Friendship

Peters story:

In Junior High, i had almost no friends. At first I wasn't really aware of it. I thought I was fairly cool- sure, no one paired up with me for group work, and I always got picked last for sports teams, but that was OK!

Teacher :"What's wrong with you guys? Why are you so mean to each other? And why doesn't anyone like Peter? I think he's nice! Why isn't anyone his friend?"

I had 2 friends. they were imaginary. And they never played with me, they only played with each other.

You know how in your schools there's probably a few of those awkward people that no one really likes, everyone kinda thinks is a loser?

Those kids thought I was a loser.

Then I went to OLVC, and prayed a simple prayer- that I would be loved.

At that time popularity was the most important thing in the world to me! I wanted people to like me, and more than that, to respect me, and be willing to confide in me, to trust me!

In Grade 10, made a ton of friends! They became my life.

The 2nd commandment says that there should be nothing more important to us than God. My friends had become more important.

Friendship is a great gift from God- a very good thing. But we can sometimes not treat our friends right- we can treat them like Objects. Pizza Love? We have to love them for their own sake- not for what we get out of the friendship!

Fairweather friends- like us for what they can get. A true friend is committed to you even when it gets rough- especially when it gets rough, 'cause that's when you need them!

Love wants the best for other people.

Story- Jesus heals the paralyzed man.

Friends should be the kind of people who bring us to Christ.

2 implications-

1. We need to be the kind of people who bring our friends to Christ.

What if someone is no longer willing to be your friend because you try to evangelize them, or they are living in sin and you try to talk them out of it?

Must put the good of the person before the friendship!

Friends on drugs? Suicidal? living in sin?

It is a spiritual act of mercy to tell them so, and help them out!

Of course, be gentle, loving, compassionate, non judgemental. Being non jadgemental does not mean being unable to discern between right and worng- it means not assuming motives in the other.

Demonstration- Get someone to argue with me and prove to me that Gravity exists, and thus I should not jump off a cliff.

Act offended- tell them i am as convicted of my idea as they are, and therefore they are being ignorant and small minded, and I will do what I very well please, so stop being so preachy, or we can't be friends.

What is that friends duty?

Jen from Sacramento story- Florence.

2. Our friends should bring us to Christ.

Fellowship!

Blanket demonstration- the more friends we have supporting us the better.

Even Jesus had 12 apostles- and when he sent them out, he did it in 2's, so they were not alone.

Christians are like Bananas- they grow better in bunches.

Catherine story.

Jesus said "Greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his friends."

Are you willing to die for your friends? How about to give up the bigger slice of cake? How about to listen to them when they are emotionally unstable? Or preach to them when they need it!


Friendship is an incredible gift from God, a way that he helps us to get holy. But remember that it comes with a duty- to love your friend means to put their interests before your own, and to sincerely desire the best for them, even when they don't desire it for themselves. But ultimately even though your friends come before you, they should always come after God!

Filial Love

Filial Love

Jesus said that the greatest commandments were to love God and to love others. John the apostle wrote that "God is love".

Today is going to be all about Love, and specifically about 4 kinds of love as found in the Greek language.

It will be about love as pertaining to a person- not Pizza love.

Define “Love”- (Ask Audience)

Pop Culture:
What is Love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more!
What’s love go to do with it…. What’s love, a second hand emotion.
You’ve lost, that lovin feeling….

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained” C.S. Lewis

Love as a virtue- a virtue is a disposition of the will. That means that you can choose it. And the more often you choose it, the easier it gets- you develop a habit of choosing to love.

Want to acquire the virtue of love? Think of the person you find most difficult to love, of everyone you know. The one who gets on your nerves or makes you angry the most often.

Jesus said “Love your enemies.” If you can love that person, then you can teach yourself how to love. (True love comes from God, but we’ll get into that later. For now we’ll talk about the discipline of loving.)

A lot of people, if you ask them who in their lives is the hardest to love, will think of someone in their family. A brother, sister, parent….

