Northern Virginia Catholic Bible Study & Apologetics House rules/notes… 1. Meetup is www.meetup.com/catholicbiblestudy Zoom Meeting Logon info is the same every week: Zoom ID: 861 1782 2081 Password: 406952 2. Questions encouraged. If you have questions about anything, you can ask in the chat, email the Meetup group, or me directly at ron@hallagan.net. 3. Unedited recaps of meetings are posted via Meetup after our meeting. The final edited recap is posted within a week by Taylor on our Catholic Catacombs Light website at https://catholiccatacombs.wixsite.com/website/recaps. Taylor will notify everyone on Meetup with the link. 4. Respectfulness. We will be discussing differences between religions and between Christian denominations, and agree to be respectful at all times. Specifically, Protestants are our friends and brothers in Christ; in fact, I personally owe part of my return to the faith to them! 5. No politics. It would be easy for us to self-destruct, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is to learn/understand/apply the Bible and our Catholic faith. 6. Prison fellowship – opportunities to volunteer one Saturday per month for 2 hours (12-2 or 2-4) serving Catholic prisoners at the Fairfax County Jail. Ask Ron (ron@hallagan.net) or Gina (gmasterson99@gmail.com) for details. Why do this? "I was in prison, and you visited me." – Matt 25:36 7. Catholic Prayer & Fellowship. Are you interested in praying with other Catholics during the week? Fellow member Jason Goldberg has started just this at “Catholic Prayer, Fellowship, and Spirituality Meetup.” Sign up at: https://www.meetup.com/online-catholic-prayer-fellowship-and-spirituality/ 8. I highly recommend seeing “The Chosen” TV series. We seek a relationship with Jesus Christ, which is not easy at first. It helps when we can relate to a person that we have seen and heard. They have captured the real Jesus as close as any film I’ve ever seen. https://thechosen.link/1Y1R7. 9. RSVP Reminder: Please RSVP whether you are attending the meeting or just reading the Recap notes afterwards. The more RSVPs, the more Meetup will give us exposure, which will draw more people to us, which is our way of evangelizing! Please RSVP when you get the Meetup invite weekly. Our Bible Study Format: 5 min prayers, 10-15 min Catholic topic, 40-45 min on the main topic from weekly List below: Week 1: Jan 3 - Gospel Week: Zacchaeus, Epiphany, 12 Days of Christmas, Nativity Scene Week 2: Jan 10 – Bible Week (Gen àRev): We are in EXODUS, the 2nd book of Moses, meeting #5. Week 3: Jan 17 – Survey Topics Voted on by Members: We are currently beginning Heaven.
Ö 1) Jesus’ Greatest Parables 2) Hell, Purgatory, Heaven 3) Christian Comparisons 4) Great Women in the Bible 5) World Religions 6) Book of Revelation 7) Major Heresies and Church Councils
1. Is organ donation approved in Catholicism? Yes, but I will verify.
2. Love and Unity are two of the Holy Spirit’s Trinitarian descriptions. How are these different? How do they affect us?
3. The knowledge of God is “participatory.” Is that why nonbelievers have difficulty?
4. Are Charity and Love synonymous? How are they different? What are the 4 highest forms of Charity?
5. The History of the Mass going back to Cain & Abel, all leading to the sublime meaning of the Eucharist.
6. Can you review origin and meaning of the 12 statements of belief in the Creed?
7. Since you said that Gen 1-3 is likely mostly allegory, how do you think The Fall actually took place?
8. Who am I? It seems we all ask that question at some point; some ask it all the time. Can you answer this?
Next Holy Days of Obligation
Lent – Wed, Feb 22 – Thurs April 6
Triduum – Friday, Apr 7–Sun Apr 9, Easter – April 9
Opening Prayer
Lord God in Heaven
Thank you for loving us into existence.
Thank you for taking us back every time we turn away from You.
Thank you for coming here yourself to walk in our shoes and show us the way
And for agreeing to take on the cross for the justice that is due to us
So that eternal forgiveness may not cost us anything – only the effort of asking.
Finally, thank you for sending us the HS to be our Trinitarian GPS the rest of the way.
And as You taught us to pray:
Our Father
Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily Bread;
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us all.
Amen.
