| A SHORT COURSE ON SPIRITUALITY II. “The Divine 'Online'" GOD What is God? A force? Power? Energy? Who is God? A Person? (One who knows & loves) Spiritual? Infinite? Unchanging? Eternal? One? Everywhere? MAN Primer Catechism - For use in junior grades (1941): Q. Who made you? A. God made me, giving me a body and a soul. Q. What part of you is most like God? A. My soul is most like to God. Q. What is the soul? A. The soul is a spirit that will never die. Q. How is your soul like God? A. My soul is like to God because it is a spirit, because it will never die, and because it can know and love God. “God created man in his own image” (Gen 1:27) – Personal & Spiritual Created = contingent, limited (imperfect), complex (being & essence distinct). St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” The human person is a body/soul unity. Platonic Dualism: As someone drives a car so I (the soul) use the body. St. Thomas Aquinas: “I am not my soul”. At death (= separation of body and soul) the person is no longer. The Assumption is the pledge of our complete participation in redemption. A soul is a spirit which is made to give life to (animate) a body (its home). Angels don’t have souls they are pure spirits. The faculties (powers) of our spiritual soul are intellect (object: being/truth) & will (object: goodness). Sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will. Grace does the opposite. JESUS CHRIST Catholicism for Dummies: “As both God and man, Jesus could bridge the gap between humanity and divinity. He could actually save humankind by becoming one of us, and yet because he never lost his divinity, his death had eternal and infinite merit and value. If he were only a man, his death would have no supernatural effect. His death, because it was united to his divine personhood, actually atoned for sin and caused redemption to take place” (p.81). THE NEW AGE Jesus Christ: The Bearer of the Water of Life; A Christian Reflection on the “New Age”, Pontifical Council for Culture & Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (3 February, 2003): 1. Is God a being with whom we have a relationship or something to be used or a force to be harnessed? 2. Is there just one Jesus Christ, or are there thousands of Christs? 3. The human being: is there one universal being or are there many individuals? 4. Do we save ourselves or is salvation a free gift from God? 5. Do we invent truth or do we embrace it? 6. Prayer and meditation: are we talking to ourselves or to God? 7. Are we tempted to deny sin or do we accept that there is such a thing? 8. Are we encouraged to reject or accept suffering and death? 9. Is social commitment something shirked or positively sought after? 10. Is our future in the stars or do we help to construct it? DIVINE REMINDERS OF OUR SPIRITUALITY Baptism Instruction = a time to remember that we are spiritual beings. Rite of Baptism: “You have asked to have your children baptised. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training them in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring them up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbour. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?” Marriage Rite; Statement of Intentions: Fred and Wilma, have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself (body & soul) to each other in marriage? Bl. (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta would use Rosary beads that had a different colour for each decade. This represented for her the dying in each continent for whom she would pray. Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471): How do you know that you will be alive tomorrow? |
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