GK Chesterton, a Christian writer, pointed out that while we can choose our friends, and we tend to choose people who are just like us, we don’t get to choose our families. We’re stuck with the ones we have! How many people here have family members that you can hardly believe are related to you because they are so different? The music they like, the way they dress, the things they think are funny or fun, the TV shows they watch….. the way they think about politics or religion or philosophy. The sports teams they cheer for! Imagine being related to someone who cheered for the Oilers- brutal!

When we speak of filial love, we usually mean the kind of love a parent has for a child. Parents will tell you that something weird happens when you have a baby- you love them
How many commandments are there?
What is the 4rth commandment?

Honour your Father and Mother.

Commandments are split into two sections- those that have to do with loving God, and those that have to do with loving other people. And the first one in the second category- before “Don’t steal” ‘Don’t Kill” and “Don’t commit adultery” is Honour your father and mother! So for some reason God thinks that this is pretty important.

Honour
- Obey
- Respect
- Honour in speech
- Serve
- Forgive

Catherines Story

Remember that forgiveness is a choice just like love. So, just like love, forgiveness is something you can choose to do even when you don't feel like it. And pray that the feelings will follow!

Lastly, you probably have some ideas about how you would like your family to run when you're a parent. Maybe you want to pray together with your family, or spend quality time together, or not have a lot of negative humour or fighting. As teenagers you are becoming adults- that means that your role in the family is beggining to be one of leadership, to some degree. Of course, your parents are still the boss, but if you want to see these things happen in your family, you can start to make it happen.

Pray for your family!

Responsibility

Genesis 3:1- 13

The Temptation and the Fall

3:1 Now 1 the serpent 2 was more shrewd 3
than any of the wild animals 4 that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Is it really true that 5 God 6 said, ‘You must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?” 7 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat 8 of the fruit from the trees of the orchard; 3:3 but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, 9 or else you will die.’” 10 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “Surely you will not die, 11 3:5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open 12 and you will be like divine beings who know 13 good and evil.” 14
3:6 When 15 the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, 16 was attractive 17 to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, 18 she took some of its fruit and ate it. 19 She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. 20 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
The Judgment Oracles of God at the Fall
3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about 21 in the orchard at the breezy time 22 of the day, and they hid 23 from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 3:9 But the Lord God called to 24 the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 25 3:10 The man replied, 26 “I heard you moving about 27 in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 3:11 And the Lord God 28 said, “Who told you that you were naked? 29 Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 30 3:12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave 31 me some fruit 32 from the tree and I ate it.” 3:13 So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this 33 you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent 34 tricked 35 me, and I ate.”

Who’s fault is it that man is no longer in the garden? Men have often blamed women. In fact, that was the first response to the first sin ever- to say “It’s not my fault.” Adam blamed Eve- he also blamed God- “The woman whom you gave me…”. Eve blamed the snake. The snake didn’t have a leg to stand on.

It’s interesting that to this day, we still play the blame game. We don’t take ownership of our own sin. We need to learn to acknowledge our vices as being our own.

In the movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” the bad guy name is Frollo, a judge and cleric who wants to kill all the Gypsies. There is one seen where he is struggling with lust in front of his fireplace, and he feels guilty about it. And he says “It’s not my fault, if in (God’s) plan, he made the Devil so much stronger than a man!”

Some times it seems like this- like no matter what we do, we’re gonna sin. Se can’t help it. We’re week. Of course, no body is perfect- however, God commands us not to sin, and God makes it possible!

Gal 5:1
For freedom 1 Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke 2 of slavery.

Eph 6:11
Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes 1 of the devil.
God promises that there is no sin so great that we cannot stand under it. In other words, we will never be tempted so strongly that we have to give in. We are not victims of our sins!

This is a great compliment, if you think about it. We are told that sin makes us slaves. In a sense, this is true, since all sins- weather drugs or alcohol, or sexual sins, or even judgementalism, materialism, or gossip- all sins are addictive! But there is always hope, there is always freedom, and there is all ways a point where we give our consent to the sin and that is why we fall.

