26th JAN 2025 Ordinary Meeting 2
02 Second Ordinary Meeting 2025.01.26.pdf
Holy Family Church
Family Catechism Schedule
26th JAN 2025 Ordinary Meeting 2 (St. Rita’s Centre) 4pm – 7pm
- Welcoming (All together in the Chapel)
- Revelation - Faith - Baptism
- Group of parents and group of children with their catechists to the appointed room.
- Parents group:
- Last month report: experiences of meetings at home.
- YouCat: I. Creed; I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. (nn. 13-22)
- Gn 1-3 (The creation of the world - The origin of human beings - The fall)
- Children group:
- I belong 1: The Baptism of Jesus/My baptism
- Video BAPTISM
- YouCat: nn.1-12 Revelation-Faith.
- Repeat the questions 1-12. Let the children answer, share what they have learned at home with their parents and make sure all the children understand the basic answers of the Church (Catechism)
- N.12 History of Salvation (God’s Revelation – Bible)
- N.13 Creed (Church’s Faith – Catechism)
FOR FAMILY MEETINGS AT HOME
YouCat for Kids - Bible
- nn. 13-16 / Gn 1, 1-2, 4 (The creation of the world)
- nn. 17-19 / Gn 2, 4-8. 15-25 (The origin of human beings)
- nn. 20-20 / Gn 3 (The fall)
Genesis 1:1-2:2
The creation of the world
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water.
God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness. God called light ‘day’, and darkness he called ‘night.’ Evening came and morning came: the first day.
God said, ‘Let there be a vault in the waters to divide the waters in two.’ And so it was. God made the vault, and it divided the waters above the vault from the waters under the vault. God called the vault ‘heaven.’ Evening came and morning came: the second day.
God said, ‘Let the waters under heaven come together into a single mass, and let dry land appear.’ And so it was. God called the dry land ‘earth’ and the mass of waters ‘seas’, and God saw that it was good.
God said, ‘Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees bearing fruit with their seed inside, on the earth.’ And so it was. The earth produced vegetation: plants bearing seed in their several kinds, and trees bearing fruit with their seed inside in their several kinds. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came: the third day.
God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, days and years. Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.’ And so it was. God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars. God set them in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to divide light from darkness. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came: the fourth day.
God said, ‘Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth within the vault of heaven.’ And so it was. God created great sea-serpents and every kind of living creature with which the waters teem, and every kind of winged creature. God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds multiply upon the earth.’ Evening came and morning came: the fifth day.
God said, ‘Let the earth produce every kind of living creature: cattle, reptiles, and every kind of wild beast.’ And so it was. God made every kind of wild beast, every kind of cattle, and every kind of land reptile. God saw that it was good.
God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.’
God created man in the image of himself,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I give you all the seed-bearing plants that are upon the whole earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this shall be your food. To all wild beasts, all birds of heaven and all living reptiles on the earth I give all the foliage of plants for food.’ And so it was. God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good. Evening came and morning came: the sixth day.
Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their array. On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing. He rested on the seventh day after all the work he had been doing.
Genesis 2:4-9,15-25
The origins of human beings
At the time when the Lord God made earth and heaven there was as yet no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plant yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, nor was there any man to till the soil. However, a flood was rising from the earth and watering all the surface of the soil. The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.
The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden. The Lord God took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and take care of it. Then the Lord God gave the man this admonition, ‘You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.’
The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.’ So from the soil the Lord God fashioned all the wild beasts and all the birds of heaven. These he brought to the man to see what he would call them; each one was to bear the name the man would give it. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of heaven and all the wild beasts. But no helpmate suitable for man was found for him. So the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and enclosed it in flesh. The Lord God built the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. The man exclaimed:
‘This at last is bone from my bones,
and flesh from my flesh!
This is to be called woman,
for this was taken from man.’
This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body.
Now both of them were naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no shame in front of each other.
Genesis 3:1-24
The fall of man
The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.”’ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’ The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
The expulsion from the Garden of Eden
The Lord God called to the man. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’
‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’
The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’
Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’
The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’
Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,
‘Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts.
You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life.
I will make you enemies of each other:
you and the woman,
your offspring and her offspring.
It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’
To the woman he said:
‘I will multiply your pains in childbearing,
you shall give birth to your children in pain.
Your yearning shall be for your husband,
yet he will lord it over you.’
To the man he said, ‘Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat,
‘Accursed be the soil because of you.
With suffering shall you get your food from it every day of your life.
It shall yield you brambles and thistles, and you shall eat wild plants.
With sweat on your brow shall you eat your bread,
until you return to the soil, as you were taken from it.
For dust you are and to dust you shall return.’
