Catholic Newman Club

Love Never Fails...

2010-09-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

Last week at our general meeting, we learned all about LOVE!

But not just Love, four different kinds, how exactly they work in our lives, and how God uses them in reference to us.

The first love, is Storge, known better as affection. Its a familial love, the love you have for people you are familiar with, such as your family.
Then we learned about Philia, a friendship love. It's a deeper love you have for your friends.
Eros, is a romantic love. THe sacrificial love you have for your husband or wife.
The Agape, the love that is God's love. We want to give love to God, and the easiest way for us to do this is to take care of others with Charity.

After leaning about the different ways we can love and be loved we read the bible passage from Corinthians 13:1-8.

1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love, I am a resounding
gong or a clashing cymbal.
2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and
comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains
but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away everything I own, and if I
hand my body over so that I may boast but
do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It is not
jealous,is not pompous, it is not inflated,
5 it is not rude, it does not seek its own
interests,it is not quick-tempered, it does
not brood over injury,
6 it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but
rejoices with the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails.

Then in our groups we discussed how we see each love owrking our lives, and how we can Christ to others through each love.

All in all it was a fun meeting with games, decorations and lots of learning and love!

Pope Benedict XVI mid-flight interview with 70 journalists

2010-09-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the pope visited the U.K. and held a press conference with journalists on the plane ride there.
As a journalist, it would have been amazing to have been on that flight with the pope as he answered several controversial questions.
As a Catholic, it would have been beyond amazing to have been on that flight listening to His Holiness.

When asked, "Can anything be done to make the Church as an institution, more credible and attractive to everyone?" he answered:

"I would say that a Church that seeks to be particularly attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for her own ends, she does not work to increase numbers and thus power. The Church is at the service of another: she serves, not for herself, not to be a strong body, rather she serves to make the proclamation of Jesus Christ accessible, the great truths and great forces of love, reconciling love that appeared in this figure and that always comes from the presence of Jesus Christ."

It's always important to keep that in mind about our church as another thing to be thankful for (:

(Check out the rest of the interview here!)

Photograph: Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters

We believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church!!

2010-09-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

As Christians, we believe that the books that make up the Bible are the infallible Word of God. We believe that each of the authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write only what He willed. Altogether, it is everything and only what we need to know to be saved.

Why? The sole justification for our faith in the Holy Bible, is the authority of the Catholic Church.

So that his mission of salvation would be carried out after He died and resurrected, Jesus established a Church with a specific framework that would continue to bridge the gap between God and man until the end of time. He gave the apostles the power and authority to carry out his mission, to be teachers and perform the sacraments, and to lead all the nations to Christ; making them the first Bishops. Among the twelve was Peter, the “Rock,” who alone was entrusted the keys to the kingdom of Heaven and became the head of the Church on earth; the first Pope of the Catholic Church. Through apostolic succession the Word and Tradition of Jesus were preserved. A continuous chain of successors can be traced from Peter and the apostles, to the current head of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI, and the Bishops that serve Catholic communities all over the world.

The Catholic Church is the direct handiwork of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Therefore, through Him, the Church was given the power of the Holy Spirit to compile the Bible, and has the power of the same Holy Spirit to interpret it today, infallibly.

Christ said to the apostles in Luke 10:16, “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

Being mindful of where the Catholic Church has come from, Christ himself, we must have faith in its power to lead us. We must unite ourselves with it, persist in devout participation of the Sacraments that God has so graciously blessed us with, and steadfastly obey its teachings in every aspect of our lives. It is through the Catholic Church alone that we receive the fullness of Christianity and through our active partaking in that fullness that we may fulfill God's will.

Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother. She is also our teacher in the faith. (CCC 169)

Go forth and...

Recall any struggles you have with a teaching of the Catholic Church or even something you hate about it. What is something you have trouble believing or following? Write it down. We challenge you, this week, to seek understanding of this teaching. Instead of creeping around Facebook for an hour =), or watching TV, do a little research!

