Tonight’s lecture was on Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. Fr. Luke simply shared Biblical proof as well as common-sense proof that Christ meant what He said in John 6. Fr. Luke did share a couple of ideas that I hadn’t thought of before.

A couple of clues that sort of prefigure the Real Presence. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means “City of Bread.” And then He was placed in a food trough. Makes perfect sense that the Bread of Life would be born in the City of Bread and placed into a conveyance from which animals literally eat.

In addition, Fr. Luke pointed out the importance of understanding the Jewish understandings of body and blood. “Body” as understood at that time simply meant, much as it does now, the fullness of who a person is. “Blood” had a much different meaning - we have a sort of clinical understanding of it, but in those days, blood meant life…which means when Jesus gave us His blood, he was literally giving us His life (which He in fact did on the cross and also does in the Eucharist.)

Not new was the most convincing part of the argument for the Real Presence, that if Jesus was being figurative, surely He would have chased after those who said, “This is a hard saying, who can believe it?” and clarified.

Fr. Luke also had a couple of 3rd graders who had recently made their First Communion assist him with illustrating how when we approach the Eucharist and receive, we, fully ourselves, are filled with that which is fully Christ in substance. Essentially, I am fully Chris, and Jesus is fully Jesus. Jesus is God and can do something I can’t do, He can place the fullness of who he is into the form of bread and wine so that He can fill us with his physical presence.

In the end, it’s important to remember the words of Scott Hahn, who said that if priests were handing out the “real presence” of $1 million, Catholics would be much more faithful to receive regularly…and for that matter, every confessional in America would have long lines all the time so that the condition of receiving without mortal sin would be met.

Tomorrow it’s “Living the Mass - Eucharistic Spirituality.”

Tonight’s talk was on the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka confession, aka penance). Fr. Luke’s talk was mainly centered around the Biblical basis for confession…which made this a bit of an apologetics talk, as well as one to prepare us for the sacrament. I know that there are those who think that we have to confess our sins only to God. The interesting thing is that most such people also claim to believe the Bible word for word. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we are to confess only to God. Rather, it tells us to confess our sins to one another; and of course Jesus told his apostles that He had given them the authority to forgive sins in His name (whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, whose sins you retain, they are retained.)

One of the great points he made was that several prominent protestant thinkers have spoken on the need for confession - such as Robert Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale (and a quick Google of either of those names will reveal many hate sites attacking these two for their theology…could it be because they agree with the Catholic Church on a point or two?)

In the end, Fr. Luke said, “so, what if you’re going to confession but you feel it’s not doing any good? you’re confessing the same sins over and over, but it’s not helping?” Well, he likened it to gardening. Along with the stuff you want to grow, there’s something you don’t want to grow - weeds. So you pull up all the weeds. A few weeks later, there are more weeds to pull up. Gotta get rid of the weeds in order to allow the good stuff to grow - otherwise the weeds will take over. An apt analogy, I believe.

As for me, the confessional is still one of those things I have a tough time with in my relative youth in the Church. I get dry mouthed and forget stuff I need to confess. On top of that, I forget to say, “for these and all my other sins, I am sorry…” but the intention is there, I know that is the important part. Since I was raised to believe that when I confess my sins to God I am immediately forgiven, it still seems weird to confess to a priest, even though I totally believe in the importance of the sacrament and that the priest is truly in persona Christi. I know with time it’ll become more normal to me.

Tomorrow’s talk is on Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. There are surveys that indicate that an astounding percentage of Catholics coming out of the church on a Sunday believe the Eucharist is symbolic of His body and blood or our unity or something. Ugh. Fr. Luke will help to clear this up for any who may be misinformed tomorrow.

Tonight, the next installment of my thoughts on our Lenten Parish Mission led by Fr. Oscar Lukefahr. This evening’s talk was “Praying the Mass with Your Friends in Heaven.”

It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the mind to realize that tonight’s talk is centered around the Communion of Saints. What I haven’t heard before, though, is how the Communion of Saints and the Mass are related to each other. Fr. Luke pointed out how Mass is the time when we on Earth are closest to our brothers and sisters who have gone before. That the Mass is truly the uniting rite between the Church Militant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Triumphant. As we know, the Mass is in fact a prayer itself, and we know from Scripture that the Saints offer up prayers to the Lord on our behalf as incense before Him.

Fr. Luke shared a couple of tangible examples of the connection between this earthly realm and the one beyond, and one was particularly memorable to me. I’ll try to do it justice. Fr. Luke was preaching a mission, and friend of his in the parish (”Dan”) invited him to do some fishing for a few days following the mission. Dan also wanted to invite a friend of his (”John”) who had recently lost his wife of many decades. John’s wife had developed a cancer that was quickly spreading, and in the hospital room, she flatlined for some period of time; the doctors were able to revive her. The couple had been atheists all their lives, and upon being revived, she asked,”why did you bring me back?” She went on to explain that she had seen the Lord while she was near death, and immediately set about prayer and made her peace with God. She passed on later that evening. So, having had this experience, John had started reading the Bible, and was suddenly interested in spirituality, so Dan thought it would be good for John to have the opportunity to talk with a priest in a casual atmosphere. They did talk a good bit, and Dan later mentioned to Fr. Luke that he’d like Fr. Luke to say a Mass for another friend who had recently passed away. Fr. Luke suggested that they just have Mass there at Dan’s home in the morning, and they did. Before saying Mass, Fr. Luke explained to John what happened during the Mass and that he would give John a blessing after he gave Dan the Eucharist. Following the Mass, John was visibly emotional, and Fr. Luke asked if everything was okay. John explained that following receiving his blessing, he had seen his wife come down the stairs behind where Fr. Luke was standing, come over to John, and hugged him tightly. And this, explains Fr. Luke, is a very tangible example of the connection that exists between those on Earth and those who have gone before, when we are united in worship at the Mass.

