10.13.26 | Halloween | Jesus | Taxes | Experiencing the Love of God |

👉Watch Tuesday's recorded class here👈

Catholic Understanding & Biblical Defense Class 10/13/26

Every Tuesday, 7PM-8PM (EST), 🖥️Zoom ID: 861 1782 2081  🗝️Passcode: 406952

Join to receive notifications and study notes on Meetup: www.meetup.com/catholicbiblestudy

Past classes are posted on our Catholic Catacombs Website:  www.CatholicCatacombs.org 

House Rules and Catholic Resources…

1. RSVP Reminder: Please RSVP whether you are attending the meeting or just reading the Recaps afterwards. The more RSVPs, the more Meetup will give exposure to “Catholic Bible Study” – a good thing! 

2. Questions. We encourage questions although we ask that you keep them on topic and brief. You can ask during the meeting, or in the chat box, or if you prefer you can email us through Meetup.com, or Ron directly: ron@hallagan.net. 

3. Respectfulness. We will be discussing differences between Christian denominations and religions in general, and we seek to be respectful at all times. Protestants especially are our friends and brothers/sisters-in-Christ; in fact, I owe much of my return to Christianity to them. Therefore, any critique of our brethren is in loving pursuit of apostolic truth.    

4. No politics.  It would be easy for us to self-destruct, but that’s not our goal :). Our goal is to learn, understand, and apply the Bible and our faith to our everyday lives. 

5. Word on Fire. Bishop Robert Barron has reached millions through his 10 min Sunday homilies, podcasts, educational series and certifications, bibles, and other lectures and apologetics. www.wordonfire.org  

6. Hallow App. Daily prayers and reflections, especially for the high holyday seasons. www.alex@mail.hallow.com 

7. Catholic Answers – www.catholic.com. Best site for Catholic Apologetics there is. 

8. Dynamic Catholic. Interested in daily inspirations to grow closer to God and the Church, not to speak of the many educational resources? Sign up for Matthew Kelly’s powerful insights, quotes, and reflections at www.dynamiccatholic.com. 

9. “The Chosen” TV series.  All of us seek a relationship with Jesus Christ, which is not always easy. It can help if we have seen and heard Him. The Chosen series captures Jesus better than any show I have ever seen. Highly recommended.  

10. Cursillo. Interested in meeting with other men or women weekly over coffee to discuss God in your personal and professional life? Join Cursillo (cur-see-yo). Contact Jennifer Pence (Jennifer.pence@gmail.com) for more information.       

Bible Study Format

Our Bible Study is a combination of Exegesis and Apologetics.

Each meeting is (roughly) as follows:

15. min   Apologetic Reflection

16. min   Upcoming Gospel Reading

30 min   Weekly topic/theme

1 hour

Week 1 & 2:  Bible Timeline – working our way through the Bible. We are studying the New Testament      

Weeks 3 & 4:   Survey Topics chosen by Members (explanations of our faith & apologetics):       

1. Prison Ministry Stories  2. Plenary Indulgences  3. Gen 1-3 (Creation Story, Adam & Eve, the Fall of Man)

4.  Faith vs Doubts – does having doubts make us bad Christians? 5. Explanation of the Mass & Eucharist

6. Dead Sea Scrolls  7. Catholicism vs Modern Cosmology vs Evolution  8. Gifts/Fruits of the HS, 7 Deadly Sins 9.  How to experience the Love of God   10. The Communion of Saints 11. Comparative Religions

12. Catholic vs Protestant beliefs

• Don’t forget to RSVP. 

• Taylor will send a link to everyone with today’s notes.

• The class is recorded if you want to listen to it anytime.

• I will occasionally ask for volunteer readers… 

Opening Prayer: 

O LORD

Thank you for your promise that where two or three of us are gathered in your name, You are there! 

We ask for Your help to open our minds and hearts tonight so that Your Word breaks through and changes our lives. 

And as you taught us to pray together…

Our Father

Who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come, your 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 have trespassed against us. 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen!

Major holy days:  All Saints Day (Nov 1)

Memorials – October:  Our Guardian Angels-2, Feast of Saints/Apostles Simon and Jude-28

 www.masstimes.org:  Mass or Confession anywhere/anytime in the world!

    TODAY:

• Reflection:  The Origin of Halloween

• Gospel Reading for 29^th Sun in Ord Time (10/18), The Question about Paying Taxes, Mt 22:15-21 

• NT on hold. Today:  How do we experience the love of God – Part III

   Quote of the Week: 

"The Bible was written in such a way that as beginners make progress, its meaning grows along with them." — St. Augustine

Reflection:  Halloween

At times people who usually know very little about Catholicism claim that Halloween is a pagan holiday that Catholics assimilated into Christianity. True?  

