Life of St. Charbel
Looking for something to watch this weekend? Why not watch the life of St. Charbel?
Month: October 2014
Friday Frivolity: So what’s Easter about?
I know this post isn’t a correctly liturgically timed, but I had to share this story from David Sedaris:
(There’s some colourful language at the end, but it’s bleeped out)
Sin, you and Christ
The Church Fathers and the Bible
If you live around Escondido, you might like to know that John Paul The Great Catholic University is having a free lecture series on the Early Church Fathers and Sacred Scripture, every Thursday for the next six weeks:
Wise Words on Wednesday: Picturing God
The crucified Jesus is the only accurate picture of God the world has ever seen
– John Austin Baker, The Divine Embrace
Quick Apology: Catholics think Mary is divine
This should be the last Marian “Quick Apology” I’ll be doing for a while. After all, I have other things I want to write about! However, before we leave the subject of Mary, I wanted to address the claim that Catholics think that Mary is divine…
Objection
On this blog I’ve received comments like the following:
“Catholics basically think that Mary is divine. It’s like the Trinity has been replaced with a quartet – Father, Son, Spirit and Mary”
How might you respond?
Response
The simplest way to respond to an assertion like this is to ask for any official Church document which teaches this. Can the objector produce a reference in the Catechism, a Council or a Papal Encyclical? I can guarantee you they cannot.
When they are unable to provide the evidence you request, I would suggest that you then point them to the binding teaching of the Catechism:
488 “God sent forth his Son”, but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee…
The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.*
[This is a beautiful teaching from the Early Church, where the Fathers referred to Mary as being a kind of “New Eve”]
489 Throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary…Eve…Sarah…Hannah…Deborah; Ruth; Judith and Esther….
Mary “stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established.”
Music Monday: Everything to me
Today’s song is one of my old-time favourite, Mark Schultz. Mark was given up for adoption as a baby and this is the song he wrote to his birth mother:
I must have felt your tears
When they took me from your arms
I’m sure I must have heard you say goodbye
Lonely and afraid had you made a big mistake
Could an ocean even hold the tears you cried
But you had dreams for me
You wanted the best for me
And you made the only choice you could that night
[Chorus]
You gave life to me
A brand new world to see
Like playing baseball in the yard with dad at night
Mom reading Goodnight Moon
And praying in my room
So if you worry if your choice was right
You gave me up but you gave everything to me
And if I saw you on the street
Would you know that it was me
And would your eyes be blue or green like mine
Would we share a warm embrace
Would you know me in your heart
Or would you smile and let me walk on by
Knowing you had dreams for me
You wanted the best for me
And I hope that you’d be proud of who I am
And when I see you there
Watching from heaven’s gates
Into your arms
I’m gonna run
And when you look in my eyes
You can see my whole life
See who I was
And who I’ve become