The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live. The Lord God made clothes out of skins for the man and his wife, and they put them on. Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil. He must not be allowed to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some and live for ever.’ So the Lord God expelled him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he had been taken. He banished the man, and in front of the garden of Eden he posted the cherubs, and the flame of a flashing sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Ways by which reason can know the existence of God
Firstly, let us consider the existence of God, that is the most basic and fundamental religious and philosophical principle. The existence of God and certain aspects of his nature are knowable to us through our reason that reflects on the world, on the spiritual soul, on the mystery of the human moral conscience, on the testimony of the faith and life of those who believe in God, on the miracles and prophecies, on the testimonies of conversion and the action of God in the history of those people.
It is in most cases a simple and spontaneous thinking, but it can become reflective and evolve into a philosophical reasoning. Normally, it is a knowledge that is accepted by faith and transmitted by the family and society. As in all the other areas of knowledge, it is easier to reach the certainty of a reasoning following the guidance of someone who has already acquired it, than by oneself, starting from the beginning. In all the areas of knowledge, the person who has certain special skills can advance in knowledge and discover new realities, truths, conclusions, applications, implications, that humanity has not acknowledged for so many centuries, but once that truth has been discovered, it and its consequences can be taught and explained. Thus, we can help other people to reach the same conclusions and certainties, which they would not have been able to achieve on their own. To discover the solution to certain problems can be very hard, but to check that that solution is true is much easier. In addition, that abstract knowledge can be corroborated by its effects on and applications in daily life. The same can be said about the existence of God.
Reductio ad absurdum is that simple way of reflection, almost intuitive, that we use constantly, above all in matters that only have two solutions, such as: God exists or not. By this way of thinking we cannot analyse the direct arguments that prove the answer, but we are able to realize that the opposite one is impossible and absurd, and in consequence, the former is true.
If God the Creator does not exist, we must admit that the wonder of the world, its complexity, its harmony, its evolution and development, the appearance of life and especially of human beings is only the result of chance, but a kind of chance that is intended, that always works with a purpose, with harmony, that is a chance that is not chance, but is program, design and wisdom. Acts which are the fruit of chance cannot happen regularly and frequently, producing always a better fruit.
In addition, we would have to admit that from so imperfect a conglomerate of particles and energy there has emerged a reality so perfect and unique as is each one of us, persons with a spiritual soul, who can reflect on ourselves and decide freely. From the mere blind determinism of matter, it is not possible that the chaos can spontaneously become a cosmos, full of harmony in its countless degrees and different ways of being, no matter how many millions of years are inserted in the interval.
We can also think about the fact that animals, in various levels and grades, instinctively work in an intelligent way and with great wisdom, without being aware of it. They work with a predetermined wisdom, inherent in the depths of their beings, a wisdom that men try to discover. We, intellectual animals, share also this kind of natural wisdom. If in order to move a finger we first had to learn and understand all the natural processes involved, we would die without success. Where do those intelligent acts come from?
Let us consider the complexity of the human body. How, from the state of being a single cell, has it developed according to a pattern as complex as it is perfect? It is a harmonious and extremely complicated system, in which all the parts and functions need one another, and must be synchronized; and they have to be developed according to certain times and stages.
Take, for example, an eye. In order to see we need to have cells sensitive to light, arranged in a precise way, so that the light from outside can stimulate them. For this, the eyeball needs to have a particular shape and proportion and not another, the eye has also to be transparent to light and must not distort the image, it must have systems of protection, spotlessness and focus; eyes have to move together and focus on what we want to see, and be able to follow an object in motion, and while we ourselves are in motion too, they have to send the information which is then processed in the brain and which has to be coordinated with other senses and with our motor system, which makes it possible to give an appropriate response. We can proceed in the same way with every part or function of our body. If one of them is absent the rest of them cannot function coherently and the goal is not reached.
We can also look at the whole creation, climatic conditions, plants, animals..., a cosmos in which everything is interconnected, and everything is mutually dependent for the harmony and subsistence of the whole, and in which everything, working according to its own natural laws and blind instincts, contributes to the good of the whole, and so harmony reigns on earth... If there is not a wise God who has created everything according to an orderly plan, who has put this flow of intelligence into the smallest details, this reality is simply impossible. It is absurd.
Let us consider our spirit, our thinking, our freedom, our individuality. Where do they come from? Do they come from a sperm cell and an ovum that by themselves are not able to survive more than a few hours and a few days?
Let's look at the moral consciousness, where man feels himself judged, acquitted, rewarded, reprimanded, accused by a law that he has not given himself and that is above us, judging us; we are free, but it is not we who establish good and evil, this is given to us and demanded of us by our intimate being itself and it also judges us.