Northern Virginia Catholic Bible Study
Northern Virginia Catholic Bible Study house rules/notes…
Meetup is https://meetu.ps/c/4mYPW/F6KR3/a, Zoom Meeting Logon information is the same every week: Zoom ID: 861 1782 2081 Password: 406952
Questions encouraged. If you have questions about anything, you can email the group via Meetup, or me directly at ron@hallagan.net.
The unedited recaps from our meetings will be posted on Meetup immediately after our meeting, and a final edited version will be posted on our Catholic Catacombs Light website https://catholiccatacombs.wixsite.com/website/blog, a week later. You will be notified via Meetup of both.
See The Chosen. Knowing Jesus Christ means being able to better relate to God. Check it out: The Chosen at https://thechosen.link/1Y1R7.
Respectfulness. We will be discussing differences between religions and even between Christian denominations, but we agree to use respectful words and tones in doing so. Specifically, Protestants are our friends and brothers in Christ, and personally I owe part of my return to the faith to them.
No politics. It would be easy for us to self-destruct; however, that’s not our goal. Our goal is to learn the Bible, explain the Catholic faith and help members develop a closer relationship with Jesus Christ in their daily lives.
Catholic Prayer, Fellowship, and Spirituality Meetup led by fellow member Jason Goldberg: https://www.meetup.com/online-catholic-prayer-fellowship-and-spirituality/
Bible Study Format: 5 min prayer, 15 min Catholic topic, 40 min main topic from the weeks listed below
Week 1: May 7 – Gospel Week: Epiphany in Upper Room, Jesus interrogates Peter, 4 Creatures of the Apocalypse
Week 2: May 14 – Bible Gen-2-Rev: Gen23-29 – Sarah and Abraham die; Isaac and Rebekah; Jacob and Esau, Jacob and Rachel
Week 3: May 21 – Topic of Choice: Purgatory
Topics Survey Results
√ 1) Jesus’ Great Parables 2) Hell, Purgatory, Heaven 3) Christian Comparisons 4) Great Women in the Bible
5) Why is there suffering? 6) World Religions 7) Book of Revelation
Week 4: April 26 – Open Mic and Easter Questions
Opening Prayer of Gratitude
Heavenly Father
I thank you for this wonderful day that you have made.
I thank you for my life and the lives of my loved ones.
I thank you Lord for all the big and small wins that I attain every day; and equally for Your edifications for every error and adversity.
I thank you for the roof over my head, the food to eat, and clothes to wear.
I recognize that these things are a gift from you because we are the stewards of this world, not the creators.
Lord, may I never forget that all things work together for good for those who love you.
Thank you, Father, in Jesus’ name, in the unity and love of the HS.
Amen.
Upcoming Catholic Holy Days
Easter Sunday – was April 17 – the most important day in Christianity for, as Paul said, if Jesus had not resurrected from the dead, then all of this was for nothing.
Q: Why?
It means this life is not all there is. Unfortunately, if this life is all there is, then whoever has the most toys at the end, wins. Nothing else matters.
Ascension – Thursday, May 26 – 40 days after Easter
Pentecost – Sunday, June 5 – 50 days after Easter
Jewish Holy Days
Passover – 7 day celebration: April 15 – April 23.
Shavuot – Sat, June 4 (Jewish Pentecost) – 50 days after Passover
Quote of the Week
"Without God, all morality is an exercise of power." – Frederick Nietzsche
Frederich Nietzsche, father of nihilism and modern-day atheism
Q: What is nihilism
Nihilism is the belief that the universe and everything in it is an accident and therefore nothing matters. Moral values are baseless and all moral judgments and ethical standards are arbitrary.
How about this wording instead?
Without God, all reality is an exercise of power?
Tonight: Remaining Easter Questions
Open Mic
Easter Questions
Q: Just before they sit down to the Last Supper, Jesus washes the feet of the Apostles against their will. What does this symbolize? How does this relate to what comes next?
