Day 45: Summary of Creation (315-324)

• Thank you to everyone who has supported this podcast with their prayers and financial gifts!!

• Thank you for being with us!!

• Tomorrow we are going to…

• (SQUIRREL!! 😁)

• This is a MCNUGGET DAY!!

• Did you know that?

• MCNUGGET DAY at the end of the section

• We have the IN BRIEF

• IT IS INCREDIBLE!!

• The Catechism SUMMARIZES everything we have been diving deeply into for the last number of days

• BUT ALSO…

• We are grateful!!

• Here we go!!

• Do you feel this way too?

• GOSH!!

• It’s like…

• We are finally underway

• It feels like we are REALLY MOVING

• Don’t know if it feels like that to you

• BUT…

• WE ARE MOVING!!

• And it feels like…

• (SQUIRREL!! 😁)

• So I don’t know…

• Hey guys, by the way, if you like ANGELS…

• We are talking about angels tomorrow

• People are like, OH MY GOSH!!

• LET’S TALK ABOUT ANGELS!!

• LET’S HEAR ABOUT THOSE!!

• Why are we talking about angels tomorrow?

• Because we’ve talked about Creation for the last few days

• Among the first things that God created are the ANGELS!!

• WHICH IS AMAZING!!

• Maybe even the very first thing

• The very first thing that we know about, I guess

• Anyways…

• Let’s open this day up with a prayer

• Then we are going to highlight the MCNUGGETS

• Then we are going to launch into them today!

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and thanks. Thank you for continuing to reveal yourself to us. Thank you for continuing to speak to us. Thank you for giving us your Word in Scripture. And thank you for giving us the way to clearly understand your Word through the interpretive lens of the Church and the voice of the Church that continues to speak truth in this world. We thank you. Thank you for creating this world. Thank you for creating us. Thank you for walking with us, even in the midst of our pain and our suffering, our grief, and our loss. We trust in you this day. We love you, In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So here’s a SUMMARY OF THE SUMMARY

• We are going to cover the fact that God created the world ON HIS OWN

• WITHOUT ANY HELP

• HE DIDN’T NEED ANY HELP

• HE DIDN’T TAKE ANY HELP

• HE DIDN’T ASK FOR ANY HELP

• BUT ALSO…

• God created this world GOOD

• In order to show forth His Glory

• TO COMMUNICATE HIMSELF

• To actually GIVE HIMSELF to His creatures

• We have been highlighting this and Scripture DECLARES this and the Church REMINDS us of this

• God did not create this world ARBITRARILY

• God did not create this world BECAUSE HE WAS BORED

• God created this world because HE IS LOVE

• God created this world because HE DESIRED TO BE ABLE TO SHARE THAT LOVE WITH FREE CREATURES HE MADE IN HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS

• THAT IS REMARKABLE!!

• The WHOLE UNIVERSE is meant to PROCLAIM GOD’S GLORY  

• The WHOLE UNIVERSE is meant to COMMUNICATE HIS DIVINE LIFE TO US

• WHICH IS JUST INCREDIBLE!!

• GOSH!!

• OH WOW!!

• The fact that you have been pressing PLAY for the past 45 days is REMARKABLE

• We have also been talking about the fact that God KEEPS THE WORLD IN EXISTENCE…

• BY HIS WORD!!

• GOD HOLDS US IN BEING!!

• Remember DEISM?

• God did not make the universe like a clockmaker makes a clock, winds it up, and leaves it

• God is PRESENT to us

• GOD HOLDS US IN EXISTENCE

• That is how CLOSE God is

• That is how TRANSCENDENT God is

• God exists OUTSIDE OF TIME AND SPACE

• BUT…

• God is present TO EVERY MOMENT

• God is present IN EVERY PLACE AT THE SAME TIME

• Yesterday we had some of the most challenging but beautiful days

• We talked about the MYSTERY OF SUFFERING

• NO SIMPLE ANSWER WILL SUFFICE IN RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM OF PAIN!!

• The Church declares that the Christian message AS A WHOLE is the ONLY ANSWER

• IN FACT…

• Remember this quote?

• Paragraph 309 says, “There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.”

• That is consoling

• So let’s get started…

• MCNUGGET DAY!!

• Tomorrow we are talking about ANGELS!!

• But today we are summarizing what we have been hearing for the last couple of days (thanks to Fr. Mike giving a summary of the summary before he reads us the summary and then summarizes what we learned in the summary!! 😉😁)

• MCNUGGET DAY!!

• We have a bunch of INCREDIBLE MCNUGGETS!!

• Here’s another reminder of what we have been reading the past couple of days

• God created the world and proclaims His almighty love and wisdom

• Creation is the BEGINNING of God’s plan of his loving goodness which is FULFILLED in Jesus Christ

• BUT ALSO…

• Remember how we talked about The Trinity

• Paragraph 316 says, “Though the work of creation is attributed to the Father in particular, it is equally a truth of faith that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together are the one, indivisible principle of creation.”

• What does that mean?

• The Father is the Creator in a PARTICULAR WAY

• BUT ALSO…

• Remember in St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, “All things were created through Him.” (Colossians 1:16)

• And in The Gospel of John 1:1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”

• The Son is a definite…you know…

• (SQUIRREL!! 😁)

• Where the Father is, there is the Son and the Holy Spirit

• Where the Son is, there is the Father and the Holy Spirit

• Where the Holy Spirit is, there is the Father and the Son

• The Trinity is ONE BEING and THREE DIVINE PERSONS

• AND YET…

• They are SEPARATE but they are NOT SEPARATED

• Right?

