UTHE105 Life in Christ: The Catechism and Moral Theology

This course is an introduction to Moral Theology, 

teaching in parallel with the third part of the Catechism.

This course is taught by Fr Dylan James at the Josephinum Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.

Audio of lectures available on a Spotify playlist here

Word documents of each lecture are available in a Googledrive folder here

Aug 24th

1)    Introduction: What is Moral Theology?  What is the Catechism? What’s in this course?

Aug 26^th

2)    A History of Moral Theology

Aug 31^st

3)    The Sources of Moral Theology: Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium

Sept 2^nd  

4)    (a) What is Man?  The Image of God

(b)  Beatitude

Sept 7^th  

5)    (a) Freedom 

(b) Sin as a Perversion of the Quest for happiness 

Sept 9^th

6)    (a) The End doesn’t Justify the Means

(b)  Appendix: The Principle of Double Effect 

Sept 12^th  

7)    Conscience 

Sept 16^th   

8)    (a) The Passions

(b) Virtue 

Sept 21^st   

9)    Virtues & Vices: A look at some inter-relationships

Sept 23^rd  

10) Mortal and Venial Sin 

Sept 28^th

11) The Natural Moral Law 

Sept 30^th

12) The Natural Moral Law, continued

Oct 5^th

13) Quiz: See the list of 7 Catechism definitions to be memorized  

Oct 7^th

14) Review Class 

Oct 12^th

15) Law, Obligation, Epikeia, Probabilism

Oct 14^th

16) Midterm Exam 

Oct 26^th

17) Grace, Merit, and Justification 

Oct 28^th  

18) Society and The Common Good 

Nov 2^nd  

19) Civil Law, the Government, and the Common Good

Nov 4^th

20) The Ten Commandments: An Introduction & Summary; Dies Domini: The Lord’s Day

Nov 9^th   

21) Abortion, Euthanasia, Death Penalty 

Nov 11^th  

22) The Family and Marriage (Unity & Fertility)

Nov 16^th  

23) Divorce and Second Unions  

Nov 18^th

24) Self-Defence & Just War

 

Nov 30^th

25) Environmental Ethics

Dec 2^nd  

26) (a) Social Doctrine and Capitalism  

(b) Truth and Lying

Dec 7^th  

27) (a) Chasity: Integrating the Desires, not suppressing them

(b) The Battle for Purity

(c) Covetousness, Poverty and Purity of Desire

Dec 9^th

28) Review Class

 

CL701 Sexual Morality

This course is an introduction to Catholic Sexual Morality, as given by Fr Dylan James at the Josephinum Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.

Audio is available on Spotify here

Word documents of lectures are available at a Googledrive folder here

 

Aug 22^nd

1)      Introduction; Sex and the New Evangelisation

Aug 25^th

2)      Chastity and Society: A historical look at the Judeo-Christian approach

Aug 29^th

3)      The Bible and Sexuality: An Overview (part 1)

Sept 1^st

4)      The Bible and Sexuality: An Overview (part 2)

Sept 8^th

5)      ‘Gender Ideology’ (i): An introduction to the problem 

Sept 12^th

6)      Gender (ii): Seminar Discussion of Holloway, Augustine, and Edith Stein 

Sept 15^th  

7)      The Ends of Sex and Marriage: Procreation, Union, Remedy for Concupiscence

Sept 19^th

8)      Virtue and Sex: Chastity (i)

Sept 22^nd    

9)      Virtue and Sex: Chastity (ii)

Sept 26^th

10)   Virtue and Sex: Chastity (iii)

Sept 29^th  

11)   Theology of the Body (i)

Oct 3^rd

12)   Theology of the Body (ii)

Oct 6^th

13)   Review session

Oct 10^th

14)   Midterm exam 

Oct 13^th

15)   Marriage and Civil Law & Counterfeit ‘Marriages’

Oct 24^th

16)   Homosexuality (i)

Oct 27^th

17)   Homosexuality [ii] 

Oct 31^st

18)   Responsible Parenthood: NFP or Contraception?