Q: Is organ donation approved in Catholicism? I had said yes, but promised to get more information.
Confirmed. Roman Catholicism views organ and tissue donation as an act of charity and love.
“Transplants are a great step forward in science’s service of man, and not a few people today owe their lives to an organ transplant. Increasingly, the technique of transplants has proven to be a valid means of attaining the primary goal of all medicine—the service of human life….There is a need to instill in people’s hearts, especially in the hearts of the young, a genuine and deep appreciation of the need for brotherly love, a love that can find expression in the decision to become an organ donor.” – John Paul II, August 2000
Speaking of getting to Heaven…
It should be no surprise that the Lord’s Prayer is both a description of life, and a prescription for life. The beginning of the prayer starts with God, Our Father, as He should be the first focus of all our thoughts, prayers, and affairs. The prayer ends by laying out the things that humans need to do to fix our brokenness and elevate our spirits towards God. In between is divine help.
1) Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
2) And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
3) Give us this day our daily Bread.
1) The meaning of this first statement is that God’s Kingdom is coming, whether we like it or not, and whether we are ready or not. God’s justice, which is part of creation, has been paused for us. That pause is just what it says… a pause. Pauses end.
When will that happen? What will happen?
On Judgment Day or when we die. Justice is restored. Evil will be eliminated and cease going forward.
How will full justice be restored?
Full justice will be restored when God’s will is restored, on earth as it is in Heaven.
What is God’s will for us?
To be like Christ: to help people and/or pray for them instead of condemning them (our condemning them not only doesn’t help them, it hurts us); and to seek a relationship with God through our ongoing requests for forgiveness and through his involvement in our progress. When we do this, we help "usher in God's will on earth," which is the job of every Christian. It is our spiritual practice.
2) What is the biggest obstacle that humans must overcome to gain Heaven?
a) Asking for forgiveness for our selfish errors/behavior as we go through life.
b) To likewise forgive others, just as we wish Him to forgive us. In this way, we are learning His will, which is to be like God.
c) We have additional divine help but only if we choose to believe and be helped – by believing in and receiving the Eucharist. It’s up to us to believe, but for those who do, Communion/Eucharist is Trinitarian nourishment for the spiritual transition we are going through. When we get to Heaven, we will instantly be recognized by Christ, and we will know Him.
Heaven: Where we left off last month…
Please recall that I am paraphrasing these books and my professors in my delivery below. They are taken from two classes in Dante that I took from two different professors (Robert Royal and Anthony Esolen), and their own deliveries were different, kind of like different sides of a gemstone, but the same gemstone. Part if the reason is because Dante wrote in Old Italian in the year 1300AD, and there are various translations of this available today (kind of like translations of the Bible that use different words to describe the same events). My own imperfect notes are from their lectures.
When Dante reaches the 8th sphere, he encounters several tests. Since this tour has been granted to Dante to save his soul when he returns to earth, he isn’t going to be let off the hook easily (without elevating his spiritual knowledge). In this sphere, he will be tested on what he knows, or thinks he knows, about the three divine/theological virtues – faith, hope, and love. Here he will first meet Christ’s inner circle – the same three Jesus invited up Mt. Tabor to see his Transfiguration: Peter, James, and John.
Faith: St. Peter enters the scene and questions him on his faith – the meaning of faith, why he thinks he has it, and what his own contents of faith are. Dante claims his faith comes from the very fact that the preaching of a shoeless fisherman like Peter and tentmaker like Paul came the entire Catholic Church he now knows, overcoming the opposition of the greatest empire the earth has ever known.
Hope: St. James then enters the scene and questions him on hope – the meaning of hope, where his hope comes from, and where the destiny of his hope lies. Dante convinces James that nobody in the entire Church Militant has more hope than him.
Church Militant – Church on earth engaged in spiritual warfare against sin/evil, in order that, when we die, we may enter heaven.
Church Suffering – the souls moving through Purgatory
Church Triumphant – the souls in Heaven
All Three = The Communion of Saints
Love: Next enters St. John, the youngest apostle to whom Jesus entrusted his mother from the cross. He is the author of the 4th Gospel, Revelations, and tradition says possibly the three letters from John. He is considered the Apostle of Love and will question Dante on love. John’s brilliance is impossible for Dante to behold, and he is temporarily blinded.
