Advent Bible Study

Hi All,

Join your fellow Young Adult Catholics on the four Wednesday's during Advent at 7 PM!

Courtney will be leading our Bible study and has provided the following description for us:

The four weeks leading up to Christmas mark the beginning of the Western Church's liturgical year. The Church stresses that Advent is a time of reflection, meditation and preparation. This study will follow the Catholic Scripture Study format, but will concentrate on the Sunday lectionary readings and incorporate the ancient method of Lectio Divina (praying the Scriptures). During Advent we should be focused on preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ. Are we ready for the King? Are our hearts ready to receive our Savior?

Please use the follow this link to purchase the book that we will use for the bible study.

Christ's Peace,

Your YACs moderators

Next Month's Meeting

Hi All,

Great social last night!

For next month please read the "The Rite" by Matt Baglio for a general introduction to exorcism. Baglio tells the story of a priest who was selected to be the diocesan excorist.

A direct link to Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the publishers website.

Christ's Peace,

Zach

Vespers for Michaelmas

Ss. Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel

In Catholic tradition September 29ths is regarded as the Feast of the Archangels or Michaelmas in more Anglophonic cultures. For more information about the history and significance of the feast please read this article from Catholic Culture: Ordinary Time, September 29th. To learn more about the three Archangels please read Proper Names of the Angels

To honor this good tradition, once again YACs will gather, this time at St. Thomas More, to celebrate Vespers communally at 7pm. Please plan to join us!

THIS Sunday: St. Rafka's Maronite Church

The Second stop for the YACs Summer Liturgy Series is St. Rafka's Maronite Church on July 18. Please RSVP on the facebook events page, or e-mail colayacs@gmail.com by July 16 to confirm that you will be joining us on our visit to St. Rafka Maronite Church.

It's approximately a 2hr drive so we'll need to hit the road around 8:45. If you're going and interested in car pooling please meet (once again) at the meters in front of Richland County Public Library by 8:30. Invite your friends to come along! We'll be doing lunch afterwards!

Divine Liturgy begins at 11am

www.strafka.net

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Pax,

Matt Butler

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Pictures from Vespers and Matins

These were pictures from last night's Vespers and Matins in Vigil for the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. Fr. Marcin of St. Thomas More presided. Soprano Amanda Sharko sang solo Ut queant laxis and with Alto Amy Deal in duet Te Deum, Laudamus.

Join us July 7 and 21st for Vespers at St Thomas More Chapel at 7pm.

Evening Prayer I / Matins in vigil for the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

We're praying Vespers and Matins in vigil for the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. This Vespers and Matins in Vigil service is open to the greater Catholic community of Columbia as a gift from YACs -- St. John the Baptist is the Patron Saint of our diocese as well as an important figure in our salvation history.

I hope you all can attend and join us at St. Peter's Catholic Church Wednesday June 23 at 7pm (we start promptly at 7pm, please arrive before then) as we pray the universal prayer of the church. Children are welcome.

You can preview the liturgical aid here - though keep in mind it's formatted for booklet printing.

Photos from our Last Meeting

Thanks to Marwan for taking the time to discuss some of the history of Christianity in Iraq and his experience of being Christian both in a Muslim country and a predominantly Christian country.

Here are the photos from our last meeting:

Melkite Catholic Church Visit

Hi All,

The July meeting will add a new twist to our standard meetings. Instead of inviting a guest speaker or having one of our experts talk, we are headed to St. Ignatios of Antioch Catholic Church in Augusta, GA.

The Melkite church is part of the Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church. They are descendants of the early Christians from Antioch (Syria). The name "Melkite" or "King's Men" comes from the Aramaic word "melek" meaning "King". But why was this group called the "King's Men" in the first place?

The term "Melkite" originally applied to those who chose to follow the Byzantine Emperor Marcian against those who denied the human nature of Christ. In 451 AD, the Fourth Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon, declared that Christ was both human and divine against Eutyches, the archimandrite, or superior, of a monastery outside of Constantinople during the fifth century. Eutyches was spreading what became known as the Monophysite heresy, although he was not the originator of this heresy (he is associated with the heresy because of his great influence in and around Constantinople).

The Monophysite heresy contended that Christ did not have a human nature or was not truly human which directly contradicts the Council of Chalcedon. Monophysites claimed that Christ's divinity and humanity were so united, that his human nature was dissolved into his divinity. Emperor Marcian followed the teaching of the Catholic Church, against Eutyches, as did many of his subjects who became known as the "King's Men" or "Melkites."

