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 on our Catholic Catacombs Light website www.catholiccatacombs.wixsite.com/website/recaps a week later. You will be notified via Meetup of both. 4. See The Chosen. Knowing Jesus Christ means being able to better relate to God. Check it out: The Chosen at https://thechosen.link/1Y1R7. 5. 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, and I personally owe part of my return to the faith to them. 6. No politics. It would be easy for us to self-destruct, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is to learn the Bible, explain the Catholic faith, and help members develop a closer relationship with the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in their daily lives. 7. Catholic Prayer, Fellowship, and Spirituality Meetup led by fellow member Jason Goldberg: https://www.meetup.com/online-catholic-prayer-fellowship-and-spirituality/ 8. 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? "I was in prison and you visited me." – Matt 25:36 RSVP Reminder: Please RSVP whether you are attending or just reading the notes afterwards. The more RSVPs, the more Meetup will give us recognition, which will draw others to us, which is our way of evangelizing! Bible Study Format: 5 min prayers, 10 min Catholic topic, 45 min main topic from the weeks listed below Week 1: Sept 6 – Gospel Week: Mary & Martha (Lk 10:38-42); Teach us to Pray (Lk 11:1-5,9-12); The Kingdom is like… (Mt 13…) Week 2: Sept 13 – Bible Week (Gen àRev): Introduction to Exodus, the 2nd book of Moses Week 3: Sept 20 – Survey Topics Voted on by Members: We are currently on #2 Heaven
Ö 1) Jesus’ Greatest 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 8) Major Councils/Crusades/Inquisitions
Week 4: Sept 27 – Open Mic Week (anything you want):
1. Can you provide me with an elevator response for the Crusades?
2. How does the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe affect our Catholicism?
3. What is justice? Is it always good? Does God cause bad things to happen? If one suffers but the results are good, is that justice?
4. How should we celebrate/honor the Christian Sabbath Sunday?
5. The History of the Mass going back to Cain & Abel, and the meaning of the Eucharist now.
6. The love and unity of the Holy Spirit are two of its Trinitarian descriptions. How are they different? How does they affect us?
7. The knowledge of God is “participatory.” Is that why nonbelievers have difficulty?
8. Are Charity and Love synonymous? How are they different? What are the 4 highest forms of Charity?
9. What race was Jesus?
10. Do we have suffering for a reason? How do we offer up our sufferings? When should we embrace the cross vs wait for a miracle?
Opening Prayer
Dear Lord
In this week’s lesson we seek to understand finish Dante’s journey through Purgatory.
Help us learn from his efforts, particularly the Seven Deadly Sins and their Opposing Virtues,
So that we may avail ourselves of your wisdom before, during, and after our times of need.
And as Jesus 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.
Next Holy Days
Solemnity of All Saints – Nov 1
Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day) – Nov 2
Rosh Hashanah – Sep 25-27 Jewish New Year, birthday of the creation of Adam & Eve
PURGATORY V FINAL
Self-Purgatory
Last month, we ended up saying that our time, or experience, in Purgatory is dependent on us, on our sins, and on how much inner fixing we need. It’s dependent on us. This is worth thinking about. Have you ever known own anyone who is in denial that they have a problem with impatience, or hatred of someone or some group, or jealousy, or needing to be the center of attention, or having to have the best things, or being better than others?
As Jesus said, death often comes like a thief in the night, so remember when you die in that state of mind, that mindset doesn’t weaken going into Purgatory. True to their earthly nature, the initial attitude is one of denial and defensiveness.
Q: What does this remind you of in Genesis 3/the Fall?
What did Adam and Eve do when they were caught? Did they come clean?
No! At first, they hid, then became defensive, then blaming everyone but themselves. Do we think we will be any better than them? If so, that is probably all the proof we need that we won’t be.
Q: In Purgatory, we will be immediately exposed, kind of like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, except in several hundred cookie jars at one time. How can we better prepare ourselves for this experience?
Two things Jesus did and said: 1) humility, and 2) repent.
And remember, repent is an attitude: it means being open to being wrong, not rushing to judgment, listening, not having to be the first, not needing attention, a willingness to see others with compassion, and finally, seeking forgiveness for our mistakes while we engage God in our improvement efforts.
If you practice these things, Purgatory will be a much quicker experience because you have learned the hardest part already. You may even skip Purgatory all together.
This is why everyone enters Purgatory at the level of Pride. This attitude has to be corrected first, or there’s no going any further.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Recall we spoke of the Seven Deadly Sins and their offsetting Virtues.
The 7 Deadly Sins are not all the sins. They are just the fundamental sins that lead to all other sins, which why Satan encourages these more than all the rest – because they do his work for him.
Because of their addictive nature, they are also known as “vices.”
Q: What is a vice, and what is a virtue?
Vices are bad habits.
Virtues are good habits.
All habits are a kind of addiction. That’s their purpose.
Q: What is the purpose or value of habits?
Habits develop when we repeat some activity or response over enough times that it becomes nearly automatic; reflexive as opposed to planned.
