eCatechist

10. How many people belonged to the Corinthian community?

When imagining Paul’s community in Corinth, we must learn to think small. Each time he went to a new town, he was starting from scratch. It took time to attract new persons to his message. So his earliest communities were small groups who would gather to share their faith.

            From his letters, we know the names of fourteen male members of the Corinthian community, which is not meant to be a complete list. If we suppose they were all married, that would make a minimum of 28. And since two members—Crispus (Acts 18:8) and Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16; 16:15-16) had their “households” baptized with them, there would be several children, servants and other in-laws who would also belong. So we might guess that eventually about fifty people or so belonged to the Corinthian community by the time of Paul’s letters.

 

From Paul and the Eucharist: The Heart of Christian Community

By Steve Mueller

©2011 Steve Mueller

Paul and the Eucharist will be available as an e-book in the summer of 2011.

Youcat

Has anyone seen copies of Youcat? Please leave comments and reviews in the comment section of this post.

YOUCAT is short for Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, which will be launched on World Youth Day. Developed with the help of young Catholics and written for high-school age people and young adults, YOUCAT is an accessible, contemporary expression of the Catholic Faith. The appealing graphic format includes Questions-and-Answers, highly-readable commentary, summary definitions of key terms, Bible citations and inspiring and thought-provoking quotes from Saints and others in the margins. What's more, YOUCAT is keyed to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, so people can go deeper.

Amazon

Admit Faith is Weak by Archbishop Dolan

With his catechesis theme gleaned from that of World Youth Day, Archbishop Dolan spoke about faith as a logical gift from God and about what it means to keep that faith firm. The best way to maintain a strong faith, he said, is to acknowledge that it is weak.

"When we admit our faith is weak, when we admit our faith is shaky, when we admit that our faith isn't what it should be, actually we're exercising it, and we're making it more and more firm," he said. "Something tells me that's why we're (at World Youth Day)," he said. "Our faith is weak, our faith is shaky. We want to be with a million other young people from around the world who love their faith and are trying to make it strong."

Archbishop Dolan described what he called the paradox of faith: how in the world today faith is often seen as illogical, unable to be scientifically verified, a crutch for people to avoid the duties and trials of earthly life, and the cause of hatred in the world.

But faith is "the most logical thing of all when you think about it," he said. Most of the things that matter most to people cannot be demonstrated, such as love, loyalty, friendship, joy and trust. Faith should be fostered through the sacraments, and struggles and tough times in life should be used to strengthen faith, not hurt it, he said. And, he stressed, Catholics need to remember that faith is not a doctrine, creed or even a church. "Our faith is in a person, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," he said. "He and he alone is the root, the origin and the goal of our faith."

During a question-and-answer session, one Australian pilgrim touched on what will likely be a challenge for many young people once they leave World Youth Day: how to interact with those who do not agree with the basic principles of the Catholic faith and who are, in fact, living a life averse to the church's teachings.

The archbishop's answer was simply this: with love. "We can scream, we can yell, we can castigate, we can alienate, we can nag, and most of the time if we do that we lose," he said. "Or we can be gracious, patient, loving, understanding, persistent, welcoming. And most of the time when we do that, we're also going to lose. But less than the first one."

From Catechetical Leader Weekly, a publication of the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership. (nccl.org)

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

We’re never gonna figure it out.  That was actress Meryl Streep, talking with an interviewer a few years back about her own quest to know God.  And she’s right.  We’re never gonna figure it out.  But the search fills our lives with beauty and meaning.

We catch a glimmer of the divine, and the electricity from that encounter keeps us going for the rest of our lives.  St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus on that fateful Damascus road lasts just a few seconds; the remaining thirty years of his life are spent looking forward to the day when he will meet Jesus again in eternity.

Fourth of July fireworks interfere with migratory patterns and thousands of birds fall from the sky, birds we never noticed, birds we never knew were there.  And they are just the tiniest fraction of the birds of the air―one hundred billion— that our Heavenly Father feeds every day.  Oh, the depth of the riches of God. 

The human heart is restless, yet deeply touched and comforted by a random call from a friend, a rainbow over the highway at rush hour, a persistent intuition that we are never alone. Oh, the depth of the knowledge of God.

Who do you say I am? Jesus asks.  Search your heart for your answer.  It’s the only thing you ever really need to figure out.

 

In what ways do you experience the depth of the riches of God?

Kathy McGovern ©2011 www.thestoryandyou.com

Welcoming the Roman Missal

Here is the official site of the USCCB for Welcoming the Roman Missal, Third Edition.

http://old.usccb.org/romanmissal/index.shtml

9. What were ancient meals like?

People in the ancient Near East customarily ate two meals each day, a light midday lunch (eaten wherever one happened to be and in large cities there were many “fast food” places to grab a quick bite) and the main meal in the evening after work. Breakfast was a light snack, not usually even considered a real meal, often nothing more than a slice of dry bread dipped in wine.

            A meal was not only a time to ingest food and quench thirst but also a way to display kinship and friendship. As we know so well, meals—the foods served, how that is done, who the host and guests are, etc.—carry socially significant, coded communications both for participants and observers. The more formal the meal, the more loaded it is with messages.

            The messages had to do with honor, social rank in the family and community, belonging and the right order of things. Social status and role were acted out in the different tasks and expectations around meals, and the maintenance of harmony at meals was crucial to the sense of overall well-being. Among Christians, meals became ways of experiencing and enjoying God’s presence and gifts, for which thanks was to be given.

 

From Paul and the Eucharist: The Heart of Christian Community

By Steve Mueller

©2011 Steve Mueller

Paul and the Eucharist will be available as an e-book in the summer of 2011.

9. How did the eucharist reinforce these benefits?

Through conversations, Paul invited who wanted to adopt the new Christian way of life to be baptized as the ritual celebration of belonging to the community. Once baptized, the community would gather for their weekly eucharist, probably in the home of one of the wealthier members. It celebrated who they were as the community/family of God.

            As the founder of the community, Paul handed on the traditions for celebrating the eucharistic meal and the words of Jesus (1 Cor 11:23-26) as he had learned them in Antioch in the 40’s. The Christian eucharist was a kind of family meal, at which every member was welcome and expected to participate in remembering Jesus and “thanksgiving”. The term “eucharist” (Greek, eucharistia, “thanksgiving”) originally referred to the prayers that were offered before the distribution of the bread and wine in early Christian sacred meals.

 

From Paul and the Eucharist: The Heart of Christian Community

By Steve Mueller

©2011 Steve Mueller

Paul and the Eucharist will be available as an e-book in the summer of 2011.

8. What kind of benefits did being a Christian offer?

The Christian community offered a new kind of family (all were brothers and sisters with God as their heavenly Father) in which the customary divisions created by gender, wealth and status were no longer applicable. It offered to those without family connections the basic family benefits: care (for the sick, widows and orphans) and sustenance (through a shared distribution of goods in a culture of social inequality, poverty and exploitation).

            Moreover, since most gods and religions were local and familial, movement to the city meant you left your gods behind. So a new community that offered a non-local God was a distinct advantage. Finally, the cities fostered a common communication system—Koine Greek—that replaced the many local dialects and made missionary proclamation and communication easier. This is the form of Greek that all the early Christian writings use.

 

From Paul and the Eucharist: The Heart of Christian Community

By Steve Mueller

©2011 Steve Mueller

Paul and the Eucharist will be available as an e-book in the summer of 2011.