+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+ 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+ Today is the last Monday in February and so this is Part 3 of our first Catholic Book of the Month—It Is Right and Just, by Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley. It’s also the last post for this book (in this series, anyway). Next Monday is the first Monday of the month, so it will be time for another post in the Re-Reading the New Age series. Let’s get to it. Notes and links will be at the end of the post.
Continue reading “Book of the Month, Feb 2021 – It Is Right and Just – Part 3”Want to do something special during this Year of Faith? Want to help bring souls to Christ? Join The Four Men Prayer Groups, also known as God’s Marines. This world is a battlefield between the forces of good and evil and God’s Marines pledge to leave no soul behind on that field. Watch the video below. Get more information and sign up today at The Four Men.
Just saw this on EWTN Live: the bishops of the USCCB have called for a simple novena, “Nine Days of Prayer, Penance and Pilgrimage” toward a culture of life. The novena will be from January 19-27, 2013. You can sign up for e-mail or text updates and get more information at the USCCB website. I think it’s a great idea. The battle we are in must be waged at the spiritual level and we need to pray together to defeat our common ancient enemy.
St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
God bless you.
Longer ago than I want to admit a reader emailed me a suggestion to add to the resource section of the blog. I didn’t forget about her suggestion, but life got crazy, all my projects have been needing my attention–and mostly not getting any attention at all–and illness of one kind or another got in the way, too. But tonight I finally began the page. Healing, Hope and Encouragement is now live on the site. It’s just a beginning but at least it has begun. My sincere thanks to the reader who sent the suggestion and my sincere apologies for taking so long. May something on the list help you or someone you know somehow somewhere sometime. And may the Lord richly bless you and yours now and always. Amen.
Healing, Hope and Encouragement is a new page in the resource section of the blog. Because we’re living in a fallen world and we’re all in need of healing and hope and no small amount of encouragement. God bless you!
Note: This post, originally written in 2012, is no less relevant now than it was then. If we put our hope in the fallen world and our fallen brothers and sisters in it, we are bound to be disappointed and worse. Politicians cannot save us.
“Put not your trust in princes: In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.” –Ps 146:2-3
“The world’s thy ship and not thy home.” –attributed to St. Thérèse of Lisieux
+JMJ+ Was I surprised by what happened on Election Day? Nope. Am I depressed or in deep despair over the results? No way. I saw it coming in 2008 and I saw it coming in 2012. Do I think we have a huge and serious problem? Oh, yeah, I do. But I think our problem stems more from the fact that we live in a fallen world and the fact that we are a stiff-necked people, much like the ancient Hebrews of the Bible, than the failing of one political party or another. No, the failure was ours. We the people. More particularly, we the Catholic people.
Continue reading “We had forgotten about spiritual warfare but we have now been reminded”(A post for the Year of Faith) Several people have asked this question: Why does the Year of Faith last 410 days instead of 365?
Answer: Part of being Catholic is learning to think with the mind of the Church. She thinks liturgically about time, which differs from the civil (as in secular, not as in polite) measuring of time. The Church measures time from one liturgical or spiritually or historically important event (historically important to the Church, that is) to another, not a mere length of 365 days that carries no meaning beyond the amount of time it takes the earth to revolve once around the sun.
Looking further I found this quote at Catholic Culture.
“The opening and closing dates of the Year of Faith carry special significance. October 11, 2012, will mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, and the Vatican notes that the special year should be “a propitious occasion to make Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church more widely and deeply known.” November 24, 2013, will be the feast of Christ the King, and the CDF underlines the importance of using the year to encourage Catholics to share the precious belief in Christ as the redeemer of the mankind.”
The dates of liturgical celebrations, even the release of documents, generally correspond to a significant date on the Church calendar or in her history. Look at a few encyclicals and other publications and you’ll see what I mean. For example, here’s what you’ll find at the end of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, the Gospel of Life:
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 25 March, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 1995, the seventeenth of my Pontificate.
Catholic Heart and Mind 