Message from a friend

Hello everyone!  Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!

 

I just got this email from our classmate Romano who has been stationed in Qatar for the last month and a half.  I thought you might enjoy reading it--I did.

 

Please pray for Romano and all our brave soldiers overseas.

Hi Rob,
 
Hope Monday School has been a success, so far.  I've been here at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, for about six weeks.  I have about a month to go.  Yes, I am reading "Theology and Sanity," among other things ( i.e. The Letters of Mother Teresa, Pope Benedict's first Encyclical).  I don't believe I exaggerate when I say that, aside from the Bible, "Theology ..." is the most important book I've ever read.  I'm on page 270 and I'm just amazed at how much clearer I see God.  I think it should be required reading for every Catholic.  (Our computer firewall prevents me from accessing your blogspot, so I don't know how far along in the book the class is.) 
 
Please say hi to my classmates for me, and you and your family have a blessed Christmas.
 
Sincerely.
Your friend,
 
Romano Cedillos

Class Cancelled 12-17-07

I'm sorry to cancel, but I'm home sick with highly contagious, unpleasant stuff.

We'll pick up in January with the lesson we had planned for tonight.

Hopkins Poems from Week 11

GOD'S GRANDEUR

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

PIED BEAUTY

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

THE WINDHOVER
To Christ Our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Week 11: Homework

Reading Assignment:Read Chapter 12 of Theology and Sanity, “Angels, Matter, Men”—pp. 151-173

Questions:
1. What type of being is highest in the created order? How do we know of the existence of these beings? (p.152)

2. What does the word angel mean? Does this word accurately convey the chief function of these beings? What is their chief function? What is their second great function? (p. 155)

3. How are levels of angels differentiated? List the nine choirs of angels. (p. 156-7)

4. In what way does matter resemble spirit? (p. 159)

5. What is the dominating division in the material order? (p. 159)

6. What is the definition of a living being? (p.160)

7. What are the three divisions of the created universe? (p.160)

8. Why does Sheed say “there is no reason to believe that [an animal’s soul] is not a material soul, ‘immersed’ in the matter of the animal’s body?” (p. 162)

9. According to Sheed, what is the function of man? How does man perform it? (p. 163)

10. What makes man different from other living material beings? (p. 164)

11. What is our “greatest glory”? With what is it bound up? (p. 169)

12. What are the two different sets of laws that govern our universe? How are they distinguished? (p. 171)

Reflection Questions:
1. On page 155 Sheed says that “God has shown us with overwhelming evidence that He wills to give His gifts to creatures through other creatures so that we may learn by the receiving of God’s gifts from one another and the transmission of God’s gifts to one another, our family relationship within the great household of God.” What effect might this have on the way we relate to our fellow creatures (men, animals, matter)?

2. Look at what Sheed has to say about how man was formed on page 167. Can you formulate a Catholic response to the theory of evolution based on what he says here?

Funny Joke

There were four country churches in a small Texas town: The Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church and the Catholic Church. Each church was overrun with pesky squirrels.

One day, the Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels. After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and they shouldn't interfere with God's divine will.

In the Baptist Church the squirrels had taken up habitation in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a cover on the baptistery and drown the squirrels in it. The squirrels escaped somehow and there were twice as many there the next week.

The Methodist Church got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creation. So, they humanely trapped the Squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days later, the squirrels were back.

But -- The Catholic Church came up with the best and most effective solution. They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church. Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter.

Prayer Before and After Spiritual Reading

Before
Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created.

R. And you shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray.

O God, who has taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that by the gift of the same Spirit we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation.

Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

After
V. We give you thanks, almighty God, for all your benefits, who live and reign for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

V. May the Lord grant us his peace.

R. And life everlasting.

V. Amen.

Week 10: Homework

Reading Assignment:
Read Chapter 11 of Theology and Sanity, “The Created Universe”—pp. 139--151.

Questions:
1. Why did God create a world that is “multitudinous and complex”? (p. 140)

2. Why is the world not “a merely chaotic complexity”? What is it instead? (p. 140)

3. What are the things made in God’s likeness called? What are the rest of the things called? What kind of being is both? (p. 141)

4. How do the Heavens (and everything else) show forth the glory of God? (p. 141)

5. What does Sheed mean when he says that “spirit is more than matter is”? (p. 142)

6. What causes change? (What is change always the result of?) (p. 145).

7. What does it mean to say that created spirit cannot suffer substantial change? What kind of change can created spirit suffer? (p.145)

8. What are the three relations to change? What are the three kinds of duration that correspond to the three relations to change? (pp.145-6)

9. Define contemplation in your own words (pp. 146-7)

10. Is it true that the never was a time when the universe did not exist? Explain. (148)

11. List the truths in the first chapters of Genesis that Sheed says are of “towering importance.” (p.150)

Reflection Questions:
1. Reflect on question 4 above. How is Man different from the rest of creation in showing forth the glory of God?

Week 9: Homework

I'm sorry for putting this up late...I hope it doesn't cause too much trouble!

Reading Assignment:
Read Chapter 10 of Theology and Sanity, “God as Creator”—pp. 127-139.

Questions:
1. Why did God create the universe? (pp. 127-128; there are two answers)

2. Explain in your words the statement, “For our sakes, He made us for His sake.” (p.1 127)

3. How does the created universe exist? How is this different from how God exists? (p. 130)

4. Why did God make us from nothing? (p.130)

5. What is the difference between creating and making? (p.130)

6. Why is imagining the process of creation from nothing doomed to failure? (p.131)

7. Write out the St. Augustine quotation on page 131. What does it mean?

8. What is the corollary of the truth that God created us from nothing long ago? (p.132)

9. Explain the analogy of the mirror that Sheed uses on page 132.

10. Do all things only really exist in the mind of God? (p.133) What truth do people who think so recognize? What do they fail to grasp? (p.135)

11. What are the two elements in creation envisaged by Scripture? How are these appropriated to the Trinity? (p.137)

12. How does God utter himself in the uncreated? In nothingness? (p.139)

Reflection Questions:
1. Re-read the last paragraph of section ii on page 135. What is the main idea expressed in the Scripture passages mentioned? What kind of effect does (or should) that truth have on our relationship with the created world? In what ways is this different from other worldviews (e.g. Protestant, materialist, etc.)