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Notre Dame School
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As adults with many life experiences, we gather to grow in our relationship with God. The Holy Spirit leads us through Scripture, through the Catechism, and the gifts of each other to a deeper faith. We have prayer, humor, information and lively discussions on basic topics of the Catholic faith.
Monthly Discussion - first Sunday of each Month
School Library - Kemper Hall
9:30 - 10:45 am
Note:
Occasionally the date of the meeting is changed, so check the bulletin or
if you have any questions contact
cafe@ndparishkerrville.org
Click Here for the Upcoming
CAFE Schedule
December 7 Study Material
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CAFE
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Purpose:
Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, through
study of Scripture, Catechism, other resources, and sharing our
faith experiences, we help one
another grow the faith.
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Following is information to help you discern whether joining CAFE
is the volunteer service for you.
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ACTIVITIES/FUNCTIONS
·
Meeting for discussion once a month.
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MEETING FREQUENCY/TIME/PLACE
9:30 - 10:45 am in the school library in Kemper Hall
1hr, 15 minutes. A discussion sheet for the next month is always
handed out so if one wishes, one can review and prepare for the next
meeting.
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TASKS/SKILLS
· Willingness
to listen and if you wish, share experiences, opinions and ideas and
enjoy lively discussion.
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CURRENT NEEDS
· Always
open to new ideas, suggestions and new ways to build faith.·
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FUTURE GOALS
Continue
to be open to the Holy Spirit and what God wants to teach us through
one another
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Our context for seeking God is the massive suffering
of the poor in the world
and their struggle for relief.
Oppressive social structures in Latin America, Africa and Asia have
resulted
in millions living on less than is necessary to sustain
life.
Traditional Christian doctrine presents God as the
Supreme Being who rules with
authority and commands the rich to be charitable. The poor are to bear
their suffering with patience in accord with Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross and earn an eternal reward.
A caveat here: We will be discussing the foundations
of liberation theology.
There are issues between the theologians of liberation theology and the
Vatican which we will discuss later.
Starting in the 1950's as part of a pastoral movement
in Brazil to revitalize faith, the poor gathered in small groups. Here
they read scripture, prayerfully reflected on its meaning in relation to
their situation. These
comunidades eclesiales de base, communities formed at the base of
the church, became sites where poor people made the amazing discovery
that they are beloved of God. They saw that
the immense suffering of poverty is against the divine intent for
how beloved people should live. They began to believe that their lives
could be different. They received insight into an ancient truth: that in
situations of misery God is not neutral. God wants all life to
flourish. Wretched poverty violates what God wants for his people. So
the living God makes a dramatic decision: to side with oppressed people
to forge a new way of life.
Where did this insight come from? Read Ex 3:7-8. The
verb “know” v.7 is the same one used in Gen 4:1 for sexual
relations. God intimately
sees, hears and feels their affliction and comes to set them free. What
does the burning bush, Ex 3:2, symbolize for you?
In many more passages of the O.T., God admonishes the covenant
community to care for the oppressed.
Is 1:16-17, 58:6-8; Amos 5:12-15,7:4-7
are a few examples.
This insight into God’s passion for the poor is
linked to what it means for God to be Creator. For if God creates the
world freely, out of love, then divine glory and honor are at stake in
the world’s flourishing. Our experience of creating anything out of
love: a child, a work of art, is that we want our handiwork to thrive.
Apparently so does God. God’s plan for the world is frustrated by
injustice and oppression, Ps 146:6-7, Je 9:22-23.
Jesus clearly and often speaks and acts on this
theme, Lk 4:18-19. In Matt 25:31-46, Jesus tells us that in our practice
of justice we will experience the mystery of God. Could this be the
only way we can truly be disciples of
Jesus?
Mary prophetically speaks that God comes to reverse
the condition of the lowly and the hungry,
Lk 1:51-53. Suffering is a kind of death that the living God
abhors. The Magnificat calls oppressors to conversion and
encourages all to bring life out of death. Many years later, Jesus’
resurrection proves that life, not death, is God’s plan.
The resurrection of Jesus to new life in the Spirit signals God’s
liberation for all. The resurrection is a victory not only of divine
power over death but divine love over injustice. The resurrection
pledges that there is a blessed future for all
who have been cast off as if their lives were meaningless. The
early Christian community honored Jesus’ resurrection commitment, Acts
2:42-47.
There is a famous proverb from Bishop Irenaeus, 150 AD,
“ Gloria Dei,vivens homo,”
“the glory of God is the human being fully alive.” God’s glory
happens in the flourishing of all people, every one and all together.
Is this proverb meaningful to you?
Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador (1917 -1980)
added: La gloria de Dios es
el pobre que vive, “The glory of God is the poor person fully alive”.
The glory of the liberating God is found in practice in food, housing, work,
land, medical care, education and human rights for the poor person. Will
works of charity meet these needs?
There are social systems that violently oppose God as
liberator. Among those martyred are Archbishop Romero, assassinated in 1980,
6 Jesuits in 1989 and Sr. Dorothy Stang in 2005 to name a few. But
“God’s preferential option for the poor” has entered the Catholic
vocabulary. Does this mean that God
excludes others? No, God is forever inclusive. But the reason for
this partiality is divine love, not because the poor are more or less
saintly but because of their situation.
Liberation
theology has not been condemned by Rome as some believe. But the
Vatican has issued
documents that question
it. These documents affirm that
the church is called by God to liberate but
warn against a Marxist
analysis of class struggle and against reducing faith to a political
goal. Google
“Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation,” and
“Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation.”
We all know the numbers. A United Nations report
states that in the year 2000, the richest 10% of the world’s population
owned 85% of its household wealth and 50% owned barely 1%. The United
Nations 2002 Human Development Report states that climate change represents
the latest and greatest challenge for the poor and will worsen their
situation.
Now
some good news. There are 162 Catholic agencies belonging to Caritas
International dedicated to relief, development and social service in 200
countries. There has been success by microloan organizations and
cooperatives. Paul Polak, in his
book Out of Poverty: What
Works When Traditional Approaches Fail,
says that there are 1 billion dollar-a-day people in the world. He
suggests many creative ways to aid the poor.
What are ways that Notre Dame can respond to the God of
liberation?
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Living in a secular world:
What makes belief
difficult?
How can we arrive at a notion of God that is understandable in these
secular times?
In
what ways is the secular world
difficult for the believer?
1) scientifically-discoveries about the natural
world seems to explain everything, gives humans
a measure of control over nature, makes life comfortable
2) politically-democracy gives persons greater
freedom and authority in running their lives, higher levels of
education leads to questioning and independent judgment, the
mass media influence is global
3) intellectually- some thinkers in philosophy,
literature and psychology have found the idea of God merely a
perfection of human strengths, a god in our own image, a “opiate of
the people,” some reject the existence of God in the face of
innocent suffering, some proclaim “God is dead”
Which greatly challenges your faith?
So how can we find God in
the secular world? Let us study
Karl Rahner, a Jesuit, considered by many to be the foremost
Catholic theologian of the 20th C. (1904-1984.)
All the “isms:” atheism, agnosticism, positivism, secularism
and religious pluralism make life difficult. He writes that
Christianity is in the season of
“winter” when trees are bare and the cold wind blows. We need
to return to the inmost core that can
warm the heart in winter. Does this “winter” metaphor apply
to you?
Rahner’s answer is God: Gracious Mystery, the
“ever greater, ever near.”
We must glimpse God in a new way. The usual way of arriving
at an idea of God is to start with the natural world and conclude
something about its
Maker. Rahner does this
but goes deeper into human nature.
He focuses on human curiosity in dealing
with life and our search for the meaning of life. We ask:
What kind of life exists in our world and in the universe?
Is there hope?
What shall I do with my life? Who loves me? It is about a drive
toward truth which is ultimately boundless. “We are a question in
search of the fullness of truth.” We always are looking for “more.”
Is this true in your experience?
We are
oriented toward something more that opens
a space and beckons us onward. Rahner calls this the
“orientation to the horizon,”
and it is part of everyone’s life It is not just one
experience but a building and reaching out beyond ourselves toward
something transcendent, a horizon we never can reach. (Like a plane
in flight that never reaches a destination.) Does this sound like
Job:3:11-12,16; 6:11-13; 10:1-7?
Rahner reasons that if God exists, it is no accident that we
find ourselves so open, reaching out. The Creator would have made us
this way in order to be the fulfillment of our questioning. To name
God in this way of speaking,
Rahner suggests “Holy Mystery.”
Opening up to God is not mastering the mystery but “ being
grasped by the mystery which is present and yet every
distant.”Aquinas, De Potentia, q.7,a.5)
Sorry
but God’s incomprehensibility exists even in heaven! Without this
God would not be God. For some this limits our happiness. For some
this means freedom to endlessly explore the possibilities of the
horizon in every direction.
Do you feel limited or freed by this horizon concept?
It may be a relief and a liberation to know and place
our spirits into a relationship which can glimpse the mystery of God not
as absence but as so many possibilities.
Does this make you disoriented? Challenged? What? How does Job
see it? Job 42:1-6.
