Vocation comes from “vocatus” which means a summoning. All people are summoned to share in divine life. Grace, divine life, is already at work in everyone’s lives constantly calling us to a deeper participation. The key is learning to perceive the subtle action of grace and discerning where it is inviting us to go. Believers act upon their own call and spread the good news of the self-gift of God by the example of their living. Each person has their own particular way of living out their meaningful commitments. The ways people find their full potential are many. This call to holiness, which is a call to wholeness, can be as single or married, a member of a religious community or part of the civil community. Some people are called by God to be laity while others are summoned to be ordained for service to the Church. Coming to know our proper state in life is a striving for holiness and relies on cultivating our own self-awakening and recognition of our own gifts.
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For much of the Church's history most ordinary people were illiterate. The primary way the stories of the faith were communicated to people was through the celebration of the Sacraments, religious festivals, plays, and the arts. Art depicts spiritual experiences in way that people of all ages can access. Christ was incarnate and became of part of the physical world. The Church has long supported the arts and has utilized art in her worship and in her worship places. The team guided a tour of the Detroit Institute of the Arts to give a deeper appreciation of Catholic culture and aide in the transmission of the Faith. Many of the works displayed were once used in the Mass or were part of worship places. We can still encounter the beauty of the truth represented in them.
The Mass has two main parts; the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. During the liturgy of the Word (formerly called, "The Mass of the Catechumens") the scriptures are proclaimed and then broken open. During the Liturgy of the Eucharist the bread is blessed and broken and the Christ is made present in the wine and bread which become his body. This is an encounter with the Risen Lord. The Church's understanding of the Eucharist is explained in four main New Testament writings; Paul's Letter (1 Cor 11), The Last Supper (Mk 14), The Road to Emmaus (Lk 24) and the Bread of Life Discourse (Jn 6). The Eucharist is a celebration by the christian community of the real presence of the risen Lord in their gathering and communal meal. It is a sacrament or sign of the presence of the risen Lord to the community of believers.
We believe that God is present in the world and near to his creation. However, the presence of God is a mystery. As a mystery it can never be perfectly and totally explained. As the ocean cannot fit into a hole dug by a boy on the beach, neither can we fit all of God's reality into our minds. The ordinary things and events of life hint at God's nearness; be it food, water, human relationships, touch, beauty. We find that we are unfinished and God is constantly calling us into being and toward completion.
God reveals himself to people through their religious experiences. We encounter God in various ways: ritual, nature, art, friendship. Often we want to share our experiences with other people. The authors had a religious experience which lead to a sharing and by this sharing the authors sought to create that religious experience in others. Over time, what began as oral traditions became a written tradition.
The stories and songs that inspired the ancient Israelites were first collected and written down during the reign of King Solomon, in the 9th century BC. Over the course of many centuries, others revised and expanded on this tradition, creating an anthology sacred writings. The contributors were many different people, writing for many different reasons, and in many different styles. The scriptures known as the Old Testament are very much like a patchwork quilt, stitched together by a skilled hand. The New Testament developed in a similar way over a shorter period of time, approximately 50 years. The earliest of these are the letters of an early missionary; next to be written were the Gospels, beginning with Mark, and followed by Matthew, Luke, and John. John is very different from the other three Gospels in both style and content. It wasn’t until the 16th century, as the Church responded to the Reformation, that the Church finally settled on a definitive list which books we call “the canon” or the Bible. As we read the Bible, we should always keep a few principles in mind. 1) Seek to understand the historical context in which a text was written; pay special attention to literary genre. 2) Look at the writing as a whole; we cannot isolate individual verses just to make a point. 3) Recognize that there are often layers of meaning to a given text; often there is no single “right” interpretation. Finally, 4) consult a Catholic study Bible or a Catholic biblical scholar for help to understand the wisdom of the community regarding the text. Modern Catholic Social Teaching develops from the teachings of Pope Leo XIII. His famous letter on social teaching, titled “Rerum Novarum” was issued in 1891 and dwelt with changes in the economic system and social life at the time. Pope Leo sought to address changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution with insights from the work of St Thomas Aquinas. The focus is on humans as “people” rather than “objects” or “ideas.” People have worth and are owed certain things by justice. People are not here to be used or exploited. Since the time of Pope Leo, the Church has issued a great many authoritative documents on aspects of the economy and society. Among these documents are: Pacem en Terris, Populorum Progressio, Economic Justice for All, and Caritas en Veritate. These documents form what is known as Catholic Social Teaching. Looked at as a whole we can identify seven basic principles of social doctrine: a) The Dignity of the Human Person, b) Subsidiarity between units of society, c) Rights have corresponding Responsibilities, d) a Preferential Option for the Poor, e) Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, f) Solidarity among peoples, and g) Stewardship of the Environment.
