Month: March 2014

Music Monday: Our God Reigns Here

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I thought today’s Music Monday should be an upbeat number from John Waller, “Our God Reigns Here”…

Spirit of doubt you have no place here
I command you to leave in Jesus’ name
Spirit of fear you have no place here
I command you to leave in Jesus’ name
You’re not welcome here so go, just go

Spirit of doubt you have no place here
I command you to leave in Jesus’ name
Envy and jealousy you have no place here
I command you to leave in Jesus’ name
Go back from whence you came

‘Cause our God reigns here, our God reigns here
We claim this ground in Jesus’ name
‘Cause our God reigns x2

Anger and rage, guilt and shame
I command you to leave in Jesus’ name
Depression, anxiety, addiction, infirmity
I command you to leave in Jesus’ name
Oh, go back from whence you came

Our God reigns here, our God reigns here
The battle’s won, have no fear
The battle’s won, have no fear
The battle’s won, have no fear
‘Cause God reigns here

St. Thomas Aquinas: Pro-Choice?

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A friend of mine recently referred to the book “Good Church, Bad Church” by Tom Kane, a former Catholic priest. I read the synopsis on Amazon and read the extract on the author’s website.  In the extract, a couple came to Kane while he was still a Catholic priest and he counseled them to have an abortion, calling upon St. Thomas Aquinas as justification:

“The great Catholic theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose theological reasoning is the foundation of Catholic morality, said that a fetus does not contain a soul until several months because there is not enough development yet to hold a soul, so the fetus, Thomas says, is not a person,” I said. “Yet the Vatican and the Vaticans of Protestantism would sacrifice an endless number of lives for a miniscule embryo that resembles an amoeba.”

“But the fetus has life,” he said.

“Yes, but what kind of life? Plant life? Animal life?” I said. “A fetus has a very primitive form of life—not yet a human life.”

AquinasInTheLouvre

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In The Beginning: When God builds a house…

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In Bible study we’re currently doing a whistle-stop tour of the Bible. Last week we looked at the opening verses of Genesis. It often goes unnoticed what God is actually doing in the account of creation found in the opening verses. Today I’d like to do a short post covering the first part of our discussion and speak about the literary structure of the first chapter of Genesis.

Chaos

In Chapter 1, verse 2, after affirming that “God created the heavens and the earth”, the author says that “the earth was formless and void” (Hebrew: “tohu wabohu”). The rest of the chapter sets about explaining how God solved both of these problems…

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Self-denial

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Lent

Self-denial, then, is not a mask for self-contempt, but the necessary means for achieving self-mastery; and self-mastery makes possible our self-giving and self-fulfillment. Sin, according to this view, is not wanting too much, but rather settling for too little! It’s settling for self-gratification rather than self-fulfillment.

– First Comes Love, Scott Hahn

Serenading Our Lady

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In Catholic devotion, there are many songs addressed to Mary, such as the Regina Coeli and the Salve Regina. However, it may surprise you to know that the oldest text we have for a Marian hymn comes from about AD 250 written in Greek, preceding the Hail Mary by several centuries. I mention it today because this hymn is often sung at the end of evening prayer in Eastern Christianity during Lent. The hymn is known as “Beneath thy compassion”  and was used in the liturgy around Christmas time.

Beneath your compassion we take refuge, Theotokos!
Our prayers, do not despise necessities,
but from danger deliver us, only pure, only blessed one.

What is particularly significant is that the text refers to Mary by the Greek title of “Theotokos”, which in English means “God bearer”, the name so objectionable to Nestorius, but which was later affirmed by the Council of Ephesus in AD 431.

Mary

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