Author: pilgrim

Music Monday: I just want peace

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I’ve been listening to more Joe Zambon recently. This one of my current favouries, “I just want peace”:

Cause I woke up, in the city
and I woke up, my mouth dry
because I woke up, to my living

Good Lord, I’ve been dead this whole time
Cause the sunrise, did in me nothing
Cause I’ve laid in bed every day I knew
And I realised that I’m not living
unless Lord I rise with You

And I don’t want money
nor all the world, honey
Cause I see it as nothing now to me
Cause the world You wanted
gave you nothing of what you need
And I’ll trade it all
If I could just find peace

And I’ve tried to win the affection
from people who have never cared for me
Cause I thought they were what I needed
but they’re just as damn lost as me

so I marry countless lovers
whom I hope would fill the well that had run dry
but I’ll trade all for Your promise
a new life that wells up inside

And I don’t want money
nor all the world, honey
Cause I see it as nothing now to me
Cause the world you wanted
gave you nothing of what you need
And I’ll trade it all
If I could just find peace
all I want is to find peace
(more than the riches)
all I want is to find peace
(more than fine linen)
all I want is to find peace
(more than my addiction)

Cause I see it as nothing now to me
Cause the world you wanted
gave you nothing of what you need
And I’ll trade it all
If I could just find peace

Be Satisfied With Me

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StAnthony

A couple of months ago, a friend shared with me this passage entitled “Be Satisfied with Me”, attributed to St. Anthony of Padua (I couldn’t find a citation). It’s really quite beautiful:

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,
To have a deep soul relationship with another,
To be loved thoroughly and exclusively.

But to a Christian, God says, “No, not until you are satisfied,
Fulfilled and content with being loved by Me alone,
With giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me.
With having an intensely personal and unique relationship with Me alone.

Discovering that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found,
Will you be capable of the perfect human relationship,
That I have planned for you.
You will never be united to another
Until you are united with Me.
Exclusive of anyone or anything else.
Exclusive of any other desires or longings.
I want you to stop planning, to stop wishing, and allow Me to give you
The most thrilling plan existing . . . one you cannot imagine.
I want you to have the best. Please allow Me to bring it to you.

You just keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things.
Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am.
Keep listening and learning the things that I tell you.
Just wait, that’s all. Don’t be anxious, don’t worry
Don’t look around at things others have gotten
Or that I have given them
Don’t look around at the things you think you want,
Just keep looking off and away up to Me,
Or you’ll miss what I want to show you.
And then, when you’re ready, I’ll surprise you with a love
Far more wonderful than you could dream of.

You see, until you are ready, and until the one I have for you is ready,
I am working even at this moment
To have both of you ready at the same time.
Until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me
And the life I prepared for you,
You won’t be able to experience the love that exemplified your relationship with Me.
And this is perfect love.

And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love,
I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your relationship with Me.
And to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty,
perfection and love that I offer you with Myself.
Know that I love you utterly. I AM God.
Believe it and be satisfied

Restless Heart: 4 – “Is there life before marriage?” (Part I)

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Bridget

This past week, I gave at talk to the Goretti Group entitled “Is there life before marriage?” In today’s episode, Nessa and talk about some of the issues I raised in that talk. Do some people derive their self-worth from their Facebook “Relationship Status”? What are some common misunderstandings concerning marriage? We then look at the subject friendships, the first area which I suggest deserves careful investment during your single years.

Episode 4: Is there life before marriage? (Download)

 

— Show Notes —

* If you would like to listen to my original talk I gave to the Goretti Group, it is available here.

* The Bible passage I quote at the end of the episode is this section from Sirach:

Let your acquaintances be many, but one in a thousand your confidant.
When you gain a friend, first test him, and be not too ready to trust him.
For one sort is a friend when it suits him, but he will not be with you in time of distress.
…
A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure.
A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can balance his worth.
A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds;
For he who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself.

– Sirach 6:6-17

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Wise Words On Wedesday: Catholics are Romantic

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romantic

We believe that two people can fall in love and stay in love.

We believe that the biggest jerk can become the holiest person in our lives.

We believe that the lowly are the ones who will be raised, the downtrodden, the blessed, and the ones who are taken advantage of, justified.

We believe that joy changes lives.

That a piece of bread and a cup of wine transforms into the Body and Blood of Christ and consuming that Body and Blood will transform us.

We believe that we can step into a confessional a repentant sinner and walk out a forgiven son or daughter.

We are romantic

– Fr Ryan Mann

Mere Christianity – Book II (Summary)

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Book 2You can look at my more detailed notes, but this is an overview of the content of Book II of “Mere Christianity”…

Chapter 1 – “Rival Conceptions of God”

Quotations

Truth in other religions

If you are Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth…[However,] as in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum…but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others

Pantheism

…these people think that long before you got anywhere near the divine point of view the distinction [between good and evil] would have disappeared altogether…

Pantheists usually believe that God, so to speak, animates the universe as you animate your body: that the universe almost is God, so that if it did not exist He would not exist either, and anything you find in the universe is a part of God…

If you do not take the distinction between good an bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God

Non-Pantheists

…[these people believe in] a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not in another…

…God invented and made the universe – like a man making a picture or composing a tune. A painter is not a picture, and he does not die if his picture is destroyed

…if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will…a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on putting them right again

Evil and God

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line…I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies

Questions

1. Why does Jack say that when he became a Christian he adopted the more “liberal” view?

2. Is it possible to affirm the truth of other religions while still holding to the absolute truth claims of Christianity?

3. Can you think of any religion completely devoid of ALL truth?

4. Into what two central conceptions of God does Jack say people hold? Do you think we could divide it up in a different way?

5. In what way do these conceptions of God and our attitudes towards the Moral Law and the Universe relate to each other?

6. Why does the very question of asking about evil in the world presuppose the existence of God?

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