Wednesday Night Religious Ed. Oct. 28, 2009

Dust
Come Follow Me


Introduction

Bell says, “I want to be the kind of person who does the right thing. And I don’t just mean the big things where right and wrong are obvious and easy, but I mean the small things. The subtle, unnoticed things.”
1. Why are the “small and unnoticed” things such a big deal?
2. What do they reveal about a person?

Jesus…my rabbi?

Read Mark 1: 16-20
Jesus chose people who weren’t the best of the best or rabbi-in-training.
3. What message was Jesus sending us by not choosing the best of the best?

Read 1 Corinthians 1: 26-30
4. How is Christ using disciples in the way described in this scripture?
5. What impact are Christians today having on the course of human history? (Big and small examples)

Walking on Water

Read Matthew 14: 25-31
6. If Peter is indeed doubting himself, how are his insecurities impacting his current reality?
7. How big of a role do your insecurities play in your life?
8. Do they ever affect your faith?

Read Matthew 16: 15-19

Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom and pronounces him the rock on which the church will be built. Jesus believes in Peter. Jesus believes in us!
“Faith in Jesus is important…but what about Jesus’ faith in us?”
9. Do you believe that God believes in you?
10. What difference does it make to your discipleship? Your faith?

Come Follow Me


In Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor (The Splendor of Truth), the pope speaks to following Christ. He states,


“This is not a matter only of disposing oneself to hear a teaching and obediently accepting a commandment. More radically, it involves holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father. By responding in faith and following the one who is Incarnate Wisdom, the disciple of Jesus truly becomes a disciple of God (cf. Jn 6:45). Jesus is indeed the light of the world, the light of life (cf. Jn 8:12). He is the shepherd who leads his sheep and feeds them (cf. Jn 10:11-16); he is the way, and the truth, and the life (cf. Jn 14:6). It is Jesus who leads to the Father, so much so that to see him, the Son, is to see the Father (cf. Jn 14:6-10). And thus to imitate the Son, "the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15), means to imitate the Father.


20. Jesus asks us to follow him and to imitate him along the path of love, a love which gives itself completely to the brethren out of love for God: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (Jn 15:12). The word "as" requires imitation of Jesus and of his love, of which the washing of feet is a sign: "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you" (Jn 13:14-15). Jesus' way of acting and his words, his deeds and his precepts constitute the moral rule of Christian life. Indeed, his actions, and in particular his Passion and Death on the Cross, are the living revelation of his love for the Father and for others. This is exactly the love that Jesus wishes to be imitated by all who follow him. It is the "new" commandment: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (Jn 13:34-35).


21. Following Christ is not an outward imitation, since it touches man at the very depths of his being. Being a follower of Christ means becoming conformed to him who became a servant even to giving himself on the Cross (cf. Phil 2:5-8). Christ dwells by faith in the heart of the believer (cf. Eph 3:17), and thus the disciple is conformed to the Lord. This is the effect of grace, of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in us.” ~Veritatis Splendor Aug. 6 1993


11. If you are following Jesus, how does it look for you to be covered in his “dust”?
12. What will it take for you to be a true disciple of Christ?
Closing Thoughts

Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient, O Beauty so new.
Too late have I loved you!
You were within me but I was outside myself, and there I sought you!
In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made.
You were with me, and I was not with you.
The things you have made kept me from you,the things which would have no being
unless they existed in you!
You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness.
You have radiated forth, you have shined out brightly, and you have dispelled my blindness.
You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in, and I long for you.
I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst for you.
You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace.
-St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Ambrose Haunted Woods

Last Saturday Night, 43 youth and adults headed deep into Union County to a place called Henshaw for a night or trails and terrors. (Scared yet?)

We had a great experience together at St. Ambrose and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for some scares and laughs. We hope they do it for many years to come!

It's Not About You!

Corner
This is all a gift

To Get Them Thinking

1) What was the last thing you were really grateful for? How do you feel about it now?
2) Was there a time when you expected to give, but ended up receiving? Can you give and receive at the same time?

“Success can be dangerous, can’t it?”
How is success dangerous? Is all success dangerous?

