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April 15th, 2023
8:00-10:00 a.m.


COMBINED OFFICER and GENERAL MEETING AGENDA

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OFFICER MEETING AGENDA

1. Call to Order

2.  Introduction to the Combined Meeting Agenda

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3.  Liturgy of the Hours Morning Prayer in the Social Hall

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4.  New and Old Business (40 minutes)

     a.    The raffle is ended: ALL sold tickets/money turned in to Jim by Sunday 4/16
     b.    Planning for upcoming events in the Meeting Calendar

     c.     FORMED Membership review and MATERIALS review

     d.    The "COR" Dialogue --Intro by FS Jim

     e.     Dues report--by  FS Jim

     f.      Membership and attendance

     g.     Officer election slate--Nominations

     h.     Input/discussion

Into the Breech: 

TOPIC 1: REVIEW: The five thresholds of conversion (handout/20 minutes)

       a. Share what you want to share for each of the questions

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GENERAL MEETING FORMATION


 TOPIC 2:  Being in the Moment (45 minutes)

a. Evangelization and the Road to Emmaus: Bishop Barron

      i.    Which of the three evangelical skills is the hardest for you to do?

      ii.   How would you practice the first skill?

b. Three Expressions of Love at Emmaus for the Disciples

     i.    Describe how Jesus modeled rule 9 from Palm Sunday thru Good Friday

     ii.    Explain the scripture, "God's only son learned obedience thru suffering," using 

            simple Iconography.

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 TOPIC 3: Our Lord's Prayer: Loving in the Moment (15 minutes)

Topic 3 is short and sweet. It is perhaps one of the best contemporary renderings of a complete insight into the thought of Jesus and His relationship with the Father. One we should imitate.


       a.  A SHORT READING from the book "Liturgical Mysticism" by David W. Fagerberg. Then we will partner up for a discussion of the following questions:
  

  1. Does this reading unlock a desire to see God face to face?

  2. What type of reading habits and exploratory research patterns are helping you appropriate your faith, hope and love of God?

  3. How do Topic 1, 2, and 3 create a “pause” in your race?

Final thoughts and prayer

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APPENDIX

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“Rule #9: Spiritual Desolation: A Time to Understand” by St. Ignatius of Loyola

“The ninth: there are three principal causes for which we find ourselves desolate.

  1. The first is because we are tepid, slothful or negligent in our spiritual exercises, and so through our faults spiritual consolation withdraws from us.

  2. The second, to try us and see how much we are and how much we extend ourselves in His service and praise without so much payment of consolation and increased graces.

  3. The third, to give us true recognition and understanding so that we may interiorly feel that it is not ours to attain or maintain increased devotion, intense love, tears or any spiritual consolation, but that all is the gift and grace of God our Lord, and so that we may not build a nest in something belonging to another, raising our mind in some pride or vainglory, attributing to ourselves the devotion or the other parts of the spiritual consolation” (St. Ignatius).

The first

Our Lord, out of love for us, wants to give us a “spiritual wake-up call” and help us to recognize when we have become “lukewarm” in our faith or spiritual disciplines. Responding to the Lord’s warning always leads to deeper intimacy. 

  • This lukewarmness may just be in 1 particular area of our spiritual lives.

  • We can still be progressing towards God in general.

  • Prayer: Jesus, I trust that You love me more than I love myself and this is why You are permitting this spiritual desolation to happen.

The second

Illustration: When this occurs, “we encounter a situation like that of a soldier who is not given his pay: the mercenary gives up the battle, the patriot continues to fight”. The mercenary fights for pay. The patriot fights to defend the country he loves. –> Our spiritual identity emerges in the trial.

  • “Try us, O Lord, you who know the truth, in order that we may know ourselves” (St. Teresa of Avila).

  • “God never sends a trial without immediately compensating for it by some favour” (St. Teresa of Avila).

The third

To help us know that He is the source of all the good within us.”

  • God allows desolation to reveal the false idea that we are the reason we are able to maintain or cause an increase in our devotion to God and reinforce the true idea that all spiritual consolation is purely God’s gift.

  • God wants us to receive this gift both cognitively (“true recognition and understanding”) and affectively (“interiorly feel”) – both head knowledge & heart knowledge.

  • “Without me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Without Jesus, we are nothing, we deserve nothing, and can do nothing.

  • Humility: “The third cause does, in fact, touch a pivotal theme in the whole of Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises: that evangelical humility rooted in evangelical poverty, is the gateway to God’s grace and to following the Lord Jesus in our lives (SpirEx, 146)” (Gallagher, DS, 123). Humility prepares us to receive the further work of God’s grace (cf. 1 Peter 5:5).

