Monday 6 January 2014

Dr. Timothy Gray & Dr. Scott Hahn

Walk the Walk by Dr. Timothy Gray
Jn 8:31
You are My disciple if you abide in My Word.
The truth shall set you free.
Jesus' Name effects what it signifies always.
Jesus means Yahweh says.
Jesus' saving presence becomes real.
Call on the name of JC.
Evokes the presence it signifies
You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain.
Jewish tradition: You couldn't say Yahweh unless you're a priest.
Wherever 2 or 3 are gathered in My Name, there I Am.
Jesus means Jesus the Christ.
Christ means The Anointed One, a title, not a surname.
mission: to be the Messiah, King
The Anointed One was the King of Israel.
Jesus the Christ means Jesus the King.
Is Jesus King in your heart & life?
sovereign over you
77% of Americans identify themselves as Christians, 4 out of 5.
self-identify, not lived
Christianity as an idea is easy, but as a way of life & discipline is different.
It takes deeds to be a disciple.
Act on thoughts, beliefs.
rampant abortion, porn: pretense, phony
Match deeds with identity to be authentic and true.
Acts of the apostles: call Christians the way, a way of life
disciple of a rabbi: follow so closely, covered with dust
dry climate in Israel
Follow your rabbi wherever he goes, imitate his teachings, actions.
following His leading
Americans better to lead than to follow
To be a Christian is following Christ.
Lk 22:54
Peter followed at a distance.
1st duty of a disciple: to be with JC
Denial is always preceded by a distance.
Following at a distance is dangerous.
At Your Word, Lord, I will let down the net: huge catch
Peter: Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.
afraid to be close to JC
Following JC will make demands from me: St. Augustine
God, give me chastity, but not yet, giving up the gf he had that was his concubine.
great challenge: Trusting that God's way is enough.
coming to know the love of God: deep, profound love, happiness & peace
Discipleship is a dangerous & risky business.
JC: Do not be afraid.
Our identity can't be locked in with our earthly identity.
son of God: can't be shaken to the core
unshaken kingdom: vision
Peter wept bitterly.
caught 153 fishes
JC made a charcoal fire.
JC gives 2nd chances.
forgiveness that changes us: sorrows for sin, not pride
Only love can re-fashion our hearts.
Knowledge w/o love is cold.
The only way to re-fashion iron is heat.
Late have I loved thee, O beauty...
Knowledge of JC is the mold.
We need learning of JC & love together: like body & soul.
easier to learn than do
put the 2 together
JC is a rabbi: Sermon on the Mount, parables, constantly teaching
disciple (Grk): a learner, sitting in JC's feet learning, abide with love
Love makes the burden light.
Love is what will change disciples.
Love is the key to discipleship.
Love is what brings the disciples to JC.
JC is the Key.
Is 43:18-19
Remember not the former things, consider not the things of old.
Peter holds on to his past, makes him prisoner to his present, not open to God doing things for him.
New evangelization is what JC does.
He is the Actor.
We simply have to follow.
Your sins are forgiven.
hardness of heart. the failure to see God's action in our lives
The key to discipleship is obedience, faith, trust.
changed by falling in love with JC and trusting His Word
faith followed by obedience
The Call of Discipleship
some place in our lives not submitting to God's will: hard to trust
Where am I not being a true disciple?
Call to trust in JC.
Walk in newness of life.
Deeds will match identity.
Jer 23:29
His Word may smash the hardest of rocks.

On New Evangelization by Dr. Scott Hahn
2012: Theme of New Evangelization
themes: Eucharist-Bible-NE
The NE is not that new.
Year of Faith 2011, 50th anniv of Vatican II
Vatican I: evangelium used only once
Pope Paul VI
Evangelization: the Church's deepest identity, she exists to evangelize
Paschal mystery: the heart of the Gospel
1992: NE launched, 500th yr of founding of USA
Italy, Spain, France: populous Catholic countries before
Brazil, Mexico, US: now the most populous Catholic countries in the world
90s: the advent season of the NE
advent: 4 wks out of 52
not a short-term project, but a long-term commitment
NE: not just for clergy but for lay people, everybody
primary goal: re-evangelizing the de-Christianized people
evangelization of culture
recognize the culture of death
a culture of life: recognize the dignity of human life, sanctity of marriage
The Eucharist should be the source of NE.
Word & Sacrament are inseparable: mutual relationship
All evangelizers proclaim who JC is.
Catholic evangelizers proclaim the Eucharist.
4 spiritual laws:
1. God loves you
2. You sin.
3. JC died for your sins.
4. You must choose to believe.
How can Catholic evangelization be intensely Eucharistic?
Evangelization does not begin with personal relationship.
goal: a covenental relationship, commitment, takes time
what the Eucharist represents

