Catholic 101: A bit of theology

A continuation of the Catholic 101 series

Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam

 One of the first things we teach the kids is a bit of theology. I know, you're thinking that it's all theology, right? Well right, but this is a bit different. 

We teach kids about the qualities of God--omnipresence (he's everywhere), omnipotence (he's all-powerful), and omniscient (he knows everything).  There are other qualities of God, obviously, but this where we start. 

The next thing we talk about is the hierarchy of creation. This is important, and I've found a lot of adults have missed this in their education. So, here we go!

Draw a set of stairs, or imagine one. At the top of the staircase is God. Each step up indicates that the created thing is "closer" to God, and more like him. 

We start with "dead" things--things that can't grow, things that can't think, things that can't feel. My computer, for example. The table the computer is currently sitting on, or my cup of coffee, or a piece of wood. 

The next step are things that are alive, but don't think. Plants, for example. The rose bush outside grows, and dies, and blooms again, but it doesn't think about this. The rose bush doesn't have higher thoughts. Roses don't have feelings. They don't get all huffy if you walk by them and don't acknowledge them. Grass doesn't have feelings when it's cut, and an ocean doesn't think about the number of people swimming in it. 

The third step are things that thing and feel--but don't have free will. Animals. You can hurt an animal, for sure. Animals think. But animals also work a lot on instinct. A lioness on the savannah isn't thinking about the feelings of the animal she's hunting. She's not thinking that the wildebeest or whatever might have a family. She's thinking about feeding herself and her pride. So, she hunts. Jellyfish sting. Cats eat mice. And on and on. They do what they have to do to survive. 

Now, certain animals, like cats and dogs, are domesticated (for the most part, although they are still animals). Fluffy  and Fido make excellent companions for a lot of people. And the fact that they don't have free will--or that plants and other natural things don't think--doesn't mean we can abuse them. God created them, and we have to demonstrate good stewardship. As the crown of creation, we have a duty to take care of everything God has given us. 

But--animals are not people. I feel the need to point this out. (Strangely, I've never had a kid ask if their dead pets are in heaven.) 

Finally, we have people: we have free will, and we are created in the Image and Likeness of God.  We "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12). We are not angels (even when we die, guys!) , and we're not God. But we are created in his image and likeness. 

Catholic 101: Lent

Yes, it's that time again--Lent! Time to think about what to give up, what you're going to eat on Fridays, and things like that. 

I did a weeklong series on Lent a few years ago, and you can read it here. I cover fasting, prayer, alms giving, stations of the cross, and more. Think of it as a basic Lent primer in seven parts. 

Here is Pope Francis' Lenten message for 2016. Since it's the Year of Mercy, going to confession at least once before Easter should be on our list of Lenten musts.  

And of course, Restore! If you haven't registered yet, there's still time to do so. All the details are here.  

Later this week I'll have my Lenten book post up, if you're looking for reading suggestions.  

Catholic 101: Let's Talk About Prayer

What is prayer? Why should we do it? Do we need to do it? Can't God just read our minds? 

Do I really have to? 

In order: 

1. Prayer is talking to God. that's it. 
2. Because if you want to get to know anyone, you have to talk to them. How close are you going to get to God (who MADE YOU) if you never talk to Him? 
3. Yes. 
4. Well, yes. But that doesn't mean that we don't ask Him for what we want--Jesus did tell us to, after all. (Mt. 7:7)
5. YES. 

Let's look at it as a matter of justice: God created us because He loves us. We are created to know, love, and serve God in this world and be happy with him forever in the next. 

We cannot know, love, or serve God if we don't talk to Him. (Which, as we see, is what prayer is.)

There are lots of different kinds of prayer: mental, vocal, etc. You can start where you feel most comfortable. You can use the prayers of the Church (Our Father, Hail Mary, the creeds, etc.), or you can use your own words. You can pray the rosary (an excellent idea, I might add--we'll talk more about this later). 

There are four different "types" of prayer: 

1. Intercessory: where we pray for other people, asking for what they need ("Dear Lord, please keep Joe safe as he drives 3,000 miles", "Please help Ben pass his test today.") 
2. Petition: Where we pray for ourselves, asking for what we need. (Or think we need--that's why it's generally a good idea to add "if it be for my good" at the end of prayers for yourself and others, for a lot of things.)
3. Praise and adoration: Prayer that praises God
4. Thanksgiving: Prayer that thanks God for what he has given us. 

You can pray anywhere, anytime. 

Most beginners start with vocal prayer--that's the type we're most familiar with. But there's also mental prayer and prayer of contemplation. That's a bit beyond our purposes, here, though. The Mass, also, is a prayer--one big prayer!