Salvation is not an inheritance for only those of certain groups. People do not have a special claim to being saved based on their families’ traditions, be they of Irish, Polish or Italian descent. Salvation is a gift offered to all the people of the earth in every time and place. The Prophet Isaiah had a vision of all the peoples of the earth, Gentiles as well as Jews, streaming toward Mount Zion, where they would worship the one God. We share this vision and hope. The prayers of the Mass remind us that a perfect offering will be made from East to West, throughout the whole inhabited world and by all of God’s people. We find this idea in the story of the Magi, who were foreigners and outsiders to the Jewish people, but who saw a light in the darkness and set out on a journey to reach it. Each of us brings our own gifts to the Christ Child, and each of us are on our own journey toward the light.
In the Creed we proclaim that God became enfleshed in this world. During the Christmas season we celebrate the birth and incarnation of Jesus. Our nativity scenes remind us that Jesus humbled himself, in contrast to those who were grasping for more when they were already created in the image of God. Part of being incarnate means that mankind perceives and interacts with the world through our senses. We perceive and encounter God through our senses not just words and ideas in the abstract. The incarnation was not just a onetime experiment that God tried. The incarnation is ongoing. God continues to be present in the person of Jesus, in the Eucharist, and in the body of believers. We reflect on the reality that when “we ask this through Christ our Lord” we truly pray through the person of Jesus, his real presence in the Eucharist and also though his presence in the community of the Church. This challenges us to think about how we are called to respond to the prayers of others, how we should pray knowing that the word was made flesh and dwells among us.
The teaching of the Virgin Birth is primarily a statement about who Jesus is. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both tell that Jesus was born of a virgin. While Matthew’s story focuses on the character of Joseph, Luke’s focus is on Mary. Both narratives and the Creed reflect upon the human and divine origins of Christ.
Matthew describes how an angel appears to Joseph in a dream reminding him of Isaiah’s prophecy: “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and he shall be called Immanuel.” This prophecy from six centuries before Christ’s birth was originally understood to refer to a new king in David’s line. Matthew asserts that God’s prophecies have an importance that extends beyond the concerns of the present. In Luke’s story of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary, who freely gives her consent to God’s plan: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; may it be done unto me according to thy word.” The Second Vatican Council insisted that Mary was “not a passive instrument (Lumen Gentium §56).” The miraculous conception of Christ was not something that was done to her, rather, she actively cooperated with Grace. While the two narratives are very different, both Matthew and Luke sought to connect Christ to the Davidic dynasty, and key to both narratives was the Spirit’s role in his conception. Jesus was one with God from the beginning. He did not become God as time went on, nor was he merely an adopted Son. Both stories make clear that God works in unexpected ways to advance the course of salvation history. In our tradition regarding prophecy refers to mediation and interpretation of the divine mind and will. The tradition of Prophecy is seen as going back to Moses. He was referred to in Hebrew as נָבִיא or a “nabi.” This term began to be used around the 5th century BC and meant one who is sent or one who is made to speak. This Hebrew word was translated into Greek as προφήτης pronounced “prophetes” which refers to one who speaks for another or is an interpreter. This was the public role of Moses, Isiah Jerimiah and others down to John the Baptist the last of the prophets.
In the Old Testament tradition God communicated to those people through dreams and visions. These people were given a mission of education and conversion of heart. The prophets summoned the people to conversion while they were seeking the face of God. Likewise the prophets spoke to the people for God and also interceded to God on the people’s behalf. The public role of the prophet in relationship with the community was different than simply somebody’s private visions. A private revelation about the future was not what was considered prophecy. A person who foretold the future was referred to as a seer, or in Greek, μάντις which was pronounced “mantis.” This was a different concept expressed by an entirely different word. In the Catholic tradition prophecy is a charism, or gift from the Holy Spirit. Since Christ began a new age in human history individual believers do not function like the ancient prophets but we all share in Christ’s identity as priest, prophet, and king through our baptism into his life. The community of the faithful shares in Christ’s prophetic office. Prophecy continues in the Church. The Holy Spirit is in the community of the faithful teaching and guiding them toward all truth. The Church has never applied the term officially to anyone besides those in the scriptures. However, great saints such as Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena and Bridget of Sweden have had similar experiences to those of the Old Testament prophets. |
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