Our prayer for this session are the words of
Rahner to the incomprehensible God:
“Whenever I think of Your
Infinity. I am racked with anxiety, wondering how You are disposed to
me. You must adapt Your word to my smallness, so that it can enter into
this tiny dwelling of my finiteness-the only dwelling in which I can
live-without destroying it. If you should speak such an “abbreviated”
word, which would not say everything but only something simple which I
could grasp, then I could breathe freely again. You must make your own
some human word, for that is the only kind I can comprehend. Don’t tell
me everything that you are; don’t tell my of Your Infinity-just say that
You love me, just tell me of Your Goodness to me.”
According to Rahner, God’s response is: Lk 2:7. God
does not remains forever remote but draws
near in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, Jn 16:13.We must now
talk of radical nearness(closer than my skin), immediacy(present to me
more than I am present to myself), intimacy, (loving me in my core),
aka: “Gracious
Mystery.”
Jesus proclaimed the reign of God. He healed, sought
the lost, offered hospitality to all and expressed what God is: prodigal
love, Lk 15:11-32. In his violent death, he became the mystery of God in
solidarity with all victims, Mk 15:33-39.
Most see the purpose of the life of Jesus in Gen 3:15
and so the motive for Jesus’ life
was redemption. But Rahner revives an ancient tradition. The
Franciscans, led by Duns Scotus, say that the Word became flesh so that
God who is love could enter into deep personal union with the world, the
beloved. This would have happened if humans had not sinned!
“God eternally desires to communicate the divine self to the
“other” who is not divine and so creates a world to allow this to
happen.”
How does Jesus remain with us in redemptive love?
God’s gracious love is another way of speaking of grace: God’s own
Spirit given freely to all human beings, dwelling in us, orienting us to
the immediacy and intimacy of God who yearns for union with us. Refusal
to accept this love is sin.
But sin or no, God’s self-communication of love through the Holy
Spirit never ceases, 1 Cor 1:4-7.
Rahner believes that God’s gracious presence is for
the whole human race and that the Spirit of God is constantly offered to
all. Jesus showed us how God is
present and most observable
to the world when he
said: “ I was hungry... ,”Matt 25:35-40.
Does “Gracious Mystery” open
horizons for you?
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September 2008 - June 2009
Schedule
Seeking the Living God in the
Events and Circumstances of Our Times
St. Augustine prayed: “Late have I
loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new.”
We do not search
for a new God but we seek the presence of God in
the situations of our world.
Using Scripture, the writings of the
Church Fathers,
Fr. Karl Rahner,
many other theologians and Vatican II documents,
we hope to glimpse God in new and fresh ways.
Sept 7: seeking ultimate meaning, Je
29:12-13.
What are the ground rules of our search? Where do we
seek?
OCT 5: in the secular world and the growth of atheism, we
seek “Gracious Mystery,” John 1:14
Nov 2: in unspeakable suffering such
as the Holocaust,
Darfur,
where is God? Mt 27:46
Dec 7: in abject
poverty, we seek God’s glory in the human being
fully alive,
Lk 4:18-19
Jan 4: in maternal Love, God gives,
life, nurtures and protects it,
Is 49:15, Mt 23:37
Feb 1: in the God who breaks the chains of racism, who
liberates and strengthens, Ex 5:1
March 1: in the Hispanic experience of la lucha, we find
God in relationship, Ps 33
March 29: in religious pluralism, is
God’s plan of salvation for all?
1 Jn 3:20
May 3: in the Creator Spirit
dwelling in a
world of wonder,
not exploitation, Eph 4:6
June 7: in
Trinity, God’s self communication of love is
beyond us, with us and in us, 1 Jn 4:16
The phrase “living God” is found
at least 26 times
in the Bible.
Each refers in some way to God’s actions as
dynamic, full of surprises, generous, compassionate,
full of energy and spirit, approaching us and
approachable by us,
beyond and yet everywhere in the world.
There is
more to learn about our relationship with God
than we can possibly imagine.
St. Augustine beckons us.
He wrote, “If you have understood, it is not
God.”
The outline for our sessions comes
from: “Quest for the Living God,
Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God”
by Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J. (Congregation of
St. Joseph), Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University. She
has written numerous books and
articles, served on various Vatican commissions
and received many awards. Sr. Johnson believes that we have entered “a
golden age of theology” in which we are discovering new ways to relate to
the depths of divine compassion of the “living God.” Her bio on the internet:
http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/theology/faculty/elizabeth_a_johnson_/
We will meet
in the school library, Kemper Hall from 9:30 to 10:45 am. Sessions are
generally on the first Sunday of the month. Summaries and discussion
questions for
the upcoming session can be found on the Notre
Dame website and in the narthex book rack under CAFÉ.
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