Prayer is boring! --that's a common objection. 

Well, OK. It might be. Sure. But lots of things are boring at first. Everything is boring when you're first learning it, really. When I started to learn the clarinet, I played pages of Gs and As. That's really boring. When you start ballet class, it's with a plie, which is deceptively simple. Anything worth doing is worth spending some time being "bored", or working on the fundamentals.

It doesn't really matter how you start. Just start. One of my favorite books for this is Prayer Primer, by Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M, and the follow up, Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer. 

Do you have a favorite type of prayer? Or do you struggle with prayer, and are looking for ways to jumpstart your prayer life? 

Catholic 101: The Christmas Story (Or: Why was Jesus born, anyway?)

Since it's the Monday after Christmas, I thought we'd take a brief tour of salvation history today.

Sound fun? 

(And yeah, I do mean brief. We're not going to spend 40 years with the Israelites, today.) 

Barocci, "The Nativity" 

In short: Jesus didn't need to be born. Until humans screwed things up. 

When God created Adam and Eve, everything was perfect. Adam and Eve were in a state of grace--and they would never die, either, when God first created them. 

Then...they ate that fruit. And things changed. 

As Milton says: 

Of Man's first disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, 

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the Blissful seat.

--Paradise Lost, Book 1, 1-5 

"God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so that all who believe in him might not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

Jesus was born to Mary, in a stable in Bethlehem, so he could die for us, and redeem us. 

We celebrate Christmas because it's the birthday of Christ--it's the beginning of our redemption, it's the Incarnation--God made man, Emanuel (God with us). But in order for us to be redeemed, Jesus has to die. He can't just come and be born. Mary knows that when she presents the baby Jesus in the temple and Simeon tells her a sword shall pierce her heart. The cross is always there.

But at Christmas, we celebrate the birth of that perfect child, the God-man, who has come and taken on human flesh out of sheer love for us. 

Christmas, really, is all about love. 

Catholic 101: Advent feasts, memorials, and solemnities

Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. 

Even though Advent is a preparatory season, there's still a lot of important dates on the Catholic calendar leading up to Christmas: 

November 30: St. Andrew: The feast day of one of the first apostles, and Simon Peter's brother. This is the day to start the Christmas novena--say the prayer 15 times every day from now until Christmas Day. I love this novena. It's a wonderful way to prepare for Christmas! 

St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland, and was crucified in an X shape; hence the Saltire flag of Scotland, which depicts a white X over a blue background. 

December 8: The Immaculate Conception (the patronal feast day of the United States, and a Holy Day of Obligation for all U.S. Catholics). No, this does not refer to Jesus. The Immaculate Conception (declared as dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854), according to Ineffabilis Deus (Pope Pius IX's apostolic constitution): 

 holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.[5]

So, yes, Catholics have to believe in the Immaculate Conception. In short, and in English, it means that Mary was, from the moment of her conception, free of original sin. Jesus, being God, didn't have original sin when he was born, but Mary, being human, would have, in the ordinary course of events. But God preserved her from it, and she never sinned in her entire life. Did she have free will? Yes. Is she a goddess? No. She was a human being, but a very special one. 

Coincidentally, this became an important point the apparitions at Lourdes--when Bernadette asked who the Lady appearing to her was, she said, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Bernadette had no idea what that meant, being a poor, pretty uneducated peasant girl from rural France--she had no idea that Pope Pius IX had declared this dogma four years earlier. Thus, when she told her parish priest what the Lady had said, it served as confirmation that Bernadette must be seeing omething out of the ordinary, because there's no way she'd have heard that term. 

From Bernadette's testimony: 

"I went every day [to the grotto] for a fortnight, and each day I asked her who she was–and this petition always made her smile. After the fortnight I asked her three times consecutively. She always smiled. At last I tried for the fourth time. She stopped smiling. With her arms down, she raised her eyes to heaven and then, folding her hands over her breast she said, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' Then I went back to M. le Curé to tell him that she had said she was the Immaculate Conception, and he asked was I absolutely certain. I said yes, and so as not to forget the words, I had repeated them all the way home.

December 9: St. Juan Diego, who saw Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

December 12: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Detail of Our Lady of Guadalupe mosaic--Dominican St. Martin des Porres is second from right

Mary appeared to Juan Diego four times, beginning December 9, 1531, at Tepeyac. She spoke in Juan Diego's native language and asked that a church be built on that site in her honor. When he went to the local bishop, he (like most bishops and priests in these accounts) asked for a sign. On December 12, Juan Diego saw Castellian roses at the foot of Tepeyac, which weren't indigenous to the region. He filled his cloak (ilma) with the roses, and presented them to the bishop. However, the roses weren't the only miraculous thing--the interior of the tilma was imprinted with a picture of the Lady as she appeared to Juan Diego. (For technical information about the image on the tilma, see this Wikipedia article.) 

the original tilma in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City, Mexico. The basilica is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, and the world's third-most visited sacred site. 

