anything like me when you talk to your siblings I get the phone right about here when I say yeah I love you it's right about here is it's going back into my pocket right what if you were to pick somebody and to say to them I not only love you I need you you see this notion of need when it's between the baptized between the sanctified is a moment of imitating and understanding what it means to be made in God's own image and likeness that the father says to the son I need you 100% to be Who I am the father and the son says I am the begotten one I need you father 100% and you and I are made in the image and likeness of that dialogue what does Vatican to say next quote gaudium at spez 24 that this likeness between us and God between this relationship between father son and spirit reveals that man whose the only creature on earth which God willed for itself cannot finally find himself except through a sincere gift of self now we know from commentaries now that this was written by a young Polish Cardinal named devotee WA the only Pope we ever got by taking a poll but look at what Vatican 2 saying about the human person that you and I are only creatures that God wanted simply for our own sake do you remember the old Baltimore Catechism why did God make me write I was born in 65 I don't remember this but ya to serve Him and be with him in this life in the next right my best Jesuit Fenn father Kevin white his runs Jesuit Refugee service in the South Sudan he's now actually at the Mexico border but he sent me a copy of the African bishops new catechism the first question is why did God make you you know what the answer is because he thought you'd like it it's that simple I mean how many of you in here had children so they would mow the lawn and empty the dishwasher attaboy and have they know exactly exactly you knew by having kids your insurance would go up and your car was gonna get bent it and that couch would be ruined forever but you simply wanted to share your life with them and that's what Vatican 2 says about us were the only creatures that God wanted for our own sake he simply wanted to share that communion of love between father son in spirit with other persons but if that's true then Vatican 2 says what therefore we only find our truest self as we make a gift of ourselves and hopefully there's a relationship your marriage or a friendship in your life that you can say I know how that goes that when that person is happy I too am a little more elated when that person is sad I too feel sorrow wouldn't you be a cold hearted person if you came home and your wife was crying at the table and you said hey cheer up the you know the Pirates just won right you'd want to say well honey what's what's the matter and you want to enter into her world and this is precisely the heart of our faith the heart of our faith is that God loved us so much he sent His only Son and no other religion can say that I grew up in Michigan up in the northwest side and every summer we would be sent off to these terrible summer camps to give mom a break right and in Michigan they usually schlocky kind of imitation Indian names to make it seem more authentic more native and I have my students imagine that they've been sent to the worst summer camp in the world I call it camp methamphetamine all right it just sounds and I say imagine you walked in and you saw vermin scurry under the bunk you saw things moving on the food you look up and you see your counselor on America's Most Wanted and you call home you say mom can you come get us now imagine mom saying to you honey oh I'm so sorry I tried to save that five dollars right you and your brothers I want you home cuz I love you so much but that sounds so terrible of a place I'm not gonna come get you myself tell you what here's my visa number take a bus home you can even take first class and I'll meet you at the station I'd say you know what MA no thanks if I don't matter enough to you for you to come get me yourself I don't think I'd want to go home I'd keep the visa number but and as holy as a Jew can be and as upstanding as a Muslim can be no other world religion shares this fact of ours that God himself loved us so much that he came all the way down into the human condition that God himself loved us so much he didn't simply wanted to be adored from afar he said I love you so much I'm gonna become one with you it isn't that what love does would there be a wonderful moment in your life where you could look at another and say love you I am you but I am your other self that how you live affects me my grandparents 60 some years of marriage grandpa got sick in January died nothing wrong with Grandma dies in February it was such a blessing to see that she just didn't want to go on without him and this is really I think special because it hints at what the Incarnation is all about that god loved us so much he became like us why well here's the response so we can become like him the Catechism gives four reasons why the Son of God became human the first one as you see in the bottom of your handout is to reconcile us with the Father Concilium is a Latin word for a meeting a get together and that get-together was split it was broken and so the son came to reconciles to bring us unite us back to the Father st. Athanasius the guy who wrote the Creed that we profess on Sundays he says this when God created the world God made two promises I really like this theory of the cross that when God the Father created the world the father made two promises to us he said I'm gonna make you in my image and likeness you're gonna live forever you're gonna be eternal immortal you're gonna know only goodness and joy but then the second promise is that if you