Catholicism 101

A Confirmation Preparation/ Continuing Education Program

Catholicism 101 is the required course for preparation to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, and is open to all members of each Parish who wish to seek to expand their knowledge of the faith and the Church. The course takes about three months or more to run in its entirety.

Those who are preparing for Confirmation should take note of the complete list of expectations pertaining to Confirmation:

  1. The successful completion of Catholic 101 by regular attendance and participating in classroom discussion.
  2. The successful completion of Community Service Hours.
  3. Candidates must select the name of a Saint for their Confirmation Name
  4. Candidates must compose a letter to be sent to the Bishop, which will express all of the above details, and will be the way they officially request the Sacrament, and that expresses all the preparation work that has gone into this.

General Course Outline

Part I: What is Old/Independent Catholicism?

Part II: God the Father

Part III: God the Son

Part IV: God the Holy Spirit

Part V: The Church

Part VI: The Sacraments

Part VII: Prayer

Part VIII: Instructional Mass

Part IX: Scripture and Tradition

Each class begins and ends with an opportunity for folks to ask any question they want about the faith, the Parish, or our particular Church. When topics run over into another week, we adjust.

Part I: What is Old/Independent Catholicism?

  1. Apostolic Succession
  1. Scriptural roots
  1. The Apostolic responsibility entrusted to Peter
  2. Old Testament roots
  3. Pauline “Laying on of Hands”
  1. The Old Catholic Church
  1. Independence granted by Lateran Councils
  2. Post Calvinist Reformation
  1. Initial resistance to Rome
  2. Vatican I
  3. The United States
  1. Similar departures from Roman jurisdiction
  1. Independent Catholicism Today
  1. Independent Catholic Ecclesiology
  2. Contemporary Catholic Anthropology
  3. What makes us different
  1. The election of Bishops
  2. Women Priests
  3. Mandatory Priestly Celibacy
  4. Marriage Equality & Annulments
  5. Regulations pertaining to Reconciliation
  6. Participation in the Eucharistic meal

PartII: God the Father

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is seen and unseen.

  1. The Journey to God
  1. Openness to God’s grace
  2. The preexistence of God
  3. The Eternal Nature of the Triune God
  4. The natural urge to return to Him
  1. Revelation
  1. Expressed through experience, belief, and reason
  1. Blaise Pascal
  1. Thomas Aquinas: 5 Proofs of the Existence of God
  1. Ascent to reason
  1. Motion
  2. The unmoved mover
  3. The ball in motion
  4. Causality
  1. The clock & the clockmaker
  1. The Transitory Nature of Things
  1. Things possible to be and not to be
  1. The Gradation of Things
  2. The Order of Nature
  1. Universal law & it’s legislature
  1. The Creation Story
  1. A story with a lot of questions
  2. Why does God create?
  3. Why does God rest on the 7th day?
  4. Why does God make rules about the trees?
  5. The First Sin
  1. The Nature of Sin
  2. The blame game
  3. The promise of a Savior

Part III: God the Son

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God,

Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made, one in being with the Father.

Through Him all things were made.

For us, and for our salvation He came down from heaven:

  1. “Who do you say that I am?”
  1. Fully God and fully man
  2. Eternally Begotten
  1. The foundational principle of the hypostatic union
  1. One in being with the Father
  1. Same substance
  1. The word, through which all things were made
  1. The Cosmic Word/the Inspired Word/the Incarnate Word
  2. The word that communicates God to us
  3. The word that communicates “us” to ourselves
  1. For Us
  1. To save us from something
  2. To save us for something

by the power of the Holy Spirit,

He was born of the Virgin Mary ,

and became man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

He suffered, died, and was buried.

  1. The Incarnation
  1. The freedom ransom
  1. I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends
  1. A Virgin Mother
  1. The Immaculate Conception
  2. The Annunciation
  3. The Nativity
  1. The Passion
  1. Suffering
  1. Mental
  2. Emotional
  3. Physical
  4. Spiritual
  1. The Ultimate Suffering
  1. In His humanity, yet only possible by His divinity
  1. Communicates to us about love
  1. A sign of love
  2. An invitation to love
  3. A revelation about love

He descended into Hell.

On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the scriptures:

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

  1. The Resurrection & Ascension
  1. The descent into hell
  1. Hell/the dead
  2. Death reigns
  3. This is Christ’s victory
  4. God is dead
  1. Like all men He experiences dead, but
  2. His soul joined the others to the land of the dead
  3. He Descended there as Savior to liberate the just
  4. Frees those in bondage
  1. The Resurrection
  1. Now He lives no more to die
  2. Different then Lazarus/Daughter of Jairus, etc
  3. Comparative reading of Lazarus & Easter Gospels
  4. “I am the Resurrection AND the life”
  1. The Ascension
  1. Stop looking up, and look out – ACT
  2. The Acts of the Apostles
  3. He will come again/Parousia
  4. General Judgment vs. Particular Judgment
  5. Jesus Human Body: Jesus Physical Actions/Jesus Mystical Body: The Sacraments

Part IV: God the Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son, He is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

  1. Proceeds from the Father and the Son
  1. The Hypostatic Union II
  1. Distinction of persons
  2. The love that is the eternal result of the love that is shared
  3. The spirit reveals
  1. The Spirit is Christ’s anointing
  1. Gregory of Nyssa
  2. Christ- Anointed One
  3. From the beginning until the fullness of time, a joint mission
  4. Mission of the Son and HS
  5. Remains hidden but at work
  6. Neither fully revealed but both already promised
  1. The seal
  2. Ontological Change
  3. Sacramental Work of the Spirit-The Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit and 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit
  4. The Spirit changes substance for all eternity