She is much loved by the Mexican people, especially indigenous Mexicans, and in the Southwestern part of the United States.  

December 13: St. Lucy/Lucia. An Italian saint dearly loved by Scandinavians. It's customary to make St. Lucia buns on this day. YUM! :) St. Lucy was a roman martyr who brought food to the people imprisoned in the catacombs, wearing a crown interspersed with candles to light her way down the dark passageways. 

December 14: St. John of the Cross, Carmelite. 

December 17: The O Antiphons start. You probably know these as the verses to "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". 

December 25: Christmas Day--start of the Christmas season. Immediately after Christmas, we have a few great feasts, so I'll put them in here. 

December 26: Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr

December 27: Feast of St. John, the "disciple whom Jesus loved", apostle, and writer of the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. He is the only apostle to have died a natural death. 

December 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents--the babies Herod the King killed as he tried to find the "newborn king of the Jews". The Coventry Carol memorializes this event, as well. 

December 29: Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr; born in London in 1118, he became chancellor to the King of England, but was exiled by Henry II, in response to his defense of the rights of the church against the state. After returning to England, he was murdered in 1170 in Canterbury Cathedral, (site of the pilgrims' destination in The Canterbury Tales, by the way.) 

Sunday After Christmas:  The Feast of the Holy Family--Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. 

January 1: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and a Holy Day of Obligation in the United States. 

Catholic 101: Why did God Make Us?

This is the first chapter in the book we use in first grade, and it's the first question we ask the kids. 

We usually get some pretty random answers, but "love" always figures in. And that's true. 

The official answer?

God created me to know him, love him, and serve him in this world, and be happy with him forever in the next.

That's it. That's why God made you. 

He made you to know him: to realize He is God; to know about His Son, Jesus, and His work of Salvation; to know Him in his church and in His sacraments. 

To love him: To pray to him, to give him the devotion he is due, to follow his commandments. 

To serve him: To "be his body", as St. Terese of Avila wrote. To serve our neighbors, to demonstrate Christ's love to the world, and to do the work he gives us to do well and cheerfully. 

That's the basics. 

Be happy with him forever in the next: To live with him in Heaven forever. 

Our goal in life? To be saints. (Everyone in Heaven is a saint. Side note: dead people are NOT ANGELS. If they are in Heaven, they're saints. ANGELS ARE DIFFERENT!) 

We get to be saints by knowing, loving, and serving God. 

All of the Church's doctrines, sacraments, rites, rituals, ceremonies, and hierarchy as designed to help us achieve this goal. 

Catholicism 101: The Liturgical Year and Advent

In the Catholic Church, the new year starts on the First Sunday of Advent--this is the year we change reading cycles and when the circular liturgical calendar starts anew. (A "reading cycle" is one of the three Sunday cycles of readings--A, B, or C. Year A focuses on the Gospel of Matthew, Year B on the Gospel of Mark, and Year C on the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of John is sprinkled throughout all the cycles, and is always the Gospel for Good Friday, for example. The daily lectionary [for daily Mass] goes on a two year cycle.) 

The seasons of the Liturgical Year are: 

1. Advent
2. Christmastime
3. Ordinary Time
4. Lent
5. The Triddum-- Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday
6. Easter
7. Ordinary Time
8. Advent 

Each season has its particular colors and emphases. Advent, for example, has a penitential flavor, but it's not as severe in Lent--it's more a sense of preparing joyfully for the coming of Christ in the Incarnation. What can we do to make ourselves ready for His appearance? Lent has more of the penance we think of as penance--being sorry for our sins, giving things up, etc. Advent's penance is slightly different, even though both seasons are purple in liturgical color, and purple stands for penance in church parlance. 

The four weeks of Advent  are broken into three "purple" and one "rose" week--the rose vestments and candles are to remind us to "rejoice" as St. Paul tells us in the second reading of the Third Sunday of Advent. It's called "Gaudete" (rejoice!) Sunday. ("Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again: rejoice!") 

In Advent, we focus on preparing ourselves for both Jesus' first coming--in the Nativity--and his Second coming at the end of the world. How can we live Advent well? There are tons of books written about that. But a key thing is to remember that it is a time of preparation--it's NOT Christmas. The tree shouldn't go up on Dec. 1 and come down on the 26th. The Christmas season, in the Church, lasts from Christmas Day until at least the Baptism of the Lord in January--and in some churches, like mine, the old traditions are upheld, where there are forty days of Christmas, ending on Candlemas (Feb. 2), which is when our parish creche is put away. I love this tradition and I've adopted it in my own house. But however long you celebrate Christmas, remember that Advent and Christmas are two distinct seasons. 