I will let the liturgy speak for itself and forgo any descriptions of the liturgy until our group participates in the Divine Liturgy at St. Igantios on June 13. I look forward to seeing all of you there!

Please see our facebook page for carpooling details and to RSVP.

Christ's Peace,

Zach

Chaldean Catholics and Summer Liturgy Series

Hi YACs Folks!

Join us this Wednesday, May 15, from 6 to 8 PM at Delaney's Music Pub & Eatery in Five Points.

This will be the kick-off meeting for our Summer Liturgy Series, YACs Goes East. We plan to visit a few different churches and rites that are in communion with Rome in an effort to show the diversity of our Church.

For this meeting, we will be joined by a Catholic of the Chaldean Church. He will discuss some of the aspects of the Chaldean liturgy with us and also discuss his experience of being Christian in a Muslim area (our guest is a native of Iraq).

Our meeting will also serve to introduce some of the upcoming ideas and field trips that the YACs plan to undertake!

Christ's Peace,

Zach

Next meeting, April 21

Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!

Christ is risen! Truly, he is risen!

We hope everyone had a blessed and holy Easter, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord with friends, family, and good cheer. This month we decided in honor of Easter, not to hold our regular meeting. But we're still meeting. Back in March we decided to try something new. In addition to our regular meetings we'd also hold Vespers.

We've had two occasions to pray Vespers together, that first meeting in March, and then last during Holy Week. This week the opportunity will be upon us again as we gather Wednesday night at St. Thomas More Chapel on the campus of USC. (see the Facebook event). This week we'll be praying in honor of St. Anselm who's feast is Wednesday. Prayers begin promptly at 7pm, so get there a little early. After prayers (which don't take more than 10-20 minutes) as a group we'll go have dinner at a restaurant, location to be determined that night.

See you all there!!!

Follow-up to Centering Prayer

Hi all,

I found a few more resources that address centering prayer and a few other helpful resources when discussing the spiritual life.

The first article, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation, was mentioned by Robert during our last meeting. This letter was approved by Pope John Paul II in October 15, 1989.

Some interesting points:

#3: "Christian prayer is always determined by the structure of the Christian faith, in which the very truth of God and creature shines forth. For this reason, it is defined, properly speaking, as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and God."

#10: "the Fathers [bishops, priests, etc from the first centuries of the Christian Church] insisted on the fact that the soul's union with God in prayer is realized in a mysterious way. [...] Moreover, it can even be achieved through experiences of affliction or desolation [...] these are not necessarily a sign that the Spirit has abandoned a soul. "

#11: "The meditation of the Christian in prayer seeks to grasp the depths of the divine in the salvific works of God in Christ, the Incarnate Word, and in the gift of his spirit."

#15: "A consideration of these truths [Jesus is God Incarnate, the Holy Spirit dwells within after baptism, etc] together brings the wonderful discovery that all the aspirations which the prayer of other religions expresses are fulfilled in the reality of Christianity beyond all measure, without the personal self or the nature of a creature being dissolved or disappearing into the sea of the Absolute."

#16: "one can take from them [non-Christian religions] what is useful so long as the Christian conception of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured."

#19: "The great Doctor of the Church [Augustine] recommends concentrating on oneself, but also transcending the self which is not God, but only a creature. God is 'deeper than my inmost being and higher than my greatest height."

#24: "There are certain 'mystical graces,' conferred on the founders of ecclesial institutes to benefit their foundation, and on other saints, too, which characterize their personal experience of prayer and which cannot, as such, be the object of imitation and aspiration for other members of the faithful, even those who belong to the same institutes and those who seek an ever more perfect way of prayer."

#31: "The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a reality which cannot be 'mastered' by any method or technique."

This still doesn't clear up the difference between meditation and contemplation. The Catechism of the Catholic dedicates several paragraphs (CCC #2705-2719) to the meaning of each:

"Meditation is above all a quest. The mind seeks to understand the why and how of the Christian life, in order to adhere and respond to what the Lord is asking. The required attentiveness is difficult to sustain. We are usually helped by books, and Christians do not want for them: the Sacred Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, holy icons, liturgical texts of the day or season, writings of the spiritual fathers, works of spirituality, the great book of creation, and that of history--the page on which the 'today' of God is written." (CCC #2705)

"Contemplative prayer is silence, the 'symbol of the word to come' or 'silent love.' Words in this kind of prayer are not speeches; they are like kindling that feeds the fire of love. In this silence, unbearable to the 'outer' man, the Father speaks to us his incarnate Word, who suffered died, and rose; in this silence the Spirit of adoption enables us to share in the prayer of Jesus." (CCC #2717)

St. Thomas Aquinas also discusses contemplation in his Summa Theologica (ST, II-II, 179), specifically his reply to objection 3:

It is true that contemplation enjoys rest from external movements. Nevertheless to contemplate is itself a movement to the intellect, in so far as every operation is described as movement; in which sense the Philosopher [Aristotle] says that sensation and understanding are movements of a kind, in so far as movement is defined 'the act of a perfect thing.'

