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!

UPDATE: Due to the weird issues with Internet Archive in October 2024, I migrated the audio of the classes over to Google Drive and was able to add the Word docs which accompany them, so ultimately it was an upgrade. I'd love to figure out how to embed buttons, but for now, just Click Here.

You shouldn't need a password beyond that but if you do, try:  rzhf3qz

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.

Yes, It Was A Miracle. Also, Yes, It Was A Setup.

I assume that almost everybody over 50 years old has heard some variant of the sermon idea (spin? take? clown show?) that Jesus didn't actually multiple the five loaves and two fish, but instead pulled off a ""miracle of sharing"" and got the people to share the food they were hoarding. Well, at least John's account of the feeding wrecks that idea. And also unless it's a legit miracle, the moment utter fails to do what it appears Jesus is trying to set up: showing himself as God's own anointed with all that authority and raw power, and then put his followers on the spot with some hard truths and see if they would stay with him or dip. 

(I did miss a good point from my notes in this one delivery, which is that the description of the twelve baskets at the end as being full of the fragments of "the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat", is huge. Saying that 1. they are all the same original five loaves he started with, and 2. those five loaves themselves were more than anyone could eat.)

Horizontical Fixes

Of the three attempts at this homily on Ephesians (with a lot of Galatians and Genesis too), all of them had two or more flubs, so I just had to pick one. On the one here I didn't really deliver the opening story the best I could have, and also meant to come back at the end and emphasis that Paul's depictions of the Messiah's work really is horizontical. But the other two had bigger issues. Alas.

How Not To Impress People

I covered at a different parish this week, so I had to do a little bit of background on 2nd Corinthians before diving into the reading of the day. So if you've listened to another homily of mine in the last several weeks a small part will be a review/repeat. (Actually, to be honest, I've covered for three of the last five weekends and I'm getting a lot of mileage out of introducing people to 2nd Corinthians.)

A Short Survey of Second Corinthians

So many great letters by St. Paul for so many situations. You need encouragement? Read Philippians. Frustrated by imperfection in your church? Compare with 1st Corinthians. Kind of a masochist and like being yelled at? Try Galatians. Such variety, something for everyone. 

2nd Corinthians asks, "What about when you feel like you've lost everything you relied on: your friends, your health, even the very sense of hope itself? When your life turns into Job chapters 1-2, where do you turn? Where would a person who felt they could do nothing else to advance the kingdom of God look to find purpose and hope?"

Paul thought he knew the power of Christ's cross, but it wasn't until he felt he had himself been pressed, crush, persecuted, and abandoned, in imitation of Him, that he saw himself as being fully The Messiah's Man. A strong and eloquent traveling evangelist is good. A wounded, discouraged, tongue-tied beggar is an even better ambassador for the crucified messiah.