My Inner Abbey Episode 1: It’s All About Relationship Transcript
Introduction
Hey everyone, this is Jeff Arrowood, founder of the Catholic educational apostolate From the Abbey. And this is the first episode of a new webcast called “My Inner Abbey.”
In this episode we’re going to pretty much discuss what this broadcast is all about. We also have an awesome question about Heaven and whether it matters what religion we follow to get there. Just a light topic to get us started. AND we’ll take a look at a resource that can help you get started on growing in your faith. So thank you for joining me! Let’s get this thing started!
You’re probably asking, “What’s a webcast?” And that would be a very good question. Well, you might be joining me live on the Google Hangout, or you might be watching this as a video, or listening to it as a Podcast or even reading the transcript. This program is available in all of those formats.
However you are joining us, I’m very glad you’re here. My Inner Abbey is all about taking practical steps and creating usable strategies to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. The name is based on the metaphor of rebuilding your inner abbey, a place in your heart where you can shut out the distractions of the world for a while and focus on your relationship with God. The problem is that our inner abbey has been torn apart by sin and by distractions of the world and we want to repair it, clean it up and make it a fitting place to meet with our Lord. Now in reality the rooms of the inner abbey stand for different aspects of Catholic spirituality. In each episode of this webcast, we’ll visit one or two rooms and talk about very specific strategies for growing in each of these areas of spirituality. But first, we’ll always check in with you to talk about your feedback and your questions.
Entryway
We’ll start each show with feedback and questions. These are your questions about growing in your relationship with God. You can post your questions in the Google+ Community or on Facebook at facebook.com/fromtheabbey. Both of those links are posted below this video if you’re watching at fromtheabbey.com or if you’re watching on the Google+ event. If you’re listening to this as a podcast you’ll find the links in the show notes.
Today’s question comes from Maiv. She responded to a request for questions that I posted on Facebook. Her question is, “I’m surrounded by loving and caring people from different religious backgrounds. I constantly find myself wondering if it really matters what religion I belong to as long as I’m doing good. I have many people that I love who do not believe in God but continue to do good. So will we all find ourselves in heaven as long as we are good people?”
The reason I started our first episode with this question is that the answer really strikes at the core of what My Inner Abbey is all about. You see Maiv, Heaven is not primarily about being good. It’s not a reward for good people. That’s actually a pagan view of Heaven that has creeped into Christianity. For disciples of Christ, Heaven is first and foremost a relationship with God.
Original Sin made humanity into the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ story. We left the Family and embraced the inheritance. Now while God began mending that relationship throughout salvation history and slowly brought humanity back to him through the Hebrew people, the reconciliation of God’s family happened fully through Jesus. Our Lord invites us back into his family through his grace in Baptism, and then it is up to us to cooperate with that grace in order to grow in our relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As we grow in this relationship Jesus continues to pour his grace into us, inviting us deeper and deeper into this relationship. And we continue to respond to that grace. Part of our response to that grace is to become good people because we embrace God’s goodness.
But without a right relationship with God, just being good isn’t enough. Every human person has goodness in them because we are all made in God’s image and likeness. But if we are separated from God that goodness is part of the inheritance that we are embracing in place of the Father. We are still ignoring the relationship. We are not becoming members of God’s family again. And Heaven means living as members of God’s family for all eternity.
Now, that said, I am not going to put a limit on God’s mercy. Only God can read the human heart. We do believe that God’s grace CAN save people who believe in other religions. Every religion is an attempt to know God. And God can give his mercy to anyone who is seeking him with an honest heart. That is totally up to him. But these people will not be saved through their religion. They will be saved despite the fact that they did not truly know God. And again – we don’t know whether or not God will save them. We believe in his mercy and in his justice. But what we do know is that God revealed himself through Jesus and anyone who doesn’t have an active, growing relationship with Jesus is really missing out on the joy of being members of God’s family in this world at the very least.
So Maiv to summarize my answer, Heaven and faith are all about having a true relationship with God. Being good is only part of that relationship, and we can be good without being fully engaged in that relationship.
Now I chose this question because I want to make the point from the very beginning that when we talk about spiritual growth as Catholics, we’re not talking about a program of self-development. In many ways what we talk about here will sound like a self-development program because we’re going to deal with some very practical ways to grow in our relationship with Jesus. But our main focus is first and always on that relationship. Thanks Maiv for that question. I hope this answer helped clarify that for you. Please feel free to follow up and we can come back to this very important question in later episodes, OK? And now it’s time to head over to the Library, the room in our inner abbey where we store all of our resources and aides for spiritual growth.
Bookstore
In this segment of the broadcast I’m going to take a quick look at the resources out there that can help you grow in your faith. Many of these resources are available through From the Abbey in the Bookstore and the links to them will be available in the show notes. But my purpose here isn’t to sell stuff to you. It’s rather to review resources to let you know what is out there. These are resources that help me in my walk with Christ and I hope they will help you as well.
This week’s resource is a Catholic fiction novel called Citadel of God. This is a historical fiction novel about St Benedict, who lived at the end of the Roman empire. Amidst the turmoil of the fall of the Roman Empire, St Benedict’s abbey becomes a sanctuary for everyone at one time or another in the novel – even for some of the corrupt Roman officials. It is not only a place of quiet and isolation, it is a place of order and beauty and most of all faith. But the real victory in the book belongs to Boethius, a Roman Catholic who is able to build an inner sanctuary even in the face of martyrdom. Boethius was Catholic, but he was also very well liked by the Romans. He was rich, powerful and influential. And he used his wealth and power to do God’s work. He would invite his neighbors – Christian and pagan alike – to his famous house parties where he would entertain questions of philosophy and theology, arguing in favor of Catholic belief. But in the death throes of the Roman empire, a so-called “friend” betrays Boethius and falsely claims that he was plotting against the provincial Roman governor. Instantly Boethius lost everything – his wealth, property, influence, power, and even his friends were all gone. Boethius was thrown in prison and sentenced to death. In prison, Boethius wrote his greatest work. In this work he discussed his condition and explored the reason he was still happy despite his grim circumstances. He concluded that his joy – a deep seated joy that was not dependent on his circumstances – came from the fact that he had a relationship with God, the perfect good and the source of all love and goodness. Boethius has built an interior sanctuary in his heart that – like St Benedict’s abbey in the mountains – was a place of calm and peace in the midst of chaos. Boethius’ relationship with God gave him strength.
This is what we need to do. We need to build an inner abbey – a sanctuary in our hearts – that keeps us from being distracted from our relationship with God.
Now it’s time to move from the Library into the Classroom, where we’ll get into the main content of the webcast – a lesson on spiritual growth.
Classroom
So this is the section of the show where I would choose one room from our inner abbey and discuss some strategies for growing in that area of our faith. The lesson today is going to be pretty simple. Since this is the first episode of My Inner Abbey, I want to share with you my idea of what this webcast will be. My hope for this broadcast is that it opens up a dialogue among Catholics about how to live our faith more fully and to grow in it every day. Now that doesn’t mean that you’re only welcome here if you are Catholic. I welcome any follower of Christ who can contribute to this dialog. But I do want to lay some ground rules for everyone.
I want to tailor this webcast to your needs, so I welcome your comments, your feedback and your questions. So my first rule is please participate! Let’s make the most of this social media. I will be keeping an eye on the comments during the live broadcast. So ask any questions or make comments there. Let’s make this a real relationship. If you’re watching this as a podcast or a recorded video, we can still interact even if it’s not in real time. Send me an email or leave a comment in the Google+ Community or on Facebook at facebook.com/fromtheabbey.
And my second ground rule is for us to stay focused on spiritual growth. I want us to focus here on growing in our faith – in our relationship with God. Please keep any debates about Catholicism vs. Protestantism or about whether or not God exists or anything like that for other forums. Let’s talk here about growing in our relationship with God.
It may be OK to ask general theology or apologetic questions, but please try to keep them related to spiritual growth for the most part. There are so many general Catholic apologetic resources out there – Catholic Answers forum, Relevant Radio, EWTN – I want this program to be uniquely focused. That said, if these questions are getting in the way of your spiritual growth, feel free to ask.
OK, so that’s the main focus of My Inner Abbey: growing in our relationship with God. but why did I call this webcast “My Inner Abbey”? I got this idea after reading the book Citadel of God by Robert de Wohl.
This idea of an inner sanctuary is not a unique idea. St Teresa of Avila uses the same metaphor in her work Interior Castle. St Theresa uses the idea of a journey from outside of the castle, through the rooms, to the center of the castle. The castle is your heart and at the center Jesus waits to have an intimate relationship with you.
The inner abbey that we’ll be talking about in this program is just a bit different. It stands for how we prepare our hearts to receive Jesus. Instead of journeying through the castle, we are rebuilding our abbey from the ruins made of it by Original Sin. Picture yourself approaching your inner abbey – walls falling down, doors locked, dirt everywhere. The first thing we need to do is find the keys to all of the rooms and get the rooms unlocked. Then we need to rebuild each room.
I am creating courses that I will eventually have for sale at fromtheabbey.com that will cover five of the most important areas of spiritual growth. The beginner’s level of courses are going to be called the “Keys to Spiritual Growth.” These courses help you lay the foundation for each of these important areas – unlocking the door of each room of your inner abbey. The advanced courses are going to be about rebuilding the rooms. these courses will offer ways to go deeper into each area of spiritual growth as mature disciples.
This webcast can really cover topics on any level – basic or advanced. It’s totally up to you. The courses offer an opportunity to go way deeper than we can get here. But the webcasts will give us the opportunity to interact with each other live while the courses will be pre-recorded. So my hope is that you will do both so you can get the fullest educational experience.
So that’s what I’m up to with From the Abbey and with the My Inner Abbey webcast. What do you think? Is this something you can get excited about? Please do leave me feedback and help me to create what you really want and need.
Well, that’s all I have for this first episode.
Sponsor
My Inner Abbey was brought to you this week by the Keys to Spiritual Growth. You can get a free video mini-course on the keys to spiritual growth at www.fromtheabbey.com. So go right on over there and sign up now. You can also sign up to be notified when the next episode of My Inner Abbey will be offered live and when and where the recordings of each program will be available. Just head on over to www.fromtheabbey.com where you will also find the show notes and other resources related to this episode. This is Jeff Arrowood, founder of the Catholic educational apostolate From the Abbey encouraging you to rediscover the JOY of learning and living your faith!