Thomas' discussion on truth is also quite interesting (ST, I, 16):

But if we speak of truth as it is in things, then all things are true by one primary truth; to which each one is assimilated according to its own entity. And thus, although the essences or forms of things are many, yet the truth of the divine intellect is one, in conformity to which all things are said to be true.

Perhaps some of this will develop into further discussion!

Christ's Peace,

Zach

Centering Prayer on March 24

Hi All,

We have invited Greg Carbone and Karen Beidel from St. Peter's parish to join us to discuss Centering Prayer.

Centering Prayer was developed following the Second Vatican Council by three Trappist monks, Fr. William Meninger, Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating. Drawing from the Church's ancient tradition of contemplative prayer and lection divina, the three developed a simple method of silent prayer for contemporary people.

From the "Contemplative Outreach" website:

Centering Prayer is a method of silent prayer that prepares us to receive the gift of contemplative prayer, prayer in which we experience God's presence within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than consciousness itself. This method of prayer is both a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship.

Centering Prayer is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer. Rather, it adds depth of meaning to all prayer and facilitates the movement from more active modes of prayer--verbal, mental or affective prayer--into a receptive prayer of resting in God. Centering Prayer emphasizes prayer as a personal relationship with God and as a movement beyond conversation with Christ to communion with Him.

The source of Centering Prayer, as in all methods leading to contemplative prayer, is the Indwelling Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The focus of Centering Prayer is the deepening of our relationship with the living Christ. The effects of Centering Prayer are ecclesial, as the prayer tends to build communities of faith and bond the members together in mutual friendship and love.

We look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday, March 24 at Delaney's Music Pub & Eatery in Five Points from 6 PM to 8 PM.

Christ's Peace,

Zach and Matt

next meeting: March 10

Hey folks YACs is doing something new starting in March. In addition to our regular meeting at Delaney's on March 24th (we'll have a post about that coming up soon!) we're meeting on Wednesday March 10th at St. Thomas More Chapel near USC to pray Vespers.

Vespers, also known as Evensong or Evening Prayer is one of the Liturgical Hours. These prayers traditionally sung by religious (monks, nuns, priests in community) are a part of our rich Catholic patrimony. Since the Second Vatican Council the Church has encouraged the laity to participate as a community in these prayers of the church. And that is what we plan to do!

So join us March 10 and experience the richness of our Catholic Spirituality.

For more information on the Liturgy of the Hours check out these links:

Laudis Canticum - Encyclical by Pope Paul VI

General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours

Wikipedia

February's Meeting: Sacra Musica

For February's meeting we're going to mix things up a bit. Instead of meeting at our usual locale, we're meeting at St. Peter's on Assembly Street.

Mark Husey, the Director of Music and Liturgy, has graciously agreed to talk with us about the Music of the Church. From ancient hymns to classical works by the greats and the songs we hear today Mark will share with us from his vast repertoire of musical knowledge. We'll hear not only about the music of our Catholic tradition and it's role and place in our liturgy, but of protestant hymnody as well and how they've influenced each other and moved hearts and souls towards God.

Who knows maybe we'll even get to go into the choir loft and hear Mark play.

So join us at 6:30pm on Wednesday February 24th at St. Peter's, located at 1529 Assembly Street.

Oh, and some intersting links: St Peter's Catholic Church, and the Choir Ministry's YouTube Page.

-Matt

Janaury 2010 Meeting

Hi All,

We will meet at DeLaney's Pub in Five Points on Wednesday, January 20 at 6 PM.

Join us as we discuss Pope Benedict XVI's latest Encylical, Caritas in Veritate ("Love in Truth"). This encyclical continues to develop the Catholic Church's teachings regarding the basic rights of the human person in light of current world events.

Please see the US Bishop's site primer on previous encyclicals at the USCCB Media Blog.

Christ's Peace,

Zach