Understanding the Consecrated Life and its Many Forms
What is consecrated life, and what does it mean to be consecrated? The word consecrated means “set aside for a sacred purpose.” In our lives as Catholics, we encounter many different examples of consecration. For instance, Church buildings are consecrated because they are to be used for divine worship. The chalice used during the Liturgy of the Eucharist is consecrated—it is never to be used as an ordinary cup but only for the offering of the Eucharist. Cemeteries are consecrated places, and visitors are expected to demonstrate appropriate respect for the faithful departed. And the central action of the Mass is called the consecration: at that moment, the Eucharistic gifts are no longer
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ordinary bread and wine but become the most sacred Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. In Baptism we are consecrated as Christians—that is, our baptismal consecration sets us apart from the power of sin and darkness and calls us to rise above the empty values and false ideals that the world often sets before us. Our Baptism consecrates us in a real way because it gives us a new identity as adopted members of God’s own family. The Church teaches that the vocation of consecrated life requires a permanent commitment to live according to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These vows are also known as evangelical counsels. The evangelical counsels are evangelical because they come directly from the life and teaching of Jesus in the Gospels. They are called counsels because they represent advice or guidance from Christ that is proposed to all disciples; they are ways to perfect the Christian life by removing all that stands in the way of charity. Though everyone is called to Christian holiness and the perfection of charity, some are moved by the Holy Spirit in a special way to profess these vows and to practice the evangelical counsels within a permanent state of life. Consecrated life is a result of the direct workings of the Holy Spirit—that is, the Holy Spirit not only inspires men and women to follow Christ through the vocation of consecrated life, but also moves some to pursue their vocation focused on a particular charism.
The charism given to a founder of a religious community is expressed and made evident through his or her particular spirituality and way of life. Those who join religious communities are called to live a life consecrated to God in the pattern set by a founder, according to the charism the founder received. The Church often speaks of the eschatological nature of consecrated life and calls men and women in consecrated life to be eschatological signs by conforming their whole lives to Christ and by focusing more exclusively on the things of Heaven. The word eschatological comes from the Greek word eschaton, meaning “last.” It refers to final or ultimate things, in particular God’s plan for the conclusion of time. Christ’s second coming and the Last Judgment are both eschatological events. Our own personal eternal destinies, especially our call to live eternally in the presence of God, also have a strong, inherently eschatological dimension, because each of us will undergo a particular judgment at the moment of
death. All Christians are called to engage in the corporal works of mercy and the spiritual works of mercy. Because of their special vocation, men and women in consecrated life have an even more pressing obligation to engage in the works of mercy. But it is also important to remember that the consecrated life is not so much a call to do good things as it is to become a certain kind of person—to wholly and completely give oneself over to God and his Church.
The 21st century is the age of information and technology and as the human species continues to advance there are growing concerns that the human race is close to its end. Jerry Oltion uses his text Judgment Passed as an allegory for the belief of the Christian salvation and the state of the modern world. In Jerry Oltion’s text planet Earth is depleted, causing humans to send astronauts into space to colonize another planet named Dessica (Oltion). These astronauts are in space for twelve years and when they return to Earth they learn that the end of the world has occurred without them. The astronauts learn through old newspaper articles that Jesus Christ returned to earth and saved everyone. This causes the astronauts to ponder the reason they were not saved like all the people on Earth and the other colonies in space. Throughout Judgment Passed there are metaphors for the Christian belief of what happens after death such as the realm of limbo and then there are the metaphors that are a depiction of today’s world and its possible future such as Jesus Christ representing a hierarchy political figure. Therefore, Judgment Passed is more than a short narrative for entertainment, it is allegory for the Christian belief system and it is a metaphor for the human condition of the modern world.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis1:1.) God’s perfect wisdom created everything. In Genesis 1 and 2 we can see that God has loving and gentile nature when He created the earth and heavens. God created man in his image and we are the only creation that God breathed in the breath of life for human beings (Genesis 2:7). God did not do this for any of other creations but only for humans. The Bible has many scriptures that tell us how creative God is. Genesis 1;26 states “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created all of this for us to have fellowship with him.
The foundation of a Christian worldview is the belief in a personal God, creator and ruler of the universe. The Christian worldview views the world through God’s word, providing the framework for humanity to live by giving meaning and purpose to life. It defines who Jesus is, human nature, and how salvation is achieved. In essence it is the basis of which Christians behave, interact, interpret life and comprehend reality. A Christian worldview imparts confidence, answers to life’s problems, and hope for the future. In this paper I will discuss the essentials of a Christian worldview and an analysis of the influences, benefits, and difficulties sustaining the Christian faith.
