Lesson 2: God Comes to Meet Us

"My Soul Longs for You Oh God" is the title of our first lesson. "God Comes to Meet Us" is the title of this lesson. This past Wednesday, the day we studied our second lesson, I had a very pronounced longing for God and a strong sense that God wanted to meet with me. As is usually the case when I am experiencing difficulty, like I currently am with work, I was drawn to visit the Blessed Sacrament. I left work Wednesday morning to visit the Blessed Sacrament at Saint Benedict Catholic Church in Chesapeake before meeting Bonnie for lunch. The photo in this post is of the altar at Saint Benedict.

Saint Benedict Catholic Church is one of two parish apostolates that are part of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in the diocese of Richmond. An apostolate is a Christian organization "directed to serving and evangelizing the world". In 1988, Pope John Paul II established the Priestly Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter was founded in response to the Holy Father's call to ecclesial unity and the new evangelization. Hence, the name Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter denotes a filial love and loyalty to the Supreme Pontiff. You will find this information and more about the fraternity at http://fssp.com/press/what-is-the-fraternity-of-st-peter/

I had heard about Saint Benedict parish but I had never visited. I heard that the priests celebrate Mass according to the Latin rite and that women wear veils in the sanctuary. That's about all I knew about the parish. I didn't know anything about parish apostolates and the establishment of the Priestly Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right by Pope John Paul II. It would have been easier for me to visit the Blessed Sacrament at our home parish but I felt a call to go to Saint Benedict. It isn't easy to find Saint Benedict but, thanks to my GPS, I finally did. I will share more about my special visit to the Blessed Sacrament in another post. For now I will move on to our second lesson in the catechism.

As I mentioned in the post for our first lesson, we decided to read the "green book" paragraphs for this lesson during lunch before we studied later that evening. As is often the case, our reading from the "green book" seemed dry and we were trying to relate to how we could apply it to our lives. However, we were also excited knowing that we would study it in more depth later that evening with  the lesson in the "red book".

As we expected, the lesson in the "red book" helped illuminate what we read in the "green book" earlier that day. It helped make what we read earlier in the day more tangible, relatable and applicable to our lives. We began our lesson with a prayer to the Holy Spirit followed by one of the scripture readings suggested in the "Study Guide". We chose Exodus 3:1-15; 4:10-16 which tells the story about when God reveals His Holy Name to Moses. As it turned out (and we know it is no coincidence), that is the same reading at the beginning of Chapter 2 in the "red book". We continued our lesson by following the outline in the "Reader's Journal". The "Reader's Journal" walks you through each of the following sections of the chapter: God Reveals His Holy Name, God's Loving Plan to Save Us and The Gospel and Culture.

These sections were followed by thought provoking discussion questions, a review of the doctrinal statements in the "green book", meditation and prayer. 

The meditation for this lesson is from the "green book" citing St. John of the Cross about Jesus Christ being the definitive revelation of God. The meditation encouraged us to record a word or phrase from the meditation and reflect on it often, even daily. Here are the phrases that we reflected on:

Bonnie: "Fix your eyes on Christ."

Dave: "I will fix my eyes entirely on Christ so as not to offend God."

We concluded our lesson with the section "Putting Faith into Practice" by reflecting on what we had studied and completing the statement "I am inspired to...". Here is how we were inspired to put what we learned into practice.

Bonnie: "I am inspired to study pointedly Christ and keep my gaze on Him at all times and in all situations and to continue to come to know my faith so deeply that I can be a true evangelist and make a change in this culture."

Dave: "I am inspired to dive deeper into my faith and gain a keen vision of culture so that I can evangelize effectively." 

We completed the lesson in about 1.5 hours. What a wonderful way to end the night and retire to bed. Our next and third lesson is this Sunday: Proclaim the Gospel to Every Creature. We can hardly wait until Sunday to arrive.

As a tribute to our friend and Brother in Christ, Paul Harvey, we highlighted the following statement at the top of page 17 for Lesson 2. This statement spoke clearly and emphatically to us about why it is so important for us to study the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

"Evangelizing a culture relies on deep insight into the mysteries of our faith and keen vision for understanding the basis of our culture".