The Search is a faith series answering life’s most daunting questions –
What Do You Seek? Who Are You? Why a God? What’s Our Story? Who is Jesus? Am I Saved? Why a Church?
Join us during this short faith formation session where we will learn more about the Catholic faith via educational videos, thought-provoking group discussions and great like-minded company.
Tuesdays, 6:30-8:30pm, in the Saint Michael’s Basilica parish centre.
Topics:
6:30pm Tuesday October 6 Why a God? Today we seem to think we’ve moved beyond the idea of God, but this secular view of life is a very new and unusual idea to humanity. All through human history man has looked to something outside himself for the answers to life. Why have we given up on God? Do we think science has disproven Him? Do we think society is better off without him? We talk with astrophysicists, chemists, Harvard professors, and more to make the case that it’s not only reasonable to believe in God, it’s essential if you want to have a truly amazing life. Our souls seek their creator, and we’ll never be truly happy unless we seek Him out. As St. Augustine famously said, “You have made us for Yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless. until they rest in Thee.”
6:30pm Tuesday October 13 What’s our Story? Your life is a story. And it’s caught up in the great story of humanity. This great story, as we see it in the Scriptures, shows us the amazing love story that is God’s pursuit of man. The God that is love created so we can ultimately be with his love. We were made to be with God. Union with God is so central to the purpose of life, we even see the afterlife in these terms. Our definition of Heaven is union with God, and hell is the absence of Him. Your life has a plot. Your life has a purpose. Your life has value. We need to see how we fit into this big love story to begin to know why we exist. And that love of God isn’t abstract. It has a face and name: Jesus.
6:30pm Tuesday October 20 Who is Jesus? The most beautiful part of this story is that we can personally know God’s love. This is the person of Jesus. But how did this seemingly insignificant carpenter born into poverty in a dusty corner of the Roman Empire become the most pivotal figure in all of history? Christianity isn’t simply a philosophy for life—the center of Christianity is a person. We look at the life of Jesus and what he came to do. Ultimately, we need to decide if Jesus really was who he said he was. We can’t sit on the fence. Because if Jesus really was who he said he was, we need to make him the Lord of our lives, and when we do, everything changes.
6:30pm Tuesday October 27 Am I Saved? What Jesus did for us through his life, death, and resurrection was the greatest act of love in history. He saved us. He did this for each one of us. Personally. But some might feel unworthy of this gift of love. We may feel we have too much baggage. We may feel unlovable. But God didn’t come to reveal himself to us on a pedestal—he came to enter into our messy human condition. To fix us from within. To transform us from the inside out. Some might be surprised by how generous the love of God really is. We don’t deserve God’s love, but that’s the amazing reality of God’s mercy. This relationship with God isn’t all about our love for him. It’s about his love for us that changes our lives forever.
6:30pm Tuesday November 3 Why a Church? How do I access this man who lived 2,000 years ago? How do I live this call of love? We uniquely encounter the love of God in his Church. But really? The Church? There are so many negative views of the Church. It’s out of touch. It’s full of bad people. It’s just too boring. Maybe when we say “the Church” we mean a little more. The Church is the family of God that’s been lovingly gathered through our entire story. It’s the place where we were meant to encounter his grace that prepares us for every step of life. The God that is love knows how we’re made—material and spiritual—and we need tangible ways to live our faith. We can’t be spiritual but not religious. This is where we’ll find ultimate happiness in life. This is where the God that has been seeking humanity, who wrote the deepest desires onto our human hearts, encounters us. Jesus’ first words to humanity in the Gospel of John are “what do you seek?” The one that asked the question not only knows the answer—he is the answer. The answers to everything. And you find him most profoundly here in his Church.