Transcript Path to Happiness

Path to Happiness
Morality
October 2009
Church of the Resurrection
Overview
•
•
•
•
Prayer
Age specific learning
Parents-children come together
Prayer around baptismal font
Question
• When you hear the word
morality what thoughts or
words come to mind?
Resources
• Bible
• Catechism of the Catholic
Church
• Fr. Michael Himes, St. Anthony
Messenger Press
• Fr. Bob Horihan
• Echoes of Faith Plus-Catholic
Morality (DVD)
Moral life
• The moral life is a call to
fullness of life in Christ
• The goal of the moral life is
happiness through union with
God
• Everyday life is the subject of
moral theology
Definition
• Definition of Christian Morality
1 John 4:10-11, 19
• Starts with God’s initiative
(creation)
• Our part is a response to God
• We love God (2nd)
• Response to a gift
Desire for Happiness
• Nothing wrong with wanting to
be happy
• CCC 1718- desire for
happiness is of divine origin
• God has placed it in the human
heart
Desire for God
• CCC- 27 – The desire for God
is written in the human heart,
because we are created by
God for God; and God never
ceases to draw us to himself.
Only in God will we find the
truth and happiness we never
stop searching for.
• Do you desire God in this way?
Desire for God
• The dignity of humanity rests above
all on the fact we are called to
communion with God. The
invitation to converse with God is
addressed to us as soon as we
come into being. For if we exist it is
because God created us through
love, and through love continues to
hold us in existence. We cannot
live truthfully unless we acknowledge God’s love and entrust
ourselves to the creator. Vatican II,
p.918, para.19
Dignity of the Human
Person
• CCC -308- For God is at work in
you, both to will and to work for his
good pleasure. Far from
diminishing the creatures dignity,
this truth enhances it. Drawn from
nothingness by God’s power,
wisdom, and goodness, it can do
nothing if it is cut off from its origin,
for “without a Creator the creature
vanishes.” Still less can a creature
attain its ultimate end without the
help of God’s grace.
Image of God
• Only in recognizing the value
and worth of oneself and of all
other human beings can one
genuinely love God.
• JP II said, Christianity is an
attitude of “deep amazement’
at the human persons worth
and dignity (M. Himes)
Image of God
• The Pope captures something
absolutely central to our faith. To
sum it up in a single phrase, we can
do no better than the words of St.
Irenaeus, who wrote “the glory of
God is a human being fully alive.”
This claim of Ireneaus is rooted in
the incarnation. God emptied Himself
and became like us in all things
except sin. If we are to be like God
we must be fully human, because
God has chosen to become like
us.
Catechesis
• CCC 1697 – Catechesis has to
reveal in all clarity and joy the
demands of the way of Christ.
Catechesis involves many parts:
catechesis of the Holy Spirit, of
grace, of sin and forgiveness, of the
human virtues, virtues of faith, hope
and love, of the commandment of
charity and the one we will focus on
tonight - the catechesis of the
beatitudes
Beatitudes
• The Beatitudes are paths to
human happiness, tasted in
this life and fulfilled in the next
• Jesus tells us that these
guideposts lead to fullness of
life
• Jesus describes a life of self
giving love as the path to true
happiness
Beatitudes
• CCC 1716- The Beatitudes are at
the heart of Jesus’ preaching. They
take up the promises made to the
chosen people since Abraham. The
Beatitudes fulfill the promises by
ordering them no longer merely to
possession of territory, but to the
Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 5:1-12)
The Beatitudes respond to the
desire for happiness that God has
placed in the human heart
Beatitudes
• Why are the poor in spirit, they
who mourn, the meek, those
who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, the merciful,
clean of heart and
peacemakers blessed?
Beatitudes
• CCC 1717- The Beatitudes
express the vocation of the faithful
associated with the glory of his
Passion and Resurrection; they
shed light on the actions and
attitudes characteristic of the
Christian life; they are the
paradoxical promises that sustain
hope in the midst of tribulations;
they proclaim the blessings and
rewards already secured for
Christ’s disciples, they have begun
in the lives of Mary and saints.
Beatitudes
• CCC 1719- The Beatitudes reveal
the goal of human existence, the
ultimate end of human acts: God
calls us to his own beatitude. This
vocation is addressed to each
individual personally, but also to the
Church as a whole, the new people
made up of those who have
accepted the promise and live in
the faith.
Christian Beatitude
• CCC 1720 – The NT uses several
expressions to characterize the
beatitude to which God calls us:
• the coming of the Kingdom of God
• the vision of God: ”Blessed are the
pure of heart, for they shall see
God”.
• entering into the joy of the Lord
• entering into God’s rest
Kingdom of Heaven
• Page 885 CCC
Beatitude
• What is it?
• Happiness or blessedness,
especially the eternal
happiness of heaven, which is
described as the vision of God,
or entering into God’s rest by
those whom He makes
“partakers of the divine nature.”
Christian Beatitude
• CCC 1721 – God put us in the
world to know, to love, and to
serve him, and so come to
paradise. Beatitudes makes us
“partakers of the divine nature”
and of eternal life. With
beatitude, humanity enters into
the glory of Christ and into the
joy of the Trinitarian life.
Christian Beatitude
• CCC 1722 – Such Beatitude
surpasses our understanding.
It comes from an entirely free
gift of God: whence it is called
supernatural, as is the grace
that disposes us to enter into
divine joy.
Moral Choices
• CCC 1723 – The beatitude we are
promised confronts us with decisive
moral choices. It invites us to purify
our hearts of bad instincts and to
seek the love of God above all else.
It teaches us that true happiness is
not found in riches or well-being, in
human fame or power, or in any
human achievement, however
beneficial it may be, but in God
alone, the source of every good
and of all love
Desire for Happiness
• CCC 1718 – The Beatitudes
respond to the natural desire
for happiness. This desire is of
divine origin: God has places it
in the human heart in order to
draw us to the One who alone
can fulfill it.
• St. Thomas Aquinas – “God
alone satisfies”
Summary
• The moral life is a call to
fullness of life in Christ
• The goal of the moral life is
happiness through union with
God
• Everyday life is the subject of
moral theology
William Mattison, PhD, Asst. Prof. in Moral Theology,
Catholic University of America.
• Going Deeper
–October 21, 6:30 PM
–MS/HS: On the Path
–Adults: What is Morality?
• Next Parish Night
–Nov. 8,9 and 11
–Free to Choose
–What was I thinking?
–Free will & Conscience