That is a humorous claim, so be sure to laugh if you hear it. Nevertheless, the best lies often have some truth to them, and this one is no different. Let’s look at their historical connection.  

Halloween is indeed an old Catholic celebration. It is similar to Marti Gras before Lent, except more geared towards children. Halloween is Oct 31, the day before “All Saints Day” (Nov 1), which celebrates all the named and unnamed Saints since the time of Christ. After Scotland and Ireland became Catholic, they decided to celebrate a “farewell/good riddance” to all the old pagan gods and priests – which included dressing up as druids, witches, demons, and magicians – on the day before All Saints Day (Oct 31). At the time, All Saints Day was called “All Hallow’s Day.” So the evening before All Saints Day was “All Hallow’s Eve,” which became “Halloween” by the time it came to America. So, All Hallow’s Eve was the celebration of good finally overcoming evil! 

When the Scottish and Irish brought “All Hallow’s Eve” with them to the United States, America was already mostly inhabited by Protestants, who were quite anti-Catholic at the time (Catholics were still being persecuted In England). And remember, the Puritans came here because England wasn’t “Protestant enough,” so you can imagine what they thought about this horrible new Catholic custom, so they accused Catholics of importing their pagan beliefs to America. 

Presently… As our society continually seeks to remove God from the public square and paganism seems on the rise, Halloween has become a source of worry for some. Some Satanists claim it is their day. It truth, every day on the calendar belongs to God. Going forward, let’s not forget that the original point of Halloween was to celebrate “good overcoming evil” and treat it as the day it was intended to be, which included community fun.   

The Question about Paying Taxes, Mt 22:15-21

Context:  

Jesus is still teaching in the Temple on Holy Tuesday. The Jewish elders are stymied and upset. Now the Pharisees collude with the Herodians to try and trap Jesus. 

Who were the Herodians?

They could come from any Jewish sect but what defined them was their loyalty to Herod – hence, “Herodians.”  These were Jews who accepted Greek culture and cooperated with and even admired the Romans.  

As you might imagine, the Pharisees were not normally friendly with the Herodians. However, Jesus was threatening both their power bases, so they found a common trap that they agreed would finally catch Jesus. The issue they came up with was about the exorbitant Roman taxes. Roman taxes were commonly paid with the denarius bearing Caesar’s image and inscription. Most Jews regarded the tax as a humiliating reminder of their foreign domination. 

They planned to ask Jesus if he supported the Roman tax. The trap was this: If Jesus agreed they should pay the tax, he would outrage a multitude of Jewish followers, which is what the Pharisees were hoping for. However, if Jesus said he did not support the Roman tax, then the Herodians would be up in arms and immediately report him to the authorities for sedition. It was a Yes/No question and they figured that they would get him, either way! 

As always, they underestimate Jesus and, as usual, his response has multiple meanings. We will investigate.  

The Question about Paying Taxes

Matthew 22:15-22

The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. 

They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion, for you do not regard a person's status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?" 

Knowing their malice, Jesus said, "Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax." 

Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?" 

They replied, "Caesar's."

At that he said to them, "Then render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

When they heard these words, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

Exegesis/Interpretation

Notice how they seek to flatter Jesus in the beginning. Since we know their true intent, that makes them shameless. What is ironic is that, even though they are insincere, their flattering statements concerning Jesus are actually true.

However, their flattery gets them nowhere as Jesus says, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” 

What is the root meaning of the word, ‘hypocrite’?  

     It is from the Greek, meaning “an actor who plays a part.”  Jesus calls the Pharisees “hypocrites” 14 times in Matthew.

“Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar… 

     Since the coin that was used to pay the tax bore the image of Caesar, you could say the coins belonged to Caesar. Render here means “repay,” which means Jesus is saying to pay Caesar back for what is owed to him. If Caesar provides roads and military protection, then it is right to pay him for these services. But don’t pay him worship or unconditional love or faith or hope; just pay him the coins that belong to him, pay him what he deserves. 

     That said, we need to explore this further. If one is participating in the Roman currency system and benefiting from it, one must also be willing to play by Roman rules. In this case, the Pharisees were enriching themselves via the Roman system. They could complain all they wanted about the taxes, but they also were well-off because of it. Jesus knew it. 

How were the Jewish leaders enriching themselves?

     The Roman government permitted the Jewish government to tax all Jewish subjects living throughout the Roman Empire for the support of the Temple – an amount consisting of about two days wages per year. There were several million Jewish subjects living around the Empire, which resulted in an enormous influx of cash to Jerusalem every year, enriching the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. Now you know why Jesus called them hypocrites.

Yet we need to dig still further, for there was yet another message in Jesus’ words:  

“Render unto God what belongs to God.”

When Jesus asked what image was on the coin, the word he used for ‘image’ is the same word used in Gen 1:27 where it says God made man in His own image; so you could say that God’s image is stamped on each one of us. Thus, every one of us belongs to God. 

