In this homily given at St Pat's on November 27, 2022, Fr. Mathias kicks off a four-part Advent preaching series on the basic gospel message. The gospel gives us the context of knowing who we are, where we are going and how to get there. It is by means of the gospel we come to understand everything else in Christianity. Using the the framework and preaching of Fr. John Riccardo and Acts XXIXI as a foundation, the purpose of this series is two fold: 1) to help us again make a decision to surrender our lives to Jesus in faith to become his disciple and 2) so that we can familiarize ourselves again with the outline of our story, which not only will help us live the gospel, but also help us share it with others. The memorable four parts of the gospel message are:
1) The goodness of creation (Created)
2) Sin and its consequences (Captured)
3) What God has done with sin and its consequences (Rescued)
4) Our response to God for what he's done (Response)
In this week's session, Fr. Mathias unpacks what God reveals about himself and creation and humanity in the book of Genesis and how that differs from other cultures at the time. As the pinnacle of creation man and woman are made in the image and likeness of God. Since we were loved into being and called to love, Father shares with us the wonder of what it is like to be loved by the Creator of the universe. If all this is so, then why is the world so obviously messed up? That's the subject of next week's homily.
For additional presentations on the gospel, please see Acts XXIX (www.actsxxix.org) and the book Rescued by Fr. John Riccardo.