sin death will enter my world I don't intend death I don't create death I don't want death but it will be the result of your disobedience death will enter my good creation well you know what happens next right we do sin and Athanasian says now imagine God the Father and what he calls a divine dilemma imagine God the Father looking down on us and saying oh my self you know I've made two promises how can I keep them both now imagine the Sun looking up to the Father and saying daddy let me go let me go and die that way you can keep both promises they can't live forever and death will enter the world but it won't be their death it'll be mine and so as the nation what have you look upon a crucifix and see not a loss not a defeat not a bloodthirsty father who needs the sacrifice of his son but he would have you gaze upon a crucifix to see a son who loves his father so much he's willing to make himself total gift to lay his own life down to ensure that his father never tells a lie to ensure that we know the father's perfection and his love in his care that he's willing to lay his own life down to make sure truth himself is never violated it's a wonderful explanation of reconciliation inside your program the next two reasons the word became flesh so that we might know God's love now this is an intriguing answer isn't it we Catholics believe the only things we know in our minds are what we first have in our senses we don't believe that God zaps things into our minds we don't believe in pre-existent thoughts the way Plato did we believe that everything that we have in our minds we first received by living in this world of tangible concrete things so what does this tell us about love that love is something that has to be seen heard tasted right oh there are handouts in the back if you need sorry I teach University I'm just used to people walking outside any Saint Louis you grads here mmm yeah oh no handouts sorry any Jesuit grads here all right all right Don't Tell father Scanlon so what is love love isn't a feeling love isn't an emotion love is a person you might want to think about that next time you say I love you to someone what you're really saying is I want to be Christ for you I want to lay my life down for you I want to commit myself to your eternal well-being that's what love is I think my mom kept most of us boys in line this was a line that my mom would always use you know five Italian boys at home we always mom she's the one I know she's the one mom would say boys feelings come and go and they normally go so if love is a feeling it just evaporates eventually love is a person and then look at the next reason that Christ is our model of holiness holiness I don't know how you define holiness but it's rooted in the same English word as wholeness that were not divided right st. Augustine has a famous prayer in the confession as he says lord give me chastity but not yet he'll never be happy he wants to be chaste but not really I want to be an Olympic athlete but I also want that third piece of chocolate cake right our hearts friends are divided our hearts are divided and part of becoming holy is willing one thing saying that no I have been made to become a saint is st. Ignatius of Loyola says I have been made to praise reverence and serve God and everything else on the face of this earth everything is given to me to attain that end for which I'm created and that our lives will always seem purposeless and divided and meaningless until we are convinced that we have been made to become Saints everything else is fleeting nothing else really matters why because we're made in the image and likeness of God if you think you're made in the image and likeness of your chequebook you're always gonna feel poor if you think you're made in the image and likeness of human romance you're always gonna feel unloved if you think you're made in the image and likeness of popularity you're always gonna feel uninvited to just the right party you know when I was seven years old my dad died and I remember when my mom called us together and told us and then she said this now we have a job to do a wise wise Catholic convert she said we can either hold on to dad and be selfish or we can let the Father have him and then we'll get them both back now I didn't know what exactly that meant but I did know at that moment that my mom never married my dad is an Endon himself she married him as an icon as a window to the true father and so when the real father decided to have my dad my mom was somewhat okay with that she didn't crumble that my mom never made my dad as a door as an absolute as something she had to have I don't remember my dad that well Italian immigrant but he was a genius he was a genius because he knew everyone on Earth's name every man was Charlie every woman was cookie it was that simple we don't to this day know how we discriminate between the different Charlie's but one thing I can remember my dad saying was this hey Charlie sit down you make a better door than a window we'd walk in front of his watching TV or something right well I think that's the key to a true Christian life to see everything in your life not as a door but as a window the second you say to God God I gotta have a long life if I'm gonna serve you god I have to feel better if I'm gonna be your child god I have to land this job this career if I'm going to be truly yours uh-uh the second you do that you've made a thing into your own God and that's the great temptation isn't it how does Satan get Adam and Eve to sin you will be like God but if we see everything as a window as an invitation as a response to God's grace in our lives we will see that the Lord is alive and laboring in all things not