Adult Faith Education Series  

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Richard Bastien  -  The Issue Of God Today
Michael Coren  -  Why Catholics Are Right
Fr. Martin Farrell  -  Living Out The Faith
Ian Hunter  -  Upon This Rock:  Reflections of a Recent Convert
Dr. Tim Lau  -  Recapturing Reason
Dr. Tim Lau  -  The God Delusion and Other Errors in Logic
Dr. Tim Lau  -  Why I Became Catholic:  Swimming Against The Tide
Dr. William Sweet  -  Catholic Education Quo Vadis? Present Problems Future Hope
David Warren  -  Christ the King

Living Out The Faith
practical considerations
Fr. Martin Farrell

On May 13th - May 16th, Fr. Martin Farrell, friar and professor of Theology at the Dominican College, gave a presentation at Saint Patrick's Basilica on topics related to the nature of faith, how faith is perceived today by the secular culture, and addressing challenging issues and practical considerations for living our faith.

Below are recordings from the four evenings:

An animated, capacity crowd gathered early on the evening of Saturday February 11th at Saint Patrick's Basilica's "Scavi", drawn there by the promise of a lively talk from author, broadcaster and journalist - and convert, Michael Coren.

His audience were not disappointed. Mr. Coren, a lucid and compelling speaker, gave an overview of the modern arguments against the Church. These are arguments that faithful Catholics encounter daily, but which the Church has encountered from the first centuries. Mr. Coren deftly put those arguments - prejudices, really - into the dustbin where they belong.

Candidly admitting that members of the Church are themselves sinful and prone to error, he made the case that the Church herself remains the beacon of reason and sanctity in a world of historical amnesia and intellectual credulity.

Dr. Lau is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, a Psychiatrist, husband and father of 5. He is the Director of the Undergraduate Program for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa. For four years, he and his wife Amy were responsible for the Adult Faith Program at Annunciation of the Lord Parish in Ottawa. He has given talks at other parishes and Universities in the area of Faith, Ethics and Medicine. He has been a regular contributor to Marriage Preparation Course at St. Patrick's for a number of years. Dr Lau is also the vice-chair of the Ottawa Catholic Physicians Guild and the President of the newly formed Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians' Societies.

Our lives can be seen as the answers to the questions we ask. What do you want? Where are you going? What makes you happy? What matters to you? We all live busy lives and can get caught up in our own worlds. Do we stop to ask ourselves are we asking the right questions? As the great Yogi Berra once said, "It is hard to get some place when you don't know where you are going".

Have we forgotten the simple truth passed on to us that each of us is a child of God? Are we like the people who watched Jesus pass them by with his cross on the road to Calvary? Your cross? My cross? Do we pick ours up and join him? Or do we go just go through the motions, not just at Mass, but in our daily lives and not see God reaching out to us?

As GK Chesterton once said, "When people stop believing in God they don't just believe in nothing, they believe in anything." Do you have family or loved ones who have stopped coming to Church? Have they forgotten where they come from and where they are going? Do you find you are at a loss for words when they have hard questions about the faith that is in you? Have they fallen for the errors in logic of Dawkins, Dan Brown, Carl Jung or the New Age Movement? In this series we will discuss the timeless truths of our Catholic faith which have been handed down to us from the being who entered history and revealed how God connects himself to his creation forever, in the family of God.

Session 1 - "Know thyself" or "I"   A download mp3 files A , B Session 2 - "I believe"   A download mp3 files A , B Session 3 - "God the Father"   A download mp3 files A , B Session 4 - "Creation and Man"   A download mp3 files A , B Session 5 - "Jesus Christ"   A  B download mp3 files A , B  (1 hr 45 min) Session 6 - "Holy Spirit"   A  B download mp3 files A , B  (2 hrs) Session 7 - "Forgiveness Of Sins"   A  B download mp3 files A , B  (1 hr 40 min) Please note that the mp3 of each session is divided into A and B to decrease the size of each file.

Select a session and click the play button to listen online to Dr. Tim Lau.

On Saturday, March 13, 2010, at Saint Patrick's Basilica, Dr. Ian Hunter, Professor emeritus, University of Western Ontario and President, Hunter Arbitration/Mediation Services, spoke to a gathering of about 112 listeners. His topic was UPON THIS ROCK: Reflections of a Recent Convert.

