Yoga and Catholicism, Part 1

On August 3, 2021August 3, 2021 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

This is the introduction to a new set of posts I’ll be writing. I had begun researching yoga and Catholicism when other aspects of my life took precedence. I didn’t think I was ready to launch back into that study yet, but something has come up over on Twitter and I need to write a reply which is going to be longer than a Tweet (a lot longer). So I’ll write it in Scrivener, post it on the blog, and link to it on Twitter. It belongs with the series on the soul and you’ll see why I’m thinking about that as these posts continue. I’ll give it its own TOC, though, and call this one Series On the Soul, Volume 2.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 50 – Afterword

On December 31, 2020December 31, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 50 of our weekly series on the soul. We’re looking back at the series that began as a post for November, then became a series for the month, and finally ran weekly for several months. In this post I’ll highlight some of the ones that I think are most important in understanding what the Church teaches about the soul, and what some of the finest minds have thought about the soul, from the Biblical writers and others onward into our own day.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 48 – Christmas and Purgatory

On December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 48 of our weekly series on the soul. Just two more posts after this one in the series. November was the month devoted to the Holy Souls, but that’s not the only time we need to pray for them. I just discovered an article written in 2003 by an author I respect more and more: Christmas Seen As Best Time To Pray For Release Of The Holy Souls In Purgatory. After all, it’s the season of hope and for giving gifts. What better gift is there than the gift of release from Purgatory into Heaven? And all we have to do is pray for them. (Notes and links are at the end of this post.)

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 47 – Listening

On December 10, 2020December 11, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 47 of our weekly series on the soul. Just three more to go after tonight until we hit 50 posts in the series: one of those falls on Christmas Eve and another falls on New Year’s Eve. ([Yikes! I better start thinking about what to do for those right away.) We’ll be ending the series as we’ll be ending the year. I did not plan that and only just now realized it. Interesting. In the new year I’m going to work on some other stuff I’ve been thinking about. I may also begin posting once a week on the blog so I can work on the ebook project. We’ll see. As usual, there will be links and notes at the end of this post. Here goes, for tonight, as you can probably already tell, a bit of a ramble.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 46 – Gratitude

On December 3, 2020December 6, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, Series, ThoughtsLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 46 of our weekly series on the soul: a brief personal reflection on gratitude, or the lack thereof. I don’t know about you, but I feel like my soul is starving. I haven’t been able to see my friends or family. I mean, I haven’t been able to be with them. I’ve been busy with this and that and I haven’t had time for music. I don’t mean I haven’t had time to listen to music, I’ve done plenty of that. But I haven’t had time to sit down with a MIDI keyboard or guitar and play. Something always comes up that needs my attention and my time and I never get around to doing what I used to spend hours and hours doing every day: PLAY. You would think that a retired disabled person with no kids or job would have nothing but time on her hands and could play the guitar or anything she wants to, all day every day, but it hasn’t turned out that way.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 45 – Quo Vadis?

On November 19, 2020November 21, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 45 of our weekly series on the soul. I’ve been working on the Rosary ebooks project, and have spent so much time at the computer that I’ve had to rest my eyes today. They’re not only dry, they hurt. So this may be the shortest post in the series tonight because I’m just going to share a video with you, one that I find to be downright prophetic. I’ll close my eyes and listen to it with you. And I hope to be back with you soon.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 43 – Material, Immaterial or Both?

