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26 Discussion Topics for Parish Life
Life After Sunday is Lumen's own catechetical project
for parish life, a series of 8-page issues focused on the deepest
desires of the human heart. With themes like Freedom,
Security, Risk and
Passion, each single issue of Life
After Sunday shows how life with Christ in the Church leads
the human person to the fulfillment of his or her destiny.
NEW! While we are pleased to offer Life After Sunday
as a gift that can be downloaded for personal reflection or
small group discussion, we ask that parishes contact
us directly for permission to reproduce multiple copies.
The following themes are available for download:
Assent, Attention,
Beauty, Body, Dance,
Destiny, Follow,
Freedom, Fulfillment,
Future, Gift, Kiss,
Mission, Mystery,
New, Open, Passion,
Power, Presence,
Risk, Security,
Surrender, Touch,
Trust, Union, Wonder
Life After Sunday Single Issues can be downloaded
in electronic (PDF) format. These require Adobe Acrobat Reader,
which can be downloaded free from Adobe. |
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|  Assent
The assent of the Blessed Mother was the "yes" of
a woman in love. So often our assent to a life with Christ in
the Church is portrayed as sacrificial duty. The Blessed Mother
shows that the life we are called to is a "love affair"
with this One who is constantly revealing the depth of the Mystery
in our own time, in our own circumstances. As the first disciple
of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Mother was the first true steward.
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|  Attention
We often pay the most attention to the people or things we think
can bring us the most fulfillment. It is no different in a relationship
with Christ. If we have become more open, we will start paying
more attention to his life. We will show more interest in prayer,
the sacraments and the life of the Church. At the same time,
we also will begin to recognize places in our hearts and lives
where the Lord's love is missing due to our own lack of attention.
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|  Beauty
The Church sees the Lord's beauty in every aspect of human life.
The culture increasingly focuses on the grotesque, hopeless
and chaotic, in an effort to discover the "real world."
True lovers of Jesus Christ do not shirk from the world as they
find it. Instead, they steward the beauty of the Lord's living
Presence, bringing his redemptive life and love into their homes,
parishes and neighborhoods.
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|  Body
In the culture, the body is often shown as disconnected from
the soul, a "power tool" to get what you want. The
Church sees the beauty, glory and dignity of the human body
and therefore, can never stop insisting that the body be loved
and treasured from the moment of conception until the moment
of natural death. As "enfleshed souls," our bodies
bring our earthly life to its fulfillment.
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|  Dance
Some people allow life's troubles and worries to dampen and
even wipe out all of their joy. Those who passionately love
Jesus Christ see his Presence in the people, events and circumstances
around them. They see their whole lives as an amazing dance
with this One they love. Therefore, they can enter the fullness
of life with enthusiasm and great joy.
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|  Destiny
The destiny of each human person is a life of eternal love and
happiness in communion with the Holy Trinity. This Triune "communion
of persons" makes God's inner life known to us through
the divine Presence of Jesus Christ, living in our finite world.
Once we have recognized the glorious destiny planned for each
one of us, every event and circumstance of our lives takes on
its fullest, deepest meaning. Because we know our destiny, we
can live in peace.
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|  Follow
The people and events that attract us are those that are most
closely linked to the core of our being. Someone appears or
an event takes place that makes us feel like we are fully alive,
restored to value, recognized and loved for our truest selves.
This is what it means to follow Jesus Christ. We follow him…because
we desire to know more, to experience more, to be more. This
following is neither enslavement nor sacrificial duty. Rather,
it takes place in perfect freedom because it is a following
of the infinite human desire for fulfillment and love.
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|  Freedom
The culture proposes a freedom from the "restraint"
of others in order to pursue a fully, human life. The Church
proposes freedom "for others" by first linking ourselves
to a divine Presence outside of this finite world. Only then
can we be fully free from fear, loneliness, insecurity and want.
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|  Fulfillment
The culture offers "things" to fill our empty hearts.
But somehow we always seem to need more. Ultimately, our hearts'
greatest desires cannot be fulfilled by some thing, but only
by Someone. Jesus Christ fills our emptiness with the fullness
of divine life and love found in his Body, the Church.
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|  Future
At the start of the new millennium, people are fixated on what
the future holds for human persons. How will we steward our
gifts? The culture tells us that anything is possible, that
we are masters of the universe. Yet, any proposal that does
not take the fullness of human union in Jesus Christ into consideration
can never make us feel hopeful and secure about what lies ahead.
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|  Gift
Every aspect of our lives is gift. Every person we come into
contact with is gift. Yet, the culture often portrays gifts
as burdens or impositions that threaten our freedom or way of
life. Perhaps it is something that is someone else's "taste"
but not for us. The Lord's gifts (people, children, resources,
talents, circumstances and events) are all given with love-with
our personal best interests at heart. Our life with Christ in
his Church calls us to steward the entire gift of our lives
by offering ourselves completely to others through him.
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|  Kiss
Every human person longs to be deeply loved and unconditionally
accepted for life by another. In fact, the longing for this
kind of intimate companionship is such a deep desire of the
human heart that its fulfillment profoundly affects the way
we live as men and women. The Lord who created us knows we cannot
flourish without being kissed with this kind of intimacy-no
matter what our vocation in life. Through his living Presence
in the Church, Christ offers himself as the path to divine intimacy.
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|  Mission
Each disciple has been assigned a mission. Yet, many Catholics
disconnect this "mission" from their daily lives,
seeing it merely as acts of religiosity. The Lord asks us to
bring his Presence to the people he has put in our path. In
this way, he introduces himself through the very concrete events,
conversations and witness of our lives. The life of a steward
is the life of mission.
