Mass in the Early Church

     The central activity of the mass in the early church was the breaking of the bread. this Eucharistic Liturgy was to be celebrated on every Sunday for it is the first day of the week. According to St. Justin Martyr the celebration consisted of seven main activities. These seven activities were gathering on sunday, readings from scripture, a homily, prayers of the faithful, an offertory, a eucharistic prayer, and the reception of the Eucharist. We are called, through scripture, to participate in every single one of these activities. "Memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the prophets are read," is just one of the ways to show how St. Justin Martyr described the readings from scripture. As you can see by the activities, mass is structured the same way now as it was for the Early Church. The focal point of mass in both periods of time of course being the Eucharistical Sacrifice for it was instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper and has been celebrated ever since.

Ronald Davis

            As I first watched this video, my heart felt compassion for Ronald Davis. Coming from a great home, I cannot imagine living on the street and not knowing if I will be able to eat the next day. Sleeping outside in the cold, in a cardboard box, blows my mind. I cannot comprehend what it would be like. Davis wants to get a job, he is not living on the street and not trying to get back on his feet, he literally cannot find a job. Because he has been homeless for about a year and a half, he most likely only has one or two sets of clothes he can wear. And more likely than not, the clothes he has are dirty and not appropriate for a job interview, but that’s all he has.

When he started to talk about the man who walked by him and called him a bum, it got me thinking about what I do when I drive by or walk by a homeless person. How do I look at them? Do I look at them like they are nothing, or do I look at them like they are another human being who is down on their luck? I would hope I would do the latter. I do not think of myself as a person who would go out of his way to be rude to a homeless person—or any person for that matter. If I have some extra money when I pass a homeless person either on the street or when I drive by, I try and give it to them. I realize homeless people do not want to be homeless, so I try and help them out. 

Ronald Davis' Story

Recently I watched a video on youtube called “Homeless Man Ronald Davis Emotional Story Called a Bum, Cries...” and it reminds me of a song by Luke Bryan called, “You Don’t Know Jack,” which also describes the life of a bum. This video and that songcould really change a person’s life if it is received in the right way by the viewer. If a person sees this and learns about life from the point of view of a bum. It teaches its watcher to give to a person down on their luck because some of them are trying to get a job and get back on his feet. This is a lesson to learn in life too because it is always important to help those who need it. It also shows us to be stewards of the Earth and take care of God’s people for they are loved by him just as much as we are. Helping others in need in order to take care of God’s Earth is part of the Universal Call to Holiness and is something we should do everyday.

This movie was very informative and it really taught us as people a lesson. Most people see a homeless man or a hobo and think, “Oh great, here’s another person that is going to beg me for money or something.” They feel that the money will be spent on drugs but in the video Mr. Ronald Davis, the homeless man being interviewed, says in at about three minutes and eighteen seconds into the video he talks about how a man treated him poorly and he responded, “God bless you sir.” This was a big quote to me because it showed that this man felt even though he has lived on the streets to survive God still has a plan for him and he still has faith in God.

Link to Davis' Video

Link to Lyrics of "You Don't Know Jack" by Luke Bryan

All Are Welcome!

            I believe the author of the blog did a very nice job making a good example of the two kids. The author made it clear that just like Freddie was welcome at his friend’s dinner table, we too are welcome at the table of Christ. It is always nice to be welcomed places. Whether we are welcomed at a dinner table, or socially at school, or on an athletic or academic team; it is always nice to be welcomed places. It makes us feel good inside. I know I always enjoy being welcomed places. It makes me feel especially good to know I am welcomed with God. Anytime I want to talk to God or read about God, I know I can do that. God has welcomed me into his life and that makes me feel pretty great.

          I am welcomed every place I do. I am welcomed in my classes; I am welcomed in social settings, on athletic teams, in my family, and in God’s family. The most special place I am welcomed to is God’s family. I love being apart of God’s family. God has taught me many things that have helped me through life and I know I will continue to practice throughout the rest of my life. I believe the author does a good job describing homosexuality: “The Church loves, welcomes, and respects a woman or man with a same-sex attraction…while reminding him or her of our clear teaching that, while the condition of homosexuality is no sin at all, still, God’s teaching is clear that sexual acts are reserved for a man and woman united in the lifelong, life-giving, faithful, loving bond of marriage.”

