"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
I really should just not read secular coverage of Catholic events, it’s just too annoying. Fortunately, Meg Hunter-Kilmer over at Held By His Pieced Hands has some sanity in her new article entitled 5 Shocking Things Pope Francis Believes:
As I’ve mentioned, I’m currently part of a Bible study in which we are working through St. Matthew’s Gospel. A couple of weeks ago we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism…
This event is something of a head scratcher. I mean, who was it that had been coming to John for baptism? Sinners! So why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, come to be baptized? What business had he there? In our perplexity, we are in good company since John the Baptist thought it kinda barmy too:
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” – Matthew 3:13-14
So why did Jesus come to be baptized? During our discussion in the Bible Study I pointed at my legs and asked “What do these tell you?”
A little while ago I advertised that my friend Jenna has been accepted into a religious order that cares for terminal cancer patients who cannot afford care. The only thing stopping her entering is her student debt. She’s got 46 days left to raise the rest of the money.
If you’d like to help turn Jenna into a nun, and would like to do some shopping at the same time, please click on the link below buy some stuff! Remember, Christmas is only five months away…
If you enter the code SUMMERTRAVEL you’ll even get a discount…
“We have been trained well beyond our obedience”
– Mark Hall, Lifestories
A friend of mine recently asked me about the veils worn by female parishioners at a church she had visited. I didn’t have much to say since, being a boy, I hadn’t given too much thought to the subject of frilly lace…
My first real exposure to the chapel veil and mantilla was in Washington DC, when I went to my first Extraordinary Form Mass at the Basilica. If you have attended a Latin Mass you may well have noticed them too.
However, it’s not like the use of veils is restricted only to “traditional” Catholics. I’ve occasionally seen veils at English Novus Ordo liturgies. Additionally, the reason that there aren’t many good photos of me at my First Holy Communion is because, in most pictures, my face is partially or wholly obscured by a veil belonging to one of the girls in my class! But the most common prevailing use of the veil is, of course, by a bride at her wedding.
I tried to do a little bit of research on the history and theology of veils but I unfortunately didn’t find a lot of good source material, so if you know a lot about veils or have any good resources you’d like to share, please respond in the Comment Box below.
Over the last few days I’ve been looking at the subject of Sola Scriptura. Today I would like to discuss the alternative to Sola Scriptura which I realized made more sense of both history and the Biblical data…
Ironically, the answer itself was in Scripture. After the Ascension, writing the New Testament wasn’t the priority because it wasn’t what Jesus commanded the Apostles to do. At the Great Commission Jesus told His disciples to “teach” all nations what He had taught them (as opposed to write a book). If you wanted to know the truth in c. 30AD you would go to Jesus. Who would you go to after the Ascension? You would go to the Apostles He taught and commissioned. It was this living Tradition that sustained the Church – primarily by orally passing on to others what Jesus had taught. Jesus wanted to found a Church, not a book club.
In the Book of Acts, when there was a disagreement over the question of Gentile circumcision, the Christians didn’t use Scripture to decide the answer, but called a Church Council. I could only think of one Church today which still calls [Ecumenical] councils to resolve matters of doctrine and practice…
The more I read Scripture, the clearer it became that the Early Church was one which exercised authority (1 Corinthians 16:16, Hebrews 13:17) given to her by Christ – to forgive sins, no less! Even in my most anti-Catholic moments I could still clearly see that Matthew 16 showed Christ giving Peter a special authority. I could only think of one Church today which claimed to still have that same authority passed on from Peter….
“If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he confidence that he is in the Church?” – St. Cyprian (A.D. 251)