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New Testament Warm-Ups: Answers 43-52

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Here are the final answers to the New Testament Warm-Up questions:

43. What appears after Hebrews? What category of books do we call these?
The Catholic Epistles (7 books): James, Peter (x2), John (x3) and Jude . These are letters written by Church leaders other than the Apostle Paul.

44. Who most likely wrote James’ epistle?
James of Jerusalem (“James the Just”). He was Jesus’ kinsman (see Mark 6:3), resurrection witness (see 1 Corinthians 15:7) and “pillar of the church” (see Galatians 2:9). Tradition tells us that he was Bishop of Jerusalem and Martyred in AD 62 (Stoned, clubbed or thrown from the Temple)

45. How would you summarize James’ epistle?
Faith without works is dead. This motif appears throughout. James speaks about practical Christian living and the life of faith.

46. What documents appear next?
1 & 2 Peter

47. What documents appear after that?
1, 2, & 3 John

48. After that?
Jude

49. What is the final book of the Bible?
The Book of Revelation

50. What is its literary genre?
It is an Apocalyptic Book

51. What are the two main senses of Scripture according to the Catechism?
Literal and Spiritual

52. What are the three types of spiritual senses?
Allegorical, moral and anagogical

1-16 | 17-27 | 27-42 | 43-52 | 53-57 | 58-67 | 68-71 | 72-81 | 72-81
All Questions

How to make sure you don’t forget your Novena

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Have you ever tried to do a novena and failed? Maybe it slipped your mind for a few days, or maybe you did remember, but only at inconvenient moments when you didn’t have the novena text with you? If what I’m describing has happened to you, then I have a suggestion for you: use Google Calendar as your prayer buddy.

When I intend to do a novena, I create a repeating event in Google Calendar to remind me. The wonderful thing about it is that you can synchronize the calendar with your cell phone so you have you’ll see the reminder wherever you are. If you include the text for the novena in the event’s description, you won’t even have to go hunting around to find the prayer for that day. Google Calendar will work with both iPhone or Android devices.

Setting Up A Novena

If you’re not sure how to do this in Google Calendar, here are the steps necessary to setup a novena reminder:

1. Create new event
Click at the first day when you’ll be doing the Novena. I’d suggest picking a time when you know you’ll be consistently free over the course of the nine days. Enter the name of the novena and then click the “Edit Event” link:

Novena 1

2. Enter event description
In the “Description” field, enter the text needed for the novena, or include a link to a website which contains the text. Then click on the checkbox next to “Repeat”:

Novena 3

3. Setup Repetition
Clicking on the checkbox next to “Repeat” will cause a new dialog to appear. On this dialog you can setup how this event repeats. Since we’ll be praying a Novena, set it to “Daily” repetition and to end after nine occurrences. Once this is completed, click “Done”:

Novena 2

4. Jesus saves… and so should you
Everything is now correctly setup, so click “Save” and you should see the sequence of reminders created.

Novena 4

Hope this helps. Happy praying!

Going back east

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A couple of months ago I found myself back around my old stomping ground of Washington DC. It was great to return to one of my favourite US cities, catching up with friends and re-visiting all my favourite places.

As providence would have it, I had the opportunity to hear Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo speak at the Catholic Information Center (CIC).  Deacon Sabatino is founder of the Institute of Catholic Culture, a Virginia-based organization about which I have previously written.

Since writing that earlier blog post, I visited Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Nebraska and did a double-take when I saw an office with his name on it! Clearly this guy gets around! his brother’s name on it!

Anyway, during this “Year of Faith”, the CIC has been hosting a series of lectures on the documents of the Second Vatican Council and I just so happened to be in town for Deacon Carnazzo’s lecture on Orientalium Ecclesiarum, the Decree concerning the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, a subject close to my heart.

ICC

No, I’m not a Roman Catholic…

Deacon Carnazzo is himself an Eastern-Rite Catholic and during his talk he explained the origin of the Eastern Churches and gave a brief introduction to life as an Eastern Catholic. In his talk he encouraged all Western Catholics to become familiar with the Eastern Church. How is this to be done? Well, if you want to get to know someone, you share a meal with them. For Catholics, this means sharing in the Eucharistic feast.

