February 2009 Study Guide

Bible Blurbs

“Let us hold unwa­ver­ingly to our con­fes­sion that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trust­wor­thy.”
Hebrews 10:23
“Not only that, but we even boast of our afflic­tions, know­ing that afflic­tion pro­duces endurance, and endurance, proven char­ac­ter, and proven char­ac­ter, hope…”
Romans 5:3-4
“…until we all attain to …mature man­hood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ…”
Eph­esians 4:13
“So they called Rebekah and asked her, ‘Do you wish to go with this man?’ She answered, ‘I do.’ … Then Isaac took Rebekah into his tent; he mar­ried her, and thus she became his wife. In his love for Rebekah Isaac found solace after the death of his mother Sarah.”
Gen­e­sis 24:58, 67
Look it up HERE: www.usccb.org/nab/bible

Cat­e­chism Clips

1656: In our own time, in a world often alien and even hos­tile to faith, believ­ing fam­i­lies are of pri­mary impor­tance as cen­ters of liv­ing, radi­ant faith.…
1880: By means of soci­ety, each man… receives cer­tain “tal­ents” that enrich his iden­tity and whose fruits he must develop…
1937: … [God] wills that each receive what he needs from oth­ers, and that those endowed with par­tic­u­lar “tal­ents” share the ben­e­fits with those who need them.
2207: …The fam­ily is the com­mu­nity in which, from child­hood, one can learn moral val­ues, begin to honor God, and make good use of free­dom…
Look it up HERE: http://www.usccb.org/catechism

Pope Quotes

“…when sport is prac­ticed in the right spirit, and with respect for dig­nity, it helps to pro­mote the devel­op­ment of the per­son…
…Sport helps man to con­sider his own capac­i­ties as a tal­ent and his life as a gift of God…
…Even when sport is prac­ticed at high lev­els, it is impor­tant to main­tain an inner har­mony between body and spirit in order not to reduce it to a mere search for results…
… [these virtues] must always char­ac­ter­ize sport­ing activ­ity: tenac­ity, a spirit of sac­ri­fice, inte­rior and exte­rior dis­ci­pline…
…as well as a sense of jus­tice, aware­ness of ones own lim­its and a respect for oth­ers. All virtues for which you must train your­selves in daily life…
…In a period marked by a loss of val­ues and a lack of ori­en­ta­tion, ath­letes can pro­vide pow­er­ful moti­va­tions to work in favor of good in the var­i­ous areas of life, from the fam­ily to the work­place…”
Pope Bene­dict XVI, Octo­ber 6, 2007, Mes­sage to the Aus­trian Alpine Ski Team

Dis­cus­sion questions:

1. Troy Pola­malu almost seems to not care about doing well at his job. Do you think this is true or false? What do you think Troy means when he says “suc­cess doesn’t mat­ter?” How impor­tant should excelling at school or a job be? Can you take it too far?
2. Kurt Warner has been blasted recently in some arti­cles for say­ing he will wait for God to tell him what team to play for next year. These peo­ple say Kurt isn’t mak­ing his own deci­sions and wants to blame God for his choice. Does this sound like the Kurt Warner you just read about? Is that what Kurt means? Should we ask God to help us with impor­tant deci­sions? How might God answer if we do ask him?
3. Do you think peo­ple like Troy and Kurt make a dif­fer­ence in the world? Do you think they change any­thing, or anyone’s mind or heart? How? What kind of influ­ence do you think they have on peo­ple? Can peo­ple like them change the world? Change our coun­try? Change your school?

Jour­nal Writing

1. Write about your dream career, you can be any­thing or have any kind of job you want: an engi­neer, astro­naut, marine biol­o­gist, talk show host… any­thing! Write ten ways you could use that job to share about your faith with oth­ers, espe­cially in pub­lic ways. Now write 3 ways you could share your faith right now, just as you are.
2. Write about some­one you know who puts their church, their fam­ily, or oth­ers first in their lives, or has put aside their dreams for some­one else.
3. What is your def­i­n­i­tion of suc­cess? Write about the life you think you need to achieve in order to call your­self successful.

Debate

Some peo­ple say pub­lic fig­ures like pro ath­letes should keep their beliefs to them­selves and not push them on oth­ers. Split into two teams. One team, argues that Troy and Kurt should keep their beliefs to them­selves and not push their ideas on oth­ers. The other team argues that Kurt and Troy have a right to free speech, and free­dom of reli­gion, and are doing a good thing by pub­licly pro­fess­ing their faith.

Activ­i­ties:

1. Recently, Troy has become friends with a 12 year old girl named Heather who is very sick with Can­cer. When he vis­its her, he never talks about him­self or foot­ball, he just plays games with her and lis­tens to her. Visit some­one who is sick or elderly, or spend some time with some­one who is old or sick in your fam­ily, and spend the whole time talk­ing about them, what they think, what they feel, and try not to talk about your­self at all.
2. Some time in the next week, when your friends want you to hang out with them, decide instead to spend that time with your mom or dad, one of your broth­ers or sis­ters, or another fam­ily mem­ber. Prac­tice putting fam­ily first!

Vir­tu­ous Ver­biage Verification

Adver­sity – a state, con­di­tion, or instance of seri­ous or con­tin­ued dif­fi­culty
Char­ac­ter - moral or eth­i­cal strength; the prin­ci­ples and motives that con­trol ones deci­sions and life
Faith – 1. Trust in God; 2. Per­sonal rela­tion­ship with God; 3. Belief in what God has revealed; 4. Faith is a super­nat­ural virtue (a super­nat­ural power). It is a power or virtue given to us in bap­tism.
Fam­ily - the most basic, pri­mary, social struc­ture, nat­u­rally con­sist­ing of a father, mother, and their chil­dren, where we learn first and most about life. For those whose fam­i­lies are trag­i­cally bro­ken, their fam­ily may be a sin­gle par­ent or rel­a­tives. In a super­nat­ural way, God makes a fam­ily out of a com­mu­nity, the Church, and even the human fam­ily.
Fidelity – con­stancy in keep­ing one’s given word. (CCC 2365)
Free Agent – A player who does not have a con­tract with a spe­cific team for the next sea­son
Greek Ortho­dox Chris­tians – Chris­tians who fol­low the beliefs, tra­di­tions, and rit­u­als of the East­ern, or Byzan­tine, Catholic Church but are not in union with the Pope.
Humil­ity - virtue which con­sists of know­ing one’s own bounds and lim­its.
Legacy – some­thing one leaves to a suc­ces­sor when they leave or die.
Respon­si­bil­ity - a form of trust­wor­thi­ness; the trait of being answer­able to some­one for one’s con­duct
Suc­cess - 1. the favor­able or pros­per­ous result of attempts or endeav­ors. 2. the attain­ment of wealth, posi­tion, hon­ors, or the like.
Sur­ren­der - to give one­self up into the power of another