16. The Church

16. THE CHURCH, THE BODY OF CHRIST, IS A SIGN OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH. Compendium 147-160 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:12-14,26-27 1. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and Mary and the mission of the Church began in earnest. 2. Christ lives and acts in and with his church, especially through the preaching of the Word and the Sacraments. 3. "Ekklesia" are those who are called and gathered in Faith and Baptism to become children of God, members of Christ, and temples of the Holy Spirit. 4. As members of Christ we are called to live our vocation, faithfully and robustly, for the common good. 5. "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of The Father, and of The Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" Matthew 28:16-17 6. His Kingdom is Truth and Life, Grace and Holiness, Justice, Love and Peace. 7. The Church does not only point to the Kingdom of God, it is the Kingdom of God in seed form, teaching us to live in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 8. The Church is a universal sacrament of salvation, effectively guiding and delivering the human family out of darkness. 9. We are called to live the new commandment of love, to be the salt of the earth, and the light of the world, leading all to God's Kingdom already begun on earth. 10. The Church is the Body of Christ and we are the members of that Body. 11. The Church is the Bride of Christ and we are the children of that Bride. 12. The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and we are the living stones of that Temple through Faith, Worship and Service, through the Sacraments and sharing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 13. One cannot separate the institutional church from its spiritual source, Jesus Christ, because he himself has ordained it so, fully aware of our weakness and unworthiness: "Upon this rock I will build my church." 14. Christ has ordained that as members of his body we share his vocation as priest, prophet and King. We accomplish this through the gift of the Holy Spirit who makes us holy because Christ is the head of our communal body. 15. The Church needs constant reformation of its members. 16. The Church has God as its Origin, Christ as its Head, the dignity and freedom of all as its Hallmark, its Mission is to be salt of the earth and light to the world, it's Law is the New Commandment of Love, The kingdom of God is its Destiny already begun on earth.

The Holy Spirit

15. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT The Third Person of the Holy Trinity is the "Driving Force" of the Church's Life Compendium 136-146 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. John 14:16-17,26 1.To be the Third Person of the Trinity does not mean to be less important. The Holy Spirit is worshiped and glorified and co-equal to the Father and son. 2. The Trinity is a splendid mystery of God's inward communion of life and love of which we are destined to share fully. 3. The Holy Spirit is our Advocate, Counselor, Comforter and The Giver of Life. 4. The Holy Spirit is "Living Water" at Baptism and "tongues of fire" at Pentecost. The Spirit descends as a Dove at Christ's baptism. He is the inspiration of the Prophets. Through the Power of the Holy Spirit Mary conceived and became the mother of Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother. 5. The Holy Spirit enables us to pray and proclaim the saving Gospel of Truth And Love, he restores divine likeness in those who are baptized, confirms his gifts at Confirmation, empowers priests to bring forth the living presence of Christ in the Eucharist, imparts forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance. 6. When we open our hearts to the fruits of the Holy Spirit (charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity) we bring forth a rich harvest of new life and love."Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and they shall renew the face of the earth.” 7. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which we receive at Baptism and again at Confirmation, are Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. 8. An example of Wisdom was when Solomon resolved the case of the two women who gave birth the same night but one baby died. Both claimed the surviving baby was theirs so Solomon suggested cutting the baby in half and one woman agreed but the other said let the baby live even if the other woman would get the baby. So Solomon knew this was the true mother and gave the baby to her. 9. An example of Knowledge is when Peter said to Jesus “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus responded “you have received this knowledge from above.” 10. An example of Understanding is when they wanted to stone a woman and Jesus said “he who is without sin can throw the first stone.” 11. An example of Counsel is when Jesus told the women “Go in peace and sin no more.” 12. An example of Fortitude was Peter when he told the Sanhedrin they he must proclaim Christ even though they forbid him to do so. 13. An example of Piety was Anna the prophetess who lived in the temple most of her life waiting for the Messiah. 14. An example of Fear of the Lord was Moses before the burning bush.

The Risen Lord

14. AT THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FATHER The risen Lord remains present to the church today as we work to build his kingdom on earth Compendium 127-135 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:17-23 1. The Resurrection of Jesus was not a resuscitation. His death was real and indisputable. 2. Mary Magdalene and the disciples at Emmaus as well as the Apostles were amazed, incredulous and afraid, as well as overjoyed, when he appeared to them, eat with them and they could touch him. Yet Jesus showed that he could pass through closed doors. They could fully grasp the Resurrection only with the grace of the Holy Spirit. 3.Those who Jesus brought back from the dead eventually died but when we are resurrected on the last day our bodies will die no more. 4. The Resurrection confirmed that Jesus was truly God and the truth of all he said and did. 5. We share his risen life now through the life of grace and we hope one day to share in his resurrection when our lowly bodies will be transformed in the pattern of his own glorious body. 6. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, a place of infinite peace and joy, interceding for us and he also remains with us through the ministry and sacramental life of the Church. 7. With the first Christians we look to the heavens and pray "come Lord Jesus" as we prepare for the final judgement with "fear and trembling" and confidence in the love and mercy of Our Father. 8. No other religion or ideology can proclaim the resurrection of the body. Only Christianity is based on the indisputable foundation that our savior proved he was God by rising from the dead and proclaiming everlasting life with indescribable peace and joy for those who follow him. Those who follow him begin to live the joy of heaven on earth and give witness to its truth. 1