So, in the spirit of this, I have set up a Facebook event and invited my friends to come with me to celebrate the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul at the end of the month at my local Byzantine parish. If you’re in town and you’d like to come, feel free to shoot me an email.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

The article Going back East first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net

TOT: Karen Reynolds

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May 2, 2017: Karen Reynolds @ St. Luke, El Cajon

Karen Reynolds is a missionary with a lifetime of faithful service to the Church. She currently serves Dirty Vagabond Ministries as the Chief Operating Officer and Director of Development. She is passionate about sharing the love of Jesus Christ with the lost and training/equipping missionaries.

A veteran of over 20 years of youth, college and young adult ministry, Karen started her career with Young Life serving as the Development Director of the Ohio Valley. Prior to her leadership with Dirty Vagabond, she was a diocesan and parish ministry director in Ventura CA, Denver CO, and Bermuda – to name a few.

Karen is a nationally recognized speaker, having witnessed to thousands over the past 15 years. In addition to being an avid reader and traveler, she has recently begun her plans to play drums in a rock band.

“Dirty Vagabond Ministries & Evangelization” (Download)

Karen

Polycarp – Something I didn’t initially notice…

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I was looking at my post from a couple of days ago and noticed something about the icon of Polycarp that I didn’t initially notice…

If you look carefully, you will see on the left the emblem of a bird, peaking out from underneath Polycarp’s robes. I believe this bird is the Phoenix. If you don’t know the mythology surrounding the Phoenix, it is described in the letter of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96 AD):

“Let us consider that wonderful sign [of the resurrection] which takes place in Eastern lands, that is, in Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind, and lives five hundred years.

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The Orthodox Position on Contraception

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OCMCI’m reading a few books at the moment, but the one I’d like to mention today is Orthodox Christianity, Marriage & Contraception by Anthony Stehlin. I’m only about a third of the way through it so far, but I really wanted to do a short post concerning something mentioned in the first chapter….

A few months ago I decided to join an Eastern Orthodox online forum to try and soak up some more eastern knowledge. I actually found the group incredibly hostile to Catholics (especially Eastern Catholics), but that’s a post for another time.

Members of the group stated again and again that teaching in Eastern Orthodoxy has never changed, something which they contrasted to the supposed deviations of Catholicism. In response to this, I asked the group about the Eastern Orthodox position concerning contraception…

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Names for the unborn

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Following on from yesterday’s post, recent discussions on Facebook have reminded me of how the abortion debate often turns around the question of language.

A few months ago I had posted an article about abortion and one of my friends wrote this response:

“You’re going to have a hard time convincing someone zygote development at 4 weeks is a fetus… When we talk in terms of a 6 week fetus it’s probably closer to bundles of cells than it is to a fetus…”

My friend’s response shows why it’s important to have a good grasp of biology when speaking about the unborn. What do we mean when we use words like “zygote”, “embryo” and “fetus”?

Development

“Zygote”, “embryo” and “fetus” are all simply labels which describe the developmental stage of the human child, much like “infant”, “toddler” or “teenager”. A zygote is a diploid cell which is the result of fertilization of an egg by a sperm. After about twenty-four hours, cell division begins and we move from the zygote phase of development to the embryonic. After eight weeks, we move from the embryonic to the fetal.

Hopefully it’s now clear as to why I’d never try to convince someone that “zygote development at 4 weeks is a fetus”…because it’s not! It would be as nonsensical as talking about an eight-year-old toddler or a twenty-year-old teenager.

Developmental Cheat Sheet

Zygote: Human development within the first 24 hours

Embryo: After 24 hours of life, when cell division has begun. It remains in this stage for the first eight weeks.

Fetus: A development stage following eight weeks of life up until birth.

Infant: Up to twelve months after birth

Toddler: 1-3 years after birth

Adolescent: The time after birth when conversation is exchanged for incoherent grunts and parents are treated as a cross between an ATM and a taxi service.

Regardless of the name we use to describe someone’s age, all humans deserve to be protected.

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