The feet were always considered the dirtiest part of the body, not only because they walked or worked all day in the dust and dirt, but there was often animal waste on the roads. Only slaves were permitted to wash feet. It was the lowest of low jobs.
Q: If the Son of God could wash their feet – slave’s work – what was the message to his Apostles?
Humility and service are the true foundations of love and, as such, they have no limits. They can only be limited by our own self-regard.
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Q: In the Garden of Gethsemane, most of the Apostles abandon Jesus as he was being arrested; one betrays him and their fearless leader, Peter, denies knowing him at all. Since everything in Scripture is written for our benefit, what is for our benefit here?
Jesus knew about his disciples’ failings but that didn’t stop him from choosing them. Why? Because it’s not about our failings, it’s what we do about them once they come to light. Do we acknowledge them? Do they draw us closer to God? If so, we win. If we follow our pride and cover up our failings, we reject God and we lose.
Notice how God uses our failures to bring about good things. Peter learned something about himself – and about God – in denying Jesus 3x. This is God-wisdom, which is so much higher than human wisdom. It enabled Peter to do what he did as first Church leader the rest of his life, and to die for God without flinching. Do you think that was the same Peter who denied Christ? What about Judas? God turned the worst thing a human can do to a friend – betrayal – into the greatest thing God could do for man – his salvation.
This is the meaning of what Paul said, “All things work together for good for those who love God.” - Rom 8:28
And if the original Apostles were flawed like this, do you think the Church will fare any better? Of course not. But to give us some comfort, he did 2 things: a) he sent the HS to guide the Church through thick and thin, and b) he assured us that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.
Finally, for us, it points out that God recognizes that we are far from perfect, but if that was a problem for God he wouldn’t have bothered with any of this. Clearly, if God sees just one speck of light in us, He will lay down His life to save us.
Judas – 30 pieces of silver Peter denies knowing Jesus The disciples abandon Jesus
My God, why have you abandoned me?
Q: Why did Jesus say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” while dying on the cross? This is a troubling statement. Forsaken is another word for “deserted.” Did the Father really forsake the Son? Did Jesus really despair? Will God desert us, too?
No, God does not abandon Jesus – or us; and, no, Jesus does not despair. Indeed, Jesus is experiencing the worst a human can endure; but what he is sharing with us is Psalm 22, which begins, “My God, My God, why hast thou abandoned me?”
Jesus calls out the first words of this psalm 1) because that’s probably all the words he can get out, 2) to show his union with us – with humanity, and 3) to fulfill the Psalm itself.
How is he showing his union with humanity? To become one with us, he needs to walk in the shoes of whom? The highest of humans or the lowest? The ones with the easiest lives or the most difficult lives? I submit that the higher and easier path would not be considered by anyone as truly representing what it means to be human. It must be with the lowest of us – after that, everything higher and easier is a cakewalk. At least this is how love works. If it wasn’t about love, then screw it, just come as a ruler.
So let’s think about this: he starts off as the Divine 2nd Person of the Trinity who empties himself of his pure divinity in order to become a human. He is choosing to become one with his own creation, which is especially hard to fathom given he knows how his creation will receive him. From where he started, he is lowering himself pretty low just to help us out, don’t you think? Is it low enough? No.
Rather than arriving on a fiery chariot with great power, he comes as a completely vulnerable infant – a baby. And not in a royal castle or “high priestly villa” but in a lowly family, in an occupied country, in an animal stable. Think that’s low enough? No!
When he’s old enough, he ignores the rich and famous and searches out the sinners and outcasts to preach and heal. Low enough?
No! At his final meeting with his Apostles before he can return to the Father, he WASHES THEIR STINKING FEET. Low enough, yet? No!. He will be arrested for impersonating himself – how’s that for irony – and sentenced to die like a common criminal. No, actually, worse than a common criminal – and execution reserved for the worse criminals in the empire. He will be tortured and left hanging naked and nailed to a cross to die of asphyxiation, the most humiliating death inflicted by the greatest power on earth. Low enough?
