Tag: Bible

It’s about transformation

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Series, What is ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ (Our loosely themed Catholicism 101 or What is Christinity series continues.) A Christian anthropology: what would that mean? Christianity does have a certain way of looking at man, at God, at the world, at reality. It is more than a way of looking but, yes, it is a way of looking. It’s a way of describing what reality is. And it is more than describing it. We describe it to think about it and to tell others about it, but we also describe it so we can do something with it or about it in an interior and an exterior way. 

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I am a soul who has a body, oh, really?

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Series, What is ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ (We’re continuing our series What is Christianity? or Catholicism 101.) How many times have you heard someone say it? “I am a soul, I have a body.” That’s not what the Church teaches. Think it doesn’t matter? Oh, but it does. If you think you are a soul who has a body, then you probably think your soul is the more important of the two and that the body is somehow second rate. There is a sense in which this is true. After all, the soul can live without the body, but the body can’t live without the soul. But without the body you would be incomplete. A human person consists of a soul and a body. A better way of saying that would be, a human person is a union of body and soul. *I like to say the words together, well, as close together as I can say them, bodysoul or soulbody. I just can’t seem to say them at the same time. We humans are limited that way, one thing after another, one thing at a time.)

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Prelude to Nicaea

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Series, What is ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome! This is the seventh post in a continuing series about Christianity. We’ve been talking about how helpful philosophy is when trying to understand Christianity. This week we’ll talk about how important philsophy has been in Christianity, particularly in the early years of its history and formation. But I’m going to step back and let someone else do the talking, someone I stumbled onto many years ago, and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to him as much as I do. 

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Is good good enough?

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Catholic ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ (This is part 5 of an ongoing series on Christianity.) “Just be Good for Goodness’ Sake.” You probably saw those signs a few years ago. It was an ad campaign by a group implying that we can be good without religion. But can we? And is it enough to be good? What is good or goodness? We use these words all the time but we rarely explain what we mean when we speak of them.

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Octave of Christian Unity – Vine and branch

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Catholic Doctrine, Christian unityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Welcome to Day 2 of a special series of posts for the Octave of Christian Unity.  I’m using one of my favorite meditation starters, In Conversation with God (ICWG hereafter), a seven-volume set published by Scepter, written by Fr. Francis Fernandez Carvajal. I’ve used it for years and it never gets old. As always, you’ll find notes and links at the end of this post.

The first image Fr. Carvajal mentions in this day’s meditation is the image of the Vine and the branches. He says that there was a sculpture of an immense golden vine in the vestibule of the Temple. So Jesus here is using an image familiar to His disciples. If the branches remain on the vine, they thrive. But if they are removed, they dry up and wither. (ICWG, vol. 6, p. 27.)

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

On 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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Religious leaders leading others, but not to religion

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Morality, Pro-life2 Comments

This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve read lately.

Scripture neither condemns nor prohibits abortion. It does, however, call us to act compassionately and justly when facing difficult moral decisions. Scriptural commitment to the most marginalized means that pregnancy, childbearing, and abortion should be safe for all women. Continue reading “Religious leaders leading others, but not to religion” →

Religiosity, who needs it?

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Baptism, Bible study, Catholic Doctrine, Sacraments, Words and MeaningsLeave a comment

I guess I’m going to have to start a new category for the blog. The “things I hear people say that blow me away” category. The other day the thing that blew me away was having a Christian tell me that, not only was the Bible just a book written by men, but it is also based on dreams. :O Today I was listening to Catholic radio and I heard a gentleman caller tell the hosts of the show that he doesn’t understand why his wife, who is not Catholic, cannot receive Holy Communion at Mass (which I will address in a separate post), and (it gets worse) now he doesn’t think he needs “religiosity” (or the Church or anything else) based upon the words of the Lord Himself in His conversation with the centurion. Continue reading “Religiosity, who needs it?” →

Just a book written by men, huh?

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Catechesis2 Comments

Over the last few weeks I’ve had some interesting conversations with fellow believers. At least, I thought they were fellow believers…until we had these conversations. I have among my many friends two women who grew up in different states, coming from different backgrounds, one black, one white, both Baptist. The black friend has never shown any animosity toward me for my being Catholic. I can’t say the same for my white friend, who takes a sort of fiendish pleasure at making as many digs at me as she can about the Church every time we meet. Continue reading “Just a book written by men, huh?” →

The Bible says nothing about abortion, oh really?

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Bible study, Pro-life11 Comments

The other day someone actually tried to tell me that the Bible only mentions the killing of a child in the womb one time, so the Bible isn’t really against abortion. Good grief. Of course, this same person also tried to tell me that he knew all about Catholicism and the Catholic Church, even though he left that Church as a kid. Judging from our talk, he stopped believing in God and the Church at about the same time he stopped believing in Santa Claus. Continue reading “The Bible says nothing about abortion, oh really?” →

Why do Catholics…

On By Lee (@disciple96)In Catholic ChristianityLeave a comment

When people discover I’m Catholic, certain questions tend to come up time and time again. Below I’ve listed four that I hear most often, followed by a brief reflection. Continue reading “Why do Catholics…” →