What do you think we should repay to the Creator of our existence? 

     Everything. We should at least give Him our services first. The Pharisees had failed to see this as they were more concerned with maintaining their social and political power. 

There is STILL one more level to Jesus’ meaning.  It regards the Emperor. What do you think it is?

     The emperor was created by God and therefore he, too, bears God’s image. Thus, he is subject to God's sovereignty over his life. But Caesar will have to answer for that. 

In the end, they didn’t trap Jesus after all, but they did finally get Jesus’ piercing point about the image, which is why we have the ending we do. You have to love this…

“When they heard these words, they were amazed.. and went away.”

“Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."

Member Topic:  How can we experience the love of God? – Part III

A loving relationship requires both parties to a) trust each other and b) to act with truth and love. Said in reverse, trusting each other and acting with honesty and love are the ingredients that create a great, loving relationship. This is true between humans as well as humans with God. Our goal below is to dig into this and understand how to love God.     

Some of this we reviewed, some is revised, some is new, all is necessary …  

1… Everyone’s relationship with God and their experience of His love will be somewhat different because we are all different – our personalities, our upbringing, our strengths and weaknesses, and our current spiritual station in life.  

2… That being said, there are also numerous common denominators to our experiences because all of our pathways share the same destination – the love of God/Heaven. It is these common denominators we will explore.   

3… The first common denominator is present in our topic question. Our “desire to experience the love of God” is a desire given to us by God when He gave us a spiritual nature. It is our Father’s calling card. It means when it comes to love, God acted first. As John said:    

4… We also discussed that love does not always equal feelings of intense emotion. For example, although we may intensely love others in our lives, that doesn’t necessarily mean we will have warm and fuzzy feelings towards them 24/7/365. If we measured love by our feelings, we would never love anyone for very long. House built on sand. 

This makes it clear that love is much more than feelings.  

Now, most romantic relationships start with intense feelings, and that’s fine and normal. But if those feelings don’t mature into caring about the other ahead of oneself, then it will never become love and it won’t last. 

The highest form of love centers around selflessness and wanting what is best for the other. This is more obvious when speaking of those who are close to us, but Jesus also calls us to apply this love (“willing the good of the other”) to others whom we don’t even know. This is what is meant by loving our neighbor.  

5… We also discussed that when we do loving things for others – especially if it costs us our time or convenience – the reward of good feelings often doesn’t come until later. This is called “delayed gratification,” which points to the next common denominator: 

Joy works backwards.

There’s an old saying that says even if we don’t “feel” like doing something good (or the right thing), just do it anyway and our feelings will eventually learn and catch up. That is how virtues are created. Not only will our feelings catch up – especially gratitude and joy – but God will give us the grace to strengthen our resolve and character going forward.  

6… Of course love of God requires a relationship, but also every relationship has an internal and external dimension. 

The internal dimension of the relationship would be our personal encounters with God. This is critical because it becomes the foundation for the external dimension of our relationship, which is involving God in our encounters with others. The internal and external are intertwined, and with God’s help, they continue to evolve together.

7… The internal dimension requires knowledge and communication.  

     Knowledge: To know God is an endless adventure because He is infinite, but He will allow us to get closer and closer to Him if we make the effort. We can “know” God better by reading the Bible. Sacred Scripture is a dialogue that takes place between God and man that meets us wherever we are. Each time we evolve spiritually, what we read in Scripture evolves with us. Scripture is not merely literature – it is God's voice addressed personally to each soul. As Romans 8:38-39 declares, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Read it slowly. Read it often.  

     Communication:  Communication/dialogue is as important to a relationship with God as it is to any human relationship. The more open and regular the dialogue is, the better the relationship. What does this communication with God look like?

Communication/dialogue with God is called prayer, whether it is formal or in your own words. There are thousands of formal prayers available to us. For what it’s worth, I use both formal and informal every day and my communications with God, and it continues to evolve – each year is different from the last. Last week, we discussed five different types of prayer that can assist our personal communications with God, and we will review them again. 

However your communication develops, it should become daily. If your relationship with God is like with a spouse, you wouldn’t skip a day, would you? Hopefully, not. 

8… The external dimension is when we involve God in aligning our actions and behaviors with our words. As in any relationship, our actions and behavior give validity to our words. When they are aligned, the relationship is fertile enough for love to grow. 

     What are these actions and behaviors?

   Our actions and behavior have everything to do with loving God and others. How do we love God?  God says the way to start is by loving others! (Mt. 25:40). 

     Who is our neighbor? 

   Everyone, even our enemies. As Chesterton once said, that’s a good thing since they are probably the same people. 

     But how do we love others? How do we love everyone? 

   First, stop the negativity and judging. We must stop the negativity in our minds which leads to judging others. 

