+JMJ+ (We’re continuing our series on Catholicism 101 or What is Christianity.) People have said to me, people who should know better, but the secular world has gotten to them and their minds have been affected and they have said things like, “I understand why you need religion, it gives you comfort.”
Continue reading “It’s not about comfort”
+JMJ+ (This week our informal series, What is Christianity, continues.) I wear glassess. When I was younger, before the days of plastic lighter weight lenses, I wore thick glass glasses. They were heavy, too. But without them I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. My third-grade teacher had observed that I couldn’t see the chalkboard at school so I had to move my desk right up next to the board when an assignment required reading it. That was embarrassing. But that same teacher told my parents about my poor vision and that’s how I got my first pair of glasses. What a difference they made. And not just in the classroom. I was amazed at all the things I could see now. Is this the way it had been all this time? I never knew!
Continue reading “I can see clearly now”
+JMJ+ We’re continuing our What is Christianity series tonight. I’ve shared some lectures with you and some thoughts of my own. Tonight there’s no lecture and no me trying to be a philosopher. Tonight I’m sharing a memory with you and then sharing something beautiful with you, at least, I hope you find it as beautiful as I did and do.
If you’ve been Catholic for a while, you’ve probably taken part in the Friday devotions of Lent and I don’t mean just the fish fry dinners. I mean the Stations of the Cross, reading the words in one of those little booklets, turning to face each station on the wall.
Continue reading “The Stations of the Cross”
+JMJ+ It’s Lent, the season of suffering, one could say, and it seems like a good time to mention this in our ongoing Catholic Christianity 101 or What is Christianity series. This one is more, perhaps, about how to be a Christian and less about what Christianity is, but I’m going for it anyway. I know it will contradict what a whole lot of people say—people who should know better but have forgotten or never knew—but Christ did not suffer so that we don’t have to. He suffered so that we could learn how to suffer. More, so that we could suffer and unite our suffering to His redemptive suffering. So we could offer our suffering for the benefit of others. That they may be healed physically, well, yes, if the Lord wills that. But mostly so that they, and we, may be united to Him, now, in this life, and in the next.
Continue reading “Christ didn’t suffer so that we don’t have to”
+JMJ+ Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, falls on St. Valentine’s Day this year and what that says to me is this: Lent is all about Love and Love is all about letting go of everything that stands between the Lover and the Beloved. Prefer nothing to Christ, as St. Benedict would say (Rule of Benedict, 4:21). Lent is the perfect time to turn away from the things of this world and focus on His Kingdom which is not of this world, to focus on the things that truly matter. The day is already late and the time to begin, or to begin again, is now.
Continue reading “Chalcedon: Humanity or Divinity?”
+JMJ+ Welcome! This is the eighth post in a continuing series about Christianity. We’ve talked about how helpful philosophy is when trying to understand Christianity and we began looking at how the Early Church Fathers used philosophy to help them think about the faith, and to steer them clear of some really bad ideas that would have dire consequences if not met and stamped out right then and there. But some of those ideas never were completely stamped out and we’re dealing with them in our societies today. I’m going to post the next lecture links in this post, then I’ll point out some things about last week’s lecture. I suppose that means I’ll write about this lecture in next week’s post. You’re used to my ways by now, right? ;)
Continue reading “Road to Nicaea continues”
+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.
Continue reading “Prelude to Nicaea”
+JMJ+ Somebody reading this series (if somebody is reading this series) is probably saying right about now, “But what about Christianity? When are you going to get to that? Why talk about good and goodness? Get on with it already!” Listen, there are some things we need to understand before we get into Christianity itself. And if we just start throwing terms around without defining them or attempting to understand them, we could end up discussing something but it might not be Christianity and that would be not merely a waste of time, it could be downright injurious to souls. God gave us faith and reason and we need both if we’re going to understand what we’re doing, what we’re supposed to be doing, where we came from, where we’re headed, and how best to get there.
Continue reading “Who needs philosophy?”
+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.
Continue reading “Is good good enough?”
+JMJ+ I was thinking about some things I heard people say about Christianity and was making some notes and poof! My notes turned into a blog post right before my eyes. It was a thing of, well, if not beauty, then, at least, good timing! [Edit: What began as a one-off post is now a series. Navigation to this new ongoing series is also at the end of this post.]
Continue reading “Is Christianity really just a book and some beliefs? “
In honor of the International Day of Yoga I assumed one pose and that was: curled up on the couch with Miss Lucy Dawg, surfing the web, researching yoga for something I want to write and to further my understanding. I’m not ready to write in depth about it yet, but as a former new ager and one who studied yoga longer than I practiced the asanas, I’ll go on record to say, as I’ve said many times before: Yoga is emphatically NOT compatible with any form of real Christianity. Sure, you’ll find lots of Christians who will argue that it is compatible, and you’ll find yoga and other forms of occultism offered in many ostensibly Christian places by many people who are ostensibly Christian, even in religious houses where people are ostensibly consecrated to the Christian religious life.
Continue reading “For the International Day of Yoga I Assumed One Pose”Been a long time since I’ve posted here. Yes, I’m still alive. Yes, the blog is still alive. In my mind, anyway, even if I haven’t posted in a while. A death in the family and tending to family matters left me with not much time or energy for writing here or anywhere else. But things are getting better and I hope to be back to at least semi-regular writing and blogging soon.
In the meantime tomorrow is a very special day for me: the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary. If you aren’t familiar with the story of the Battle of Lepanto and the role of the rosary and the Blessed Virgin Mary in that battle, you can read more here and here.
Thank you for reading. I hope you’ll enjoy your visit. God bless you! :)
Catholic Heart and Mind 