Sunday 5 January 2014

Fr. Robert Barron

Following the Call of Christ by Fr. Robert Barron
Reverence the Sacred Scripture as we reverence every particle of the Host.
Bible: every detail matters
Jericho: the city of sin, violence, separation
stands for the false way of ordering things
blindness: great symbol of the fallen line, don't see right
To be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.
adjusting vision to JC's vision
see the world as JC does
beggar: Bartimaeus
In sin, we lost holiness: integration of self, fallen apart, mind VS will, lost integrity
compelled to beg like Bartimaeus
The key is you can't save yourself.
Sin is like an addiction, deadly sins.
We can't will ourselves out of it, beg: every liturgy.
eleison mei: Have pity on me
curiae eleison
Cristi eleison: Lord, have mercy on me.
Have the humility to beg.
When you start begging, don't expect for help from the society.
spiritual game: asking for the Lord to have mercy
Expect opposition from the greater society.
Bartimaeus: he keeps begging, asking
JC loved that.
JC stood still (Gospel of Mark): Call him here.
JC is the still point, anchor, center, ground.
JC stood still & they kept coming at Him at all sides: acting like magnet to call the people to Him.
callaod: to call, root of ecclesia, the Church
summoned into communion with Him
It's not a matter of me & JC. I've been called into communion with Him. The Church matters.
Throwing off his cloak: baptism symbol, old person, old way of being, process of conversion
baptized naked
come up & put a white garment: newness of life
Change of your life
center around the ego & preoccupations
To be a convert is to have the lightness of being, soul.
How come the angels can fly: Bec they take themselves so lightly.
We're meant for flight: fullness of reality, God's love
Bartimaeus: throw off the ego, jump up lightly
JC: What do you want me to do for you? a searching question
cuts down to the bottom of the soul
St. Thomas Aquinas: wrote a treatise before he died
JC: What would you have as a reward?
Nil nici tae: Nothing except You.
Bartimaeus: Lord, I wanna see. (physical sight)
I want to see the world of right, see things as they are, all things connected to each other in & to God.
JC: Be on your way, your faith has healed you.
Faith means trust in the basic Biblical sense.
Leave the confines of the small soul.
Restore physical sight.
how the story ends: He followed Him up the road, going to the Cross, complete self-emptying love.
All stories of conversion ends: where someone knows where to go
the ultimate direction
walk behind JC as He goes to the place of self-emptying love.
joyful life: make of it a gift
The Story of the Woman at the Well: story of conversion
Gospel of John
Samaritans: half-breeds, not respectable
JC likes sinners, goes thru the land of sin.
well: marriage
Wells in OT always associated with marriage (e.g. Isaac, Moses daughters of Jethro, Jacob spies Rachel).
JC is the marriage of Heaven & earth (humanity).
comes as a Bridegroom looking for His bride
tired out from His journey from Heaven to earth: incarnation
God enters into our condition fully: except sin
willingness to be a friend of sinners
Nicodemus came at night
night: symbolizes lack of vision, revelation
high noon: a lot of light going on
The Bridegroom is waiting by the well.
The Samaritan woman stands for us, the Church.
Give me a drink: revolution.
theme of our thirst for God: common
God in one sense is also thirsty for us, thirsty to be married to us.
woman: triple outsider, woman, Samaritan (no good for a Jew), alone at noon
women don't do that, women came together, early am or pm, an outcast, shady figure
just the kind of person JC loves: triple outsider
JC wants to marry us, after us.
If you knew the gift of God, you would've asked Him & He would've given you water.
God is the one who gives.
God is perfect, needs nothing.
The world exists: given to us in love.
The greatest gift of God: His own Son.
you would've asked Him for living water
We receive what God gives, immediately give it away, don't cling to it (e.g. prodigal son: loses money).
If you cling to what God gives you, you will lose it.
Give it away.
Catch the divine life on the fly.
life of grace, life of God in you.
the more you do it (give God's life), the more you get.
St. Augustine: the well of life
well: concupiscent desire, break from it
All of us were made for God, wired for Him, infinite desire.
replace desire with worldly thing: got a lil buzz from it, but wears off, can't satisfy me, get more (pick your poison: wealth, sex, power)
Caught in a rhythm of addictive desire
drink & unsatisfied
give away to get more
