Becoming a 21st century Catholic begins with a vision. And every vision begins with imagination. Imagine being an active participant in a worldwide community of faith. You and the community are being pulled forward into the future and beyond by a powerful, transcendent, loving energy force. This force is God, the inexhaustible Divine Mystery. Divine Mystery is not ignorance; it is God, who is eternally inexhaustible enlightenment and love, calling you forward to your greatest possible fulfillment, along with all others and all of nature.
Throughout the centuries, Eternal Mystery has revealed Him/Herself and His/Her call, through creation itself, through the Hebrew people, through all peoples and events, and especially in Jesus Christ, who is Eternal Divine Mystery visible in human form.
Jesus Christ has given you his Divine Spirit of inexhaustible enlightenment and love. In receiving Christ's Divine Spirit in Baptism and in all the sacraments and graces of your life, you have become a member of the People of God. Your life journey as a member of the People of God, is your journey in and through the everyday world in the Spirit of Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life for you, for the community of faith, and for all the world.
By giving you his Divine Spirit, Christ has also made you a living, believing, 21st century expression of him, in and for today's world. Being an expression of Christ calls and empowers you to live in imitation of him, to live a life of creative, healing and world-transforming love with everyone you meet. In the Spirit of Christ you are able to see in everyone and in all of nature, the creative, healing and world-transforming presence of inexhaustible Mystery, calling to you in all your and the world's experiences, even from within suffering and horror--calling you to grow in healing, peace, joy and love. Thus you are constantly learning more about Divine Mystery and about how to more creatively, healingly and lovingly journey into the future and beyond with all others and nature.
As a 21st century expression of Christ, you are endowed with a contemporary, Christ-enlightened understanding of Divine Mystery and therefore of God's expectations for you, i.e., you are endowed with a lively, evolving sense of the faith (sensus fidei), which you foster and increase through Biblical reading, study, prayer and discussion. Within the People of God, your personal sense of the faith is sought after and fully respected, and you join it with that of all others. Where there are discrepancies, the unbreakable rule is always to search for the Truth by engaging in open, prayerful, respectful and loving discussion, study and discernment. The Truth is always supreme; in the community of faith, there is no superior/inferior, no domination/submission, no blind obedience to anyone.
The one, Catholic-universal Truth of faith is alive--always growing and evolving. To sharpen its view and understanding of God-present-within-us, the community studies the advances being made in science and human understanding, along with the everyday experiences of members of the community and of all peoples and cultures. The community also accounts for the differences between the ways that various peoples and cultures see the one, true God and experience and express the one, living, evolving Truth. Expressions of the global Christ are as diverse as the world itself. All this ever-increasing knowledge and understanding are incorporated into the community's ever evolving understanding of the faith when they provide genuine insights into the Truth of Inexhaustible Mystery. Thus the community reads the signs of the times as it journeys forward into the future and beyond.
In the community, servant-leaders are appointed to provide opportunities for the people to learn and discern ever more about the faith, and to foster and gather up the community's living, evolving sense of the faith. In the community, Truth is supreme and all members enjoy equal dignity. The servant-leaders gather up the entire sense of the faith and then teach the one, living, evolving Truth with security and authority.
On a regular basis, the community meets, e.g., in homes, on the Internet, in churches, etc., to gather up its daily journey in dialogue and the breaking of bread. Thus renewed, the community brings Christ anew into the everyday world for the salvation of the faithful and the whole world-- in the process gathering up the world anew to present at the altar again and again.
You and the community do everything in and for Christ, to whom be all honor and glory, now and forever.
Throughout the centuries, Eternal Mystery has revealed Him/Herself and His/Her call, through creation itself, through the Hebrew people, through all peoples and events, and especially in Jesus Christ, who is Eternal Divine Mystery visible in human form.
Jesus Christ has given you his Divine Spirit of inexhaustible enlightenment and love. In receiving Christ's Divine Spirit in Baptism and in all the sacraments and graces of your life, you have become a member of the People of God. Your life journey as a member of the People of God, is your journey in and through the everyday world in the Spirit of Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life for you, for the community of faith, and for all the world.
By giving you his Divine Spirit, Christ has also made you a living, believing, 21st century expression of him, in and for today's world. Being an expression of Christ calls and empowers you to live in imitation of him, to live a life of creative, healing and world-transforming love with everyone you meet. In the Spirit of Christ you are able to see in everyone and in all of nature, the creative, healing and world-transforming presence of inexhaustible Mystery, calling to you in all your and the world's experiences, even from within suffering and horror--calling you to grow in healing, peace, joy and love. Thus you are constantly learning more about Divine Mystery and about how to more creatively, healingly and lovingly journey into the future and beyond with all others and nature.
As a 21st century expression of Christ, you are endowed with a contemporary, Christ-enlightened understanding of Divine Mystery and therefore of God's expectations for you, i.e., you are endowed with a lively, evolving sense of the faith (sensus fidei), which you foster and increase through Biblical reading, study, prayer and discussion. Within the People of God, your personal sense of the faith is sought after and fully respected, and you join it with that of all others. Where there are discrepancies, the unbreakable rule is always to search for the Truth by engaging in open, prayerful, respectful and loving discussion, study and discernment. The Truth is always supreme; in the community of faith, there is no superior/inferior, no domination/submission, no blind obedience to anyone.
The one, Catholic-universal Truth of faith is alive--always growing and evolving. To sharpen its view and understanding of God-present-within-us, the community studies the advances being made in science and human understanding, along with the everyday experiences of members of the community and of all peoples and cultures. The community also accounts for the differences between the ways that various peoples and cultures see the one, true God and experience and express the one, living, evolving Truth. Expressions of the global Christ are as diverse as the world itself. All this ever-increasing knowledge and understanding are incorporated into the community's ever evolving understanding of the faith when they provide genuine insights into the Truth of Inexhaustible Mystery. Thus the community reads the signs of the times as it journeys forward into the future and beyond.
In the community, servant-leaders are appointed to provide opportunities for the people to learn and discern ever more about the faith, and to foster and gather up the community's living, evolving sense of the faith. In the community, Truth is supreme and all members enjoy equal dignity. The servant-leaders gather up the entire sense of the faith and then teach the one, living, evolving Truth with security and authority.
On a regular basis, the community meets, e.g., in homes, on the Internet, in churches, etc., to gather up its daily journey in dialogue and the breaking of bread. Thus renewed, the community brings Christ anew into the everyday world for the salvation of the faithful and the whole world-- in the process gathering up the world anew to present at the altar again and again.
You and the community do everything in and for Christ, to whom be all honor and glory, now and forever.
First, let me say that I have begun to believe like the ancient Hebrews that the power and full presence of God (i.e., YHVH) is in no sense ever fully discernible by humans. If God is indeed the “force” that we believe it to be, we would probably not be able to survive the full presence. In that regard, Einstein’s summary of the relationship between mass and energy by the equation E = mc ², (i.e., that mass & energy are equivalent ) strongly implies the notion that we like all that exists in the universe are the products of the energy expended at the time of the “Big Bang.” This particular understanding of the relationship between mass and energy also specifies that they are interchangeable that what we call matter is really just energy in a different form. And since by the same set of assertions states that the energy contained in all of the systems of the “universe” remains constant systematically changing only its form. God defined in this manner can possibly be understood as the timeless, omnipresent source of the force or energy that created us.
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