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: Will only a few be saved? Luke 13:22-30 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 completing Purgatory.
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. How should we celebrate/honor the Christian Sabbath Sunday?
4. 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?
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 God
We are so grateful to be able to meet here together and be in your presence this evening. Everything is a gift because ultimately the universe is yours. Help us never lose sight of that. While we are studying Bible (Exodus) tonight we ask that You open our ears and our hearts to whatever it is You want to teach us.
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.
Q: “…forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Forgive us our trespasses against whom?
Against others, yes; but first and foremost against God.
The moral/higher laws of nature (love, justice, truth, goodness, freedom…) are extensions of God’s nature, of who God is. We know about them and desire to have them because He breathed His spirit into our souls (Gen 2:7). All sin is a form of injustice against others in one of these areas, therefore, automatically against God.
So in the Our Father, we are asking forgiveness for our offenses against others and Him.
When Jesus laid his life down us – for our sins – to balance the scales of justice, he was making us whole with God.
And although we have a clean slate after Baptism, we can continue to sin. But that’s the thing – his act was enough for all our future sins, but there’s one catch – we must ask for it.
Next Holy Days
Solemnity of All Saints – Nov 1
Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day) – Nov 2
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Rosh Hashanah – Sep 25-27 Jewish New Year, birthday of the creation of Adam & Eve (5783)
Manresa Retreat
I attended a 3-day retreat at the Manresa Retreat House in Michigan last weekend. (Actually, like Jesus’ 3 days – Friday afternoon to Sunday morning/noon).
The idea of a retreat is to shut off this world completely and spend the time in reflection and prayer. There is usually a theme to the weekend and several 1 hour lectures are given on the theme (attendance optional). Otherwise, complete silence.
The theme this weekend was about how St. Ignatius came to start the Jesuits and the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.
Manresa House, 40 acres of nature, paths, chapels, and shrines.
The walk to Emmaus after the Resurrection. Note the tomb of Christ in the distance.
Ignatius was a Spanish aristocrat in the 1500s when Spain was a world power. He was successful, well-educated, and cut a dashing figure. While fighting in a war, his leg was badly wounded. He was sent to a monastery, which were plentiful since Spain was a Catholic nation. Oftentimes, wounded soldiers were sent there as a resting place before dying.
Ignatius had nothing else to do and the only reading material around was the Bible and the lives of the saints, so he began to read the saints. After a few months, he began to wonder at his life, for according to what he was reading, his life was as shallow as they come – all outward appearances and worldly success. The more he saw these saints as the true war heroes in life, the more disgusted he became with his own. He wondered if he could ever change, as how he dressed, his way with women, and material possessions had been his whole life.
He had read Aristotle and Plato and how if you have a branch of a tree that is bending one way, and you want it to straighten it out, you can’t just bend it straight and hope it will stay straight. You have to bend it completely the other way for some time, and then it may end up straight. Therefore, Ignatius decided he had to live completely the opposite of his current behavior if he had any hope of changing. So, he left the monastery to go live in a cave.
Since his hair was always perfect, he let it grow out. Since his clothes were always the best – even in war – he started wearing rags. Same with food and women. What did he do regarding his urges for women? That’s why he was in a cave!
After some months, Ignatius became depressed. Although he was living in total destitution, he still hated himself. His “interior” wasn’t changing at all.
The advice he received was to study Christ. This is when Ignatius began to read the Gospels about Jesus’ life: what he did, what he said, how he reacted to things, and how he responded to people. Ignatius was amazed at Jesus’ wisdom in most cases but he also had issues with some things. For those issues, he began to dig deeper to find out why he liked them or not. He realized later that this was necessary to find his intersection, his connection, with Christ.
To help his investigation along this path, he decided to use his imagination and put himself into the Gospel stories. He would make himself one of the bystanders, then a disciple, then the object of Christ’s comments, then a Pharisee, etc. He would go so far as to imagine the clothes he was wearing, the scenery, the smells from the local shops, the tenseness or excitement of the moment. It was in this process that Ignatius gained insights beyond even his own questions; sometimes, he realized he was asking the wrong questions. With each discovery, he would pray to Christ, “Lord, am I understanding this rightly? What am I missing? Is this really true, Lord?” It was in this process Ignatius also found himself developing a relationship with Christ! He didn’t know that was possible!
