Your questions
1. "Miracles of the Eucharist", tonight (7/26), 7 pm, cafeteria. Please join us for this video (approx. 20 mins), which shows and explains 4 miracles that Jesus has performed in the Eucharist. Pretty amazing stuff!! Also, please bring a friend or family member! If you can't make it tonight, let me know (via email); we will have a second showing within the week.
2. Come on out for the parish party this Sunday, July 31, at 5 pm. Should be a good time! Food and fun for families from 5 pm until dark; we will have a dunking booth, and hopefully get the pastor in for a dunk or two!! Youth group bonfire begins around dark for all junior high and high school youth. S'mores and karaoke amid the raging fire!
3. Check out the new parish website at www.stjohnsparishhollywood.org All kinds of cool parish info on the site - you can even keep track of the construction of the new Parish Hall!
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I wanted to take a break from the (lengthy) notes from the sacraments' talks in order to ask for any questions you might have about the Catholic faith. They can be general questions or specific ones. Some examples might be:
- how do we know that God exists?
- what is Heaven like?
- what does the Church teach about artificial contraception?
- where is Purgatory described in the Bible?
Your questions will not only help you, but can really help others. We all want to know the Truth about God and life; this is our forum to learn the Truth. You can always post anonymously; I look forward to your questions and comments.
2. Come on out for the parish party this Sunday, July 31, at 5 pm. Should be a good time! Food and fun for families from 5 pm until dark; we will have a dunking booth, and hopefully get the pastor in for a dunk or two!! Youth group bonfire begins around dark for all junior high and high school youth. S'mores and karaoke amid the raging fire!
3. Check out the new parish website at www.stjohnsparishhollywood.org All kinds of cool parish info on the site - you can even keep track of the construction of the new Parish Hall!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wanted to take a break from the (lengthy) notes from the sacraments' talks in order to ask for any questions you might have about the Catholic faith. They can be general questions or specific ones. Some examples might be:
- how do we know that God exists?
- what is Heaven like?
- what does the Church teach about artificial contraception?
- where is Purgatory described in the Bible?
Your questions will not only help you, but can really help others. We all want to know the Truth about God and life; this is our forum to learn the Truth. You can always post anonymously; I look forward to your questions and comments.
posted by Fr Greg at
10:56 AM
7 Comments:
This is an odd question but one that happened to me and wasn't sure how to handle it. How should a dropped hostbe handled during communion?
By
Anonymous, at 2:05 PM
This is an odd question but one that happened to me and wasn't sure how to handle it. How should a dropped host be handled during communion?
By
Anonymous, at 2:05 PM
When a consecrated host is dropped during Holy Communion, the minister of the Eucharist should pick up the host and consume it. Then, he or she resumes distributing Communion, starting with the person who didn't receive the dropped host.
By
Fr Greg, at 2:45 PM
Greg,
The more I read the bible I seem to raise more questions, questions that would never EVER cross my mind before. My question is God. I know he exists, but how do we know. Did he make us for his "enjoyment". Some of the readings (and I hope I have the correct ones) left me with nothing but questions. 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1: 16 (?) And in questioning God, does this make me horrible. Funny, that I pray for stronger faith and end up with questions.
By
Anonymous, at 3:38 PM
I just started a Bible study group to learn more about my faith. What I've learned thus far is not all Bibles (NAV, King James...) read the same. My questions are:
1. What bible can you get that aren't so translated. I know the point is the same, but some words are more powerful than others.
2. If you read John 3:16 (Catholic Bible) For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him MIGHT not perish, but MIGHT have eternal life. John 3:16 in the Protostant version says you WILL HAVE. How can I defend the book of truth (the Bible) when the Catholic translation varies from the Protostant version. Might/may and Will have - WOW, that is a huge difference in how you live your life to have eternal happiness with our Father. Is this why the Catholics have it right :-) ? Am I reading to much in everything?
Last question - humility. I thought I understood the word. But reading the bible and books from John Paul II and Mother T, I'm not sure what it means and how to live in humility.
By
Anonymous, at 2:52 PM
My question is on Free Will. Do we truely have it. If something happens in our life, we say "It must be all part of God's Plan" - How does that give us free will? If our Father knew us before we were ever in our mothers womb & knows what our purpose is, is that free will? If the weeds grow along with the harvest, is that part of God's plan or free will. I personally think we do have free will with God's loving hand. But to another Catholic friend I couldn't explain it. Especially when you throw God's Plan in it.
By
Anonymous, at 7:25 AM
JP, thanks for the question, and I'm sorry to take a while to try to answer it. I will try to answer the other q's as well soon.
The Church teaches that we can know through reason THAT God exists. There are at least 5 "proofs" for the existence of God that the Church provides (thru theologians like St Thomas Aquinas). The proofs are pretty complex to understand, and a good foundation in philosophy can really help to develop them.
Briefly, one proof is that God is the "unmoved mover". Everything in the universe has been or is being moved. I was moved into existence by my parents, animals move because of their parents, etc. The analogy would be that we're all like dominoes, being moved by the domino behind us.
Someone or something had to move the first domino. Someone or something had to move the first creatures to put it all into motion. If we put it on the level of evolutionism, something had to make the Big Bang go bang!
Whether it's humans, animals, trees, stars, dominoes, whatever, these are all things that have to be moved by another in order to exist and move. These are all "moved movers" - they have been moved are moving other things. Like dominoes.
There had to be one unmoved mover that set it all in motion. One that didn't have to be moved by another in order to exist and move. He hasn't been moved but moves other things. He puts the dominoes into motion. We understand this unmoved mover to be God.
Now, this might have been more than you were looking for in terms of understanding how God exists, but it is part of the Church's answer. The key point is that we can know with our minds that God exists. In other words, God's existence is a question for reason, not faith.
The question of WHO God is is a question for faith. God is Father, Son, and Spirit; Jesus is the Son of God, etc. If your questions are focused mainly on WHO God is and how we can know that (and your Scriptural references indicate that), please let me know, and I will do my best to address those q's.
It is good to show the distinctions that exist between different questions about God, and how the Church has set up different categories for these different questions (philosophy, theology, e.g.). Thanks!
By
Fr Greg, at 11:55 AM
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