John: Dante, what is love?
Recall that Dante considers himself a poet first and foremost, and not just any poet but an eloquent poet of love! Indeed, Dante waxes eloquently about how God is love revealed to the world and recites Yahweh’s revealing part of Himself to Moses at Sinai. He compares love in action to a bow from which one must choose to aim one’s arrow.
John: But, Dante, what is the target of your bow? What is it that inspires you?
Most of us might speak to the sorts of things we might be attracted to, but Dante knows there is more to it because the whole universe is a creation of love.
Dante: What inspires me? Philosophy, Aristotle, theology, the movement of the everything contained in the universe, and especially, the revealing in the Old Testament of the coming of the Messiah, and then the revealing of the truth in the New Testament with the arrival of the Word, which you yourself spoke of so profoundly, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh!”
John: Good, Dante, you love philosophy, and you love the Scriptures. But what specific thing do you love that most brings you to God?
Dante: My being brings me to God. Being of the world He put me in, my own being – that I exist – and the death that He bore that I may continue to have my life. This is what draws me to God!
Suddenly, the sky is full of angelic forms that are singing “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord”! Dante’s eyesight is restored.
A fourth radiant soul appears next and John can’t make him out. Beatrice tells him that the radiant soul is the first one who fell, but is now one who looks upon God with love.
Dante: Adam?!
Dante can’t believe his eyes – the first Adam? Before the New Adam? Questions immediately fill his mind.
Dante: Adam, how long ago? How long were you in Eden? What was the real sin that got you kicked out of the Garden? What language did you speak?
Adam responds to each. He identifies his sin in Eden as “trespassing”: I walked beyond the boundaries within which God was working with me. God was enabling me to become all I could be and all that I could excel – even shoot for the stars; but my pride and greed caused me to want more, and want it more expediently, even if it meant on my own. In the process of stepping outside the bounds of my relationship with God, I immediately found myself transgressing against others (i.e., Eve) and God (betrayal, hiding, lying…).
Adam continues: The bounds God gives us are not to set limits, but to help us define our journey and ourselves, because the gifts God gives us are powerful, like a stallion, and we must learn patience and restraint in order to learn how to ride it on the path of our freedom. Freedom does not mean there are no limits; nor does it mean we can do anything we want. These things lead to trampling over others and eventually our death – the opposite of freedom.
Next, Adam says he did not speak Hebrew (Dante had thought that Hebrew was the first/original language): All languages change over time, Dante. As cultures evolve, so does its language to communicate that changing culture. What I spoke no longer exists – it disappeared long before Noah and Abraham.
Adam: How long was I there? I only recall one day – the last one.
There is quiet after Adam finishes answering Dante. Suddenly Adam laughs. Then everyone around Dante starts laughing. Then, song breaks out all around them. Joy is in the air. Dante recalls feeling like he was drunk, but without being inebriated. What a description!
Beatrice beckons, it was time to leave to the Ninth Sphere.
Dante goes to the sphere of the angels…
Of course, the angels are all spiritual – no bodies – but they are highly intelligent beings. To give you a rough analogy, the most a human can retain in the front of his mind at any one time are 4 or 5 things – sometimes 6. Angels have been described as being able to hold several dozen things in front of their minds at one time.
Dante can’t tell where they are and asks Beatrice, “What is this place? Where is it?”
Beatrice says, “It is not in any place, Dante. The angels don’t occupy places.”
Dante wonders how much “reality” angels can have if they don’t have substance or place. But he is told that reality in the mind is greater and comes first before anything material. The same is true for us: we must think creative thoughts first before we can put reality to them. We think and ponder before we solve problems in this world. He is also told that the angels are closer to God than us because of their highly intelligent, spiritual natures, and their proximity to Him since Creation.
Dante: But what part of creation was this?
Dante is reminded that in Genesis 1:3, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” But notice how this was before the sun, moon, and stars were created, so the understanding of this is that this was the light of mind, of intelligence, the light of the angels – before the rest of creation was unpacked.
Ponder!
Dante asks, “How many angels are there?”
Dante is given an explanation analogy using a chessboard that essentially comes down to 264, which is big. Most of us know a million, then a billion, then trillion. Add 6 more zeroes and you have it. It is kind of like counting the stars, or the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. Yet, we cannot say infinite, because the number of angels is finite – they are individual beings!
