"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Today I thought I’d post the fourth part of my five-part series on leading a Bible study. In the earlier posts (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) I discussed some Do’s and Don’ts of preparation, beginning the meeting and starting the discussion. Today I would now like to continue to discuss some suggested Do’s and Don’ts of guiding the discussion…
DON’T: Sit inappropriately close. It’s kinda creepy 😉
“Faith on Fire” is a new initiative here in San Diego to help nurture the younger young adult community.
Like “Theology On Tap”, it is held at a bar or restaurant where there is a talk given by a speaker which is followed by Q&A and some discussion. However, unlike “Theology On Tap”, it is restricted to only those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.
As I mentioned the other day, this Tuesday I was drafted in at the last minute to cover for the speaker who was ill. Fr. Jacob was scheduled to speak on the topic:
“Social Media and Faith: How to use it without being used by it”
Since he couldn’t make it, I gave the talk instead. The presentation file is available for download here and the audio of the evening is available for download below:
Main Talk (Download)
I based part of my talk on my blog post Don’t Be Too Eager To Hit “Send” and The Mobile Challenge. At some point in the future I’ll hopefully do some other posts on the subject of Social Media to help consolidate my thoughts in this area.
(The book which gave away at the beginning of the Q&A time was The Church and New Media by Brandon Vogt)
When I was at University, I read a book by Jean Vanier in which he said that whenever a homeless person asked him for money, he would reach into his pocket and hand over the first coin he found, whether big or small.
Likewise, in an interview with Fulton Sheen’s niece, she said that her uncle would give money to the poor whenever it was asked of him. When she asked him if he might be being lied to by those asking for help, he simply responded “I can’t take the chance”.
A little while ago I did a post about tithing where I spoke about the general responsibility Christians have towards the poor. However, this begs the question: what is the best way in which to help the poor?
For example, most social workers I’ve known have always said that you should never give money to beggars. Following this advice, some of my friends no longer hand over cash, but instead make sure that their car, purse or bag is always stocked with snacks, so that they have something to give when asked for help.
I recently read an article in Crisis Magazine which looks at this issue. I’d be interested to see what you think about it. What you think is the best way to help the poor?
The other day, after a rather difficult meeting with a friend I parted with the words “I’ll pray for you”.
It got me to thinking – how many times do I say that and I never actually do it? How many times do I use it as just a farewell, or as code for “Stop talking to me about your problems”?
That’s all I have to say. Please consider that as your thought for the day…
After doing so badly on my New Year Resolutions this year, I’ve decided to keep it simple next year. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy though! I’ve decided that in 2014 I am going to read the entirety of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.
I’ve spent the last hour or so looking at different reading plans online. Many that I’ve found have been Protestant and have unfortunately therefore lacked the Deuterocanon. If I were to use any of those I would have to squeeze in the extra books (Tobit, Wisdom, Maccabees, etc.) at some point in the year. Moving on…
Some reading plans, such as YouVersion, don’t actually cover the entire Bible and instead just cover the majority of the text. While practical, that also seems a bit “meh”. Moving on…
I also found one plan which has quite a mix of daily readings. Each day there there are two Old Testament readings, a Psalm and a New Testament reading. That is contrasted with the plans from Presentation Ministry and Catholic Doors, both of which assign one book at a time.
As far as I can tell, the most popular plan is one which is put out by the Coming Home Network, which is available in PDF here and which some nice person converted into hypertext format here. It has an Old Testament reading, New Testament reading and then something from the Wisdom literature, such as Psalms or Proverbs. I think this is the plan for me. It even has the option of reading through the Catechism too…but maybe I’ll think about that for 2015!
If anyone else has the same goal for 2014, please leave a message below 🙂
St. Jerome, pray for me!
UPDATE 05/20/14: Meg Hunter-Kilmer has added an article on this subject and presents an alternative reading plan.
In a previous post I explained the meaning of the text “IC XC” which is found in Eastern icons. I thought today I would do a quick follow-up to explain the letters which commonly appear around the Theotokos…
“The Theotokos” (pronounced “th-ay-oh-to-kos”) is the name that Eastern Christians (both Orthodox and Catholic) typically give to Jesus’ mother, Mary. It was also the word used in the proclamation of the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. In the Western Church, “Theotokos” is often loosely translated into English as “Mother Of God” (whereas it literally means “God-bearer”).
Giving Mary the title “Mother of God” has certainly caused some heated arguments in the history of Christianity. Some have mistakenly seen this title as an elevation of Mary to a height even greater than that of Jesus (if such a thing were possible!). Yet the title “Mother Of God” is really much more about Jesus than Mary, since to say that Mary is not the mother of God is to say that she gave birth only to His humanity, which would indicate some kind of rupture between Jesus’ human and divine natures. That’s kind of a weighty topic…I think I’ll come back to that another time….
Do Catholics know the Bible?
I remember the first time I heard the Bible at Mass. By that, I don’t mean the first time I heard a Reading from Scripture in the Liturgy of the Word. No, I’m referring to the first time I heard some words from the lips of the priest and thought to myself “Hey, that’s straight from Scripture”.
Now, I knew some of the more prominent features of the liturgy such as the Gloria, Sanctus and Kyrie came from Scripture, but I thought that was pretty much it. It turns out I was very wrong…
So when was the first time I “heard the Bible at Mass”? Well, I was an altar server and went to wash the priest’s hands prior to the Eucharistic prayer. The priest came forward and, as I poured water over his hands, he said the words “Lord, wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin”. I recognized those words! I had been reading through the book of Psalms at the time and recognized the verse from Psalm 51:
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin – Psalm 51:2
Sound familiar? 🙂
After that experience, I began to pay closer attention to the words of the Mass. Again and again I found that virtually everything that was said came from Scripture. In fact, now whenever I have non-Catholic Christians attend Mass with me, I invite them to keep a tally of the number of Scripture quotations or Biblical allusions they hear.
So do Catholics know the Bible? Well, maybe better than they think…