Two things happened: first, he came to realize that Jesus wasn’t trying to judge his past behavior – heck, he would forgive that in a heartbeat; Jesus was only interested in his future behavior, even if the improvements were small. Second, he realized that Jesus was not going to let him fail! Rather than looking to judge his every mistake, Jesus had his back and only wanted to help, no matter what issue Ignatius might face.
With this new confidence in Christ, Ignatius headed out and started preaching Christ, looking like a vagabond and not knowing much about Christianity except his recent experience. People didn’t know what to make of him and he was eventually arrested to be put before the Inquisition. Due to some of his former connections, the local bishop got him out of jail and asked him what the h*** he was doing. After Ignatius explained, the bishop was amazed, but said, “You need some training.” He sent Ignatius to the University of Paris to study theology. Ignatius became a priest. Eventually, the Pope blessed a new order under him, the Jesuits, which means “Society of Jesus.”
What you have now learned are the first two weeks of what eventually became known the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises (4 weeks).
Week 1 – give up everything that is superficially important. You can’t “know thyself” until you get rid of all the extraneous, superficial crap.
Week 2 – get to know Christ. Immerse yourself personally into the Gospel stories and find where you and Christ connect and where you don’t connect. You are finding the intersection, your beginning point, to a relationship with God!
Week 3-4 – Jesus’ passion; connecting with his suffering. Jesus was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for us to show us something: that we can’t fear this world because He is with us, and this life is not the end. Also, that faith in the face of difficulty is a spiritual victory. We learn how to be comfortable “being in the world, but not of the world.”
Cursillo Retreats
Some of you know I play racquetball weekly with Fr. Tuck (also a prison volunteer). He offers similar retreats called Cursillo. There is one in October, and he has been bugging me to come. I may go. If anyone is interested…
The world “cursillo” is Spanish for “short course,” and Cursillo retreats are set up to be just that – a short course in Christianity.
Cursillo was founded in 1944 in Spain and was introduced in the United States in 1957. It is now offered in almost every U.S. diocese and has become the most popular retreat in the country. There are retreats for men and for women.
The retreats are highly structured weekend retreats that run from Thursday evening through Sunday evening. Cursillo retreats are meant to expand your prayer life and foster continuous spiritual growth that will increase your knowledge about scripture and the Catholic faith. It will also equip you to spread the Word of God in your everyday life in a very natural way.
The two retreat centers I am aware of in this area are St. John Neumann’s Church in Reston and Washington Retreat House on the Catholic University grounds in Northeast DC.
Bible Timeline Week
Q: How many chapters in Genesis?
50
EXODUS – Introduction
Exodus is a continuation of Genesis. The fact that it takes the name Exodus (which means leaving) shows the magnitude of the problem they found themselves in, and the danger, difficulty, and importance of getting out of Egypt.
Recall that God promised Abraham as many descendants as the stars. It began with a family and by the end of Genesis it had grown into a “tribe" with the extended families of Jacob’s 12 sons.
Q: How many of Jacob’s clan moved to Goshen from Canaan?
70
With the protection, guidance, and land arranged with Pharaoh by Joseph, the Israelites prospered in this foreign country; their growth in numbers was significant. Moreover, they proved to be very industrious. They held important positions and began to play an important role in the political, cultural, and economic life of the country. It is not surprising, then, that they stirred the jealousy of the native Egyptians who felt outshone by the "foreigners."
Old King Pharaoh died, too, and a new king ascended the throne. He had no sympathy or love for the children of Israel, and chose to forget all that Joseph had done for Egypt. He decided to take action against the growing influence and numbers of the children of Israel. He called his council together, and they advised him to enslave these people and oppress them before they grew too powerful.
Pharaoh limited the personal freedom of the Hebrews, put heavy taxes on them, and recruited their men into forced labor battalions under the supervision of harsh taskmasters. Thus the children of Israel had to build cities, erect monuments, construct roads, work in the quarries, and hew stones or make bricks and tiles. But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, and the harder the restrictions imposed upon them became, the more the children of Israel increased and multiplied.
