👉Watch Tuesday's recorded class here.👈

Catholic Understanding & Biblical Defense Class 9/22/26

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

15   min   Upcoming Gospel Reading

30 min   Weekly topic/theme

1 hour

Week 1:    Gospel Week – we study several Gospel stories, especially the tough ones.    

Week 2:    Bible Week – we are 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 & 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

Let our prayers be counted as incense before you

                               and the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice!       – Psalm 141:2

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. Amen.

Major holy days: All Saints Day (Nov 1)

September Memorials:   Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael-29

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

www.masstimes.org   Mass or Confession any time of the day, anywhere in the world!

Today’s Agenda…

                                    Reflection:  Spiritual Nature

                   Gospel Reading for 26^th Sun in Ord Time 9/27: The Parable of the Two Sons, Matthew 21:28-32

                                    Topic:  Fruits of the Holy Spirit and the Seven Deadly Sins

Term of the Week:  What is Diligence?

Diligence is the moral virtue of lovingly, carefully, and persistently carrying out your daily duties and spiritual responsibilities to please God in all you do. Special note on the “lovingly” because to put love into your work is to make God part of your work, no matter how small the task.

Remember, God is only in the present. He is also in the small. We can’t be in the present or the small when we are in a hurry and thinking of other things or what’s next. There’s an old saying:

“Love -> Diligence -> Peace exist in the small, the slow, and the present.”

Reflection: Spiritual Nature

Faith is the virtue upon which Christianity rests and is the capacity to see beyond the senses to a deeper or higher reality.

We can see an anticipation of faith in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (380 BC), in which a man escapes from a cave where all his life he had been forced to see only flickering shadows on the wall. When he emerges from the darkness, he is blinded by the intensity of the sunlight. When his eyes adjust, he surveys a new world of depth and color. This is how the eyes of faith work.

Christianity holds that God’s revelation draws us beyond what we can know and introduces us to a dimension of being vibrating at a higher pitch. To be a person of faith is to know that the universe of our senses is but the tip of the iceberg, a gateway; and calls us to resist the idolatry of Enlightenment rationalism (scientism), which tells us that anything beyond what we can observe and measure is just superstition. Our sense of justice, goodness, truth, meaning, beauty, and our awareness of existence and eternity comes from God, not from nature. None of these things exist in nature, except through us.

Last week we touched on the fact that we all have an animal nature, and in Genesis 2 God breathed a spiritual nature into us. This spiritual nature is what makes us in God’s image and likeness – children of God. As part of our “likeness to God,” we now possess a number of His attributes.

These spiritual attributes are often referred to as “a spiritual soul, intellect, and free-will.” However, there are a number of subcategories to these. Here are some of them:

·        An immortal soul, which makes this life temporal. We will live beyond this life and even get our (glorified) bodies back at judgment day.

·        Our higher intellect gives us the understanding of abstraction, which includes math, theorizing (“what ifs?”); awareness of our existence; and thinking in time (past, present, future). Also, “conception” in addition to perception (see below).

·        The desire and ability to create. The understanding of, and desire for, truth, justice, meaning, and purpose.

·        The understanding of right and wrong/good and evil, and the free-will to make moral choices between them.  

·        The ability to appreciate beauty, which is a pre-taste of Heaven.

Perception and Conception

As part of our animal natures (and just like animals), we perceive the physical world around us with our senses. We perceive, then we assess, then we react. Conception, on the other hand, is when we take things we perceive into our minds and experiment with them. We can change the sequence of things, take parts out, add parts in, and reconceive the entire experience. Then we can put our new version back into the world and test it. Sometimes it’s better, sometimes not, but then we learn from this. But here’s the thing – this is a creative process. We are creating, which is one of God’s primary attributes.    

Matthew 21:28-32

The Parable of the Two Sons    

Context:

It is important to know the setting for this short parable.

We are currently at the end of Chapter 21 (Matthew). At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time – on a donkey (Palm Sunday). So that makes this “Holy Week.”  In todays’ reading, Jesus is teaching in the Temple grounds on Tuesday, two days before the Last Supper.

Being Holy Week, Jesus knows this is the end of his earthly mission. He came to Jerusalem on his own, against the advice of his disciples, so it is a time of his choosing.  Now we find Jesus being more assertive than normal as he challenges the Jewish authorities right in the Temple, providing them all the ammunition they desire to have him arrested.