Let me tell you about an amazing creator who is the God of three persons – The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit otherwise known as the Trinity. Jesus took on human flesh so that he can be one of our mankind. To go to eternity, you need to obey the covenant of God and make sure that as a human you have justification by faith where your human heart is restored and your follow Gods word. Be a true Christian follow God word, don’t fall to humanity and let your heart be restored to follow God’s wisdom
The Protestant would originally practice their faith in secrecy in order to avoid punishment from the majority of society that was Catholic based faith. Calvin Protestant began to publically perform ceremonies and practice their faith in front of all to see. many of the Calvin followers were nationally French and wanted to spread the Protestant Reformation in their homeland of France. More French Reformed churches began to spread out in France, which made protestant want to practice their faith more publically. This act angered the Catholic people of France even more resulting in an attack on the Protestants. Catherine de’Medici tried to ease the tension between the protestant and the Catholic by enacting a law that forbid harm to Protestant
14 Jonathan T. Pennington. Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew. (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2009), 214.15 Dale C. Allison, Jr. Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 101.16 Frank J. Matera. Passion Narratives and Gospel Theologies: Interpreting the Synoptics Through Their Passion Stories. (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 115.17 Dale C. Allison, Jr. Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 229.
The Christian worldview is centered on the Gospel and places their beliefs in the essential teachings of the Trinity, the deity of Jesus Christ, and Jesus’ resurrection from the dead (DiVincenzo, 2015). This paper will explain who God is and what he created, what our purpose and nature is as humans, who Jesus was and what he did while on earth, how God plans to bring his people back into the right relationship with himself, and as a Christian how one is to live their life with an analysis of the Christian worldview.
This essay argues that the eschatology of the Book of Revelation is an integral part of John’s attempt to form a literary world in which the forms, figures, and forces of the earthly realm are critiqued and unmasked through the re-focalization of existence from the perspective of heaven. It attempts to show that, in response to the social, political, religious, and economic circumstances of his readers, the Book of Revelation forms a counter imaginative reality. Through drawing upon an inaugurated sense of eschatology and evocative imagery, John pulls the reader in and shows them the true face of the imperial world and consequences of its ideology, forcing the reader's allegiance to fall with either ‘Babylon’ or the New Jerusalem. Before beginning this essay proper, it is important to first comprehend some of what is meant by the term eschatology, and how it is understood in the Book of Revelation. Eschatology is that part of theology which deals with conceptions of the ‘end times’ and of the final things of the world and humanity.
Every religion embodies a plethora of recognized rituals that are significant to its teachings. Customs exclusive to each religion can include acts such as: attending a weekly mass, praying five times a day at specified hours, celebrating the transition from childhood to manhood, along with endless others. The similarity shared amongst all religious rituals is that the follower of faith must believe whole-heartedly in what he/she is doing or saying. Dhikr, or the remembrance of God, is a ritual based in Islam that does not receive the attention it deserves from mainstream Muslims, and is highly under appreciated for its value (Robson 238). Its myriad versions allow it to be very personal, whereas other rituals are more structured, which is
Verstraeten, J. Scrutinising the Signs of the Times in the Light of the Gospel. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007.
The first two parts of the book discuss the kind of theological-historical perspective and ecclesial situation that determines the form-content configuration of Revelation. The first section attempts to assess the theological commonality to and differences from Jewish apocalypticism. Fiorenza focuses of the problem that although Revelation claims to be a genuinely Christian book and has found its way into the Christian canon, it is often judged to be more Jewish than Christian and not to have achieved the “heights” of genuinely early Christian theology. In the second part of the book, Fiorenza seeks to assess whether and how much Revelation shares in the theological structure of the Fourth Gospel. Fiorenza proposes that a careful analysis of Revelation would suggest that Pauline, Johannine, and Christian apocalyptic-prophetic traditions and circles interacted with each other at the end of the first century C.E in Asia Minor. She charts in the book the structural-theological similarities and differences between the response of Paul and that of Revelation to the “realized eschatology”. She argues that the author of Revelation attempts to correct the “realized eschatology” implications of the early Christian tradition with an emphasis on a futuristic apocalyptic understanding of salvation. Fiorenza draws the conclusion that Revelation and its author belong neither to the Johannine nor to the Pauline school, but point to prophetic-apocalyptic traditions in Asia Minor.
Pentecost, J Dwight. Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology. Grand Rapids, MI: Academie Books, 1964.
It may seem a little bit strange, but my favorite place in town in none other than this beautiful Evangelic Church. However, it wasn’t always so.
It is hard to define religious experience as a large part of it is subjective. By their very nature religious experiences are incredibly personal and differ wildly from individual to individual. Everyone is going to react to a religious experience differently; some will dismiss it, others will take it to heart and it can change their lives. Religious experiences can happen from almost anywhere, from the beauty of being out in nature or in the middle of a church service. How one interprets a religious experience is largely “depends on the culture, ideas, and language of that particular time and place” (Thompson, 7).
According to Hutchison (2015), “religion is symbolic patterns that consists of values, beliefs, behaviors and experiences” (p. 184). I personal conceptualize spirituality as a vital role in my life that helps me during a time of sickness, forgiveness, and needed guidance. Spirituality helps guide me throughout life during the difficult times I have encountered. Spirituality impacts my life in positive ways that influence and regulate my behavior and health. Health is very important to me; I believe the spirit can heal a person from their sickness. It seems that the spirit heals me every time I pray to be healed from sickness. The spirit gives me strength at a time of weakness. When I feel at my lowest point in life I call on the spirit to pick