Author: pilgrim

The Human Heart

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Today is Valentine’s Day, a day on which we celebrate the life of a 3rd Century Roman Saint, as well as trying to stave off the tremendous societal pressure to be romantic and lovey dovey 😉

heart

“The human heart is not shaped like a valentine heart, perfect and regular in contour; it is slightly irregular in shape as if a small piece of it were missing out of its side. That missing part may very well symbolize a piece that a spear tore out of the Universal Heart of Humanity on the Cross, but it probably symbolizes something more.

It may very well mean that when God created each human heart, He kept a small sample of it in heaven, and sent the rest of it into the world of time, where it would each day learn the lesson that it could never be really happy, that it could never be really wholly in love, that it could never be really whole-hearted until it rested with the Risen Christ in an eternal Easter…” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen

(Thanks to Alexandra for this one)

Going Into the desert…

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Today is Ash Wednesday and it marks the beginning of Lent in the Church’s liturgical year, a time of prayer, fasting and alms giving.  In the Blogosphere, you’ll also hear a lot of talk about the 1-1-1 Plan.

I’ve decided to take a bit of a break from publishing anything of my own for the next forty days (with just a few exceptions). Instead of regular blog entries, I have scheduled my favourite quotations from one of the most recent books I’ve finished, Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Ash Wednesday

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TOT: Communicating the Gospel

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Dr. Christine WoodOn 4th February at Cafe Coyote in Old Town, Dr. Christine Wood gave the following Theology On Tap talk:

God has Spoken, he has truly broken the great SILENCE:
Communicating the Gospel to Others!

Dr. Wood is originally from Sydney Australia, but teaches at John Paul The Great Catholic University here in America’s favourite city, San Diego in California.

(I wonder if she gets confused for being English as often as I get confused for being an Australian…hmmm…maybe I’ll ask her that next time during the Q&A session….)

Here in San Diego Diocese we make the audio of our Theology on Tap sessions freely available and you may download Dr. Wood’s talk from the links below:

Main Talk (Download)

Q&A (Download)

Handout
Handout

(Oh, and well done to Kevin for getting a mention for the JP2 Group during the Q&A!)

Ratzinger Reaction

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A lot of my non-Catholic friends have been asking me about the recent news from the Vatican. During our discussions I’ve often mentioned Cardinal Ratzinger’s reaction to becoming Pope. If you haven’t read it already, I’d invite you to go and read Joe’s article over at Shameless Popery:

benedict

He also wrote a post describing the different reactions of Pope Pius IX, Pius VIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, John Paul II and Clement XIV.

Christian Unity and Pro-Life

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Last month was the anniversary of Roe v Wade, the landmark abortion legislation here in the United States. In response to this, there were various pro-life events such as the March for Life in Washington DC and the Walk for Life in San Francisco.

prolife

I was over the moon to find out that there was a special event being organized here in San Diego‘s Balboa Park. The turnout was quite good, approximately 3,000 people attended and many organizations were represented.

I remember thinking how nice it was to be back around non-Catholic Christians again. In England I had a lot of contact with Christians of other denominations, both from attending non-Catholic services and from various ecumenical activities. But what with one thing and another, this hasn’t happened so much since I moved to the United States, my religious social circle being made up almost exclusively of Catholics. It was therefore really wonderful to see Christians of different denominations coming together on a Saturday morning to bear witness to the sanctity of human life.

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