The parable is fairly simple on the surface; it speaks to the importance of acting on God’s will, not just giving Him lip service. Most Jewish leaders had been trained in virtue from their youth but now experts at giving lip service to the principles of morality expressed in Scripture. Jesus castigates them for finding loopholes that would permit them to continue a lifestyle of self-indulgence at the expense of God’s people, especially the poor.

Jesus also chastises them for not recognizing who John the Baptist was. He indicates that the repentance of the notorious public sinners – the tax collectors and prostitutes – was a sign of the authenticity of his ministry, fulfilling the principle that “by their fruit you shall know them.” The fruits of repentance brought about by John authenticated his ministry.

  The Parable of the Two Sons    

Matthew 21:28-32

Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:

"What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, 'Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.'

He said in reply, 'I will not,' but afterwards changed his mind and went.

The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, 'Yes, sir,’ but did not go.

Which of the two did his father's will?"

They answered, "The first."

Jesus said to them, "Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him."

Exegesis/Interpretation

It’s important to note that the “tax collectors and prostitutes” of whom Jesus speaks are those who repented and changed their lifestyle at the preaching of John the Baptist. Jesus is not saying that lifestyles of extortion and sexual promiscuity are compatible with the kingdom of God.

Who is the father?

            God

Which son did the will of his father?

            The first one. At first he did not, but then he changed his mind (repented) and went into the vineyard.

Who represents the son who says “yes” at first, but then doesn’t do the will of the father?

The Jewish leaders.

Who represents the son who says “no” at first, but then repents and does the father’s will?

            The followers of Jesus – the every-day worker Jews, sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, etc.

When Jesus asks the chief priests and elders which son did the father’s will, what did they answer?

            They answered correctly – it was the first son who repented and then went into the vineyard.

Once Jesus explains who the sons represent in the story, the Pharisees, etc. would realize that they have just condemned themselves. They will quickly rationalize that Jesus is a false prophet and have him arrested within 2 days.

The OT Reading from Ezekiel also speaks to the same two groups of people: the virtuous ones who then turn away and the wicked ones who repent. The message to us is the same: 1) God always extends mercy to those who turn to Him, no matter what our sinful state has been, and 2) God judges harshly those who refuse to repent, especially those in charge of others or responsible for His flock. 

The Fruits of the Holy Spirit and The Seven Deadly Sins

Age of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit affirms Jesus not just once, not twice, but always. That’s His role, from inspiring the Old Testament writers to prepare for the coming of Christ, to guiding the Apostles after Pentecost so they could preach the Good News of the Kingdom, to taking up permanent residence in all believers so that we have a Trinitarian friend for the rest of our journey to Heaven. When Jesus said at his Ascension that he will be with us to the end of the age, he was referring to two ways: personally and physically in the Eucharist and personally and spiritually through the Holy Spirit. This is why some call the time we are in the “Messianic Age,” and some say the “Age of the Holy Spirit.” Both are true.  

The Holy Spirit is the infinite become intimate.  Intimacy with God – that’s what the Holy Spirit brings to our lives. Modern theologians have described the Holy Spirit as the believer’s “permanent roommate.”

This “roommate” idea begs an important consideration. Even though the Holy Spirit is in us since our Baptism, our free will can keep Him locked up in our mind’s closet unless we let Him out to participate in our lives. How do we do that? All humans talk to themselves constantly, consciously or unconsciously, but talking to just ourselves is talking to our egos – or talking into the mirror – where we see and hear exactly what we want to see and hear. Instead, if we start using the Holy Spirit as our sounding board, our inner friend, our therapist, and our advisor – we will get far more objectivity and truth.   

It is commonly held that there are five signs of the HS:

1.     Love

2.     Joy

3.     Bold speech

4.     Expels evil spirits

5.     Intellectual curiosity about the faith

2.          

Love is the main attribute of the Holy Spirit. Remember, He is the love of the Trinity, the love that flows between the Father and the Son. Second, all God’s wisdom and grace is carried to humans via this river of love. Since before the Fall of Man, God desired us to be part of this river of love for all eternity.

Lord, thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit at Pentecost! 

