Follow Me: Part 1
June 23, 2013 l 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Notes for Part 1
No. 1: "Man is in search of God. ... Even after losing through his sin his likeness to God, man remains an image of his Creator, and retains the desire for the one who calls him into existence."
— Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2566
No. 2: "People are thirsty, and when people are thirsty enough they’ll drink the sand in the desert when they see a mirage."
— The American President, Universal Pictures, 1995
No. 3: "By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation. Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit."
— Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 50
No. 4: "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction."
— Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, no. 1
No. 5: "Who do the crowds say that I am?" (Luke 9:18) ... "But who do you say that I am?" (Luke 9:20)
No. 6: "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters."
— Matthew 12:30
No. 7: "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness."
— 2nd Timothy 3:16
No. 8: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth."
— John 1:14
No. 9: "Philip said to him, 'Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.'"
— John 14:8
No. 10: "In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son."
— Hebrews 1:1
No. 11: "John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, 'One of the ancient prophets has arisen.'"
— Luke 9:19
No. 12: "Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross."
— Philippians 2:6
No. 13: "A particularly dangerous phenomenon for faith has arisen in our times: indeed a form of atheism exists which we define, precisely, as 'practical', in which the truths of faith or religious rites are not denied but are merely deemed irrelevant to daily life, detached from life, pointless. So it is that people often believe in God in a superficial manner, and live 'as though God did not exist'. In the end, however, this way of life proves even more destructive because it leads to indifference to faith and to the question of God."
— Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, November 14, 2012
© Fr. Mark Toups, 2013