On November 5, 2020November 5, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 43 of our weekly series on the soul. I may stop this series at part 50 so I can focus on another series. So let’s dig into the book, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting. We talked about the Hebrew words and concepts of nephesh and ruach last time. They make an appearance this week, too, as Dr. Cooper reminds us that ancient Hebrew anthropology is not exactly the same as our modern anthropology, or exactly like the ancient Christian one, either. And we have to watch out so that we are not guilty of reading notions into the text that simply are not there. I’m going to backtrack a little before going to the next chapter, and let Dr. Cooper talk more about holism, monism and the Old Testament.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 42 – The Afterlife According to the Bible

On October 29, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, Series4 Comments

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 42 of our weekly series on the soul just in time for All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days. I’ve been reading Dr. John W. Cooper’s book, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting. The main reason I’m reading it is that so many non-Catholic Christians have rejected the Christian teachings on the afterlife, handed on from the beginning, with some rejecting the idea of the immortal soul. In fact, there’s a heated debate going on about what the soul is and whether or not it even exists. But as the author says in the preface to the second printing (page xv),

“The book makes the case that as Holy Scripture progressively discloses what happens to humans when they die, it teaches not only that each of us will undergo bodily resurrection, but that believers continue to exist ‘with the Lord’ until the resurrection.”

Since the battlecry of the Reformation was sola scriptura, it’s seems odd that the descendants of the Reformers would reject such an important teaching of Scripture. I guess “Scripture alone” doesn’t mean the same thing as “All of the Scriptures” or “Everything the Scriptures teach” but I digress. Notes and links will be at the end of this post.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 41 – Doctor of the Soul

On October 15, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 41 of our weekly series on the soul. I couldn’t let today go by without a special something for the saint whose name I had chosen but, sadly, never got to give as my confirmation name (that part was skipped over for some reason): Saint Teresa of Avila, or, more properly, Saint Teresa de Jesus. Even more properly: Santa Madre Teresa de Jesus. (I’ve actually practiced saying that for years and if I could roll my r’s, I think it would sound pretty convincing, but I cain’t, so it dudden.) So I’ll post the next part of Body, Soul, and the Life Everlasting next week and share these three talks about Saint Teresa, Doctor of the Church and of the Soul, with you tonight. (I think we’ll have to explore some of St. Teresa’s writings at some point, don’t you?)

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 40 – Body and Soul

On October 8, 2020October 8, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 40 of our weekly series on the soul. I’m preparing a post about Dr. John W. Cooper’s book that I’ve already mentioned in this series a few times, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate. It’s not a purely academic presentation of the subject but is written so that a layperson can read it and learn from it (thank goodness!). Basically, the premise is that there are those today who deny that humans are a union of body and soul, and some of those who deny it are Christians. In his book Cooper goes from the Old Testament through the New and shows that not only did the Old Testament Hebrew people and writers believe in the soul’s existence after bodily death, but that they came to believe in the resurrection, too, before the time of the New Testament. And he looks at contemporary studies and research, too. And what he finds is that the Biblical view of the body-soul union stands up to the supposed invalidating findings of the modern critics.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 39 – Where did my soul go

On October 1, 2020October 1, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

Oh, where, oh, where did my little soul go?
Oh, where, oh, where can it be?
I don’t know how I lost my soul.
Seems someone stole it from me.

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 39 of our weekly series on the soul. I’ve mentioned before the books I’m reading (well, some of them, it’s a pretty long list) and tonight I found a video (see below) by one of the authors: John W. Cooper, author of Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting. He’s not Catholic, he’s Reformed, and Professor of Philosophical Theology, Calvin Theological Seminary. Now, I don’t usually read much about the Bible and/or theology that isn’t Catholic, but he doesn’t think the idea of the human soul is old-fashioned and ready to be consigned to the dung heap, unlike so many in the modern world, and I’m happy to use his book in our series. It’s inexpensive on Kindle and you can get a free sample if you like using the links at the end of this post.

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Weekly Series on the Soul, Part 38 – In a Time of Turmoil

On September 24, 2020 By Lee (@disciple96)In On the Soul, SeriesLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to part 38 of our weekly series on the soul. It’s not absolutely necessary to read all of the previous posts in the series, though it’s a good idea to get around to reading the first five (annotated Table of Contents). Tonight I’m sharing info about two books and one dissertation, and also sharing some videos on the soul, and growing in a time of turmoil.

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