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• God desires


  God constantly calls us to relationship with him. We are invited into communion with God in order to experience the grace of his saving love.
• Fr. Larry Gillick, SJ: '"We don't 'find' God, rather we find God finding us."'
• Revelation


  To unveil or disclose
• Ways God reveals Himself to us

  • Thought & Reason
  • Creation
  • The Bible
  • Love
  • Search for Happiness & Meaning
• Ways of discovering God

  • Discovering God in daily life
  • Discovering God in the faith of others
  • Discovering God in the natural world
  • Discovering God through the human intellect
• Discovering God in daily life

  • I recently realized that as I walked by several homeless men and engages in brief conversation with them each day, I was beginning to understand what it means to say that we can find Jesus in the poor.
  • Every time I try to cool off instead of letting my brother have a piece of my mind, I realize that I am doing something for God, too.
  • No matter how much stress I carry in my life, I find that walking by the water brings me a sense of peace and God's presence.
• Discovering God in the faith of others


  • Studying physics has strengthened my faith. Who else but God could have made up these laws of nature?
  • I went on a retreat and heard a senior talk about her faith. She was so comfortable with it that I thought to myself, 'I should put more time into this relationship with God.'
  • My dad is brilliant. If he believes in God, I find it hard not to.
• Discovering God in the natural world


  • Studying physics has strengthened my faith. Who else but God could have made up these laws of nature?
  • No matter how much stress I carry in my life, I find that walking by the water brings me a sense of peace and God's presence.
• Discovering God through the human intellect

  • Studying physics has strengthened my faith. Who else but God could have made up these laws of nature?
  • My dad is brilliant. If he believes in God, I find it hard not to.
  • We did a report about a saint, and I was pretty impressed by Saint Catherine of Siena. She was made peace in impossible situations…
• God is "our first origin and our ultimate goal" (CCC, no. 229)
• God is our beginning and our destiny
• Happiness is found only in a life fully committed to God
• Saint Augustine of Hippo proposed four "objects" that we should love

  • God deserves love above all created things
  • Love of neighbor is inseparable from love of God
  • Self-love knows God is imprinted on our hearts
  • Our body is one of God's masterpieces
• According to Saint Augustine, nothing created by God is insignificant, not even the tiniest insect
• During the Middle Ages, new ways of proving the existence of God emerged


  Great thinkers held that humans could use their minds and logically develop "converging and convincing arguments" (CCC, no. 31) to attain truth and certainty about God and the human experience
• Saint Anselm of Canterbury's Proof for the Existence of God

  God is "that than which nothing greater can be thought." It is greater to exist in reality than to exist merely in the mind. Then God must exist in reality, not in mind and understanding only.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas's Five Proofs for Existence of God

  • First Mover – everything moves in the universe; something started the motion. The First Mover is God.
  • Causality – everything is caused by something else, but there must be an Ultimate or First Cause. This First Cause is God.
  • Contingency – humans cannot exist without a Necessary Being who creates all but is not created. This Necessary Being is God.
  • Perfection – we know perfection because there is one all-perfect being, God. All-perfect God sets the infinite standards for wisdom and truth.
  • Intelligent Being – there is a remarkable order to all of creation. Because of this order, an intelligent designer must be behind the universe. This Designer is God.
• Vatican I Council in Dei Filius (1870): When people listen "to the message of creation and to the voice of conscience, [they] can arrive at certainty about the existence of God" (CCC, no. 46)
• Convergence of Probabilities


  Many "hints" point to the existence of God. When combined, they produce a powerful argument for God.
• Incarnation


  To become flesh
• Through Jesus Christ, God has "provided the definitive, superabundant answer to the questions that man asks himself about the meaning and purpose of his life" (CCC, no. 68)
• Prayer


  Communication with God
• The Real Purpose of Prayer

  • To Worship
  • God Values you highly, longs to spend time with you, and never tires of hearing you pray
• How To Pray


  1. Worship

  2. Admit

  3. Request
• Worshipping Prayer


  • Praising
  • Thanking
  • Listening
• How To Pray


  1. Worship- Praise, Thank, Listen

  2. Admit- The confession of sin and asking for God's forgiveness

  3. Request
• Sin


  To miss the mark, the standard of perfection established by God and evidenced by Jesus
• Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
• Examples of sin


  • Lying
  • Stealing
  • Hate
  • Pride
  • Lust
  • Putting other things ahead of God
  • Gossip
• Sin in any amount will distance us from God
• 1 John 1:8-10: 'If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives'
• How to: Confess sin in prayer

  • Meaningful (from humbled hearts)
  • Specific not generic (Tell God what you did)
  • Acknowledge sin but know that God forgives
  • As He forgives us we should forgive others
• Admit Sin Prayer Example

  • Lord, I admit that I've really struggled and I ask Your forgiveness for ___________________.

  Forgive me for my attitudes toward or about______________________________.

  Lord, forgive me that I have been so angry over _______________________________________.

  I ask your forgiveness for lust, pride, arrogance, unforgiveness against ____________________________________.
• 1 John 1:9
• If we permit unconfessed sin in our lives


  We hinder our walk with the Lord
• To improve our praying


  We must improve our serving
• Sexuality


  • It plays a vital role to one's life regardless of age, race, gender and religious affiliation
  • It is an integral part of what we do and who we are
  • It is the way in which we experience and express ourselves as sexual beings
  • It is a quality of being human, it is a powerful and purposeful aspect of human nature and it is an important dimension of our humanness
  • It is everything about a male or female
• Characteristics of a healthy sexuality

  • Self love
  • Self knowledge
  • Self confidence
  • Self respect
  • Self expression
• Sex


  The biological condition of being male and female based on physiological and hormonal difference
• Sexual identity


  Determined by a complex interaction of genetic, physiological, and environmental factors