Categoría: Lent 2012

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Lenten Spiritual Retreat, 3 of 3, New Perspectives on Catholicism

Lenten Retreat in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. Talk 3 of 3: New Perspectives on Catholicism

* Unconventional and a little provocative definitions can be inspiring, if used with measure. We can speak of Christian faith as a way towards sober drunkenness. As human beings we are endowed with rationality, but we should never forget that not everything that is real can be grasped by rational, deductive- and linear-like, procedures. the biblical response to the need of surpassing the somehow restricted boundaries of rationality is to be filled with the Holy Spirit–to be “drunk” with the new wine.

* A second provocative way of presenting our faith is to say that the Christian Way consist of “efficient dying.” By “dying” we understand “investing life,” and by “efficiency” we understand: making the most of our limited time on Earth.

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Lenten Spiritual Retreat, 2 of 3, Your Body, your Language

Lenten Retreat in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. Talk 2 of 3: Your body, your language.

* A notion, well-spread nowadays, on the relationship between mind and body regards the former as “software” running on “hardware” that would be the latter. This concept shares a common disregard of the human body as usable, replaceable and disposable. As a consequence, embryos are seen as legitimate sources of spare parts, and ageing is just a curse to be avoided by means of extreme technology.

* A biblical perspective brings to focal attention two facts: (1) As creatures, our value comes from the One who has created us, thus making us effectively expressions of his power, love and wisdom. While alive on this earth we are “unfinished sentences He is pronouncing.” (2) We are called, by the mystery of his redemptive love, to become dwelling of his Holy Spirit and temples of his glory.

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Lenten Spiritual Retreat, 1 of 3, Neopaganism

Lenten Retreat in Lafayette, Louisiana, USA. Talk 1 of 3: Neopaganism

* In Chapter One of his Epistle to the Christian community at Rome, Apostle St. Paul presents the dark and oppressing reality of man in paganism: love for pleasure and selfishness take over and certain decline is the only future.

* A rather similar picture presents the same Apostle in Chapter Three of his Second Letter to Timothy–with an addition: in those “last days” people will regard themselves as “religious.” Their false idea of spirituality makes them regrettably blind to Christ’s splendour.