Friday Frivolity: Joy To The World!
Spread the joy!
Month: December 2010
Which father are you?
A few years ago, even before I even really knew the Early Church Fathers, I took the quiz “Which Church Father Are You?“. I took it again yesterday and got the same answer I got the first time around:
“You’re Origen. You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears”
Sounds about right 🙂
If you take the test, please leave a note in the comments below with your result…
Servant Leadership
The notion of leadership recently came up in discussion and the question was asked: What qualities make for a good leader?
If you go into a secular bookshop today you will find a large number of books which attempt to explain what it is you have to do in order to become a great leader.
In recent years, Christian bookshop shelves too have started to be filled with an increasingly large number of books which try to turn their readers into leaders by explaining the “eight key leadership principles” or the “five simple steps”, etc.
Like Father, Like Son…
The first passage of Scripture which comes to my mind when someone mentions to me the word “leadership” is from the Old Testament book of 1st Kings. In this passage, King Solomon has just died and his son Rehoboam has ascended to the Throne of David.
Friday Frivolity: Happy Hanukkah
Yesterday was the end of the Hanukkah/Chanukah, the eight-day Jewish “Festival of Lights” which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt. I thought it therefore appropriate to share with you this little gem for this week’s Friday Frivolity:
Thanks Wallmart…
Early Church Fathers, Love & Romance
Yesterday’s post was rather long, so I’ll keep this one nice and short.
After the Office Christmas Party this weekend one of my coworkers, Kevin, and his girlfriend got engaged. This put me in mind of two of my favourite quotations from the Early Church Fathers on the subject of love and marriage.
As I think I’ve said before, one of the things which constantly surprises me is that, although these men lived so long ago, they have so much wisdom from which today’s world could benefit.
The first quotation comes from a priest of the late 4th Century called John. His preaching was so renowned, he acquired the name “golden mouth” or in Greek “chrysostomos”. He is most commonly referred to as St. John Chrysostom. He is one of the few to be declared a “Doctor of the Church”, a greatly deserved title.
“An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love” – St. John Chrysostom
Beautiful, isn’t it? Superb advice – you’d never guess he was a celibate priest… 😉
Daughters Of The King
The regularity of my posts in recent times has been pretty lamentable, but at least I can now finally explain why. Much of my time over the last couple of months has been taken up with preparations for “Daughters Of The King”…
Genesis
The whole idea began back in August at Dan’s bachelor weekend. Together with eight other guys, I spent the weekend hiking and camping a few hour’s drive from San Diego. While we were catching our breath halfway up a mountain, one of our number, Mike, shared with us an idea he had…
Mike wanted to put together some sort of event for all the ladies in our lives: friends, girlfriends, wives, sisters and mothers. He wanted an evening for the guys to gather together specifically to honour all of the ladies. Quite an extraordinary idea to come out of a bachelor weekend, hey?
Planning
Towards the end of September we began preparations. I sent out an email to all the men on the JP2 mailing list, inviting them to join us in this unique enterprise. Twenty men stepped up to the challenge…
We initially met at my apartment, drank some beer and discussed what kind of event we might organize. We were not short of ideas! (In later meetings we would institute the “Don’t suggest an idea unless you’re willing to take it on yourself” rule!) After much discussion, the idea we settled upon was to throw a classy gala evening in the parish hall of Our Lady of the Rosary. We decided that the event would be completely free to the ladies and that the men would cook and serve all of the food.
We had wanted to hold the event on the same date as some Marian Feast, but we ended up choosing November 21st, the Feast of Christ the King. From the title of this feast, we quickly settled upon the name of our event, since we would be spending the evening honouring the daughters of our aforementioned King. Only later would we realise that this date is, in fact, actually also a minor Marian Feast, The Presentation of Mary, the commemoration of Our Lady’s presentation as a child in the Temple.