It’s All a Gift

Read Deuteronomy 24: 19-22
1) What is the root of the message that Moses is teaching?
2) It is true that in very little ways we can take care of others, but what is the real truth at the heart of Moses’ teaching? (I think the heart of the teaching is that we don’t need much and sometimes we think we have to have it all, when in fact we really don’t have many true needs. It is not always about us having the best and everything we want and think we need.)
3) Why is getting what we want so important to us?

“It isn’t fair. It’s my vineyard, it’s my olive grove, it’s my field. Why should I let these people come onto my property and take what I’ve worked so hard to produce? That’s not fair.
Exactly.
Because being rescued from slavery in Egypt wasn’t fair.
Liberation isn’t fair.
Redemption isn’t fair.
Grace isn’t fair.
God isn’t fair.”
4) How have you seen God be unfair?
5) What is grace? How is grace unfair? (None of us are deserving of the sacrifice God made for us by the death of Jesus.)
6) How has grace been given to you?
7) Who needs some grace from you?

Leaving a Corner

“We leave a corner because in helping save someone else from suffering, we may in the process find ourselves being saved.
From indifference.
From taking what we have for granted.”
1) What is your “corner”?
2) Who do you need to give it to?

Read Luke 21: 1-4
“We leave a corner because our world is either shrinking or its expanding.
It’s either contracting in on itself, or it’s opening up.
Our lives are either more and more about us-more stuff,
More unsatisfying consumption-or we’re on a different path.”
3) How is your world shrinking?
4) How is your world expanding?

Your Story

1) When and where in your life have you seen tonight’s discussion been put into practice?
2) How do we make our service days, mission trips, and giving more than just days, trips, time, and money?

Human Rosary Prayer Experience

This past Sunday Night, the youth prayed the Rosary in a very unique way by each getting a chance to be a bead and offer a prayer.

The youth were asked to meditate on their most important Prayer Request and then present it to the Blessed Mother, Mary during our prayer time as we meditated on the Glorious Mysteries.

It was a great time of prayer and another reminder of how special the new building has become to our Youth Ministry. It was also the first time we had ever closed in prayer, sitting inside a giant flaming Rosary.

Youth Visit Residents at Red Banks

On Sunday Afternoon October 4, 2009, several members of Holy Name Youth spent a couple hours visiting with the residents at Red Banks Nursing Home in Henderson, KY.

It was a very powerful and humbling experience to watch the youth reach out to people they didn't know and offer time and love. Everyone at Red Banks were incredibly welcoming and we had a tremendous experience.

One of the Corporal Works of Mercy is "Visiting the Sick" and Christ continually calls us to get out of our comfort zones and serve those in need.

Wednesday Night Religious Ed. Sept. 30, 2009

Flame
A lesson on love

Explanation of Song of Solomon:

Take a moment and look at Song of Solomon. Skim it and read how it was written and how it describes an intimate relationship.

The Song of Songs, meaning the greatest of songs, is a poem used to describe the mutual love of the Lord and his people. The Lord is the lover and the people are the beloved. The author chooses to describe the love in terms of human relationships so as to more closely tie the connection to our human experiences. Although, this is the general idea behind Song of Solomon, it can also represent the ideal human love. In this we would have from God a description of the sacredness and the depth of the marriage union.

Song of Songs gives us a series of pictures of the relationship between a man and a woman- the joy, the struggle, the complexity.

1. Why is love so complex?

Read Songs 2: 7
“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!”

2. What does this verse try to tell us?
3. Do we generally, in today’s world, treat the concept of love the same way as the people in Song of Songs? As a sacred, beautiful, and mysterious thing?
4. Do you think the word “love” loses its meaning when we use it for so many things?
5. Does it affect our understanding of what real love is?

What is Love?