Notice the perfect storm happening here: Rome represents the greatest power the world has ever seen up to this time. It rules by brutal force and the threat of torture and death. Yet, on the other side we have Jesus coming down from heaven acting precisely the opposite. From his incarnation forward, he keeps lowering himself, lower and lower and lower, until what? Until he can reach the bottom, in order to unify himself with ALL humanity. His job from the Father was to try and gather up the entire human race and save them.
Another way of seeing this: We might say that the further a human runs away from God, the lower the person goes, would you agree? How far and how low do you think he can go? Remind anyone of the Prodigal Son? Now the answer is: no matter how far and low he goes, he runs into Jesus' arms, because Jesus went to the bottom of humanity, so that he could lift every last one up.
Psalm 22. The Jews knew Psalm 22. If someone were to say, “I pledge allegiance to the flag” or “Our Father who art in heaven,” most people could either finish the quotation or prayer or at least know the idea being expressed. This was true of the psalms in Jesus’ time, and the beginning of each psalm was its title. Jesus needed to say the first line, and the Jews would have known the rest.
Tell me how similar some of these verses sound to what Jesus was experiencing during his passion:
“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting in anguish within me.” - v14
“My strength is dried up like sunbaked clay, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.”- v15
“Dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet.” – v16
“They divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.” - v18
Okay, perhaps now he has reached the bottom. So he does what? He calls out the beginning of Psalm 22 v1: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from away from me?”
But here’s the key: following this description of persecution, the psalmist shifts to an expression of hope for deliverance from the persecution:
But You, O LORD, be not far off! O My Strength, hasten to may aid! Deliver my soul from the sword … Save me from the mouth of the lion . . . For he has not slighted the supplication of the poor man; and he has not hid his face from him, but heard when he cried to him. (Psalm 22:19-21, 24)
In the end, the praise of the Psalmist extends beyond the afflicted to all peoples of the earth:
The poor will eat and be satisfied and all those who seek the LORD will praise him. –v26
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations will bow down before him - v27 Men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn: He has done it! -v30-31
This is what Jesus calls to mind with his cry on the cross. He is living through the first half of the psalm in order to bring us the second half. He invokes Psalm 22 as an act of prayer to express hope that God will bring an end to the persecution that he has suffered as man, with man, and for man. There is also a prophetic fulfillment: that through his death on the cross, all the ends of the earth would begin to turn to the Lord.
Q: What is meant by the splitting of the temple veil into two?
At the end of the Passion, as Jesus dies, the veil of the Temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. - Mt 27:51; Mk 15:38; Lk 23:45 There was a Temple veil that separated the inner sanctuary from the people (sinners) and another inner veil separating the Holy of Holies that only the high priest could enter once a year. These veils reflected the separation of man and God due to sin. But now it is Jesus who is the high priest and his death on our behalf tore the veil asunder (“from top to bottom”). God was no longer separated from man, and the Old Covenant was officially brought to an end.
Jesus descends into Hell?
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven… – Apostles’ Creed
Q: What do we mean in the Apostles' Creed when we say that Jesus "descended into hell?" How could God descend into Hell? Is this supported by Scripture? What does it mean?
First let’s explanation what it means, then I’ll provide Scriptural references and the logic.
Meaning of “hell.” In the context of the Apostles' Creed, hell does not mean what we understand by the word today. The CCC-663 explains this point as follows:
"Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" (Sheol-- in Hebrew or Hades in Greek) because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer.”
Another name for the abode of the dead in the OT was “The Bosom of Abraham.” In other words, Jesus was not going into the place of the damned, "but to free the just who had gone before him." As the Catechism puts it, "The descent into hell (to the dead) brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places."