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Have faith

  • Desolation is a great opportunity to receive the more difficult graces that can come only through a bit of suffering.

  • God allows desolation for 3 difficult graces: repentance, fortitude, humility.

  • Remember that God transformed the worst evil into the greatest means of salvation.

  • Welcome and utilize desolation for God’s greater glory. It’s the ultimate practical joke that God and I play on the false spirit.

 

Spiritual desolation and healing

a.     God can allow spiritual desolation in order to reveal an area that He wants to heal. Accept that penetrating light of love with trust, that He is going to work great things through this difficult time.

 

b.     Spiritual desolation, of itself, does NOT produce growth

  • Spiritual desolation is ONLY beneficial when resisted.

  • God’s motives for allowing the experience of spiritual desolation become a reality ONLY when we resist spiritual desolation.

 

c.     “But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you” (John 16:7).

  • Just as Jesus tried to shift the apostles’ focus from their immersion in the sad reality of Jesus’ words of departure on the eve of his passion to the good news of the Advocate’s coming – to get their minds off the sorrow of anticipated separation and on to the reasons for it – so too Jesus wants us to shift our focus from feeling “as if separated from our Creator and Lord” (Rule 4) to the reasons why our loving God permits this experience of “separation.”

  • The temporary painful separation of Christ’s passion & death was necessary for the apostle’s formation to be equipped for the mission that lay ahead.

 

Be aware, understand, then act

This instructional Rule implicitly calls us to seek the specific cause at work when we are in spiritual desolation. Once we are aware and understand this, then we can act appropriately.

From Timothy Gallagher "Teaching Discernment"

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February 18, 2023

February 18th 2023
9:00-10:00 a.m.
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING AGENDA
1.    Call to Order
2.    6th Hour in the chapel
3.    Knight Armour (formation): Here are three formation areas which will help us in everything we do as men, fathers, brothers and spouses. We go back to the three promises that our mission statement produced and we will spend 3-4 months for each these areas. These are Appropriating and sharing our faith,
4.    Appropriating and sharing our faith:
a.    A prayer for a local Church: Archbishop Hebda of Minneapolis/St. Paul (copy and paste in browser): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BiYyYSjqok
b.    How do we prepare ourselves to appropriate our faith and share it? (copy and paste in browser)  “I once heard of two farmers….” https://youtu.be/WAxwS8KyMQQ
5.    Discernment of Spirits: (copy and paste in browser) Bishop Barron: https://youtu.be/jzYN2hMqLI4?list=RDLVjzYN2hMqLI4&t=293;  Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan Waterford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlilvjteA8c 
6.    Prayer: The Examen (copy and paste in browser)  : https://www.jesuits.org/spirituality/the-ignatian-examen/ ;  
7.    Summary, Prayer Intentions, Upcoming Events
8.    Closing Prayer

February 18th 2023
8:00-9:00 a.m.
OFFICER MEETING AGENDA
1.    Call to Order
2.    Daytime prayer (breviary) SEE BELOW
3.    Knight Armour (formation): A Formation Plan has been established
Last month we looked at three areas to continue learning about in our officer meetings: a) appropriating and sharing our faith, b) discerning spirits in our lives, c) using forms of prayer.
Beginning at this month’s officer meeting we will dedicate four consecutive monthly meetings to address c) appropriating and sharing our faith. In June thru September we will address discernment in our monthly meetings, and in October thru January 2024 we will address forms of prayer emphasizing Liturgy.
Open your devices up to this webpage: https://www.crawfordcountycatholics.net/apologetics. Men will self-sort into a small group and then pick a topic from the webpage and prepare to discuss: a) how does the need for apologetics appear in your life today? b) how do you find this website helpful? c) How would  you respond to a question about your topic from a co-worker, fellow parishioner, family member?


Now listen to a recent quote of Pope Francis. And in your small group discuss it and defend the Pope’s position.

 

Pope Francis has written a letter to clarify his comments on sin and homosexuality from a recent interview with the Associated Press.
“When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin,” the Pope wrote to Jesuit Father James Martin, in response to a request for clarification.
Francis said he was trying to say in the interview that criminalization of homosexuality “is neither good nor just.”
“As you can see, I was repeating something in general,” he wrote. “I should have said ‘It is a sin, as is any sexual act outside of marriage.’ This is to speak of ‘the matter’ of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin.”

 

One person summarizes and shares their group’s thoughts from their notes to address the above.
4.    Summary, Prayer Intentions, Upcoming Events
5.    Closing Prayer

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TO GET THE LITURGY OF THE HOURS APP GO TO: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netguru.ibreviary&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1

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