We’ve been expecting you! It doesn’t matter if you are a Catholic who is new to our parish, a Christian of another tradition checking out our Catholic Church, or someone who is neither but somehow you were still drawn here. We were waiting for you all. Welcome!

Questions

We know that we all have a whole lot in common. We all want to be loved. We all want to be happy. We all want to be at peace.

And we all have a lot of questions in common: Maybe I have a good home, a good family, a good job or business – yet is this all there is? What’s missing? Why can’t I just be satisfied? 

Maybe I’ve had huge bad things happen in my life that I can’t understand, can’t forgive, can’t forget, and hurt so deeply. Why did they have to happen? Why me? Why is there suffering? Is this daily life, this world, all there is? Is that what it’s about?

We all have some bad failures. We’ve hurt others. We’ve hurt ourselves. We do stupid things that make no sense at all. Why? We get angry at God. At our parents. At society. At our spouses. At ourselves – the hardest ever to forgive. Why? Why can’t we get it? Why can’t we stop doing stupid things and live a better life? We ache inside. We accuse ourselves. Our conscience won’t be quiet.

And sometimes, in our pain and our desires (even the good ones), we reach for the TV, the food, the cigarettes, the alcohol, the drugs, the spending sprees, and the workaholicism –  just for ... for ... something. Numbing? Meaning? Something to make sense? Some reason? Some hope?

We’ve all had these questions, all had this pain. Yes “had,” not “have.” Past tense. We’ve all had them, but there are really good answers that satisfy, forgiveness which heals.

Answer Attempts

We are created in God’s image – so we are thinking, reasoning beings, we know cause and effect (and they should add up!), and we want love, meaning, community, happiness that lasts.

Today we live in a time and culture that wants to ignore these questions. It dismisses any idea that God might exist or have any relevance to me and my life. This is all there is. The one with the most toys at the end wins. Making memories is what important. Your health is everything. Choose your own values. Do what you want. Be tolerant. Don’t judge. All is good. Have fun. Isn’t it exciting?!

But ... then why aren’t I happy? It was fun while it lasted. But it doesn’t last. What is this emptiness inside?

We’ve all been there.

Now Here Are Some Very Bold Statements

The Catholic Church stands up for you and for your personal dignity. God does exist. He created you in His image. You have dignity and worth. You are free to make your own choices, yes; but you also have reason which tells you that choices have consequences, cause and effect. God respects your free will – He gave you it! You have dignity. 

The Catholic Church knows that you have worth. We value you so much that we will support you in finding answers to your questions. For starters, we want you to know that when (actually, before) God created this entire universe, it was you – personally – He had in mind. At the right time and place, you were born. Today He wants you to know that He loves you. He has been trying all along to convince you of His love for you. And now with these little digital words He want to say it again: I love you!

It is your dignity as a human being that urges you not to settle for this world, for material things. You are made for communion – friendship – with God, the divine, the transcendent Truth, the transcendent Good, the transcendent and incredible, breath-taking Beauty. It is your dignity, your worth, your personhood that makes you desire Him. Nothing else is going to satisfy.

The Catholic Church says there is Truth, absolute Truth, universal Truth. Your value, your worth, your dignity is true. God, although not visible but spirit, does exist, and that is true. He doesn’t force you to know Him because He made you with free will, with dignity, with a choice about whether you want God or not. That’s why He doesn’t clunk you over the head and say, wake up!

Always and everywhere over your entire life, and right now, He is trying to show you that He is real. The truth is that God is entirely all Love. The truth is that God really does love you. From all eternity has wanted your loving friendship. He made you for love! He wants a relationship with you. He wants you to be part of His family, His Church. That is the truth!

And that is what Jesus Christ is all about. When mankind was ready and prepared, in the tiny and ordinary Jewish village of Nazareth in backwater Galilee, under the Roman Empire, around the beginning of the First Century AD – then, in history, for real – God the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” the Blessed Virgin Mary and assumed human flesh from her in her womb. God became “incarnate,” became the man Jesus. Jesus grew up like any other child, fulfilled all the Biblical, Jewish prophecies about the coming Messiah (i.e., the Christ), including that the Christ must enter into our suffering, enter into our death – taking upon Himself all the consequences of our (our!) human sin against God, sin against the Truth. (All those things that nag our conscience.) He suffered and died the horrible death of a Roman crucifixion. For us! For you! For me! That is Love! That is proof of God’s Love! 

All the prior Old Testament sacrifices were shadows prophesying this reality: Jesus gave, offered Himself, out of love for all mankind (that’s you and me) as a sacrifice which is redemption, reparation, atonement and satisfaction. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (“CCC”) at section 616 puts it this way: “He knew and loved us all when he offered his life.... The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpassed and embraces all human persons and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.”

Then, as also prophesied, on the third day (Sunday), God resurrected Jesus Christ’s body as a resurrected, transformed, body – which He has promised to his followers also! And then He – the resurrected human body, human soul, and divine nature –  “ascended” and entered into the Heavenly realm of God. Heaven was “opened” to the holy, to those who share the friendship of God.

No, material things and this world is not all there is. Yes, you were made for love – Real Love. Yes, you were made for happiness – Real Happiness.

When we come to know God, then we correct our definitions of  what Love and Happiness are all about, and then we seek the Real Deal. And in finding, we come to Peace. We were once seekers, now we have found. Now we are satisfied and fulfilled. The Heavenly Life of loving fellowship with God and others starts now and will be made full when we also come to enter God’s Heavenly realm. This IS what it is all about!

The Bible says:

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Gospel of John 17:3 – meaning chapter 17, verse 3.)

“God our Savior desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” (Letter of I Timothy 2:3-4.)

“There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” than the name of Jesus. (Book of Acts 4:12.)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (abbreviated to “CCC”), Section 1, says:

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, 
in a plan of sheer goodness 
freely created man
to make him share in His own blessed life. 

For this reason, 
at every time and in every place, 
God draws close to man. 
He calls man 
to seek Him, 
to know Him, 
to love Him with all his strength. 

He calls together all men, 
scattered and divided by sin, 
into the unity of His family, the Church. 

To accomplish this, 
when the fullness of time had come, 
God sent His Son as Redeemer and Savior. 
In his Son and through Him, 
He invites men to become, 
in the Holy Spirit, 
His adopted children 
and thus heirs of His blessed life.


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