13. The Paschal Mystery

13. THE PASCHAL MYSTERY In the liturgy of Holy Week, we commemorate Christ's Passion , Death, and Resurrection. Compendium 112-116 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. John 13:1 1. These events are inseparable and stand at the center of our faith. 2. The Hebrew word "paschal" means both "the passing over" and "passage". 3. In the Exodus the homes of the Israelites, marked by the blood of the sacrificial lamb, were "passed over" by the Angel of Death thereby sparing them so they could make the passage from slavery to freedom. 4. "Passover" is not just an historical celebration but a living memorial. 5. This first Passover anticipates Christ's shedding his blood for us as the sacrificial lamb to free all from the slavery of sin. 6. With Baptism in Christ we pass over from sin to a new and eternal life with Christ. 7. Christ is the new Moses who definitively interprets the Law and the Prophets. 8. We cannot impute guilt for the death of Jesus on those who historically participated in bringing it about. 9. Christ died for all our sins and as Christians we bear a greater responsibility for sin. 10. But God sent his Son in expiation for our sins. 11. Jesus assumed our humanity in order that it would become the very means of our redemption. 12. The entire life of Christ was a free offering to the Father to carry out his plan of salvation. 13. He announced the Kingdom, confirmed it with miracles, took our sins upon himself, cancelled death and showed us the path to everlasting life. 14. "Do this in memory of me", Jesus not only commands the Apostles to recall but also re-enact the very same mystery of love. "As often as you eat this bread and drink this blood you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes." This is the origin of the Mass and the priesthood. 15. "Obedient unto death", Jesus' agony unmasks the enormity of our sins, which we tend to trivialize. Obedience is the key to our reconciliation with God and with those we have harmed. 16. Jesus invites us to take up our daily cross of sacrifice and suffering and walk with him in joy. 17. We await with Mary, our mother, in gratitude and wonder, as the sadness of death gives way to the joy of the resurrection. 18. The stupendous message of the paschal mystery is that our God loves each of us beyond all measure and with infinite tenderness. He implores us to love one another “as I have loved you” and makes this possible with the words “do this in memory of me.” Our God is not an arduous task master but rather an intimate friend and partner who invites us to an eternal banquet in celebration of that everlasting friendship. We cannot earn such an invitation. We can only accept it with the humility of a destitute beggar who is called to the table of the most magnanimous King of kings. We must rejoice and be glad and shout out the good news that our God loves us, forgives and forgets our ingratitudes, and gave his own son to save us from sin and death and desires with his whole heart that we share an eternity of infinite happiness with him. Truly there is no God like our God and no faith like our faith, no gospel like our Gospel.

10. Jesus Christ the Only Son of God

10. Jesus Christ, The Only Son Of God
Truly God and truly man, Jesus Christ stands at the center of history
Compendium 79-97
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Galatians 4:4-5

1. The proclamation of the name of Jesus and his saving deeds is the heart of the Gospel.
"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" the entire life and mission of the Church has been built on this confession of Peter.
2. Our faith in Christ should instill in us the desire to share the Good News and to reveal in the Person of Christ the entire design of God and to put humanity in communion with him.
3. "Jesus" means "God saves" - because he will save his people from their sins.
In no other name can we find salvation (Acts 4:12) That is why we are never to take Jesus' name in vain.
4. "Christ" is not a family name but a Greek term meaning "anointed one" or "Messiah"
5. Through Baptism we become members of the Church and heirs to all that the Lord  did to save us through his life death and resurrection.
6. Both Jesus' baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist and his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor were marked by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit and the voice of the Father "this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"
7. "Lord" refers to Jesus' divine sovereignty demonstrated by his miracles, control over nature and his forgiveness of sins.
8. We should never let a day go by without repeating with the apostle Thomas "my Lord and my God"
9. Although Jesus was from eternity God's Son, at a certain point two thousand years ago he assumed our human nature and entered history. This happened because God wanted to draw near to us, reconcile us to his love and enable us to share in his divine life.
10. Jesus is at once "true God and true man" - of one substance, "consubstantial" with the Father and at the same time truly our brother.
11. Fully God and fully man, Jesus has revealed the Father to us and also revealed us to ourselves, who we are and what we should become.
12. As God, he has made us partakers in the divine nature, in the life and love he shares with his Father from all eternity.
13. He worked with human hands, thought with a human mind and learned by experience.
14. Jesus possessed both a human and divine will.
15. The human will of Jesus was fully conformed to the Father's saving love.
16. Jesus's obedience serves to heal our disobedience and its effects.
The disobedience of Adam estranged humanity from God and the perfect obedience of Jesus not only restored us to God but elevated humanity to an infinitely higher level as brothers of His only begotten son and heirs with Jesus to the Kingdom of Heaven.
17. His human heart also knows and loves us. The Sacred Heart of Jesus symbolizes the boundless love of the Holy Trinity for us.
18. For a Christian there are no equals or substitutes for Jesus. He is the only Way, Truth and Life. Christians who do not profess and proclaim this are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm and Jesus has promised to vomit them out of his mouth.
19. Do you have a personal intimate relationship with Jesus? It is available in the Eucharist. “He who eats my body and drinks my blood, lives in me and I in him.”
20. It is easy to go astray, the world is a relentless temptation. Jesus has made it just as easy to get back on track with the “daily bread” and repentance. His mercy is unlimited and greater than any sin.