So we can’t blame other people for our vices. We need to be men of strength, character and integrity. This is what the virtue of responsibility looks like. It means taking control of our lives and acknowledging our ownership of them! It means not making up excuses! People who make up excuses all the time are week, pathetic men. I admire a man who will stand up and say “Yes, I did this thing, and yes it was wrong. Forgive me.”

This is why the sacrament of confession is so important- We go to another human being, and we go to God, and say “here is what sins I have committed”. Then we do an act of penance- something concrete which turns our path around. The word “repent” means to turn around. But how can we repent if we don’t even admit that we’re going the wrong direction in the first place?

Responsibility is what separates men from boys. A child sits there in his mothers arms, and goes wherever she takes him. It’s not his fault if they go somewhere stupid. But when a child grows up, he has to start making decisions for himself- he needs to learn to take control!

This is why I had to leave the seminary. A few years ago I decided to study to be a Catholic Priest. I spent two years in the seminary, but in that time, I didn’t have to make a lot of decisions on my own. My food was purchased and prepared, money was provided, I had no taxes to pay…. Etc. In other words, I continues to live as an adolescent. But adolescence is supposed to be a transition period from childhood to adulthood. It’s not supposed to drag on and on.

Do you remember when you were a little boy, and you would think “I can’t wait until I’m a grown up, because then I’ll be able to stay up as late as I want- go places when I want to, spend money how I want.” This is what it means to be an adult- but in order for it to happen, you have to take responsibility.

What happens if you don’t? The world will take it for you. If you don’t learn how to responsibly control your money, for example. If you go into debt, and can’t pay your bills, and can’t keep a job- you will be forced to declare bankruptcy. In other words, you will have to let the government take over your money, and they will choose how much of it goes to debt, etc.

My Uncle did not learn to take responsibility for his life. He got into drugs and alcohol. He had several children outside of marriage. He went to jail a few times for different crimes. He never learned how to be a man! He still lived with his parents when he was 40 years old- he had a curfew, and allowance, and if he went anywhere, he had to tell them where he was going, for how long, and with who! Now he’s in rehab program in Medjugorie, where he needs to ask permission to do anything whatsoever- he can’t write a postcard without permission! This is because he was so out of control, that he needs to be treated like a child until he learns how to be under control.

Responsibility is a virtue- so like other virtues, it is a habit of the will. You can choose to form this habit by making little choices to be responsible. When something goes wrong- say you don’t have your full uniform or your caught talking in class- instead of saying it’s someone elses fault, just acknowledge your guilt, and make a choice to be more responsible. If you know you have trouble getting your homework done, choose ahead of time to take the necessary steps, like recording what needs to be done in your day planner, so that you can get control over it.

A lot of times people don’t take responsibility because they are afraid of it. They actually feel fear when they think about what they need to do. You need to counter that fear with courage, and with knowing that God is in control, and you need to trust him and put yourself out there.

There is a popular theory in philosophy that humanity is divided into 2 groups- the herd and the supermen. The herd just goes around blindly doin what they do, while the supermen are smart enough to see what’s going on, and can make real decisions. If you want to be a superman, than it’s time you took ownership of your own lives and decisions. Decide for yourself whether you believe in God and want to get holy, decide for yourself whether you want to succeed in school, decide for yourself if you’re going to let your relationships with people fall apart, etc.

You know the story of David and Goliath. The two armies, the Israelites and the Philistines, had decided that whoever won a man on man battle, that army would win. But The philistines had a giant on their side- some massive guy, like Shaquille O’Neil, and the Israelites were all scared to face him. The Philistines we’re going to be able to make the Israelites into slaves! Finally one Israelites decided to have the courage to fight- a little scrawny kid named David. He faced the giant, slung his sling, and he won! How? By the grace of God. So don’t be afraid to take responsibility and be a hero- God has promised you victory!