Go call your husband & come back.
husband: governs, leads your life
Tell me who is it who's running your life.
You've been looking around in a lot of bad places for the governor of your life.
led around by a lot of people
JC proposing marriage in the well
I want to be the Lord of your life.
applies to all baptized person:  Lord, You be the governor of my life.
Your will in me
I wanna be your Husband.
True worshipers (adore God) will worship the Father in spirit & in truth.
adoration (ad oratio): to the mouth of
drawing in God's Spirit
worship: you draw it in, you give it away
adoration: receive the Holy Spirit
The Messiah will tell us everything, reveal the pattern to us.
She wants to tell the world about JC.
Evangelization begins in conversion.
Jonah: one of the funniest bks in the Bible.
basic steps of spiritual conversion
We are a called people, from outside self
ideal for Plato, et al: the self-directed life
We are a summoned people.
There is a power w/in you.
Stop relying on your own will, surrender.
Jonah: Go preach! prophet (e.g. lawyer = justice)
God is justice itself, God working thru you, passive.
writer, critic: Allow the truth to seize you, motivation.
God after all is the Truth itself.
Place own will in the passive voice.
doctor, nurse: allow love, concern to others to seize you.
God is Love itself.
All of us are called, have a mission.
artist: the desire to make beautiful things
respond to God's call
John Henry Neumann: We're all been called & made for a definite purpose, pearl of great price
Jonah: went west by sea to Tarshish (like Timbaktu), God wants him to go east by boat, far western end of the Mediterranean
go far away as he possibly could
saints: respond fully to that call
sinners: hop on boat to Tarshish, move to an opposite direction
Love means giving oneself away.
fall asleep: bad sign in the Bible, unaware, oblivious (e.g. Gethsemane)
Biblical people: afraid of the sea (ancient writings)
Jonah's resistance caused the storm
When we resist our call, trouble for everybody, difficulty.
We are all connected.
In Your will is my peace. - Dante
Our choices (consequences) affect everybody around us.
God is the sheer act of being.
Ps 139: a sinner's lament
Where can I run from Your love?
Our wills when resistant to God need to be swallowed up by the divine will.
Joseph: so full of himself (dream): obnoxious
falsely accused, sent to prison for 7 yrs: tested, tried
emerged from that experience, became the greatest in Egypt
needed to be swallowed & disciplined to be ready to do God's will
Moses: life in order
need to be swallowed up for a time: desert, a common shepherd
How do we read the times when we feel swallowed up by the whale?: darkness, despair, unfulfilled plans
dumb suffer or the discipline of God
swallowing of our wills
Jonah praised from the belly of the whale.
efficacious prayer
The darkest, driest periods of our lives: the vehicles of God to send us to where He wants us to be
from the king to the cattle repented
When we start cooperating with God, miraculous things happen.
Mission & person are tightly linked.
You know who you are when you find your mission.
change their names when they get their mission
When the call comes, listen to it, and then you find out who you are.

Friday 3 January 2014

Fr. Robert Barron

Reaching Out to Today's Culture by Fr. Robert Barron
his global media ministry: wordonfire.org
God: the sheer act of to be itself thru whom all finite beings act upon
You can't find God by looking among the beings of the world (phy or che evidence)
metaphysical reasoning
argument of contingency
I am who am: not a categorizal being.
You can approach God intellectually.
Introduction to Christianity (1968) by Josef Ratzinger
Any science: being can be known, is intelligent.
fought in being by a primordial being
The world was intelligently there.
All things came to be through that Word.
Vatican II: Bible is the Word of God.
Biblical interpretation
words of men
inspired by the Word of God coming thru the word of man
one great Author: God
one great theme: salvation
Bible: a collection of books, like a library, a wide variety of genre
philosophy: a way of knowing, prepares us for theology
science: The world is not divine. The world is intelligible.
Religion is the matrix in which other sciences come.
stone: the finality of death
Death is final, absolute, the end.
grieve when somebody dies: a stone rolled across
Vatican II: missionary council
The Church is meant to transform the world.
parallel between the Gospel of John & the Book of Genesis
JC is the Light that no darkness can overcome. 
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