Sacred Scripture - 1 -

I. CHRIST - THE UNIQUE WORD OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

The way of CCC is organised is by paragraph, so if I mentioned about CCC 101, it means the paragraph no 101 from the CCC. Why do I choose to discuss start from Chapter 2-Article 3 regarding the Sacred Scripture? It's because I found a lot of shocking facts regarding the Church teaching and perspective about the Sacred Scripture.

Due to my lack of knowledge and understanding, I didn't know how actually the Catholic or Universal Church interpret, love, respect and inspired by the Sacred Scripture.

Let me start from the first paragraph of this article:
101 In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words: "Indeed the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness, became like men."

The definition of the Sacred Scripture or the bible that we as Christian reads its actually the Words of God, in human language. Similar to Jesus who is indeed God but decided to became man, God also use human language in His word to be written in the Sacred Scripture.

102 Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely:

You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.

The one Word here means is God Himself, or about Jesus Christ!!He who was in the beginning God with God. We can try to read the entire bible, we will learn and see that it is about God, the father,son and the holy spirit revealing Himself through His Word.

103 For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body.

This paragraph remind me, that during the Gospel acclamation, the reason why , when the priest raise the Bible that he hold before he read it, we usually genuflect. I do it as well, after I got the understanding that the Gospel contains the Word of God in human language, and the Word represent God Himself, because the Word was God (John 1)

104 In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, "but as what it really is, the word of God"."In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them."

This paragraph conclude of what we believe as a Catholic, that the bible was really the Word of God, and it was about the divine revelation, that God who loves us so much want to reveal Himself through human language. For me, after reading about this four paragraph, I was really amazed, since I didn't really read bible and respect it as the Word of God. The perspective of the Church on the Sacred Scripture from this first four paragraph gave me a bigger picture of what the Word of God is in the bible.

Now I can understand that no wonder we are so encourage to read bible daily by the Church, because by reading it, we are meeting our God, our heavenly Father who wants to reveal Himself to me and to you. I am trying starting from today to read the daily reading from the liturgical calendar of the church. I recommend you to read from this resources : http://www.wau.org/meditations/meditations.asp? with the reflection that really help me to understand and meditate on the Word of God in the daily reading.

Praise the Lord!!!

To Sacred Scripture ~2~

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The fear of the Lord is the beginnig of Wisdom
( Proverb 9:10)

I want to start to post some reflections and articles about Cathechism of the Catholic Church. its the publication of the Church from Vatican. This is the reference text of the Catholic (Universal) Church teaching. Therefore anything about the Church teaching, tradition, are summarized into a book called the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. The source is from http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the result of very extensive collaboration; it was prepared over six years of intense work done in a spirit of complete openness and fervent zeal.

A catechism should faithfully and systematically present the teaching of Sacred Scripture, the living Tradition in the Church and the authentic Magisterium, as well as the spiritual heritage of the Fathers, Doctors and saints of the Church, to allow for a better knowledge of the Christian mystery and for enlivening the faith of the People of God. It should take into account the doctrinal statements which down the centuries the Holy Spirit has intimated to his Church. It should also help to illumine with the light of faith the new situations and problems which had not yet emerged in the past.

From now on I want to post some articles regarding the CCC. I hope what I share about the richness of the Church teaching and tradition may triggered you to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. So that your relationship with the Lord will be more intimate and lovely.

Praise the Lord

Who am I?

This question has been bothering me since I heard Fr Jivan session about salvation. He asked us to write 5 sentences starting with the words I am.... So I supposed to describe my self in 5 sentences. I tried my best to describe my self in 5 sentences.

For me as a final year student right now who will graduate soon. I feel that I am at the cross road right now, I am still a bit confused which way that I should choose? I realise there might be no turning back so its a great decision that I am going to make at this short of time.