Nov 3^rd  

19)   Contraception (i): Janet Smith’s ‘Naturalist’ Argument of Contraception 

Nov 7^th

20)   Contraception (ii): Janet Smith’s ‘Naturalist’ Argument of Contraception 

Nov 10^th

21)   Contraception: Germain Grisez’s ‘Anti-Life Choice’ Argument against Contraception 

Nov 14^th

22)   Divorce, Remarriage (and Holy Communion): The situation pre-Amoris Laetitia

Nov 17^th

23)   Divorce, Remarriage (and Holy Communion): Amoris Laetitia: Breaking Tradition, or, A Strategy to implement the Tradition? Malta vs Poland

Nov 21^st   

24)   Masturbation and Pornography

Nov 28^th

25)   Education in Chaste Love

Dec 1^st

26)   Some Specific Sexual Issues

Dec 5^th

27)   Review session 

 

 

 

 

 

Quo Vadis, 3rd Sunday Easter, Year C

Jn 21:1-19; Acts 5:27-32.40-41

I don’t know if you’ve every wondered what size shoe Jesus takes, but the answer is a size 10, and the reason we know this connects an ancient Tradition with the prophecy in today’s Gospel.
Many of you will be familiar with Domine Quo Vadis account. This isn’t recorded in the Scriptures but we find it written about in a non-canonical source called the Acts of St Peter. It describes how, near the end of St Peter’s life, there was a persecution of the Christians in Rome. And Peter fled. He fled out of the city along the Appia Antica, the ancient road out of the city. And as he was hurrying along he saw the Lord Jesus: Jesus was coming the opposite direction, carrying His cross, heading to Rome. Peter asked Him, ‘Domine Quo Vadis’ [Where are you going Lord?]. To which the Lord answered, ‘I am going to Rome, to be crucified again’. The vision vanished, but left His empty footprints on the rock. Peter was called to fill those empty footprints. Peter knew from this that he was called to return to Rome himself, to suffer and die for the Lord, as the Lord had prophesied so many years previously on the side of the Lake of Galilee. And so Peter died Saint Peter.

The gospel account we heard taught us a lot about St Peter’s call. He was established as the shepherd over the other shepherds: the prince of the apostles. He was called to suffer martyrdom: to be taken where he would rather not go. He was, in all, called, in those final words, to “follow me”.
But, if Jesus called him to so much, what did Jesus ASK him in His questions of him? Only one simple thing. A simple thing that was so important He asked it three times: ‘Do you love me?’

What of us? Do we love Him?
Why should I love Him? Well, the answer to that might lie in why Peter loved Him.

The answer to why Peter loved Him lies, at least in part, with the change that the Resurrection brought about. A change that indicates why it is the RESURRECTION and not only the Cross that is what enables us to carry OUR cross.
Before: Peter was weak, he ran away when Jesus was arrested, he denied Him three times.
After: he was bold, strong, as we heard in the first reading: he was ready to be whipped and suffer for Jesus.
We know that Peter was strong because of Grace, but I think there is another reason:
Peter now knew Jesus in a way that he had only imperfectly known Him before.
Peter had an experience of Him as something more.

Why did Peter love Him?
He knew Him: He knew Him as one who FORGAVE Him: threefold profession = threefold forgiveness
He knew Him as one who LOVED Him: sought Peter out after the Resurrection
-the Lord didn’t look for a new set of better apostles
He knew Him as a TRIUMPHANT Lord, risen from death. He knew Him as his God.
He knew Him as the MEANING of life.
As Peter had professed previously, when they couldn’t comprehend Jesus’s claim to be the Bread of Life, to feed them with His own flesh. ‘Will you, too, now leave me?’, ‘Lord, to whom would we go, you have the words of eternal life’
He knew Him as one who would PROVIDE for him: produced the miraculous catch of fish
-provided for him by His own self as food: fish as food:
Greek word for Christ was fish: Ichthus
-provided for him even if it meant WITH the Cross of suffering to share.

All of these reasons were only FULLY manifest in the light of the resurrection: triumphant, meaning of life, provider, forgiver, lover.  The resurrection made it possible for Peter to love the Lord in a way that he had never loved Him before.  To follow Him, in a way that he had never followed Him before.

These same reasons are why I should love Him. Are why I should accept all the little sufferings, and big sufferings, that my call to follow Him involve. To be good, to be patient, considerate, thoughtful of others, to accept my illnesses and weaknesses, to offer them as a prayer to the Lord.

So, how do I know that Jesus takes a size ten shoe? Because I take a size ten shoe. And, like you, I know that I am called to fill the shoes of the fisherman: to suffer as he suffered. Because, like Him, I know my following of the Lord is founded on that same question, ‘Do you love me?’