Habits free up our minds to deal with other present or urgent matters. Therefore, habits are a cool thing - a gift, a tool - if we manage them. If we are not careful, we can develop bad habits.
Bad habits are usually easier to develop than good ones. If we learn good habits when we are children, we have a much easier time keeping them when faced with bad choices; or returning to them later if we lose them for a while.
Q: What if we want to get rid of a bad habit?
Psychologists will often say that eliminating a bad habit is hard when it leaves a void, so it’s better to replace the bad habit with a good one.
Experts have said that, on average, developing a new habit takes 19 repetitions in a row. Keep in mind, this is an average. Behavior types vary wildly as does the deep-seatedness of the behavior you may be trying to replace, so some will take longer than others.
As Dante enters Purgatory and begins to meet people on the different levels; the levels are also called “terraces.”
Dante soon discovers that there is a different mindset in Purgatory than in Hell. In Hell everyone was full of anger and resentment at the injustice of their circumstances, and suspicious or threatening towards Dante. Perhaps this is because in Hell they are in a perpetual state of exposure and denial.
Q: When was there a similar state of exposure and denial with Adam & Eve?
As soon as they listened to Satan and ate from the tree, they ran and hid. Their betrayal was exposed, they felt immediate shame, and when asked about it they lied further and blamed whoever was around them. Don’t we react in the same way when a lie or betrayal is first exposed?
Of course, God surprises them and out of love gives them hope, another chance; and so, fortunately, we were able to start over outside of paradise. But let’s focus for a moment on the initial state of the fall.
Q: What was that initial state of the fall, just before God gives them hope?
Sin is exposed; shame at being caught; denial; blame others.
Going to Hell means we still rejected God and took a pass on our 2nd chance, so it makes some sense to return to this original state, just before God offered us a way out. The only difference between us and our first parents is our particular sinful preferences, which is why Dante gives us 10 different levels of Hell. However, this original state of betrayal or rejection – one’s sins exposed for all to see, the moment of shame one feels when one is caught, the angry denials, and the blaming of others – is now our permanent state we take into Hell.
By comparison, those in Purgatory seem to become more and more accepting of the truth of their failures, because, unlike Hell, they know from the moment they arrive that there is truly light at the end of the tunnel (Heaven). Some of them ask Dante to send messages of hope back to people they know on earth, and many ask him for his prayers.
Q: Did you notice what sits atop of the Mountain of Purgatory?
Earthly paradise. In Dante’s story, the Purgatorians will also return to where the fall happened (Paradise), but this time it will be to experience Paradise now that we have made good on God’s offer of another chance. Now we can complete our walk from Paradise into the 7th Day (Heaven).
Q: Is Purgatory a place of prayer?
Yes, constant prayer. Prayer is how humans communicate spiritually, especially when asking for forgiveness and for help to transform ourselves; to see things how God sees them. Purgatory is essentially an “Improvement Boot Camp” (except not 6 weeks).
Furthermore, we can pray for them, and they can pray for us. Why? Because we are all part of the Body of Christ, the Community of Saints, and to pray for each other is an expression of love, which is what God desires more than anything.
Q: Is there time in Purgatory?
That’s an interesting question. It is not time as we know it partly because finite time involves erosion, entropy, and death, which does not happen in Purgatory. On the other hand, it’s not heaven, either, because there is still purifying “change” going on, which is another finite time thing. Thus, the general consensus is that there is time, but it exists uniquely in this transitional realm of Purgatory.
Pope Benedict also makes a reference to this in his second encyclical, Spe Salvi (“Saved in Hope”):
"At the moment of judgement, we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the 'duration' of this transforming purification in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming 'moment' of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart's time; it is the time of 'passage' from where we are to communion with God in the Body of Christ." [39]
Last time we were with Dante, we were finishing the level of Pride.
Q: What do you notice about these categorizations of sin/evil?
Remember, we do not believe evil is its own entity or being. It is the absence or abuse of good by way of our freedom to choose.
Note every sin is a form of defective love.
Q: What is Pride?
At a basic level is the feeling of satisfaction in one’s achievements, which is fine – especially if it took a lot of hard work. But the recognition that typically comes with achievement can be so intoxicating that we must have more of it, sometimes at any cost.
Good pride, on the other hand, is couched in humility. When someone receives praise and immediately gives the credit away – to a friend, teacher, or to God – then this show of gratitude keeps a lid on any possible irrational exuberance.
The Sin of Pride, which we share with the fallen angels, runs so deep that we often don’t even realize it’s there. It’s when the feeling of superiority becomes a belief in one’s superiority; and not only that but a need to continually be better than others.
Q: Pride has no mirror. What does this mean?
Have you ever known someone who is arrogant, talks about themselves constantly, and never asks about anyone else? If there are 10 people in the room with this person, everybody knows about this problem except the arrogant one. Pride has no mirror to see itself.
We all have it to varying degrees in some of our weaknesses, and we're usually the last ones to see it in ourselves. Just this knowledge should help us be more aware and more open to self-reflection.