Going back to Fr Jivan session, he told us that salvation according to him is to be with God at ALL TIME. He illustrated it with the story of Adam and eve from the book of Genesis. Both of them were with God at all time in their nakedness. For me that state or condition is also applicable for me. I mean God wants to be with me and although I don't have anything with me ( naked ) it would still be alright. Instead it may be the best way to be with God at all time, just me and God, nothing else. It was quite confusing but I believe that what I myself actually want is only that. To be with God at all time, and to be Myself in my nakedness.

From this session I start to reflect on my life and learnt few things. I am created by the Lord as a unique creation, and the reason why He created me is because He loves me. How do I know about this? I cant really explain it, because this conviction came after the process of learning, reflecting, experiencing, listening to God's revelation. I may share with you about this later on my next posting.

So as a unique creation He bestowed on me also a unique composition of talents,endowments and etc. Which mean there will be only one person who is me in this world at this point of time. In my reflection the state of being naked is actually my true self. Which God created me to be. It is the core of my self that I can be the best of me, the truest of me in this life. When I am being naked and with God at all time there will be nothing else I shall want in this world. I feel fulfilled.

I found a way of discovering this core of myself, first is relying on God's revelation, second is to ask my self. Its a way of discovering, meaning that it was already there, its not an invention or a creation of my self. I just need to look for it, it was always there. I am still learning by reading some books such as : Self matters from McGraw Phill, and also Bible from the LORD. I am quite sure right now after looking into my self regularly this past few months I can get a feel of my true self. It is still not completely revealed but I already can see the glimpse of it.

I am writting on my personal journal on every discovery that I made, any thing that the Lord reveals to me, so that I will not forget and this will be like my life project. This is a very interesting journey for me, the journey to the inward of my self. Slowly but sure, God is revealing His plan for me, and also for you.

Praise the LORD!!!!Alleluia!!!

Life in the Spirit Camp (LISC) 2007 " Come. Follow Me"

This is my third experience of attending LISC, and guess what, it is more wonderful and fruitful than before. More for the participant, and also more for me. I was the publicity comm with my bro vidy together preparing for about 3 months on outreaching the participant. It was quite sad because the response was quite bad in number, but we believe God will call many people. So we just do our best and at the end there are about 80+ people attending LISC ( service team + participant). For me personally it was a great experience of doing outreach, although I was not so good at outreaching and praise God He still want to use me. I am really glad that He gave me bro vidy as my partner because he is so reliable.

Then came to the first day of LISC for me as a Facilitator of group 12. When I looked to the name list of my group, I said to myself I want to love all of them and being with them will be a great experience for me. I believe that will happen although the LISC had not started yet. I also have a great partner who has grown wonderfully in the Lord. She has been inspiring me since she start to serve in CPG. I thank God and also chief Facil for giving me a very wonderful and lovely group.

Starting from the first day when we had a very wonderful sharing among my group member. I can feel the openess and sincerity in our sharing. The session were also wonderful, and especially Fr Jivan session regarding salvation. It really inspired me, to reflect on my life about salvation. I really love the way he thinks and reflects on the word of God into his life.

Then on the second to the fourth day, we had our LISC on IHM retreat house. I was quite amazed that we dont have enough bed for the comm, and I need to sleep at "extra" room. I was surprised on the number of people that turn up to stay there. There were great session, and also great testimonies, but my favorite was the testimony from our brother Randy. He shared that he felt nothing on his first LISC last year,but he experience the growth on his life throughout his life in this 1 year, and he told us it was because that God has touched him differently.

I said to my self, WOW!!!!This is the best. I really love to listen on this testimony, because for me personally I prefer that from LISC people can start to commit their life to God, even that they dont receive or experience something extraordinary. But it was their life with Jesus that make the extraordinary life.

For me myself, this year LISC is a very wonderful experience, because God teach me to be more faithful to Him. He comfort me by touching me again, and he want to use me to do greater things for His glory. I am so challenged now by the Lord and I want to grow and commit myself more to Him.

Praise The LORD!!!!Alleluia!!!