OCIA (RCIA?) Classes' Drop Page. Not Homilies

Hi there. As the title says, these aren't homilies. These are the audio files of the 75-to-90-minute adult education classes I lead on Monday nights. They used to call this stuff "RCIA" but now they're call it OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults); it's the parish-level class for people either looking to become Catholic or at least checking out the Catholic Faith. Also, plenty of current Catholics attend as well as a kind of review for what we didn't pay attention to in classes when growing up.😅

These are here right now while I try to figure out how to get them up on the parish website or something better. But until then, this is my drop spot. 

This page will grow as weeks go on; no need to hop to a different one. All class audio will just be on this one page. Cheers!

Class #0, August 19th.  Introduction, etc.

Class #1, August 26th.  Revelation: Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium

Class #2, September 9th.  Salvation History and the Bible

Eucharisitic Amazement

This took a lot of workshopping (and probably two befuddled congregations) to try to figure out how the turn the phrasing of the key distinction. For the last one, presented here, I went with a little less on the poetry/paradox phrasing and pushed harder on the extra words to explain. I think we got close to almost-intelligible in the end. 

Around the 12:45 mark I went off on different "moments of Jesus", and I wish I would've also put in the Last Supper, which is such a draw for people, with its fellowship and the time with Christ. And also should have mentioned Jesus with all the redeemed in heaven, that great reunification that we long for, with Him and with our loved ones.

Stomachs And Fists

Humans were created with passions. You can't be a human very well without them. And yes, the way Thomas Aquinas uses the word "passions" translates more accurately to our broader word of emotions, or even appetites—those feelings we undergo. But for the sake of this homily, it actually probably works to let more of the modern sense be heard too: that which drives us, what has a hold on our minds and hearts. 

Anyway, Aquinas divides the eleven passions/emotions in two main groups: the "irascible passions" (hope, despair, courage, fear, anger) which I messily described here as the fighty or pugnacious passions, and the "concupiscible passions" (love, desire, delight, hate, aversion, sorrow) which I've heard described as the "simple" passions, but for this I prefer the descriptor of the desirous passions, or the attractive passions. Those that are about what is pleasing, enjoyable, beautiful, and that which makes us feel content.

And the passions are not bad things. At worst, they are morally neutrally. At best, they drive us to work for important things. And people tend to have one or the other that leads them more: Is your first thought to revel in the good, the true, the beautiful? To want to marinate in the and find comfort in the gifts and works of both God and man? That's the desirous or attractive passions. Is your first thought to work, defend —even fight— for justice, for the unprotected, for that same good, true, and beautiful? That's the irascible or "fighty" passions. 

In the homily (pulling from the gospel) I ascribe the expression of "thinking with your stomach" to the desirous passions and "thinking with your fists" to the irascible passions. And hopefully I made clear that those realities of personal, mental alignment aren't bad. They just are the two ways we tend to talk ourselves into not listening to Jesus when he has hard lessons for us to hear.