9. The Fall

9. The Fall
Scripture and Tradition Shed Light on the Origin and Mystery  of Evil
Compendium 73-78
Genesis 3:14-15
“Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
 And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”
1. Evil began with the rejection of God by Satan and the fallen Angels.(Physical science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of angels because by definition physical science is limited to the physical and excluded from that which transcends physical reality)
2. Satan seduced our first parents to doubt God's friendship and thereby tricked them into subjecting themselves and their descendants to himself and to reject God.
3. In creating beings that share in his own freedom, God takes the risk of love.
4. Love means the lover freely chooses the beloved and vice versa.
It also means that the lover can love someone or something else in place of the beloved.
5. Instigated by Satan, Adam and Eve chose to replicate the sin of the fallen angels. That is to be "like God" on their own terms and masters of their own destiny without God.  They would reject God's warning and choose to decide to define for themselves what is "good" and what is "evil." This was the original sin which caused the loss of original grace of holiness and justice for them and their descendants.
6. Although human goodness and dignity were not lost completely, the natural harmony and friendship between the human family and God were radically disrupted.
7. Original sin is not a personal act but an inherent (inherited) part of the human condition that leads to the shared human tendency to reject God and choose what is evil.
8. All human beings, save the Blessed Virgin by a singular grace, are born with original sin.
9. God, the consummate lover, did not withdraw his love but lavished it all the more and promised that evil would be conquered and man would be lifted up from his fall. The Church sings of the sin of Adam and Eve as a "happy fault" because it reveals the infinite mercy and love of God for each of us.
10. The reality of sin can only be clearly understood through the light of divine revelation and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the true answer to human suffering.
11. What cannot be contested is that evil exists and keeps the world in turmoil. Even Mother Nature disrupts in the form of storms and earthquakes in reaction to the disorder wrought by evil. Man’s inhumanity to his fellow beings is amply recorded throughout  history. Nevertheless, there has been steady progress and hope always abounds. The fact that more and more people dedicate their lives to peace and justice demonstrates that good can and does triumph over evil. That is what Jesus promises and delivers to all those who follow him faithfully.
12. "Adam" and "Eve" can also be considered as composites representing each and every one of us. Even after being cleansed of "original" sin we perennially tend to revert to selfishness. The Blessed Mother, by the grace of God and the infinite merits of Jesus Christ, is the solitary boast of our humanity and her son is our hope and promise of redemption.

8. Male and Female

8.. "Male and Female He Created Them"
The communion of love between husband and wife finds its ultimate source in God.
Compendium 71-72
Genesis 2:18-24
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam[a] no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[b] and then closed up the place with flesh.Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[c] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
    for she was taken out of man.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

1. "God created mankind in his own image, male and female he created them" Genesis 1:27
2.  "Maleness" and Femaleness" are part of God's creative design and go the depths of one's very being and should inspire wonder and awe in us and in our relationship with God and one another.
3. Sexual differences do not exist in God who is pure spirit.
4. "Being man" and "being woman" are two equal and complementary ways of being human.
5. God created man and woman together and willed each for the other.
6. "Be fertile and multiply", Genesis 1:28 is at the heart of the Church's teaching against contraception.
7. Man and woman created as a "unity of two" in their common humanity, are called to live in a community of love and to mirror to the world the community of love that is in God. They give themselves to each other freely and completely in a holy communion which is a unity in differences which is fruitful and creative and not a business contract that is calculated and measured and exchanged as a commodity or seeking payment.
8. God in himself is love.
9. Each of the divine Persons is truly divine but in a way that the other is not. Similarly, male and female are two distinct ways of being human for the common good of society and the salvation of souls.
10. The best witness to God is a loving and joyful family that renews itself constantly, overcomes discouragement and missteps and begins every day to start again the great adventure of life on earth projected towards heaven.