First, pray for humility and for the Holy Spirit to touch your heart and to grant you the grace of understanding. Then, go to one of the many Catholic resources online and read up on the topic you've been struggling with. You might be surprised to find that what you didn't like was only something you didn't understand!

Set the World On Fire!

Baseball and Morality??

2010-09-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

We had a blast rooting for our favorite teams at the Dodgers vs. Giants game last Friday!! The game, "dodger dogs," fireworks, and amazing fellowship made for an awesome night! The score: 4-2, Dodgers. Luckily, the Giants made a comeback on Saturday night!

While the athletes were running bases and the Dodgers fans were throwing popcorn at Giants fans, the idea that this beloved "American Pastime" has anything to do with morality probably never crossed any of our minds. You don't have to be a fan of baseball to understand the analogy. Check it out! =)

Gray Matters
By Mark Lowery, Ph.D.

Are You Playing For Keeps?

Baseball and the moral life have more in common than you might think.

**I think I’ve come across a problem that you can’t solve. It has to do with the relationship between my favorite game — baseball — and morality.**

Look, I may not be able to solve the problem, but at least we’ve got something in common: Baseball is my favorite sport, too. So step up to the plate and take a swing.

**Okay, I have a friend who is a “cafeteria Catholic.” He clearly is uneasy with my newly discovered enthusiasm for the Catholic faith, and he’s especially uneasy about moral issues. He keeps saying things like “Life is so complex, no one can live a perfect moral life. Just be sincere, do the best you can, God will understand.” You know the picture. My big thing right now is that Christ’s redemptive work really affects our moral lives. He has healed our natures, making it possible for us to live virtuously.**

Looks like the papal encyclical Veritatis Splendor has inspired you. Especially article 104 . . .

**I can recite that one by heart! “This is what is at stake: the reality of Christ’s redemption. Christ has redeemed us! This means that he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence. And if re-deemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act . . . . the man who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit.”**

I am duly impressed. Now what does all this have to do with baseball?

**My friend, you see, read something in Parade Magazine that he has really latched on to. The gist of it is this: A great baseball player bats around 300. That means that amid some great hits, he also has plenty of less-than-perfect swings. So, too, with our moral life: Ideally we’d bat 1000, but no one can be expected to do that. So we should always try really hard, but there's no way we can succeed regularly.**

I think you are on to something. According to many varieties of Protestant teaching, due to the depravity wrought by original sin, we are incapable, even after justification, of acting virtuously. Still, we can be saved if we firmly believe that Christ has died for us, has imputed grace and righteousness to us. Secular “orthodoxy” is a variation on that theme: Due to the complexity of life, we are incapable of being moral virtuosos. But as long as we’re sincere, God (if He exists) still loves us, and heaven (if it exists) is still ours.

**And you can get on base only three out of ten times yet still play in the major leagues.**

Okay, let’s take a closer look at this baseball analogy. You see, the perfect game, baseball, must be in accord with the Truth, the fullness of which resides in the Catholic Church. Hence, baseball must be Catholic.

**That was quite a slider. How about pitching it a bit easier?**

Sorry, just tongue-in-cheek. But the point I want to make is that baseball, properly understood, is actually very analogous, not to Protestant ethics or secular ethics, but to Catholic ethics. Your friend is stealing a base on you and you can get him with a straight fast throw. Here goes:In baseball, a professional is expected to do everything right all the time. “Be perfect as Yogi Berra was perfect,” we might say, or “Be perfect as Sammy Sosa is perfect.” To be sure, professional baseball players make their share of mistakes, but this is not part of the expectation when they are signed. They’re paid to do it right, all the time. That’s why an otherwise good player gets booed when he makes some mistakes.

**But the fact is, they are applauded for hitting 300, and that means they’re missing two thirds of the time.**

Not quite! If they’re doing their job, they’re getting it right one hundred percent of the time. What you call “missing two thirds of the time” means that external circumstances get in the way: amazingly good pitching, the quasi-miraculous diving catch by a diving infielder, the brilliant leap above the outfield wall. In these circumstances, the player is doing everything exactly as he is supposed to. He doesn’t get bawled out by the pitching coach. His teammates say, “No one could have hit that pitch,” or “No one should have been able to catch that hit.”