Pride is the excessive love of one’s own excellence; a self-exultation that refuses to acknowledge one’s own Creator. Pride was the first and greatest sin, and because it flies below our radar screen, it infiltrates our other behaviors - our judgments, our compassion, our generosity, our ability to forgive and to love.
Pride blinds us to our imperfections and the need for God's grace in our lives.
Finally, pride highlights other people's brokenness and shortcomings because that makes us feel better about ourselves. If we can’t raise ourselves above others, then just lower others and then we’ll be higher.
Q: Where did the quote, “Pride cometh before the fall” come from and what does it mean?
It comes from Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, an arrogant spirit before a fall.”
When you consider pride caused the fall of angels and the fall of man, what could be more powerful?
Proverbs 16:19 follows with more wisdom: “It is better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud.”
Q: What was the great virtue that corresponds to pride and has the power to vanquish it?
Humility – the greatest of the virtues – is the only known cure.
Q: Who is the “Image of the Ideal”?
Mary at the Annunciation, when she tells the Angel Gabriel, “Be it done to me according to thy will.”
Recall that Dante had 7 marks put on his forehead when he entered Purgatory. It is at this point that the Angel wipes Dante’s forehead and one of the marks disappears. Dante is ready to leave the level of Pride for the level of Envy.
Envy
Dante sees two souls approaching him from the east. He recognizes them from Florence, his hometown: Guido del Duca and Rinieri. They know Dante and they begin to ask him why he left Florence. Dante explains the political turmoil that left his family on the outside of power, and that he couldn’t tolerate the injustice the other families were inflicting on the city.
Guido and Rinieri begin to raise their voices and ask him if he does not see that the political decay is rooted in jealousy and envy. Did Dante think that if he and his family had won out, that envy and jealousy would have disappeared? The root of the problem is not who won, it was deterioration of fraternal love that the city had once known. Guido then informs Dante that a tyrannical regime will soon be imposed on Florence. Dante is embarrassed for not realizing this before. Virgil encourages them to move on.
Q: What is Envy?
Envy is sadness or anger at the sight of another’s good fortune.
It is described by some as seeing inside out – “what is theirs should be yours.”
It is dangerous as it leads to a growing, inordinate desire to harm others while further enslaving oneself.
Q: An envious person sees everything as a “zero-sum” game. Who knows what this means?
Zero-sum means all or nothing. It’s an either/or worldview. If I have something, then you don’t have it, and that’s a whole lot better than if you have it and I don’t.
This is a materialistic worldview because all material resources are limited/finite; everything eventually runs out, right? But our spiritual worldview is not from this world. Can love run out? No, in fact it works the exact the opposite: the more you give away the more you have to give away. The same holds true for compassion, understanding, forgiveness, etc. These things are not “of this world.”
One cannot truly love with a zero-sum view of the world. We must learn how to let go of this materialistic, clouded way of seeing others in order to avoid (or get out of) Purgatory.
The envious person on the left will never satisfied when someone else has more.
We have eliminated envy when we can celebrate when others have more, or achieve more, than us. This is loving one’s neighbor.
Q: How is jealousy different than envy?
Jealousy describes a feeling of protectiveness or insecurity one has over a rivalry or being replaced. This typically happens in a significant relationship and requires three people (you, the significant person, and another). For example, if someone flirts with your boy- or girlfriend, it produces jealousy. You feel resentful, hurt, and angry that person is flirting with someone you love. You might even start to worry that person can and will replace you. This has the ability to consume some people and leads to bad places.
Envy only takes two to dance. Historically, this affliction is called the “curse of the evil eye.” It is a longing one feels for something that belongs to someone else. One can be envious of anything from a personality trait to a possession. It is a curse because it will be the envious person’s undoing, eventually.
Q: What is the antidote – the Virtue – that will help overcome envy?
There are several offered by the theologians. Dante lists Mercy (referring to the Works of Mercy – feed the poor, visit the sick, clothe the naked), but this can also be called Kindness or Generosity.
If these are practiced along with prayer, one can learn that it is possible to rejoice in the success of others.
Q: Who is shown to Dante as the Exemplar of Envy?
Cain, first son of Adam. Cain was so envious of Abel’s offerings being more pleasing to God that he murdered Abel. This is what envy does. Why did God seem more pleased with Abel’s offering?
Two possibilities: 1) Abel’s offering was truly more authentic and heartfelt than Cain’s offering (and Cain knew it), or 2) perhaps God was just as pleased with both offerings, but Able’s envious mind saw it differently, in which case he killed Abel for nothing.
Envy ultimately leads to death – physically and/or spiritually.
Q: Who is the Image of the Ideal in the realm of Envy?
St. Stephen, who was stoned to death by a mob after he had called out Israel’s pride and rejection of God. Stephen goes quietly into the night, looking up and seeing a bright light, and before dying he repeats the words that were very close to the Lord’s on the cross:
“Receive my spirit, Lord, and do not hold this against them.” – Acts 7:59-60
Closing Prayer
Dear Lord
In memory of those who cry out for your help at the hour of their death
And also knowing that any graces and forgiveness in our final moments benefit us all greatly
We pray to your mother for her intercession:
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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