Prayer

            Prayer is our primary way of communication with God. Keeping in good contact with our Father is one of the most important things we can do. Whether we are on the way to school, or we are just waking up in the morning, or going to bed at night, praying can happen at any time. God is always there for us and ready to listen to our problems, hopes and dreams, and wants. Although God may not always answer our prayers with the answer we are looking for or expect, He does always answer our prayers no matter what we ask for. His answer may be no, and what we asked for does not happen. Or he may also disguise he answer into something we cannot see at the moment but will become visible down the road. I always try to pray and thank God for everything He has given me. I know I am blessed to be where I am today and who I am today and know that everything I am and everything I have comes from God. 

The Sacrament of Matrimony

When Jesus came he raised the power of matrimony almost to where it was when Adam and Eve were on Earth. The difference now is that the marriage is built off of grace going through our sins rather that grace without sins which is how it was in the beginning. He made it a sacrament which is the way through which humans on Earth are able to have their sins after baptism forgiven. This means that a marriage between two baptized Catholics is a sacramental marriage and will never go away. This means that if a baptized Christian divorces another baptized Christian and they divorce if one of the two is remarried then they, according to Jesus, will be living in a state of perpetual adultery and mortal sin.

This is shown when Luke writes, "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another   commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery" (Luke 16:18; cf. Mark 10:11–12). Paul is also insistent about this point too. He says, "Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. . . . Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive" (Rom. 7:2–3). 

This only applies to a marriage between two people for there is a different rule for an unbaptized person’s marriage. In Greco-Roman culture it is easy to divorce and remarry which led the Church Fathers to proclaim Jesus’ teaching about the matter to them. Other Church denominations have modified this rule to accommodate the new and modern culture’s thought on divorce and remarriage. These changes lead the Catholic Church to be one of the few denominations that still preserves Jesus’ and the early Christian’ view on divorce.

    This means that a marriage between two people who have been baptized can not remarry unless the spouse has died or there was a never an actual valid sacramental marriage. It’s like this, a marriage has to be contracted for it to be official, for it to be contracted the bride and groom have to share matrimonial consent. If there is no consent the marriage is null and the two are allowed to remarry.

    This because without the consent there is no need for a divorce.

This is a commandment that comes from Jesus through Paul when he writes, "To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife" (1 Cor. 7:10-11). This is why Jesus established matrimony as a sacrament so that God’s grace will pour into us in times of trial when our marriages are in trouble.

The Real Presence

This blog post is a summary of this

article.

In scripture about the Real Presence it says that Jesus is literally and fully in the body, kind, soul, divinity in the Eucharist through the bread and wine. This doctrine is often attacked by Evangelical and Fundamentalists because they feel that it is unbiblical.

The early Church Father interpreted these reading literally. A summary stated by J. N. D. Kelly about Christ’s real presence said,  "Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at the outset, was in general unquestioningly realist, i.e., the consecrated bread and wine were taken to be, and were treated and designated as, the Savior’s body and blood.”

From the beginning of the Church the Church Fathers discussed and taught about Christ's presence in the Holy Eucharist. Kelly wrote also wrote, "Ignatius roundly declares that . . . [t]he bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup his blood. Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body. . . . Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood. His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity."

He then states, "Hippolytus speaks of ‘the body and the blood’ through which the Church is saved, and Tertullian regularly describes the bread as ‘the Lord’s body.’ The converted pagan, he remarks, ‘feeds on the richness of the Lord’s body, that is, on the Eucharist.’ The realism of his theology comes to light in the argument, based on the intimate relation of body and soul, that just as in baptism the body is washed with water so that the soul may be cleansed, so in the Eucharist ‘the flesh feeds upon Christ’s body and blood so that the soul may be filled with God.’ Clearly his assumption is that the Savior’s body and blood are as real as the baptismal water. Cyprian’s attitude is similar. Lapsed Christians who claim communion without doing penance, he declares, ‘do violence to his body and blood, a sin more heinous against the Lord with their hands and mouths than when they denied him.’ Later he expatiates on the terrifying consequences of profaning the sacrament, and the stories he tells confirm that he took the Real Presence literally"

Also big people and events that defined The Real Presence were Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian of Carthage, Council of Nicaea I, Aphraahat the Persian Sage, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Augustine, Council of Ephesus.