Daybook No. 113

Outside my window::

Grey and cloudy. This is helped by my tree, which is glowing in the corner, and the Joy candle I have lit on my counter. I don't mind rainy days and this is a good day to get things done after the holiday weekend. SO much goodness happened, which I'll be writing about below--but suffice to say, I don't mind a rainy day today!

Wearing::

a Pure Barre sweatshirt, Athleta workout capris, and....flats. Yeah. This outfit is AWESOME, right? :) I'm going to be working out shortly, and since I'm hanging out around the house, does it matter what I wear? Well, OK, probably. But  don't care. :) 

In the CD player::

Renee Fleming's Christmas in New York, alternating with Part I of Messiah. And yes, Adele 25 is sitting on my counter, waiting to be heard.

Reading::

Cinder (again), and my crazy stack of Advent devotionals: 

Come, Lord Jesus is my FAVORITE devotional for this time of year. SO much wisdom, so much to pray about. 

Writing::

NaNo is over and I'm not even going to ouch Tempest until January. It is, though, tentatively the first book of a trilogy, so I've done some note taking and brief preliminary planning about those two books. I'm not pressuring myself to write anything substantial in those for awhile, and I'm sort of afraid to until I do Tempest edits. Suffice to say I have a vague idea of the content of those books, but that's all it is right now--a vague idea.

Also working on the new Catholicism series I talked about yesterday.  While I teach first graders, don't think I'm going to use first grade vocabulary and write like you are first graders, lovely readers. We'll use "big people" words and concepts. 

Tidying Up: 

I think I have just about reached the "click point" the book talk about--where you know how much of a thing you need. and you enjoy having. There are a few more books and movies that can go (this is like the fourth round of purging in that area), but I think I'm at the point of saturation. Yay! I didn't think I'd get here when I first started, to be honest. 

The second part of the book talks about finding places for everything. This is another hard thing for me because I have things that I need (like, Duct Tape), but where does it go? (It's too big for the junk drawer, it doesn't fit in the tool box, etc.) So that's what I'll be working on next. 

Since I've decorated for Christmas, there is some chaos around here, because I have to move furniture to put up my tree. But it's all good. 

Thanksgiving::

I had a great holiday. Did you? I hope you did. Thanksgiving day was in the high sixties here, so we got to hang out on the deck and enjoy the warmth before dinner!

And yes, that's my sister, who came up from Houston to surprise me! She's here until tomorrow. We've had a LOT of fun while she's been here--she helped me decorate my tree, we went to the Penguins/Jackets game with our brother, and we all (us siblings) had a great meal last night at The Barn, one of our favorite local restaurants. Since Mel lives in Texas now, I don't get to see her nearly as often as I used to, and it's always fun when she comes up! 

I also had a great day with my friend Sarah (who made that GORGEOUS wreath two photos up). We had lunch and talked on a rainy Saturday while her husband watched the OSU/Michigan game with some of our friends. She's another friend I almost never get to see, and not nearly as much as I'd like. 

What was the best part of your Thanksgiving Weekend? 

Happy New Year! And a New Series

Happy new year, guys!

No, I don't have my months wrong. First Sunday of Advent=Church New Year. 

Advent is here-Jesus is coming. That's a good reason to be happy, right? (And Stuffing Leftovers.)

Since it's a new Church Year, I'm going to kick off a new series, starting next Monday. 

As regular readers know, I teach first grade CCD. You would think that most adult Catholics would know the stuff I teach at that level. But I'm surprised to hear, when I talk about the stuff I teach, that a lot of Catholics have no idea. They can't define "grace", or what a virtue is. (They can name virtues, but they aren't really sure what a virtue is.) They don't know how the 12 apostles died. (That's actually pretty cool.) The big things, yeah, they know that. But the things that really make Catholicism beautiful? Sometimes they're missing that. 

So I've decided to, every Monday, go through my class lesson plan, and do a post about what we teach the kids about a certain topic. We cover a lot in first grade--all the sacraments, the life of Jesus, the liturgical year, the 12 apostles, the 10 commandments, the beatitudes, saints, some Old Testament, etc. I'll go a little out of order at first and start with Advent and the Liturgical Year next week, because that's where we are. 

I know I'm continually amazed by what the kids ask, and what I learn teaching them. I hope you enjoy it, too!