Youth Ministry @ Our Lady of Victory

First, I want to start off this post with a great big THANK YOU to all the people who were able to help us at Biggs for our grocery bagging fundraiser!  It was a huge success and we are looking forward to just as big of a success at our next one on April 26th from 11-6.  Please sign up if you can help us.

Secondly, make sure to check out the Upcoming Events Page.  There are a lot of great programs being offered by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Office of Youth Ministry that I highly recommend.  Also, you’ll find information about our upcoming service outings, fundraisers, activities and meetings.  We’ve got a lot of exciting ideas for the summer, but could always use more. If you have any suggestions on things to do this summer, please let us know.

Before getting to the details of last night’s meeting I wanted to direct you all to a couple of websites that sell Catholic apparel.  Marianne and I thought it would be a good idea to purchase some of these as a possible fundraiser for the group. However, we’d like to get your opinion on the possible success of this idea first. Go to www.romanticcatholic.com, www.totally-catholic.com, www.agnusgiftshop.com and www.lztees.com and let me know what you think.  Do you have a favorite? Also, while we’re talking about tshirts, ours are in!!  Cassie’s dad was able to get them for us at no charge and Cassie dropped them off at the meeting last night!!  So, if you ordered one or would like one, let us know or show up at the next youth group outing on April 20th to pick it up!

Last night we had our April meeting and set up the meeting a little differently.  Here’s the bulk of our conversation:

          Recently our Pope has been challenging Catholics to live out their faith. In order to do that, we need to know our faith. In an attempt to help all of us to better know our faith, we have decided that we need a Catholic “Order of the Phoenix” so to speak. We would like to make it a regular part of our meetings to present these tough questions that you may be asked about your faith, and find ways of answering them and thereby defending the faith.

 

Read over these questions and decide how you would defend your Faith in response to them.  Then check out the answers that Marianne and I were able to come up with by using just the Catechism and the Bible (just two of the plethora of resources available to all Catholics).  Make sure to make note of the “catch all” answer at the end.

1.      Why is the Catholic Church so condemning? According to the Catholic Church, if I’m happy, I must be doing something wrong.

2.      Why can’t I just confess my sins straight to God?  He forgives me either way.

3.      What makes a Catholic marriage so important?  Isn’t it still sacred if you are married by a Justice of the Peace?

 

Answers

1.      The Catholic church in not condemning.

          A. Playground analogy

          B. Bible

1 Cor 6:9-10

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Jn 5:29

(This was Jesus’ answer …) those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.

 

Rev 22:15

Outside (the new Jerusalem, heaven) are the dogs, the sorcerers, the unchaste, the murderers, the idol-worshipers, and all who love and practice deceit.

 

C. Catechism

1421 The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health,³ has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.

 

1422 Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their conversion.”

 

1426 Nevertheless the new life received in Christian initiation has not abolished the frailty and weakness of human nature, nor the inclination to sin that tradition calls concupiscence, which remains in the baptized such that with the help of the grace of Christ they may prove themselves in the struggle of Christian life.¹⁴ This is the struggle of conversion directed toward holiness and eternal life to which the Lord never ceases to call us.

 

2. We must confess our sins to a priest who stands in the place of Christ

          A. Placebo Pill.

You can take it, and have good intention but it’s just a sugar pill. It doen’t change you in any way. In order to get the effect of the medicine, you need the reall pill. In order to receive God’s grace, you need to confess to a priest. (Confessing alone and praying alone are not the same!)

 

          B. Bible

Jn 20:21-23 – (Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

 

2 Cor 5:18-20 -And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

 

1 Jn 1:8 – If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, ³ and the truth is not in us.

 

          C. Catechism

1441 Only God forgives sins.³⁹ Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, “The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” and exercises this divine power: “Your sins are forgiven.”⁴⁰ Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name.⁴¹

 

1465 When he celebrates the sacrament of Penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial judge whose judgment is both just and merciful. The priest is the sign and the instrument of God’s merciful love for the sinner.

 

1495 Only priests who have received the faculty of absolving from the authority of the Church can forgive sins in the name of Christ.

 

3. A marriage is a sacrament and a justice of the peace wedding is not.

A. Foundation on quicksand: Marriage was originally intended to include God as the foundation.  By being married apart from the Church, you are setting your foundation on yourselves with no help of God’s grace.  A house needs a solid foundation on which to stand.  Without it, it will not stand up to much strife.

         

B. Bible

Eph 5:25-26;31-32 – Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word. “For this reason a man shall leave (his) father and (his) mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.

 

          C. Catechism

1621 In the Latin Rite the celebration of marriage between two Catholic faithful normally takes place during Holy Mass, because of the connection of all the sacraments with the Paschal mystery of Christ.¹²⁰ In the Eucharist the memorial of the New Covenant is realized, the New Covenant in which Christ has united himself for ever to the Church, his beloved bride for whom he gave himself up.¹²¹ It is therefore fitting that the spouses should seal their consent to give themselves to each other through the offering of their own lives by uniting it to the offering of Christ for his Church made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice, and by receiving the Eucharist so that, communicating in the same Body and the same Blood of Christ, they may form but “one body” in Christ.¹²²

1623 According to the Latin tradition, the spouses as ministers of Christ’s grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church.

 

1624 The various liturgies abound in prayers of blessing and epiclesis asking God’s grace and blessing on the new couple, especially the bride. In the epiclesis of this sacrament the spouses receive the Holy Spirit as the communion of love of Christ and the Church.¹²⁶ The Holy Spirit is the seal of their covenant, the ever-available source of their love and the strength to renew their fidelity.

 

1631 This is the reason why the Church normally requires that the faithful contract marriage according to the ecclesiastical form. Several reasons converge to explain this requirement:¹³⁴

·        Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It is therefore appropriate that it should be celebrated in the public liturgy of the Church;

·        Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Church between the spouses and towards their children;

·        Since marriage is a state of life in the Church, certainty about it is necessary (hence the obligation to have witnesses);

·        The public character of the consent protects the “I do” once given and helps the spouses remain faithful to it.

 

If anyone ever asks you something that you just don’t have an answer for, just say, “I don’t know. But because it is part of my faith tradition which has the fullness of Truth, I can find out!”