Fruits of the Holy Spirit

The general concept of the Fruits of the Holy Spirit comes from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he lists numerous qualities of the Holy Spirit – nine of them in the Greek translation, and twelve in the Latin translation. Both are both correct; I will show you how some of the 12 can easily be reduced to 9, and vice versa. Below, we will review the nine. Here is the translation from the Greek in Galatians 5:22-23:  

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Though these qualities are listed as individual words, notice that Paul uses the singular word "fruit,” which would indicate that these traits work together as one unified character. Each of the fruits of the HS support each other and, to some degree, blend into one another. That’s why the 9 can easily become 12 and 12 can become 9.

Let’s break them down.  

Greek                                                                        Latin                                                                                                             

1.       Love                                                                     Love or Charity

2.       Joy                                                                        Joy or Happiness

3.       Peace                                                                   Peace

4.       Patience                                                              Patience or Meekness

5.       Kindness                                                             Kindness or Generosity

6.       Goodness                                                           Goodness or Generosity

7.       Faithfulness:                                                      Faithfulness or Forbearance or Longanimity

8.       Gentleness                                                         Gentleness or Meekness

9.       Self-Control                                                       Temperance or Self-Control or Moderation

10.    …                                                                           Faith – trust in God, belief in Jesus Christ

11.    …                                                                           Modesty – living with humility, avoid arrogant displays

12.    …                                                                           Chastity – respecting the dignity of the mind and body

Chastity – most people think this only means abstaining from unmarried sexual activity, and this is true – but this is just one definition. Chastity – or to be chaste – also refers to proper moral conduct, thoughts, and intentions.  

Exegesis of the Fruits of the HS

Love/Charity – Self-giving; Goodwill towards all; Sacrificial love for others, like Jesus did. Agape love.                         

Joy/Happiness – Differentiated from the external happiness of the world (fleeting/emotional). An internal state of happiness and cheerfulness that eventually becomes part of one’s nature. Equanimity.

Peace – True external peace – individual or collective – begins with an internal peace that is based on trust in God and goodwill towards everyone else. When developed, this quality will carry into our most difficult times. Serenity.                        

Patience/Meekness – Not just the ability to wait, but how we feel and act while waiting. Care for others around us becomes more important than self. Meekness isn’t being soft – it’s intentionally being kind when the pressure is on. Longanimity.  

Kindness/Generosity/Gentleness – The willingness to be kind and giving above and beyond what we owe others. Intentional low priority given to what they might owe us, up to and including letting it go. Speaking and acting softly and respectfully.   

Goodness – Choosing to be honest and choosing what is morally right, especially when those around us aren’t. Seeks to develop habits of doing the right thing regardless of the pressures of life. Soon, it becomes second-nature.                    

Faithfulness/Forbearance – Making a habit of living one’s life with God at the center. Being loyal and trustworthy to others, especially in difficult times.

Temperance/Self-Control/Moderation – Developing habits of regulating personal desires and impulses (applies to all our lower/animal appetites – food, drink, sex, etc.).  Moderation and self-control in all things.

Humility – Self-perspective: recognizing that any of our blessings, successes, and talents are gifts from God.

Other-centered: The habit of putting others first. This begins with controlling our attention. Gratitude opens the door to humility because it about other, not self. As CS Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less often.”  

Modesty – Living with humility and avoiding arrogant displays of oneself.

Chastity – Respecting the dignity of the mind and body. Proper moral conduct, thoughts, and intentions. And yes, either no sex or keeping sex within the marriage.

The Seven Deadly Sins and their corresponding Virtues

Before we say Augustine’s Holy Spirit prayer, what does “holy” mean for us humans?

            Holy refers to the fullness of the Christian life.

What is the “fullness of the Christian life”?

            Fullness of the Christian life means seeking to perfect our love of God and neighbor, with God at our side. It’s the continual seeking, not the perfection, that makes us holy.

Closing Prayer:                                                      

The Holy Spirit Prayer of St. Augustine

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit … that my thoughts may all be holy.

Act in me, O Holy Spirit … that my work, too, may be holy.

Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit … that I love but what is holy.

Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit… to defend all that is holy.

Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit… that I always may be holy.

O Holy Spirit

Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.

And you shall renew the face of the earth.

Amen!