Putting the pieces of our faith together
by Father Thomas DowdThe Catholic faith possesses an incredibly rich intellectual tradition. While this is a great blessing, however, it can also mean that explanations of the Catholic faith are sometimes hard to grasp. Catholics, even those who go to Church regularly and who attend lectures and read books on the faith, often find themselves feeling uncertain in their knowledge of their faith. In reality, they very often know more than they think — the problem is that they don’t know how all these “pieces of the puzzle” fit together.
Early in 2007 I had the chance to preach a 4-day parish mission to the people of St. Luke and St. David parishes in the West Island of Montreal. It was a “teaching mission”, in which I tried to simply show how to “assemble the puzzle”. The response was, quite simply, overwhelming. The parish mission covered four topics:
- Parish mission evening #1 — Who is God?
- Parish mission evening #2 — If God is good, why is there evil in the world?
- Parish mission evening #3 — If God is good and there is evil in the world, what has God done about it?
- Parish mission evening #4 — If God is good and there is evil in the world and God is doing something about it, how do we get with the program?
This mission is scheduled to be offered once again at the following locations:
- Holy Family parish in Deux-Montagnes, November 25-28, 2007
- St. Luke and St. David parishes, West Island of Montreal, February 21-24, 2008 (in French)
Would you be interested in having this teaching offered for your group or church? Feel free to contact us!