For me, the concept of the Communion of Saints was huge as I was coming into the Church. It’s one thing to rest in the assurance that loved ones who have died are alive in Christ, and that their earthly suffering has ended. It’s quite another thing to come to the happy realization that not only are they alive with Christ, but also interacting with us through the infinite connection that exists between all souls who have accepted Christ. Truly the icing on the proverbial cake is that they can intercede on our behalf because they are in perfect communion with God while we, in our fallen state, struggle here on Earth. Tonight’s talk showed me that the Mass is the keystone of the Communion of Saints - it always exists, but it is never more real than while we are celebrating Mass together.

Tomorrow evening’s talk is “O Lord, I am not worthy to receive You.” It’s a talk on the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance/Confession.) I’ll put in a quick plug for this because so many of our parishes allow for a whopping 30-45 minutes of scheduled confession time per week: tomorrow following the 11 AM talk, 2 priests will be available to hear individual confessions, and tomorrow following the 7 PM talk, 8 priests will be available to hear individual confessions. This also means you can confess to a priest you don’t know, for those of us like me who would much rather be a face in the crowd when it comes to confession, as opposed to being someone recognized by name because the parish only has one priest.

As mentioned in this post my home parish is please to welcome Fr. Oscar Lukefahr (”Father Luke”) to our Lenten parish mission/week of renewal (read revival if you’re a protestant.)

I’m always up for freely available blogging material, especially when there’s free food involved (again, see the post referenced above,) so I will be posting a few thoughts from each night’s lecture this week.

Tonight’s lecture was called “Jesus didn’t say, ‘Go take a hike!’” Fr. Luke explained how in the totality of it, there are those who might ask us why we go to Mass, why we spend the time there, and we might grumble about why we should have to take the time, etc. Well, to put it in perspective, if we live to be 80, we’ll spend 6.5 years getting our education, 27 years sleeping, 4 years eating, and if we go to Mass every Sunday and spend 5 minutes in the morning and evening in prayer, we’ll spend 6 months on God. Seems like He doesn’t ask all that much as far as time dedicated specifically to Him (not counting, of course, many hours spent on charity with others in His name.) In addition, we know that because God created each of us special in this enormous universe he created, He loves us more that anyone else possibly can.

Finally, we should go to Mass because it’s the only thing Jesus told us to do for Him. When he took the bread and broke it, and gave it to his apostles, He said, “do this in memory of me.” There are those who say, “I can worship God anywhere, not just in Church. I can see the beauty of His creation outside the Church. I can commune with God just as well out in nature. I can go on a hike and see a great deal more than I can see inside a Church…” Hence the title of tonight’s talk. Jesus didn’t command us to take a hike. He commanded us to go to Mass. Again - it’s the only thing Jesus told us to do for him.

Tomorrow, “Praying the Mass with your friends in heaven.”

Yes, it’s another one of those “parents are the problem” stories.

A popular Germantown High School teacher suffered a broken neck Friday during a scuffle with students over a prohibited electronic device.

The incident happened just before noon after math teacher Frank Burd confiscated an iPod from a 11th grade member of his class.

Then again, maybe it’s also a “administration is the problem” story:

Vallas went on to say both students face serious criminal charges and will be expelled. Vallas also said the two students involved in the attack were in the process of being expelled from the school because of disciplinary reasons.

Why in the heck is this story on my blog? Maybe it oughta be over on the home and family blog. Maybe the nuns with rulers should have been in their leaves earlier.

Article.

Great news out of Miami! A tiny baby born at just 22 weeks gestation back in October has survived and is headed home from the hospital this week. She’ll continue to receive oxygen, but she is developing normally.

Consider that the pro-abort crowd says that she was born as a “tissue blob” or something.

The one drawback is that she was conceived by IVF, which we know is unnatural and I have to wonder how many little brothers and sisters didn’t make it as far as she did. Nonetheless, I would hope a powerful point as been made…consider this - the age of viability has just been pushed back another week!

Article.

I am heading out tomorrow morning to a work-related seminar.  I am unsure how much time I will get online before Thursday evening.  I’ll try to get posts in if I have the opportunity.  Please enjoy the comboxes while I am away.

Remember that more of my writing can be found at

Societyandpolitics.stblogs.com

Homeandfamily.stlbogs.com

Atlanta.stblogs.com 

And if you are interested in contributing to these, please let me know!!

B16 said some pretty offensive stuff at the conference on natural law…

“No law made by man can overturn that of the Creator without dramatically affecting society in its very foundation,” said the pope, according to the I-Media news agency, which reports on Vatican affairs in French.

“Weakening the family is punishing society,” he told the delegation. Natural law “has rules that supersede all human laws (and) does not allow for derogations by anyone.”

Read the rest of the story

B16 is driving the pro-choice and pro-homosexual “Catholics” nuts with things like this. I like it.

Well, I didn’t predict it of my own volition, but many economists did. Remember how raising the minimum wage would make a difference to “working families,” whatever that means? Well, in Arizona at least, it’smaking a difference to the people who actually earn minimum wage, teenagers. Here’s your link.

Companies maintain the new wage was raised to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour to help the breadwinners in working-poor families. Teens typically have other means of support.

Mark Messner, owner of Pepi’s Pizza in south Phoenix, estimates he has employed more than 2,000 high school students since 1990. But he plans to lay off three teenage workers and decrease hours worked by others. Of his 25-person workforce, roughly 75 percent are in high school.

“I’ve had to go to some of my kids and say, ‘Look, my payroll just increased 13 percent,’ ” he said. ” ‘Sorry, I don’t have any hours for you.’ “