just on Sunday morning stuff not just on pious stuff but in how you spend your day what shows you watch what internet sites you visit what music you listen to that when Christ became human he mind melded himself to all of us and everything we do now the Son of God made flesh experiences also I tell my students and I say you know you're making Jesus listen to Lady gaga in the car but everything in our life we're gonna see at the end leads us either closer to God or further away from God and that too often we Christians can could I divide our lives into things we think God cares about the mundane terrestrial financial stuff and then the holy pious stuff to become holy means to have a wholeness about us so you know the word Ballistix comes from the Greek word ball to throw ballistics is the study of trajectory write of bullets when you throw two things together what English word do we get sim bull but what if I told you the Greek prefix to scatter was dia like diaspora or diastolic what English word do we have or Spanish word better dial below the devil is the one that wants to scatter your life he's the one that wants to act he was the one that wants you to act like this in front of your pastor and this way in front of your boss and this way in front of your friends and this way in front of your spouse right but holiness means no to see all of our life is an invitation to that union that one goal that one final instantiation of God living within us that all things can help us achieve that or take us from it and I think that's why the Catechism goes neck paragraph 460 the word became flesh to make us partakers of the divine nature now that's key those Mormons think you become dying divine by autonomy by aloofness by independence you get your own planet and a lot of cool underwear and stuff thrown into but but not for Peter the first pope says no that God became human so we could participate in the divine life in the divine nature and then look what Irenaeus said martyred around 200 in lyon france this is why the word became man and the son of god became the son of man so that man the human person huh by entering into communion with the word and thus receiving divine adoption might become a son or daughter of god that the word became one of us so we could become like him or look at what athenais she says more succinctly the son of God became a man so that we might become God and then finally Thomas Aquinas the only begotten Son of God wanting to make us sharers in his divinity assumed our nature so that he made man might make men and women gods now this is heady stuff but I give you those sources to show you that this is ancient Catholicism what happened was this at the Reformation when we started having to debate our positions and our doctrines we became a little more rule oriented we became a little more concerned about the acts and not the fact that Jesus wanted to give us his own life and this may sound foreign or overly pious but how many of you in here can relate to this you're in a heated argument maybe with your spouse you're in a heated argument with someone and you know there's that one thing you could say that one memory you could raise to hurt the person that one image or metaphor to really get to this person and you stop you say no I don't want to do it I'm not gonna hurt this person anybody relate to that yeah or there's the person next to you driving you want to show that person how you think about his or her driving and your reef and you refuse you should try driving in one of these I'm never a more courteous driver than when I have my collar on all right please read it but at that moment that's what deification means that you didn't live merely as a human you didn't live giving into your fall and biological instincts or your sinful passion your need for revenge your need to hurt and lash out but at that moment grace kicked in and it made you more than human in fact Vatican two's treatment on the priesthood Presbyterian or deenus says this that the priests only job is to impart a life that is more than human and that's what deification means the you and I don't have to live merely at the naturally human level that we are invited to partake in God's own life but none of us here are strong enough to be loving spouses 24/7 none of us here are good enough to be honest co-workers 24/7 but Jesus is and see Jesus wants to give you his life now as you give him yours I remember one day in seminary I had on front of the Pew a take Lord and receive you've heard of that prayer the sushi pay of st. Ignatius take Lord and receive all my liberty my memory my understanding my entire will all that I have I give it all to you give me only your love in your grace and that's enough for me while I'm in the chapel alone it wasn't just with school after all and this crazy old Jesuit from India great guy he walks through the pew he's he's going up to the sacristy to say his mass and he stops and he sees this famous prayer of Ignatius and he says to me you know the only reason you can pray that right now is cuz Jesus prays it to you first I said huh and he walked away like some Swami you know and so I looked at that prayer and I said Jesus how do you pray this to me and then I heard this take David and receive my liberty my memory my entire will all that I have and possess is yours that's what the Eucharist is Jesus simply wants to give us himself and in return what do I want to do I want to impress Jesus I want to say here take my successes take these classes take these converts look at everything I'm trying to do for you and Jesus says uh just give me yourself that is enough for me you see what happens between lovers is this right a time comes in your