In an engaging manner, Dr. Hunter offered his personal observations. He himself came from an evangelical Protestantism that considered Catholicism an abomination. Dr. Hunter passed from this through Anglicanism to an acceptance, at age 61, of the Catholic Faith.

As with every person entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, culture shock awaited Dr. Hunter. In this talk, he gives his listeners an opportunity to hear something of what faced him as he made the transition into the life of his local parish.

On November 24th, 2009, Richard Bastien delivered an enlightening lecture entitled The Issue of God Today at the Theology on Tap lecture series. It dealt with Fideism, Modernism, Postmodernism and Catholicism. Mr. Bastien shows how each of them has developed on the basis of a particular understanding of the role of faith and reason in the quest for truth. More specifically, he argued that these worldviews are mutually exclusive and that each of us is bound to make a choice between Mohammed, Descartes, Nietzsche and Benedict XVI.

To listen to this compelling talk, click on LECTURE.
To listen to the "questions and answers" which followed the lecture, click on Q's & A's.
To read the text of his lecture, click on The Issue of God Today

On Liberalism

Mr. Bastien also wrote a related paper on Liberalism. It defines the Zeitgeist of the last half century and will likely continue its triumphant march over the foreseeable future. It permeates all our institutions - our schools, our colleges and universities, our governments, our judicial system, including human rights tribunals, and even our churches. It is thus important to understand where this ideology came from and how it works.
To read it, click on Liberalism in a Postmodern Age.

Professor Sweet delivered the second talk in the 2009-2010 Adult Faith Education Series at Saint Patrick's Basilica. He spoke on Monday evening, October 26, 2009, for about three quarters of an hour, reviewing the aim and purpose of education, as understood by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, making reference to papal documents as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Church's Code of Canon Law. He stressed that the present difficulties in institutions of Catholic education developed over many years and they will not be quickly nor easily corrected. He also stressed that improvement will require concerted work from parents, educators, and clergy working toward a common vision of the whole human person.

Journalist David Warren began Saint Patrick's Basilica Adult Faith Education Series for 2009-2010. Mr. Warren's topic was CHRIST THE KING: How being Catholic is about Restoring Civilization. He spoke on September 19, 2009, developing the theme that all true culture is animated by the Catholic Faith, for the simple reason that the Catholic Faith is the truth about reality. The Church teaches the Truth and this Truth has acted in human life even before the Incarnation, for God is One. From the instant of the "Big Bang" until now, as Mr. Warren noted, history is understood by "asserting that the Catholic Christian account, of God, man, and the universe, is the correct one, and that the guiding principle of heroic action, which is never to deny Christ, should be obeyed."

David ended his presentation by giving ten practical suggestions on how to advance the Kingdom of Christ in this world which was published in the Ottawa Citizen.

Dr. Lau is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, a Psychiatrist, husband and father of 5. For the past four yours, he and his wife Amy have been responsible for the Adult Faith Program at Annunciation of the Lord Parish in Ottawa. In addition, they had leadership roles in other Parish activities. Dr Lau is also the vice-chair of the Ottawa Catholic Physicians Guild and the Interim President of the newly formed Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies.

With the rise of militant Atheism in the last few years, Dr Lau’s lecture series comes at a very opportune time. He illustrates the limitations of the scientific/reductionist approach in explaining reality, and makes rational arguments as to why an all-powerful and all-knowing God makes sense. This series will provide believing Christians clear reasons to refute the rhetoric of modern Atheists.

Session 1 - A Rational God    download mp3 Reasonable arguments for God’s existence Session 2 - Descent Of Man    download mp3 Atheism as irrational and dehumanizing Session 3 - Elevation Of Man    download mp3 Faith and God, a family affair. A God different than any other.

Select a session and click the play button to listen online to Dr. Tim Lau.

As G.K. Chesterton once said "only live fish can swim against the current." (or go against the flow). The world is clearly going in a different direction than the Church and God in an increasingly fast way. After going the wrong way for so long, my eyes eventually opened over the course of several years of searching and finding what the heart truly desires.

Read the text of his presentation: Swimming Against the Tide
Click the play button to listen online to to Dr. Lau's compelling talk.  download mp3

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