A Prayer and an Indulgence for you before Reading your Bible

I signed up for Jeff Cavin's The Great Adventure Bible Timeline Catholic Bible Study at my local parish. I am so excited to delve into this intensive Bible Study.

Here is an awesome prayer I just read while looking through some of the course material.  I think I am going to print this out on business cards and pass it out to the women in my study. I would like to pray this before I read my Bible. It is a prayer from Origen, one of our early Church Fathers who lived in the years 184 to 253. (Isn't it so great to be Catholic?!)

Lord, inspire me to read your Scriptures and to meditate upon them day and night. I beg you to give me real understanding of what I need, that I in turn may put its precepts into practice. Yet, I know that understanding and good intentions are worthless, unless rooted in your graceful love. So I ask that the words of Scripture may also be not just signs on a page, but channels of grace into my heart. Amen.
 

Also, I wanted to add that there is an indulgence that was granted by Pope Leo XIII in 1898 to all the faithful who "shall read for at least a quarter of an hour the books of the Sacred Scripture with the veneration due to the Divine Word and as spiritual reading, an indulgence of 300 days". (Preces et Pia opera, 645.)

So, next time you are going to read the bible for 15 minutes, remember Pope Leo XIII, and do so with the intention of obtaining your indulgence.

God Bless!

Phenomenological... What?

I have a very general understanding of what Theology of the Body is about. I know it is a long work written by Pope John Paul II. Ephesians 5, and all that. Body and Soul. Sex is both unitive and procreative. It is also good and holy and important. I know who Christopher West is and have heard highly positive things from liberal groups and some negative things from trad circles. Personally, it doesn't offend me that he said "I love Hugh Hefner", in whatever context he said that. But that's it, folks, that about sums up the extent of my knowledge about Theology of the Body. Nobody Catholic close to me or in Church has ever mentioned anything about Theology of the Body, EVER. What little I do know I have heard about from listening to Catholic radio and some light Internet reading.

But my daughter's godfather kindly gave me some Theology of the Body Cd's to listen to when my daughter was baptized in June. I am really getting into them now. And, I'm realizing there is a lot here to delve into and a lot that I do not know.

And, I just learned a new a word. Phenomenological. I have never, ever heard this word in my life. My education is in the technical realm, so I missed out on all the good philosophy. Phenomenology is a 20th Century school of thought using the subjective experiences of a person to understand reality. I'm still trying to grasp exactly what this means, but it is starting to make more sense. (kind of).  JP2 was a phenomenologist. So was Edith Stein. (Whose feast day is my birthday.)  So maybe phenomenology explains why the new Catechism is so darn different from The Baltimore Catechism. (Which I know and love, the right brain side of me just connects with the simple logical easy question/answer format.) Maybe, phenomenology also explains why my husband finds the new Catechism boring to read. (Sorry, honey...) We decided to stop reading it at dinner time, as it is "too much" for the kids. I'll be reading it alone by myself before bed, and hubby will be reading the Baltimore Catechism, with everyone, after dinner.

I consider this a new challenge... deepening my understanding of phenomenology... and Theology of the Body. I just purchased "Man and Woman He created them: A Theology of the Body", and along with my 30 audio Cd's from the Theology of the Body conference, I'm bound to learn some good stuff.

7 Catholic Things I Never Learned in CCD

With all my years of CCD, Catholic High School, and attending a Catholic University, perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention, but the following are a list of 7 concepts I either never understood, priests or parents (or anyone else) never talked about, or for whatever reason, I never fully grasped until recently as an adult:

1. The real meaning of “The Communion of Saints“. This isn’t simply a catchy phrase meaning we are all happy together in Heaven. The Church Triumphant are the Saints in Heaven. They help us, intercede for us, and pray for us. The Church Militant are all of us here on earth, fighting the good fight. We gain help from those in Heaven (and even those in Purgatory) and can truly help those suffering in Purgatory and on their way to Heaven. The Church Suffering are the holy souls in purgatory. They can no longer pray for themselves, and rely on us for our prayers and sacrifices. All of us together make up The Communion of Saints.

2. Fridays are a day of penance. This means EVERY Friday, and not just during Lent! While abstinence from meat is required during Lent, on all other Fridays, we can choose our penance. Abstaining from meat is preferred, but we can do a kind deed, say an extra rosary, give up a small comfort, basically any penance of our choice.

3. Going to a psychic or having tarot cards read is a serious (mortal) sin against the 1^st Commandment.

4. The pope isn’t infallible - he is very human like the rest of us. In fact, it is said that he goes to confession at least weekly. The infallibility part comes into play when defining faith and morals, “ex cathedra”, (meaning from the chair). The last official ex cathedra document was in 1950, The Assumption of Mary, by Pope Pius XII.

5. It is a requirement that all Catholics confess any mortal sins within a year. For most of the people I know, and definately myself, this boils down to confession at least once a year. (The barest minimum!) It is Church teaching.

6. Fasting 1 hour before Communion is required. (Water or medicine is OK, but not coffee, or gum). That means, if I scarf down my breakfast too soon before Church, or in the car on the way, I shouldn’t receive Communion.

7. This one is probably obvious to any serious Catholic, but I never deeply grasped what exactly was happening at the Mass. We are entering into the same sacrifice as the sacrifice offered up at Calvary. We really enter into it, (in an unbloody way - no physical shedding of blood). The priest is our earthly representative and he is actually offering Jesus to our Heavenly Father. This transcends all space and time. What an awesome concept! Until recently, I never really considered Mass in this way. I learned about the consecration and what that means when I was younger, but never really got that it was The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.