Part V: The Church

We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

  1. The Church is One
  1. How is the Church one?
  1. Her source
  2. Her founder
  3. Her soul
  1. Unity as the essence of the Church
  1. Many denominations but one Church
  2. “Charity binds everything together in perfect harmony”
  1. The Resurrection of the Body
  1. Literal
  1. Romans 8:11
  1. Glorified Body
  1. Mark 9: 32
  2. John 20:15
  3. John 21: 4
  4. Luke 24:13-35
  1. The life of the world to come
  1. You’ll see fluffy again
  2. Burial vs. Cremation
  3. All things restored to as they were intended to be
  4. Marriage in the new creation
  1. Damnation
  1. Eternal separation from perfect joy
  2. Torn away from complete fulfillment
  3. Psalm 16:11

Part VI: The Sacraments

Visible signs of invisible realities intended to communicate grace.

Grace

What is Grace?

1. unmerited favor from God

2. the outpouring of the love of God on humanity

3. the basis of Christians' hope for eternal salvation

4. sharing in the very essence of God

Each Sacrament will include a three part discussion:

  1. What we believe
  2. History
  3. The Rite

Included below is a very general outline describing quickly how each Sacrament connects us to the life of the Church and the journey back to the Father.

The Sacraments of Initiation

Baptism

-forgiveness of sin

-the communion of Saints

-sharing in the Divine nature, communicated to us through grace

-increases our likeness to the origin, development, and nourishing of eternal life

-the development and nourishment of life in Christ happens in the later Sacraments

Eucharist

- a promise of future glory, as it unites us with the Christ event, His passion and Resurrection

- the source and summit of our faith

- the perfect expression of grace

Confirmation

- a more perfect bonding to Christ and the Church

- a completion of the ontological change of Baptism

- a choice made by an adult who acknowledges that he/she believes the Church’s faith

- the gifts of the Spirit

The Sacraments of Healing

- earthly life leaves us open to suffering, illness, death, and sin

Reconciliation

- God forgives our sins by virtue of an earnest and honest sense of sorry

- The Sacrament communicates grace

- strengthens us to not do it again

- sin hurts God and man, there is something to be said for being forgiven by God through a man, who is “In Persona Christi” (in the person of Christ)

Anointing of the Sick

- not a cure all

- not “Last Rights”

- communicates grace to allow the individual who receives it to unite their suffering to that of Christ on the cross

- commends those who are suffering or ill to the Glorified Lord

The Sacraments of Service

Matrimony

Holy Orders

- directed towards the salvation of others

- if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through the service to others

- confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God

- Vocations

- “Brothers and sisters:
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.” (1 Cor 12:4)

1. Single Life

- still called to service

- active participation in the sacramental life of the Church

- bringing Christ to all

- the universal call to holiness

- By virtue of our Baptism, when we are configured unto Christ, we are baptized into him and his mission

- to live holy lives, and bring holiness to others

“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)

2. Married Life

- Married life directs itself to a life of helping the other achieve salvation

- not conferred by the priest, the two confer the sacrament on one another

- Marriage (and same sex holy unions) are intended to communicate grace to the individuals entering the covenant

- that grace is needed to strengthen the individual to bring the other to salvation, and to build the Church in the economy of salvation through bringing new life into the world

- a Same Sex Holy Union should also serve to build the Church, naturally it would come about in a different way, but that union still somehow should build the Church

3. Religious Life

- Ordained

- Religious

- Secular/Religious Clergy

- ontology/Ordination, configuring the soul more and more to Christ, with a permanent and indelible mark

- Religious Brothers and Sisters

Part VII: Prayer

Prayer as relationship with God

Personal revelation

Ignatian Principles

“Rote” Prayer- examples; the Our Father, Hail Mary, Stations of the Cross, the Act of Contrition, The Nicene Creed, The Apostles Creed, the Rosary with it’s mysteries.

Other types of Prayer

1Blessing and Adoration (praising God)-including Eucharistic Adoration

2Prayer of Petition (asking for what we need, including forgiveness)

3Prayer of Intercession (asking for what others need)

4Prayer of Thanksgiving (for what God has given and done)

5Meditative prayer, mental prayer, Contemplation

Part VIII: Instructional Mass

Mass is celebrated while explaining each part as we go along until the Eucharistic Prayer.

Part IX: Scripture and Tradition

The history/development of the Bible

The role of the Magisterium in the life of the Church

The development of Christian Doctrine

Mary Model of the Church

The Angels and their role today and in Salvation History

Catholic Devotions

Faith integrates the mind and the heart of God’s people. Catholic devotions and traditions enliven our faith as Catholics.

The Novena

Pilgrimages in Catholic and Orthodox traditions

Feasts and customs; Feast of the Holy Spirit in the Portuguese tradition etc.

Devotion to the Blessed Trinity

Devotion to the Sacred Heart

Marian Devotions including May Crowning-the Rosary, Franciscan Crown, and Scapular Devotions

Additional References:

Theological and Cardinal Virtues

Virtues are gifts from God that lead us to live in a close relationship with God. Virtues need to be practiced; they can be lost if not used. The three virtues are called theological virtues because they come from God and lead us back to God.

The cardinal virtues are human virtues, gained by learning (education) and good actions or deeds. Cardinal comes from cardo, the Latin word for hinge, meaning, “that on which other things depend.”

Theological Virtues

faith

hope

charity

Cardinal Virtues

prudence

justice

fortitude

temperance

Course outline for Catholic 101 was developed by Rev. David Martins, St Therese Old Catholic Church, West Warwick, RI

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