• If that is a way to understand this

• They are separate PERSONS

• BUT ONE DIVINE BEING

• When one DIVINE PERSON acts, the other two DIVINE PERSONS act

• Particularly when it comes to Creation

• Paragraph 317 says, “God alone created the universe freely, directly, and without any help.”

• God is the PRIMARY CAUSE of all things that exist

• Also God creates in a UNIQUE WAY

• Remember that Hebrew word BARA-?

• This means to CREATE OUT OF NOTHING

• The Latin term is EX NIHILO

• No creature has the power to create what our God can create

• Because when WE create, we use stuff that PREVIOUSLY EXISTS

• BUT…

• God creates OUT OF NOTHING

• THAT IS INCREDIBLE!!

• Because of that EVERYTHING comes from God

• SPACE!!

• TIME!!

• Paragraph 319 says, “God created the world to show forth and communicate his glory.”

• IT IS SO IMPORTANT FOR US!!

• At this moment, wherever you’re at…

• Maybe you’re driving…

• Maybe you’re in your kitchen…

• (or maybe you’re sipping on some orange pekoe chai while typing out The Catechism in a Year Study Guide 😉)

• Look around and realize that THIS IS THE UNIVERSE THAT GOD CREATED

• God created THAT TREE (Yeah, that one over there on which that really fat squirrel is running up and down harvesting his acorns!! Wow…he’s really fat yet quick!! Oh wow!! Now my dog is chasing the fat squirrel!! Oooh this may not end well 😉)

• Why?

• TO SHOW FORTH AND COMMUNICATE HIS GLORY!!

• He wants us to share in His TRUTH…

• He wants us to share in His GOODNESS…

• He wants us to share in His BEAUTY…

• THAT IS THE GLORY FOR WHICH GOD CREATED YOU!!

• WHICH IS INCREDIBLE!!

• HE HOLDS THIS CREATION IN BEING!!

• Paragraph 322 says, “Christ invites us to filial trust in the providence of our heavenly Father”

• FILIAL TRUST means the TRUST OF A CHILD TO THEIR PARENT

• This means that we trust that even in the midst of danger…

• Even in the midst of suffering…

• Even in the midst of uncertainty…

• WE CAN TRUST IN GOD AS OUR FATHER!!

• St. Peter says, “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.”

• Another translation says, “Cast all your cares on him, for he cares for you.”

• HE CARES FOR YOU!!

• We talked about the REALITY OF EVIL yesterday

• God PERMITS physical evil

• We get sick

• We grow old

• We die

• God PERMITS moral evil

• We can actually CHOOSE the wrong

• We can actually CHOOSE the not good

• We can actually CHOOSE to use and abuse each other

• God PERMITS those evils

• PHYSICAL EVIL

• MORAL EVIL

• IT IS A MYSTERY THAT WE COULD NEVER POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND!!

• BUT…

• God ILLUMINATES that mystery

• God doesn’t SOLVE this mystery for us

• Remember, when we talk about MYSTERY in the religious sense we aren’t talking about Sherlock Holmes solving the case 

• We are talking about this DEPTH OF UNDERSTANDING that we are called to enter into that we will NEVER BE ABLE TO PLUMB

• BUT…

• God illuminates that mystery in Jesus Christ

• Jesus Christ ENTERED INTO OUR SUFFERING

• Jesus Christ ENTERED INTO PHYSICAL EVIL

• Jesus Christ ENTERED INTO MORAL EVIL

• Jesus Christ allowed PHYSICAL EVIL to afflict Him

• Jesus Christ allowed MORAL EVIL to destroy Him

• And then in the Resurrection, Jesus Christ CONQUERED THAT

• Jesus Christ TRANSFORMED IT

• Jesus Christ REDEEMED IT

• Jesus Christ DID NOT REMOVE IT

• Jesus Christ DID NOT TAKE IT AWAY

• BUT…

• TRANSFORMED IT

• REDEEMED IT

• Remember…

• The ONLY reasons that God would permit this evil is twofold…

• TO PRESERVE OUR FREEDOM!!

• HE KNOWS HE CAN BRING ABOUT A GREATER GOOD!!

• That is why we need to have that FILIAL TRUST

• We have to lean in and pray, “Ok God, I will cast my cares on you because you care for me. I will cast my anxieties on you because you care for me. I will cast my sorrows, my griefs. In my sorrows and my grief I am not going to stay away from you. In my sorrows and in my grief I am going to draw close to you because you have revealed, ultimately, that you don’t stay away from my grief. You don’t stay away from what hurts us. You’ve entered into our grief. You’ve entered into what hurts us. You allowed it to OVERWHELM you. You allowed it to KILL you. And then you took it and TRANSFORMED it so now it is POWER.”

• We will talk more about this in the days ahead

• How is it possible that Jesus Christ can actually transform evil into something that is POWERFUL?

• It can actually be a source of REDEMPTION

• Even though God can bring GOOD out of evil…

• That in NO WAY makes evil itself good

• THAT IS SO IMPORTANT FOR US TO UNDERSTAND!!

• EVEN THOUGH GOD CAN BRING GOOD OUT OF EVIL THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT EVIL THING IS NO LONGER EVIL!!

• IT IS ALWAYS EVIL!!

• IT HAS BEEN REDEEMED!!

• Does that make sense?

• If it doesn’t, that’s ok!!

• BECAUSE IT IS A MYSTERY!!

• It is a mystery that we LIVE

• It’s one thing to hear about it right now

• It is another thing to LIVE IN IT

• So that is Fr. Mike’s invitation

• PICK UP YOUR CROSS TODAY AND FOLLOW AFTER THE LORD!!

• “Ok God, I am going to trust you. In the midst of this world that is good, that you created good, but is broken. I trust you.”

• That’s our prayer today

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you tomorrow!!