relationship where probably the missus says to you can't we just stay home do we always have to be turning the TV on or going to a movie or going out to eat can't we simply be together do we always have to be talking maybe that comes from the mister I don't know but the essence of love is an exchange of cells that's what Aquinas says the height of love is an exchange of self here take me and let me have you and that's precisely what the Incarnation is about my friends that God has become one of us so we can become like God I explained to my students that Jesus has three bodies now hear me out because I know it sounds like heresy but the moment Mary said yes God Himself received a body one two three cells I don't know but he had that historical body that we venerate here the night before Jesus dies he takes some bread and says this now is my body I promised I would be with you until the end of the world I promised I would never leave you orphans so here I am every Christian has to believe that first body we Catholics have the gift of the Eucharist in that second the continuation of the first but then there comes the more slippery a little lower dangerous body whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do to me Saul Saul why are you persecuting those why are you persecuting me the third is the mystical body and that's who you and I are that you and I are called to become other Christ's extensions of God's own humanity in the Lord Jesus and that this is true love that Jesus isn't off seated at the right hand of the Father suffering no more know that love continues to suffer and choose us to suffer in the beloved and that's you and I and that's why Paul says I will use my own sufferings to fill up what's lacking in the body of Christ not the body that seated at the right hand of the Father he suffers no more not the Eucharistic body that can't suffer although I've been to some liturgies where it seemed to but the third body is you and I and you and I are not yet home and how we treat each other matters to how we get there and so I want you to think about your extending Christ's own humanity you know what st. Agustin says he says as we grow in holiness we become more like Christ and then he defines heaven he says and in the end there will be one Christ loving himself imagine that there'll be one Christ loving himself you see as you and I grow in holiness we're growing more and more into who were supposed to be why cuz we're made in the image and likeness of God and so the more we become like God the more we become our truest selves now you've all experienced this right you've done something good you've done something Noble and courageous and you come home and you can't wait to tell people you get caught speeding on the way home you dented a car on the way home you don't usually announce it this is why we call sin the fall because sin reduces who we're supposed to be but being in goodness in the Catholic tradition our coextensive being and goodness are synonymous and the more goodness you have the more being you have the more alive you are the more fully human you are sorry you know what you call a one-armed Italian speech impaired it's let's read these two poems Teresa of ávila Christ has no body but yours no hands no feet on earth but yours yours are the eyes when she looks compassion on this world yours are the feet with which he walks to do good yours are the hands which she blesses all the world yours are the hands yours are the feet yours are the eyes you are his body sermon 272 is st. Agustin he says this that the drama of the Eucharist is not only the life of Jesus it's your life too so when you come to receive Holy Communion say amen to who you are for become the body of Christ so your Amen can become true I'll think of that friends mass is not a spectator sport you go to Mass not simply to fulfill an obligation I hope you go to Mass not simply to meet societal expectations although those are waning more and more you go to Mass maybe to have the ritual and the comfort but we go to Mass ultimately to receive the Lord Jesus Christ now Agustin says this but that's who you two are that you are the body of Christ and so when the priest Deacon Eucharistic minner says body of Christ Agustin says say Amen to who you are and then there's this little move which is beautiful the four verbs of the mass Jesus takes bread he blesses it he breaks it and he gives it those four verbs are in every Eucharistic prayer if you don't hear those you're in the wrong Church you you turn into the English and parking lot right but think of it if you're the body of Christ you might want to ask yourself in prayer how have I been taken the fact that you exist the fact that your parents met the fact that you were conceived billions and billions to one God wanted you GK Chesterton says the best your parents could ever do is want a boy or girl only God could want you and the fact that you've been blessed that someone cared enough to baptize you or to show you the faith to convince you of the truths of Catholicism you've been blessed prophet has long to hear to see what you hear and see and then the part we don't normally like that we've all been broken but we've all been broken in that our lives haven't gone perfectly you and I have never done anything perfectly my great Jesuit hero the reason I joined the order father Donald Keefe he said everything he's given God has his nail claws on the side of it all right that we've all been broken but it's only in our brokenness that God can use us and give us a way that the host first has to be divided before it can be distributed and I think there's a great call to holiness there to see that even in our sins even in