Finally, when King Pharaoh saw that forcing the Hebrews to do hard work failed to curtail population growth, he decreed that all newly born male children of the Hebrews be thrown into the Nile River. Only daughters should be permitted to live. Thus Pharaoh hoped to end the numerical increase of the Jewish population, and at the same time to eliminate a danger which, according to the predictions of his astrologers, threatened his own life in the person of a leader to be born to the children of Israel.
The Levites (from the Mishnah)
The only group of Jews that escaped enslavement was the tribe of Levi. Levi was the last of Jacob's sons to die, and his influence over his tribe was great and lasting. They had taken over the Torah academy Jacob had established in Goshen, and they instructed the children of Israel in the knowledge of G‑d and His holy teachings. Thus they were occupied with spiritual matters and did not mix with the Egyptians. The remaining tribes had given up their old customs and way of life and become more or less assimilated into the social and cultural environment of their Egyptian neighbors – it was these people who aroused the wrath of the Egyptians. Only the children of Levi were, therefore, spared the slavery and oppression which the Egyptians imposed upon the rest of Israel.
Q: One question that is asked regularly is: Why God would have allowed the Israelites to become enslaved for 400 years?
The question is not asked for practical reasons for the ruling Egyptians don’t need good reasons to do what they did – they were in charge and the Israelites appeared to be a threat. Or maybe they just wanted slaves! Rather, this is a moral question: What did they do wrong that God would allow his “chosen people” to be enslaved for 400 years?
As great the story of Joseph was – so much so that he is said to be a “type" of Jesus – it is held by more than a few scholars that he made a serious mistake during the famine.
Recall that for the 7 bountiful years before the famine that he accurately predicted, he collected and stored up 1/5 of everyone’s produce each year. When the seven year famine came, he distributed food to everyone, but they had to pay, in livestock, jewelry, or whatever. Of course, they were grateful because it meant they could survive. But as the 3rd and 4th years came, people had nothing left to buy grain with, so Joseph took their land. By the end of the famine, Pharaoh (and Joseph certainly shared in this) owned everyone’s land; the Egyptian people essentially became slaves in their own country for many years. This action by Joseph could be part of the reason why things soon turned bad for the Israelites – Joseph enslaved the people of Egypt, so Egypt enslaved the Israelites.
The principal divisions of Exodus are:
The Oppression of the Israelites in Egypt
The Call and Commission of Moses
The Contest with Pharaoh
The Deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh and Victory at the Sea
The Journey in the Wilderness to Sinai
Covenant and Legislation at Mount Sinai
Israel’s Apostasy and God’s Renewal of the Covenant
The Building of the Tabernacle and the Descent of God’s Glory upon It
Q: How many chapters in Exodus?
40
Exodus Chapter 1
The Oppression
Then a new king, who knew nothing of Joseph, rose to power in Egypt.
He said to his people, “See! The Israelite people have multiplied and become more numerous than we are!
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them to stop their increase; otherwise, in time of war they too may join our enemies to fight against us, and so leave the land.”
Accordingly, they set supervisors over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. Thus they had to build for Pharaoh the garrison cities of Pithom and Ramses.
Yet the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians began to loathe the Israelites.
So the Egyptians reduced the Israelites to cruel slavery, making life bitter for them with hard labor, at mortar and brick and all kinds of field work—cruelly oppressed in all their labor.
Command to the Midwives
The king of Egypt told the midwives to the Hebrews…
“When you act as midwives for the Hebrew women, look on the birth stool: if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she may live.”
The midwives, however, feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt had ordered them, but let the boys live.
So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this, allowing the boys to live?”
The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are robust and give birth before the midwife arrives.”
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives; and the people continued to multiply and grow very numerous. And because the midwives feared God, God built up families for them.
Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “Throw into the Nile every boy that is born, but you may let all the girls live.”
We will not be reading every chapter and verse of Exodus, but I will be providing the most useful passages throughout the book. We just read chapter 1 – most of which you now know – but I wanted you to see how it was portrayed in scripture.
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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