"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Jennifer Fulwiler, Atheist to Catholic convert, is getting her own TV show:
It’s a three part show, airing on December 13th, ,20th and January 10th. It’s going to be showing on TimeWarner Channel 97 and Cablevision Channel 30, but it’s also going to be available for streaming online.
Every Sunday in the Liturgy of the Hours Night Prayer we pray the following:
For he will free you from the hunter’s snare,
from the voice of the slanderer.
He will shade you with his wings,
you will hide underneath his wings. – Psalm 90
I recently came across some words of popular Anglican theologian NT Wright which I recall every time I pray this psalm:
He was writing about a passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus uses similar imagery:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing…” – Matthew 23:37-38
Here was his commentary:
“[The image] is of a farmyard fire; the hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and, when the fire has run its course, there will be found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, but with live chicks under her wing. Jesus seemed to be indicating his hope that he would take upon himself the judgement that was hanging over the nation and city“ – NT Wright, The Challenge of Jesus
“…there come moments, at night or when alone or in the silence of the country, where we cannot help but pass judgement on ourselves. But those whose consciences are no good avoid this by immersing themselves in externals. Hence the reluctance of such persons to be alone with themselves. They search for constant distractions, or something ‘to make one forget’, anything to keep the wound below the surface, and the memories from flying upward into consciousness” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “Guide to Contentment”, Page 53
Two days ago, Cardinal Dolan gave his presidential address to the US Bishops. In his speech, he focused on the need for penance and suggested the possible reintroduction of the traditional Catholic practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays:
What an irony that despite the call of the Second Vatican Council for a renewal of the Sacrament of Penance, what we got instead was its near disappearance….
The work of our Conference during the coming year includes reflections on re-embracing Friday as a particular day of penance, including the possible re-institution of abstinence on all Fridays of the year, not just during Lent.
It appears that Cardinal Dolan is moving forward with this initiative, since we have just heard on Facebook that the bishops have appointed a new advocacy spokesman, Gollum:
On October 16th, as part of our recent Theology on Tap series, Kimberly Barber spoke to us on the topic of “Mary, Saints, Angels and more: Getting to know the heroes of our faith in a new way”.
Here are the MP3 audio files available for download:
Main Talk (Download)
Q&A (Download)
Kimberly is a Master Catechist for the Diocese. She grew up in Southern California and attended the Franciscan University of Steubenville for her undergraduate degree and then went to Fuller Theological Seminary for her postgraduate study. She now lives in San Diego with her three children and her husband Dr. Michael Barber, Professor of Theology at John Paul The Great Catholic University who himself has spoken at Theology on Tap in the past.
(That’s “Where’s Wally?” for my English friends)
I was chatting with a friend recently and he raised the subject of population control. It reminded me of the following video of George Bernard Shaw. Now, I’m a fan of Shaw’s writing, but listening him speak about eugenics sends a shiver down my spine…
“Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree“ – Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae