The talk lasts about an hour with 15 minutes of audience questions at the end. If you want to jump to a particular point in the talk the time indexes below can be used. May God bless you and our Church during this Holy Week.

0:00 – Introduction
16:26 – Holy Thursday
29:05 – Good Friday
41:07 – Holy Saturday
1:07:03 – Questions

I delivered the following talk as the keynote address at the annual Kansans For Life congressional prayer breakfast held in Topeka. In attendance were the various senators and representatives that serve Kansas both in on the national level in Washington and on the state level here in Topeka. Newly inaugurated governor, Sam Brownback, and members of his administration were also present. It was a great honor to deliver this address on the 150th anniversary of the day Kansas became the 34th state. May God continue to bless Kansas and use us to bring about a culture of life.

Address to the 2011 Kansas Congressional Pro-Life Prayer Breakfast (audio – mp3)

Address to the 2011 Kansas Congressional Pro-Life Prayer Breakfast (text – pdf)

I was also priviledged to deliver the keynote address at this breakfast two years ago. Video of that address can be found under the entry for March 11, 2009.

This talk looks at the practical details of the various parts of the Mass as well as the theological background behind them and how to get the most out of Mass.

People who heard this talk might also enjoy my Theology on Tap presentation I gave last month along similar lines.

With so many different “churches” offering opportunities to “worship” one must ask the question, “What is worship?” “Where does it come from and how do you do it?” This talk explores the origin of Christian worship in the Old Testament, showing that it was God who first asked us for worship and the essence of this worship was expressed through offering sacrifice. But what place does offering sacrifice have in worship today? Are there any “rules” for worship, or do we just make it up and do whatever we like? Understanding how we are in fact called to offer sacrifice is the key to understanding the Mass and…the meaning of life.

This talk was given to a group of Catholic students and permanent community from the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center in Lawrence, KS. The talk was a part of their new “Theology on Tap” series and was given at Old Chicago in Lawrence.

As the most holy Three Days of the year begin this evening, I offer the talk I gave last night to those preparing to become Catholic. The Triduum (Latin: three days) begins on the evening of Holy Thursday and ends on the evening of Easter Sunday. During this time we commemorate and experience again the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Obviously the three days on which these events took place mark the most important days of all history, and the most important days of the liturgical year.

This talk was given to highlight some of the spiritual insights to be found in the ritual texts, music, and actions of these days. I hope that you will find this reflection helpful in your own living out of these most holy days. I wish you a Blessed Triduum.

Talk 3

How?

“Today, they’re shocked when the shuttle doesn’t work every time, but they were always surprised when the Saturn V did.”
- Neil Armstrong

“Each of the components of our hardware were designed to certain reliability specifications, and far the majority, to my recollection, had a reliability requirement of 0.99996, which means that you have four failures in 100,000 operations. I’ve been told that if every component met its reliability specification precisely, that a typical Apollo flight would have about [1,000] separate identifiable failures. In fact, we had more like 150 failures per flight, better than statistical methods would tell you that you might have. I can only attribute that to the fact that every guy in the project, every guy at the bench building something, every assembler, every inspector, every guy that’s setting up the tests, cranking the torque wrench, and so on, is saying, man or woman, ‘If anything goes wrong here, it’s not going to be my fault, because my part is going to be better than I have to make it.’ …And that’s the only reason we could have pulled this whole thing off.”
- Neil Armstrong

“I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.”
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

“We stretch ourselves, and what we learn yields broad benefits.”
- Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator

“A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, ‘Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water.’”
- Matthew 17:14

Closing Thoughts

The journey to heaven is even more exciting than the journey to the moon. We need leaders who know where we’re going to inspire us. How well do you know God’s story? Are you prepared for the challenge?

The crew of Apollo 8 expected to find the moon. Instead they found the earth and, ultimately, God. Can you help your students to find God where they weren’t looking?

400,000 people worked on the Apollo program to make “one small step” possible. Do you recognize the importance of your role? Will you do your part?

Talk 2

Why?

The four “causes” of Aristotle
Material – what’s it made out of?
Formal – what is it?
Efficient – who made it?
Final – why?

“After all the training and studying we’d done as pilots and engineers to get to the moon safely and get back, and as human beings to explore moon orbit, what we really discovered was the planet Earth.”
- Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Astronaut

On Christmas Eve 1968 the crew of Apollo 8 was scheduled to do a live television broadcast from the moon. It would be watched by the largest television audience in history at that time. Mission Control reminded the crew of this fact and admonished them, “You better think of something good to say.” They chose to read the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis. Over 2 billion people, more than half of all people alive at the time watched.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, d“Let there be an expanse1 in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

“A merry Christmas and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
- Frank Borman, Apollo 8 Astronaut

“Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars.”
- St. Peter Chrysologus

“When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place— What is man that you are mindful of him, mortal men that you care for them? Yet you have made him little less than a god, crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field,the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatever swims the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!
- Psalm 8:4-10

Talk 1

Where?

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
- John F. Kennedy, Speech to Congress, 1961

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
- John F. Kennedy, Rice University, 1962

“What is the purpose of a newborn baby?”
- Werner von Braun, Rocket Scientist

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
- God , Jeremiah 1:5

“They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. However, the people who are living in the land are fierce, and the towns are fortified and very strong. Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites dwell in the highlands, and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.” Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said, “We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.” So they spread discouraging reports among the Israelites about the land they had scouted.”
- Numbers 13:27-32

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.”
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

“We’re on a mission from God.”
- Elwood Blues