In the video, three types of love are discussed from the Hebrew Language.
1. What were they? (raya, ahava, dod)
2. What kind of love does each represent?
Raya- friend or companion, someone you hang out with
Ahava- love of the will, the emotion that leads to commitment
Dod- physical, sexual element to a relationship

In looking at Dod, or Eros, Pope Benedict has this to say,
Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est “God is Love,” Pope Benedict XVI
“Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex’, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness.” (5)

3. What is the Pope trying to say?
4. How do you think hatred of the body could develop?

Benedict XVI goes on to say about Ahava, or Agape love,

“By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.” (Deus Caritas Est, 6)

5. How does this image of love differ from Dod or Eros?

Benedict XVI sums up the goal by proclaiming,

“It is part of love's growth towards higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being “forever”. Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus says throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). In these words, Jesus portrays his own path, which leads through the Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths of his own sacrifice and of the love that reaches fulfillment therein, he also portrays in these words the essence of love and indeed of human life itself.” (Deus Caritas Est, 6)

6. So what is love?

Look at these quotes from the video and answer the questions for each.

“We have our raya flame. We have our ahava flame. And, we have our dod flame. One flame burning all by itself will never be as hot as all the flames burning together. I mean, we were created for all flames to burn as one. When you separate the flames, it can never really satisfy. It’s like you’re living outside of how God wired you to live.”

7. Do you think it is possible to be completely satisfied without having all three flames burning?

“True sexuality is vast and mysterious. It involves all of you. I mean, you have a body, but you also have a soul and a spirit. And love is two people coming together and giving all of themselves to each other, forever.”

8. What does it mean to you to give all of yourself to another person?

Closing Thoughts

O Jesus, Who in Thy cruel Passion didst become the "Reproach of men and the Man of Sorrows," I worship Thy Divine Face. Once it shone with the beauty and sweetness of the Divinity: now for my sake it is become as the face of a leper. Yet in that disfigured Countenance I recognize Thy infinite Love, and I am consumed with the desire of loving Thee and of making Thee loved by all mankind. The tears that streamed in such abundance from Thy Eyes are to me as precious pearls which I delight to gather, that with their infinite worth I may ransom the souls of poor sinners.
O Jesus, Whose Face is the sole beauty that ravishes my heart, I may not behold here upon earth the sweetness of Thy Glance, nor feel the ineffable tenderness of Thy Kiss. I bow to Thy Will - but I pray Thee to imprint in me Thy Divine Likeness, and I implore Thee so to inflame me with Thy Love, that it may quickly consume me and I may soon reach the Vision of Thy glorious Face in Heaven. Amen.

- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Wednesday Night Religious Ed. Sept. 23, 2009

Rain
A lesson on the storms of life

Activity to Get Youth Thinking

1. If you could freeze a moment from your life, what moment would that be?
2. What are some of the storms in your life? Is it raining now?
3. Do you think that God puts us intentionally through trials?
4. Isn’t there an easier way for us to learn?

Read 1 Corinthians 10: 13
1. What hope does St. Paul bring to the Corinthians?

Living the Fullness of Life in the Kingdom

Read Matthew 7: 24-27
1. What is Jesus trying to teach us in these verses?
2. How do they relate to the storms of life?

Crying Out to God

1. Have you ever felt like God failed to come through for you?
2. Looking back, do you still feel the same?

Crying out to God in the Psalms:
Psalm 34:17, Psalm 55:17, Psalm 72:12, Psalm 84:2, Psalm 88:1
1. What do the Psalms tell us about God’s response to our crying out?
2. How does this make you feel?
3. What keeps you from crying out to God?

God Never Ceases to Draw Us Near

1. Do you have anyone in your life that you would do anything for?
2. Do you think that is how God feels about you?

Read CCC, 27
“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”

From Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
“The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes in to being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.”

(Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, was one of the four Apostolic Constitutions resulting from the Second Vatican Council. The document is an overview of the Catholic Church's teachings about man's relationship to society, especially in reference to economics, poverty, social justice, culture, science & technology, and ecumenism.)

1. From these two passages, what do you discover about God’s desire for man?
2. How does it make you feel to know you are being “held in existence” by God?
3. When you’re going through really hard times and everything seems hopeless, do you still trust that God knows the way and that you’re going to make it?

Read Deuteronomy 1: 29-31
The storms of life are going to happen. Some have even suggested that you are either in storm of life, leaving one, or coming into one. Our God desires to draw us close and remind us that He loves us. The question is whether or not we can entrust ourselves to the Creator.

Closing Thoughts

In a particularly tough time in life, Thomas Merton wrote a prayer which offers hope that God is in control. May we too find comfort and security in the arms of a God who knows the way home.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"