Scriptural references:
“For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.” – 1 Peter 4:6
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.” – 1 Peter 3:19
“Therefore Scripture says: ‘Having ascended on high, He led a host of captives away, and gave gifts to men. Now what does "He ascended" mean, except that He also descended into the lower regions of the earth? The One having descended is also the same one having ascended above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.’” – Ephesians 4:8-10
Fascinating Logic: The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was 'raised from the dead' presuppose that Jesus was, in fact, “dead,” meaning he sojourned into the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. The CCC says this was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. The gates of heaven had been closed since the Fall of Man, so Noah, Abraham, Joseph, David, the prophets, and the millions or billions of other good souls who died before Christ had to wait for Jesus to accomplish his mission?
Given our discussion earlier about how far or how low Jesus would have to go to be one with all humanity, the one group we forgot to mention was the dead! Let’s remember, Jesus died! He died on Friday and rose on Sunday. He was dead, so he was now one with all the dead who ever lived. But he descended there not as a captive but as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.
OPEN MIC
What would you like to talk about?
Q: When was the first documentation of Communion (bread and wine) given out after Jesus died?
When we talk about the first three centuries, we must first remember the Church was underground most of the time and, second, that when something finally shows up in writing doesn't mean the beginning of a thing. Augustine came up with the term "Trinity" in the 4th century, but that doesn't mean the Church invented the idea of the Trinity then. Jesus started it when he spoke routinely of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as separate persons. Nevertheless, religious skeptics love to say that Trinity was invented in the 4th century because the Catholic Church just makes stuff up as it goes along. Nothing could be further from the truth. Besides, if the Church really wanted to be creative, the first thing they would have done was edit out how the cowardly Apostles betrayed, denied, and abandoned Jesus immediately after his arrest.
All that said, Communion was being taken (or given) immediately after Christ, starting with the Apostles, just as Jesus had instructed them. I will provide documentation below, but let's first be clear that Jesus was not talking about mere symbolism when it came to the bread and wine.
"I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." - John 6: 51
He is so clearly literal about this that the Jews are exasperated as his statements:
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” - Jn 6:52
Nor does Jesus backtrack or try to explain his words away; instead, he reiterates that he’s not speaking metaphorically:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you… For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” - Jn 6:53-55
And to extinguish any type of confusion, he adds a new word, “
"he who eats [Greek: trogon] me will live because of me” - 6:57
In Greek, “trogon” is an even more literal version of the word mastication. In fact, many of Jesus followers were unable to accept his words (like modern non-Catholics):
"...they drew back and no longer walked with him” (6:60,66).
The point of the above is to eliminate the silly idea that Jesus was speaking symbolically.
Now to answer your question!
Communion was not called "communion" initially. The most common reference at the time was "Breaking of the Bread."
1. Early in Acts of the Apostles, the apostles and disciples celebrated the Eucharist. This would have been shortly after Pentecost:
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.” - Acts 2:42
2. Another example in Acts:
“On the first day of the week [Sunday], when we were gathered together to break bread…” (Acts 20:7).
3. St. Paul to the Corinthians:
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor 10:16).
4. St. Paul also writes to the Corinthians later, warning them:
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:23-29).
5. The Didache – 60-100 A.D. Also known as “The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations,” this early Christian writing from the first century mentions the importance of confessing one’s sins before receiving communion and talks explicitly about the Eucharist.
“But every Lord’s day [Sunday] gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure” (XIV).
6. St. Ignatius of Antioch – ca. 110 A.D. Ignatius of Antioch, who had been a disciple of St. John, said regarding those who held “heterodox opinions,” that...
“...they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2, 7:1).
7. St. Justin Martyr – 150 A.D. - wrote:
“Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished… is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66:1–20).
This continues throughout the centuries and is affirmed in all the Councils up to the present time. The only deviation came at the 16th century Protestant Reformation.
Closing Prayer
Prayer of Mother Teresa
People are often unreasonable and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.
Be honest anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give your best anyway.
In the end, it was you and God. It was never between you and them, anyway.
Guardian Angel Prayer
Angel of God, my guardian dear, To whom God's love commits me here, Ever this day be at my side, To light and guard, Rule and guide.
AMEN
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