the places where we have been broken God is using us and that we don't divide our lives into things we think God cares about and is proud of and things we think God is distant from but all things on the face of this earth are given to you to help you attain the end for which you're created and all of that happens because God first became like us look at Paul Claudel a french poet he was a great favorite of john paul ii maybe in your prayer you could hear Jesus say this to you come with me where I am in yourself and I will give you the key to life where I am there eternally is the secret of your origin where are your hands that are not mine and your feet they're not nailed to the same cross I died and rose once for all we are very close to one another how can you separate yourself for me without breaking my heart you see this is ancient Christianity the first homily we have comes from Syria probably written around the Year 120 get delivered by a bishop for sure priests weren't allowed to preach till about the 4th century on Holy Saturday now remember what we believe about Holy Saturday that Christ descended into hell that when he died he went into utter nothingness friends when you and I die our souls are simply separated from our bodies for a while when we die Christ is right there to meet us and I pray that we all here welcome home my good and faithful servant that the death that the father promised was taken on by Christ he became sin and entered hell for us and look at this first homily this is ancient Christianity I want you to bring this home to your pastor and say you start preaching more like this will you Jesus descends in search of our first parents at the sight of the Lord Adam cries the Lord be with you and Christ answers and with your spirit now look at that Adams the priest right Christ is you and I he's the people and with your spirit the Lord then took Adam by the hand and raised him up saying awake Oh sleeper and rise from the dead and I will give you light I am your God who for your sake have become your son out of love for you and your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth all who are sleeping arise i order you Oh sleeper awake I did not create you to be held a prisoner inhale rise up work of my hands you who were created in my image rise let us leave this place for you are in me and I am in you and together we form only one person and we can never again be separated isn't that comforting to know that Christ descends precisely in our hells but it would be a very unloving father to say you know what you keep falling down kid I'm not gonna help you learn to walk I know you're 9 months old but come on your brother was doing this at eight and a half no love longs to descend to the level of the beloved especially where the beloved struggles I've noticed over the years that the cards that all my siblings save of their children or the pictures they have on the refrigerators always have like a backward C or an upside-down e or the giraffe with 12 legs you know it's those imperfections of the child that draws a loving parents heart to him or her that this is how God treats us our sins don't send God away they draw him to earth that God so loved the world he sent His only Son the Christ descends not into heaven he descends into hell because He loves us and he's so assured of his own truth and he's so assured of his own power he says yeah I know you've sinned let me have you right there what happens when Peter catches all the fish he falls on his knees he says away from me I'm a sinful man Luke 5 and Jesus is like yeah you don't think I know that get up right you can kneel all you want later Peter there's work to be done all right but you know where the church has us reactivate and re live this is in the penitential right that when you and I begin public worship the church asks us to stand up in front of our families our children our co-workers neighbors and friends and say I have sinned and now they've upped it I've greatly sinned right that the penitential Rite is the beginning of worship for a Christian why because we admit that we're not yet you and that doesn't drive you away Lord it actually draws you closer but only by confessing my own imperfection and realizing my own brokenness can you finally have me I finally quit to try to impress you with my spiritual CV and say you know what Lord these are all the things I've done he's not impressed look it's a kiyose breed the story of Zacchaeus Lord I'll give you four overtimes if I've heard anybody Jesus yeah thanks I just want to come and stay at your house today you don't have to impress me you don't have to try to win my love I simply want to be with you and that's precisely what the penitential act is about that we admit that Christ loves us not despite our sins but even because of them see our sins move us further from God they don't push him away what we do to God is say you know what I don't need you and think of the first sin that Satan got us to believe Genesis 3:5 you will be like gods the church father saw very cleverly in this that's the only thing Satan could have used to tempt us but on the natural level we had everything perfectly that's what Eden represents you know Satan couldn't have said hey follow me and I'll give you I'll give you a softer softer skin and nicer teeth you know tastier Kiwi and faster cheetah we'd said no we have everything perfectly but what he knew a fallen angel he knew that were made in the image and likeness of God he knew were made to become like God and that's the one thing he could have used to tempt us and how often in my life I see my own sins that way right I become a god to myself when I'm driving 95 miles an hour down