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|  Mystery
Through the triumph of intelligence and science, the culture
gives the impression that there are no mysteries - at least
none that won't eventually be explained or figured out. The
Church stands in awe before the ultimate Mystery, a God who
became flesh and continues to be present in every time and place.
The laws of human nature are intrinsically caught up in the
divine mysterious life of the Holy Trinity. This Mystery is
always exciting and new. It's boundlessness keeps us intrigued
and in awe. As the Lord begins to reveal his life and love to
us personally, we realize there is always more. We become "stewards
of this Mystery" when we point the way of this boundless
life and love to others.
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|  New
The culture tells us that there is "nothing new under the
sun." The Church offers the newness of Jesus Christ, truly
present among us. United with his divine Presence, we can bring
a "newness" into the world through the work of the
Holy Spirit. This "new" life can transform even the
hardest hearts, allowing us to begin our eternal life here and
now.
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|  Open
It is difficult to experience the Lord's Presence in our lives
unless we live with a wide, open posture. Even Catholics can
become closed up in an ideology that cuts off any access to
divine life. The life of a Christian is a life that is open
to the other in love.
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|  Passion
The culture offers a passionate life that goes beyond all boundaries-and
then cannot propose a way to get there. The Church offers the
Way. Only in Christ can we understand the fullness of human
passion for the other. Through his sacrifice at Calvary experienced
at Mass each Sunday, Christ shows how a passion for the Father's
will is the only passion that will fulfill all of our heart's
desires.
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|  Power
In the culture, those who have the most "power" are
those who can use their influence, money, intelligence, etc.,
to create their own domain. Instead, the Church offers a complete
humility-and from that stance flows a power linked to the One
who has created everything. This power is boundless, and always
based on the Father's will to transform our lives. By linking
ourselves to this One, we tap into the power of the cosmos!
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|  Presence
Although the culture often acknowledges the idea of God, many
people miss recognizing his real, living Presence in their everyday
lives. In the heart of the Church dwells a Presence who can
be known, a Presence who is passionately in love with each one
of us.
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|  Risk
The Father took a tremendous risk when he made a world that
was "not God" out of sheer love for his Son. After
the Fall, he risked everything by sending Jesus Christ to redeem
human life. The Lord understands the fullness of our risk to
give everything we are and have back to him-because he took
this risk first.
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|  Security
The culture offers money, insurance and other material "safeguards"
to help us live with a sense of security. But, the ultimate
insecurity-death and extinction-still strikes fear in every
human heart. The Church offers the eternal security of the One
who has conquered death, Jesus Christ, in the loving embrace
of his Body, the Church.
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|  Surrender
The Lord's surrender on the Cross to the will of the Father
is the path that each of us must take to an extraordinary, fully
human life. The culture cautions us against surrendering in
love to another person. The Church proposes a surrender to love
that is complete, in a union that knows no bounds.
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|  Touch
While the culture often expresses the longing for fully human
touch, touching is usually presented merely as a surface function
of the body. With little consideration for the rest of the human
person, the world's solution is either hands off (to the point
of dismissal) or hands all over! Every human person has a deep
interior longing to touch and be touched. When we allow Christ
to live in us, we can touch the people we encounter in the way
he wants us to touch them-with a profound truth, a tender compassion
and a perfect, unchanging love. This is the most satisfying
touch of human life.
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|  Trust
Who do you trust? The culture or the Church? Many Catholics
go to Mass on Sunday and then follow the "Catechism of
the Washington Post" during the rest of the week. The Church
invites us to entrust ourselves to the One who created us for
a life of eternal love with him.
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 Union
Unlike bodily human union where the two eventually separate
again, the Lord does not separate from us. He is eternally present,
interiorly with us at every moment. No sorrow, no tragedy or
death will be encountered without him. The fruits of this union
are inner peace, security, freedom and fulfillment. Everything
in our lives is new. In union with the Father and Son through
the work of the Spirit, we begin our eternal life of love here
and now.
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|  Wonder
The very first human response to the appearance of the divine
is wonder and awe. Yet the rampant cynicism and despair of the
culture can cause us to delete this wonder the moment it is
experienced. The Church helps us recognize the full wonder and
awe of the Presence of her Lord in the people, events and circumstances
of our lives.
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How
are Life After Sunday Issues Organized?
Each 8-page issue of Life After Sunday explores a theme
that speaks to the heart, no matter what a person’s situation
or circumstances. With themes like Freedom, Security, Beauty
and Power (to name a few), each single issue of Life After
Sunday shows how a life with Jesus Christ in the Church
leads the human person to the fulfillment of his or her destiny.
- Life with Jesus - This two-page opening article
is a personal living witness of life with Christ in the Church,
showing how the theme is presented in the culture, but can
only find its fulfillment in Him.
- Life on Sunday - The second article makes
the link between the theme and the liturgies of the Word and
Eucharist on Sunday.
- Life in the Home - These two articles in the
centerfold of each issue show how life with Christ is lived
practically in the places where we live, through the people
He has placed in our lives.
- Life in the Parish - This article shows how
we steward our life with Christ in the community of the local
Church where He is present.
- Life in the World - The final article is
a reflection on how we are called to bring our life with Christ
into our neighborhoods, communities and workplaces.
- Additional Features - Each issue also features
Discussion Questions and often, a Reflection by
Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, theological advisor to Life After
Sunday and co-founder of Lumen Catechetical Consultants,
Inc.
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