We’re not saying to love the behavior, but rather love the person. Let God judge the person; besides, we never know half the story.  So don’t take over God’s job of judging people. This isn’t just for the sake of the other person – it’s for our own sake, too. It’s the only way we can learn to retain a steady, internal peace.  

   Second, help others out if they need it and if it is practical/possible.

Is there a neighbor, or someone at work, or a charity you could help out? Opportunities are everywhere if you look, and many small opportunities pass us by every day. The Pharisees never lifted a finger to help others. Don’t be a Pharisee when you get to the gates of Heaven. 

   Third, pray for your neighbor. 

Certainly pray for those close to you and those with whom you are acquainted, but refer to the first item above: instead of judging someone, catch yourself, apologize to God, and ask God to help that person. That alone is an act of love, so you will have loved your neighbors and enemies, and you will also be able to retain your inner peace.   

   Fourth, review your progress with God afterwards. 

  This can be done right after each incident, or at the end of the day before bed. Think of God (Jesus, HS, etc.) as your therapist. They want to be part of your improvement reflections. We WANT them to be part of our improvement reflections, because otherwise the conversation – if it happens at all – it between you and your ego. Not good. 

9… Finally, we have five categories of communication (prayer): praise, gratitude, confession, petition, and intercession. 

…We give God praise, not because He needs it but because we do: it acknowledges God’s perfect love and wisdom as our reason for being and all that we aspire to become; i.e., I praise you, my Lord. You are my beginning, my end, and my every breath in between.  

…We can give God gratitude for so many things but at the very least we should thank Him for our existence, which gives us the opportunity to have a relationship with Him. Remember, gratitude is an act of humility and the gateway to all other virtues: i.e., Thank you for my existence so I can have this relationship with you. Thank you for kindness, forgiveness, understanding, and advice.  

…We confess our mistakes and selfishness to God because He will always forgive us but also because it will lead to improvement, for He is our perfect therapist. It is here where the pruning and weeding and fertilizing in our garden takes place. It is also here where our internal relationship grows the most; i.e., Lord, I think I messed up. What do you think?  I thought so. Yes, I can do better. I want so much to improve and be a better person. Can you please help me? Discuss. 

…We petition God because we have needs and our dependence on Him is an act of faith; He wants us to come to him for our needs always; i.e., Lord, I need your help because I am feeling anxious. Discuss. Or, Lord, I am in pain! I offer it up to You to do with as you wish, but I will also be very grateful if you could ease my suffering and restore my strength. Lord, my son needs help. Lord, I need your help!

…We intercede and pray for others because that is what love does. He not only hears our requests and acts on them, but He is teaching us to love like Himself; i.e., Lord, my spouse is having a difficult time at work, please bless and heal everyone and lift them up to a better place. Lord, I am praying for my daughter, please heal her faith.    

A word to the wise:  every prayer should end with… “May Your Will, not mine, Be Done.” Why?

God knows better than we do, and this statement aligns our prayers with total faith and dependence on Him. 

Jesus did exactly that, with those words … when/where?

His agony in the garden after the Last Supper and just prior to his betrayal and arrest. 

When we integrate our personal relationship with God, we involve Him in our love of others, and the love of God begins to accelerate in us like adding leaven to bread.      

There is no better, closer love we can have this side of Heaven that connecting with God who not only forgives us for-the-asking, but wants to be our perfect Therapist, Counselor, Protector, and Comforter.  When we have this kind of relationship with God, then the feelings we stand to have – at least intermittently – can approach ecstasy.  

Shouldn’t all relationships include each of these?

Do any of these happen automatically? Or do they take intention on our part? 

Petition (asking for things) is the only one that seems to happen automatically. For all the others, we have to intentionally develop them; they are like relationship skills. When they become habits, we have developed virtues! 

Finally, I would be terribly remiss if I left out the Sacraments. 

The greatest gifts Jesus left for us are His Sacraments. A sacrament is where Heaven meets Earth and grace pours out into us. This is why each sacrament is represented by a physical and spiritual component – a “coming together” of Heaven and Earth, of God and us, which helps us along our path to Heaven. Because of our spiritual natures, we have the ability to receive this grace that is offered in these sacraments, if we possess a faithful disposition. Five of them are intended to be one-time events, but the Eucharist and Reconciliation can be as often as one can take advantage of them. Nothing can add to one’s relationship with God more than these.

Closing Prayer

Dear God,

I don't just want to know about You – I want to truly know You. 

Thank You for loving me right where I am, flaws and all, and for inviting me to move nearer to You.

Teach me how to sit in stillness and listen for Your voice. Give me a deep hunger for Your presence and Your word, desiring You above everything else this world has to offer.

Guide my steps and direct my heart so that my everyday life is drawn closer to Your side.

Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be

World without end. Amen.