the roads because I'm in a hurry and I got a really good reason when that idiot does it all right when I take a phone call on the train it's because it's important I'll be quiet when that guy does it come on all of our sins what we do is we elevate ourselves into a God of Independence a God who is apart from but see the Christian God is a God of participation a God of dependence a God of vulnerability a God who allows himself not only to fall asleep in front of us and weep over his hometown a God who actually dies publicly for us so when we profess the Creed let us keep this in mind when we go to mass let us keep this in mind this isn't just the story of Jesus this is the story of Jesus's own body that you and I are look at the next quote from the Creed I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God born of the father before all ages God from God light from light true God from True God begotten not made consubstantial with the father now why did the church fathers at the Council of Nicaea Athanasius and particularly put this in there are two ways to be a child of God there's one who's begotten just as you begat human children the father begot eternally a divine son but then there are some who are made children of God and that's who you and I are wouldn't our lives change if we really believe that I have three sisters all who have adopted children and if you went into any of their homes you couldn't tell they're naturally born children from their adopted children the african-american and the Korean would probably give it away a bit but see there's nothing those children did to become part of that family it was the love of their parents that elevated them into the same family and this is the beautiful news about being a Christian we don't have to do anything God has done it for us that he adopts us that he makes us like himself and if my sister's can love adopted children and the my sisters are wicked how much more is this being recorded how much more does God the Father not discriminate between his naturally born child and his adopted children wouldn't our lives changed if we really believed that even though the DNA might be different between Jesus Christ and us that the Father loves us the same that the father wants to lavish consolation upon us the father wants to if I can say make us obedient and loving and docile in his hands but the father loves you just as much as he loves the son he loves you just as much as he loves mother Mary the difference of course is from the moment of her conception she allowed herself to be loved 100% me on a good day I left about two and a half percent it's our turning away from God in our fear in our insecurities in our desire to beat ourselves up by our sins that doesn't allow God's infinite perfect love to penetrate us so for the final quote it's hard to have one of these about some CS Lewis there are no ordinary people oh wait we got to talk about the offer I got two minutes we got to talk about the Our Father I just want to take you through the mass because I know you do this every day if not on Sundays think of those two words that Jesus left us our Father and now in the new translation we say I dare to say it's daring to say you're a child of God because those two words on the natural level are not true are they none of us in here say our who and here at home uses the Royal we you know we would like some coffee down here honey no you get slapped all right but as a Christian as a Christian nothing you do doesn't affect the rest of the mystical body every time you pray you pray our and I tell you friends loneliness is one of the greatest deceptions of the devil he wants to tell you you're alone he wants to tell you don't matter he wants to tell you that nobody would lay his life down for you our and father on the natural level our fathers are Joe and gene and Sam and Frank but on a supernatural level our Father is now the first person to the Trinity the begetter the same father of Jesus Christ think about that every time you say the Our Father what you're doing is praying as a child of God you know at Mass you don't pray to the Spirit of Jesus do you you pray through Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit why because when we gather at Mass we're praying to the Father as his children the mass is really the deifying machine that makes us the children of God that's why we can cry out Abba we're praying not to Jesus but almost as Jesus final quote we have to do it in 51 seconds there are no ordinary people you have never talked to a mere mortal nations cultures arts civilization these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat but it is immortals whom we joke with work with merry snub and exploit immortal horrors or everlasting splendors next to the Blessed Sacrament itself your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses friends if you can see Jesus under bread and wine how much more should you be able to see him under human flesh and blood that the Eucharist is somewhat safe doesn't challenge us doesn't wake us up at 2:00 in the morning with a runny nose does use the car but part of becoming a holy Catholic is recognizing Christ in the mystical body and it begins here admitting that you've been adopted and the Christ has become like you so you can become like him I offer some books one of them is a shameless plug on my own but blessings on you and thank you for taking your spiritual lives so serious you

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 9,502

Rating: 4.884058 out of 5

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization

Id: XRvMf-lLVV8

Length: 51min 57sec (3117 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 19 2014