Beyond Sunday by Teresa Tomeo
Author:Teresa Tomeo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor
Published: 2018-03-15T00:00:00+00:00
Chapter Five
Up Close and Personal
The Church and God in Our Everyday Lives
If I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
â 1 Timothy 3:15
God has given us the Church as a gift, because he loves us. The Church, founded by Jesus himself on the rock of Saint Peter (see Mt 16:18), has stood the test of time, trials, and countless tribulations. And the Church isnât just a cold institution imposing rules and regulations on her members. Everything she does and offers is with our best interests in mind. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he came to give us abundant life (10:10). So much of that abundance is there for us within the teachings and structure of the Catholic Church â but, especially as adults, itâs up to us to take the time to explore and learn.
Sadly, many of us hardly know where to begin.
If youâre anything like me and my husband before we began our journey back into the Catholic Church, chances are you havenât thought much about what âchurchâ really means beyond the doors of your local parish. For many of us, when it comes to our personal, everyday lives, we figure âchurchâ pretty much begins and ends there. If we want to be active and engaged, we can volunteer with parish ministries (which is a good and worthwhile thing to do). But do we really recognize just how much the Church should be part of our lives and decisions, no matter where we are, whether in the church hall or in our own living room? I know I didnât. That is, not until I came in contact with the treasure trove of Church teachings, which helped me see just how up close and personal our life of faith should be. Itâs all about a relationship.
Scripture
As we were returning to the Catholic Church, my husband and I became involved in a nondenominational Bible study. Back in the early 1990s, at least in our area, there werenât many Scripture-based studies for Catholics â at least none that we were aware of. We were still Christian newbies on so many levels, so when Dominick received a personal invitation to this Bible study, we decided that, at least for the time being, when it came to learning about the Bible, this was the best place for us.
We were surprised by a question often asked by the Protestants in the study with us: they wanted to know whether we had âa personal relationshipâ with Jesus. Had we accepted him as our âpersonalâ Lord and Savior? That terminology wasnât commonly used by Catholics, and we werenât sure what it meant. Yet the more we studied the Bible together, the more this idea of a âpersonalâ relationship with a very âpersonalâ Savior began to make sense.
Through our Scripture study, we really got to know Jesus much more personally. He became real to us as we encountered him in the Gospels and began to learn just how much God loves us.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
God's Word by Ratzinger Joseph Cardinal(153)
Newman on Doctrinal Corruption by Matthew Levering(127)
Jordan Peterson, God, and Christianity: The Search for a Meaningful Life by Christopher Kaczor & Matthew Petrusek(124)
The Good Enough Catholic by Paul Wilkes(108)
THE LOVE OF ETERNAL WISDOM by Bean(108)
Jesuits Telling Jokes by Nikolaas Sintobin(107)
Eternity in the Midst of Time by Wilfrid Stinissen(106)
Answer Me This! by Patrick Madrid(105)
The Living Flame Of Love by The Living Flame of Love(105)
A Catholic Consciousness by Johnson Luke Timothy;(104)
The Flame of Love of the Immaculate Heart of Mary - The Spiritual Diary by Elizabeth Kindelmann(102)
The Pilgrim's Tale by Aleksei Pentkovsky(94)
Manual for Men by Reverend Thomas J. Olmsted(82)
Three Days: the Search for the Boy Messiah by Chris Stepien(81)
First Holy Communion : A Parent's Preparation by Mark Allen(80)
Beyond Sunday by Teresa Tomeo(77)
On Illustrious Men by Thomas P. Halton; Saint Jerome; Saint Jerome(72)
Lenten Meditations by William A. Barry(71)
Against the heresies. Vol. 1 : Book 1 by Irenaeus(70)