Dante: Are the angels all the same?
Beatrice: No, not at all.
Beatrice explains the nine levels of angels – Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels – but then adds: In fact, these ‘levels’ are misleading. Each angel’s individual-ness is more unique than even humans. In comparison it is said that each angel is its own species. Likewise, each one receives its radiance from God in its own unique way. And, yet…God’s radiance remains the same.
Dante thinks about this and asks, “Why did God create the angels? What do they do for Him?
Beatrice: God didn’t create angels because he needed anything. God needs nothing. He didn’t even need them because he needed an object of his love, because the Trinity already is a communion of love. But because the nature of love is outward-looking, it is God’s nature to expand outwards in sharing love. Do you see, Dante? When love expands to new beings, those beings learn to do the same and share it with other beings, who then continue this pattern! Because God is the source of love, it never runs out.
Dante continually tries to store these things in his mind for later.
Dante asks yet another question: Why did some of the angels fall?
Beatrice: Because they would not wait for the fullness of God’s grace.
Dante: I don’t understand – why not? And how long did it take for them to fall?
Beatrice: As for how long, count to twenty – it was quicker than that. In the first movement of their wills, some of them detached themselves from the ground of their being. Instead of saying, “I exist because God has given me existence,” they said, “I exist already on my own. I AM - all by myself.” They did not wish to wait for God to fill in the gaps and fulfill all their desires. Rather, they sought to take control over events and fulfill their missing potential by their own power. It is our first description of pride, Dante.
Dante: Why didn’t the other angels fall?
Beatrice: They, too, experienced the very same awe in the beginning, but they decided to wait to receive the rest. It was as if they said, “If God had given us all of this, let us wait and cooperate with whatever it is His plan is for us.” This willingness to restrain their desire for more and remain totally open to God’s unknown plan took far more strength than those angels who detached themselves from God. Dante, it is our first description of humility. Humility is the greatest of spiritual strengths – a kind of double strength – because it places self-desires behind God’s will and behind the “good of the other,” and it does not need nor seek recognition from other created beings.
Final level…
From here, Dante enters a mysterious level that somehow is described as his being in the presence of God, although I am unable to describe it. Dante often said his words and adjectives were insufficient to describe what he was experiencing as he was entering each of the heavenly spheres, but his words truly fail him now. The pure mysticism of love overwhelms him.
It comes down to 1) God’s being is the source of all existence and love, these two being united into one; 2) God is both transcendent (beyond all things) and imminent (in all things) at the same time; and 3) God is three persons yet one, which is a communion of love. In the center of these three mystical descriptions of the Trinity is the figure of Christ, who humbled himself to become a created being so that we could become one with God.
How does one explain this vision?
Dante is attempting to describe what theologians call the Beatific Vision, which is unique to each angel and human being, differing only in the individual’s capacity to receive and radiate back God. Far from a place of stoic calm, it is a state overflowing with ecstasy and jubilation.
Below are Dante’s closing lines where he is speaking about his final image that was granted by God, at the end of his journey to the heavens.
O how scant is speech, too weak to frame my thoughts.
Compared to what I still recall my words are faint –
to call them “little” is to praise them much.
Like the geometer who fully applies himself
to square the circle and, for all his thought,
cannot discover the principle he lacks,
such was I at that strange new sight
I tried to see how the image fit the circle
and how it found its where in it.
But my wings were not suffice for that
had not my mind been struck by a bolt
of lightening that granted what I asked.
Here my exalted vision lost its power.
But now my will and my desire, like wheels revolving
with an even motion, were turning with
the Love that moves the sun and all the stars.
This is the end of Dante’s journey to Heaven, but not ours. Dante does not venture through the door of Judgment Day. In our next concluding session on Heaven, we shall pass through that Doorway where we will regain our glorified bodies and enter the New Earth.
Closing Prayer
Heaven Father,
Thank you for traveling with us on Dante’s journey to Heaven.
We appreciate the messages of envy having no place
and humility being/becoming the bedrock of our spiritual identities.
He us tonight and tomorrow – for that is all there is – to be patient, kind,
and helpful to every human being around us, just as you would do.
Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen!
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