BIG C CATHOLICS

John Bergsma From the Sacred Page website: The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is the temptation of Christ in the desert according to Luke. Christ is tempted in three ways: through his physical desires (hunger for food), through his eyes (being shown all the glory of the kingdoms of the world), and through the temptation to pride (to stage a magnificent stunt that would win him fame throughout the nation). This threefold temptation of Christ corresponds to St. John’s warning about the “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” in 1 John 2:15. This threefold categorization has been known in the Church as the “threefold concupiscence,” the unholy Trinity of temptation. Eve was tempted in the same way. She saw that the fruit was “good for food, pleasing to the eye, and to be desired to make one wise.” “Good for food” is lust of the flesh. “Pleasing to the eye” is lust of the eye. “Desired to make one wise” is a temptation to pride—Eve wants to be wise like G...

A few years ago, someone made a movie called Super Size Me. It featured a man who ate nothing but McDonald's fast food for an entire month. Someone should make a movie called Objectify Me about how young people in particular are subjected to overtly sexualized images in our culture. We live in a time where men and women are shamelessly objectified in the media, in art, and in society at large. This, of course, is nothing new. The human body has been objectified for thousands of years in thousands of ways. What makes today's objectification so egregious is the ubiquitousness of the "new media" that promulgates such images. Movies, DVDs, cell phones, web cams, blogs, television and so on, have all been used to advance a sexualized culture to sell everything from cars to video games. Before continuing, let's define our terms. To objectify a human person is to focus exclusively on his or her sexual value. In other words, to objectify someone is to focus on the body o...

Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD, a university professor and expert on Divine Mercy, addresses questions such as: What exactly is God’s mercy? Where do we find it in Sacred Scripture? What is the basis for it in the life of the Church? He takes the reader on a tour of God’s mercy in Scripture and Church history. In Divine Mercy: A Guide from Genesis to Pope Benedict XVI, journey from the Garden of Eden to the Hill of Calvary. Discover God’s mercy in the writings of the Church’s great theologians, as well as in the life and teaching of many of its most preeminent saints. Learn of St. Faustina’s call to spread The Divine Mercy message in our time and Pope John Paul II’s legacy of mercy, which has influenced Pope Benedict XVI. The Divine Mercy is more than a devotion. It is a veritable attribute of God. Dr. Stackpole has included study questions and a discussion starter at the end of each section in his chapters. I found this volume enlightening and would recommend it for individuals, small grou...

Thought of the Day We must often draw the comparison between time and eternity. This is the remedy of all our troubles. How small will the present moment appear when we enter that great ocean. -- St. Elizebeth Ann Seton

Fr. Michael Najim ...Lent is a time of great grace, a time a spiritual renewal. Traditionally there are three main components to Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. So, here are 25 ways to live the Lenten season in a spirit of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. There is no particular order to these 25 ways, and I don’t pretend that these are the best or most creative ways. However, if you’re looking for some ideas, hopefully you will find one or two here. I’d love to hear some ways that you are planning to enter into the spirit of Lent, so please feel free to leave a comment. Your comments may be helpful to the readers of this blog as well. Without further adieu, here are 25 way to live the Lenten season. 1) Read a little Scripture (maybe choose one of the Gospels) 2) Read a spiritual book for ten minutes 3) Spend ten extra minutes in silence 4) Pray the rosary 5) Pray the Way of the Cross 6) Stop by a church for five minutes on your way to/from work (if possible) 7) Go to daily Mass ...

Robert Colquhoun We do not have to believe that everything is literal in the Bible. It is important not to be hung up on misconceptions like this. What we do have to believe is that God created us, he created us as man and woman and he gave us free will. Genesis as a book portrays profound truths. John Paul II describes the stories in terms of how they are inspired by the Holy Spirit. Many teenagers think they know all about the story of Adam and eve already. They have heard of Original sin, but as teachers it is important to convey the beauty and splendour of this story. In the beginning, Adam was alone in the visible world as the only human being. This is known as original solitude. He did not see anyone else like himself. He knew that he was created for a relationship with God. Adam is all of humanity's experience. Women also have a heritage of this original solitude too. The author Scott Hahn says, “God gave Adam an itch that only God could scratch.” God did this throu...

Robert Colquhoun Today we continue to unearth the beautiful teachings of the Church on marriage and sexuality. Trees and Gardens: Human salvation is always not far away from trees and gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. Original sin from the apple from the tree. Wood of the cross carried our saviour in the salvation of mankind. Let us make man in our image (Gn 1:26): Scott Hahn in the book, First comes love mentions how God refers to himself in the first person plural: could this be a reference to the trinity? Man is both unity and plurality. Every work of art reveals something about the artist Key points of Genesis: We are made in the image of God (1:27) – We display the resplendent beauty of God. We are told to be fruitful and multiply (1:26) – God's first commandment to man is to have sex. Saw that it was good (1:31)- Everything that exists is good in itself. God's declaration of the goodness of creation, creation itself is love. The 7th day of Creation is a day of Rest (2:2) – Re...