____________________________________
The full text of the account in The Acts of St Peter (XXXV):
“And as they considered these things, Xanthippe took knowledge of the counsel of her husband with Agrippa, and sent and showed Peter, that he might depart from Rome. And the rest of the brethren, together with Marcellus, besought him to depart. But Peter said unto them: Shall we be runaways, brethren? and they said to him: Nay, but that thou mayest yet be able to serve the Lord. And he obeyed the brethren's voice and went forth alone, saying: Let none of you come forth with me, but I will go forth alone, having changed the fashion of mine apparel. And as he went forth of the city, he saw the Lord entering into Rome. And when he saw him, he said: Lord, whither goest thou thus (or here)? And the Lord said unto him: I go into Rome to be crucified. And Peter said unto him: Lord, art thou (being) crucified again? He said unto him: Yea, Peter, I am (being) crucified again. And Peter came to himself: and having beheld the Lord ascending up into heaven, he returned to Rome, rejoicing, and glorifying the Lord, for that he said: I am being crucified: the which was about to befall Peter.” http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/actspeter.html
The presence of the Apostle Peter in this area, where he is supposed to have lived, appears to be confirmed in an epigraph in the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian that reads Domus Petri (House of Peter). A later epigram by Pope Damasus I (366–384) in honour of Peter and Paul reads: "You that are looking for the names of Peter and Paul, you must know that the saints have lived here." There are two footprints on a marble slab at the centre of the church which are a copy of the original slab that has now been moved to the nearby Basilica of St Sebastian at the catacombs.

Sermon: Perseverance, Monday Week 5 Year II

Sermon: Talitha kum, Tuesday 4th Week Ordinary Time

Retreat Talks: The Priest as a Man of Hope

The following is the audio of retreat talks that were given for T1&T2 seminarians of Kenrick seminary, at the Savior Retreat Center, Kansas City.

(1) The New Evangelisation, America, and the Diocesan Priest: Setting our context

 

 (2) The Priest as a Man of Hope

 

 (3) The Priest as a Man of Faith

 

 (4) The Priest as a Man of Love

 

 (5) The Priest's Undivided Heart: Celibacy

Sermon: St John of the Cross and Advent

Today St John of the Cross enters our advent season, 

a figure that, I’d suggest to you, 

might be seen as as unwelcome as a skeleton at a Christmas feast:

We've just had Gaudete Sunday, joy, 

recalling that even as we wait He is already here. 

Yet, just after such a pleasant lightening of the mood, 

here comes Mr self-denial, Mr suffering, Mr Cross.

(1) The need for purging

 He's not FULLY here

There is MUCH that stops Him coming

and ONE of the things that STOPS Him from entering my soul, and entering my life, 

is my failure to embrace the Cross.

Even physically, 

before I am feed my belly more for Christmas, I must be purged of what already fills me

Spiritually, it is even more true:

I must be purged of so much in my heart, for Christ to have room to enter at Christmas

Thus:

The dark night: 

• of the senses, 

• of the soul

Self denial 

• love of the Cross

(2) Contrasting joy and pleasure:

• Joy, spiritual joy, 
• is fully compatible with the Cross

• Physical pleasure 
• was obviously not part of Christ’s experience on the cross 
• And there are very real pains that accompany the purging, of the dark night (in its many forms)

• Yet,
• The fruit of love is joy

• Physical pleasure 
• comes from contact with physical goods, like donuts, and turkey
• 
  

• Spiritual joy,
• come from contact, from union, with the spiritual good, with God

• LOVE is that union, and love brings JOY

(3) My love needs re-ordering

• The love in my heart is very confused very disordered

• My yearning for the things of this world 
• (the things that God made)
• so often distracts me from, rather that leads me to, Him

• And so,

• I need that skeleton at my Christmas feast, 
• I need St John of the Cross 
• to re-order my heart

• ”the gate that gives entry… Is the Cross.  Many seek the joys that can be found through it, but few desire to pass through it” (St John, office of readings)

(4) Penance in Advent

• In the Latin Church, our Church:

• we associate penance with Lent

• But there is also a tradition of penance in Advent

• We might say:

• Lent is about penance, for past sins
• Advent is about repentance FROM them,  to be ready for His coming, preparation

• But,
• part of such preparation needs to include self denial and the Cross

• And

• That's part of why having all these CHRISTMAS parties in the midst of ADVENT is so DAMAGING

Summary

• (1) The need for purging

• (2) The difference, but not contradiction, between physical pleasure and spiritual joy;

• (3) My love needs re-ordering

• (4) Advent penance does such a re-ordering

• Christ wants to come, 

• this is the whole message of advent

• The Church prays for Him to come

• I pray for Him to come

• You pray for Him I come

• But, on this feast of St John of the Cross, 

• let’s remember that a continual part of getting ready for Him to come