**I think I see your point, but can you tie the analogy back to our moral lives?**

Yes. We’re supposed to act virtuously one hundred percent of the time, just as the player is supposed to do everything just right. God expects it of us because He has given us the necessary skills — namely, the grace of Christ — just as we expect much of the player because he possesses incredible athletic talent. Now, just as external circumstances can get in the way of the player getting on base, so too external circumstances often prevent us from accomplishing the good we would wish to do. But we are never to do evil, just as the player is never to take a bad swing. If he does, he’s in the doghouse. If we do evil, we are, too.

**I’m pretty clear on how external circumstances cause the player not to get on base. Can you give an example of external circumstances preventing us from accomplishing good?**

Imagine trying to contribute to your workplace. You want to improve the atmosphere. You try some extra doses of kindness; you go the extra mile for your co-workers, and the like. But it can easily happen that you get nowhere! (In fact, it can backfire on you. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.) Or imagine trying to evangelize within your family. You’re very prudent, you’re not in the least pushy, but the moment any important issues come up for discussion, you’re thwarted in your efforts to make a reasonable argument in favor of the Catholic faith. To give a very concrete contemporary example, consider all the efforts made to give an accurate portrayal of Pope Pius XII’s assistance to the Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. Many such efforts hit a brick wall, and a great good — an honest portrait of Pius XII — is prevented.

To summarize, our lives are filled with instances of not accomplishing the good we would wish to accomplish. It’s a lot like baseball! And yet, we are to keep doing good, and we leave the results in God’s hands.

**Got it. Isn’t there a text in Veritatis Splendor that talks about these very ideas?**

Not surprisingly, yes. It says: “It is always possible that man, as the result of coercion or other circumstances, can be hindered from doing certain good actions; but he can never be hindered from not doing certain actions. . . .”That last point presupposes that we’ve been given the grace by which we can act well, just as in the baseball analogy we presuppose that we’re speaking of a real professional. The pope also notes that “there are kinds of behavior which can never, in any situation, be a proper response — a response which is in conformity with the dignity of the person.” Likewise, in the baseball analogy, there are certain kinds of acts that a player just may not do, such as trying for a homer when a bunt is needed.

**Well, I think I’ve got it all straightened out. I’m going to grab my copy of Veritatis Splendor and meet my friend at the game tonight! Should be a very interesting between-innings discussion!**

I’ll be thinking of you. Some people convert in churches, others in hospitals; why not at the stadium?

Mark Lowery, Ph.D., is an associate professor of moral theology at the University of Dallas. His e-mail address is lowery@acad.udallas.edu. You can read Veritatis Splendor (and many other encyclicals and Church documents) online at www.newadvent.org.

Summer Jam!

2010-08-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

Last night, the club held its Summer Jam at Jeepney Asian Grill located in Cerritos. As I was en route home, I had several worship songs that were played by the bands that night stuck in my head. Now, that’s when you know how AMAZING of a night it was!
As historian of the club, my job for the night was to capture the event in pictures and video. I soon began to realize how perfect of a job it was. Everywhere I pointed my lens, I saw smiling bright faces - and who doesn’t love to see that?!
While the night continued on, I couldn’t help but think how much I LOVE being Catholic. Last night was proof of the great times you can have with great company and great food while growing in your faith. God truly does bring people together.
If the old saying that “if you show me who your friends are, I‘ll tell you who you are” is true, then you’ll definitely want to be friends with the incredible members in the Catholic Newman Club and their families.
Beach Newman Club: This is what they mean when they talk about enriching your spiritual journey.

Your Sister in Christ,
Kirsti

CSULB Catholic Newman Blog is Here!

2010-03-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

The Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI, has urged Catholics to use all the new forms of media to spread the faith. In fact The Pope's exact words to congregations were "to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis." In response the Catholic Club of Long Beach has said Amen to the call and created its first blog! The blog will go over many of the topics being discussed at meetings if you happen to miss a meeting and also will be going over essential information needed for good Catholic formation. Come follow us and subscribe!