The letter of James is sometimes categorized as a moral discourse or an ethical handbook because of its concrete and practical nature and its emphasis on social justice issues. It has become a favorite of contemporary Christians in the growing churches of Asia and Africa. However, it is addressed to all Christians, and it begins by affirming the positive value of trials and hardships. These difficult experiences serve to build Christian character. They test the quality of one’s faith, strengthen that faith for perseverance, and ultimately result in a maturity and completeness that is the goal of Christian living. For James the key to all this is wisdom which is a gift from God and is to be sought in prayer. Wisdom on the human level is the culmination of experience having been reflected upon through faith. Wisdom is the great gift that enables us to confront our many doubts and faithfully persevere and grow. James echoes the teaching of Jesus in the gospels of asserting the impending...

In Saint John Paul II's Theology of the Body, he discusses the idea of "original innocence." He bases this teaching on Genesis 2:25, "The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame." Without original innocence it would have been impossible for Adam and Eve to recognize the nuptial meaning of their bodies. The nuptial meaning of the body is being made in the image and likeness of God and loving others as God loves us. Our very bodies testify to this reality. The interior state of our first parents before sin was markedly different from our own. The fact that Adam and Eve were naked yet felt no shame is a clear indication that they existed in a state of original innocence. It would never have occurred to Adam to use Eve as an object for sexual gratification. Eve would never have used Adam as an object for her sexual gratification. Their relationship did not entail exploitation or objectification. They acted out of selfless love. Original inno...

In his Theology of the Body, Saint John Paul II discusses the concept of "Original Nakedness". The Garden of Eden was Paradise. All creation was ordered to its proper end. Although they were naked, Adam and Eve were not ashamed. Their lack of shame resulted from the fact they did not view each other as sexual objects to be used for their own gratification. Instead, each saw the other with all the peace of the interior gaze. But what exactly does this mean, for them and us? When a man and a woman fall in love with each other "looks" might initially draw them together. Over time, as the relationship grows and deepens, this invariably changes. They fall in love with the other's personality, their kindness, their goodness, their spirituality, their very souls. It is therefore possible for couples who have spent a life time together to be more in love than the day they were married. We are called to love the "whole person", not simply a person's lo...

Fr. Frank Pavone Scott Roeder, who killed abortionist George Tiller, has been convicted of murder. Pro-life groups, including Priests for Life, reaffirmed their opposition to violence in the efforts to bring an end to abortion. It was also an occasion for people to ask whether Mr. Roeder should have been allowed to make the argument in court that his actions were carried out for the saving of human life. The fact is that what he did was wrong. The fact also is that what George Tiller did was murder also. What we can learn from the tragedy of Scott Roeder is that the pro-abortion forces do not want anyone to give the slightest acknowledgement to the humanity of the unborn. Our movement must always be nonviolent, and it must also always insist on the truth.

Kyle Sanders At the end of the Nineteenth Century and into the Twentieth Century, there emerged a revised and yet original anthropology. Sigmund Freud, focused not on the soul or body per se but psyche, inserted a new angle at which to look at man. Man is overtly sexual. His development is sexual. Man could be seen as the evolving, an image Darwin, but evolving psychically, a precursor to de Chardin. Man is also determined. Man had a tripartite psyche, an opaque mirror of Plato, with the ego, the id, and the superego. Fifteen years after Freud’s death there emerged another brilliant mind from Poland, Karol Wojtyla. Wojtyla, a Catholic priest, had a similar idea. Man is a sexual being. However, Wojtyla splits in understanding. He sees the inherent dignity of the human person. He has a traditional Catholic understanding of the unity of body and soul. Wojtyla’s anthropology is more reasonable and leads to a more positive understanding of man. Sigmund Freud [1] Before Freud there was a pre...

Fr. Michael J. Woolley Four years ago, in 2006, scientists and government leaders began to get very concerned when honeybees began to start mysteriously disappearing in large numbers in our country. Hundreds of thousands of beehives across America would be thriving and healthy one day, and the next day all the bees were nowhere to be found. By 2008, one out of every three beehives in the United States had been destroyed, in what is now referred to as “colony collapse disorder,” the cause of which is still undetermined. Now, you might say to yourself “No Big Deal, I don’t eat much honey anyway, and there’s always sugar if the bees go the way of the dinosaur and dodo bird.” But it is a Big Deal if all the bees disappear, a very, very very Big Deal. Because if all the honeybees in America disappear, we would have a nation-wide disaster on our hands that would make the Haitian earthquake look like a picnic. Because while the bee doesn’t seem very significant compared to other problems our ...

Aristotle Aristotle’s four causes are answers to four common sense questions we can ask about change in the world around us. They are; What is a thing made of?, Who made it?, What is it that is being made?, and What is it being made for? When it comes to human productions, the answer to these questions is usually easy. When it comes to answering these questions as they occur in nature, it becomes more difficult. Regarding human production, if you asked a shoemaker what he was making his shoes out of he might reply “leather.” If you asked a gunsmith producing a rifle what he was making it out of he might reply “wood and steel.” According to Aristotle, what a thing is made of is the material cause . It is one of four indispensible factors without which the production would not or could not occur. The second question is: Who made it? Aristotle calls this the efficient cause . When we are dealing with human productions, this would seem to be the easiest question of all. The shoemaker mak...