Category: Catholicism

Prayer before starting work

Leave a comment

One of the books I read during my sabbatical was Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a lay Carmelite who inspired so many people by his simple, practical approach to spirituality, which focuses on always being mindful of God, even throughout everyday tasks, such as doing the washing up.

brother-lawrence

Yesterday my sabbatical ended and I start back at work. Inspired by this Carmelite’s book, I’ve decided that I’m going to begin each workday with the prayer which Brother Lawrence mentions in the book:

Before beginning any task I would say to God, with childlike trust:

“O God, since You are with me, and it is Your will that I must now apply myself to these outward duties, I beg You, assist me with Your grace that I may continue in Your Presence; and to this end, O Lord, be with me in this my work, accept the labour of my hands, and dwell within my heart with all Your Fullness”

– Brother Lawrence, Practice of the Presence of God

Into the breach!

Leave a comment

If we’re friends on Facebook, you may well have seen a video I posted last week:

This video is part of the Into the breach initiative from the Diocese of Phoenix. Bishop Olmsted, the Bishop of that Diocese, recently released an apostolic exhortation to men, asking them to “Step into the breach”, to fill the void in our society left by an absence of authentic masculinity. In this exhortation, the good Bishop discusses what it means to be a man and gives some of the practical guidance for living out the masculine calling in all its fullness.

I was very much impressed by this apostolic exhortation and I took it with me on my retreat this week so that I could spend some unhurried time reading through it and considering the challenges it poses. After subsequent rereading, I thought that it deserves to be more widely known, so I recorded it onto MP3, making it available to a wider audience.

Audio Download

Into The Breach – Introduction (Download)
The three questions and the context for answering them

Into The Breach – Question #1 (Download)
What does it mean to be a Christian man?

Into The Breach – Question #2 (Download)
How does a Catholic man love?

Into The Breach – Question #3 (Download)
Why is fatherhood, fully understood, so crucial for every man?

Into The Breach – Conclusion (Download)
Sent forth by Christ and Faith of our Fathers

If you don’t want to download multiple files, a recording of the entire document as a single MP3 is available here (80MB).

Guest Post: “Offer it up”

One comment

Offer It UpA couple of months ago we had a guest post here at Restless Pilgrim from Tom Massoth. Well, today we have another guest post, this time from my long-time friend, John. I met John for the first time during a short stay in San Diego. A couple of years later, I returned to the USA and we had the chance to be neighbours. I take personal credit for him meeting his wife!

Today’s post is an abridged version of an article John wrote a while ago where he discussed the meaning of a phrase you commonly hear in Catholic circles…

It seems to be something of a catch-phrase in modern Catholic culture, but what do we really mean when we say “offer it up”? Is it more than just a religious way of saying “Suck it up” or “Quit complaining”?

“Offer it up” is more than a simple invitation to prayer. Those three words are an invitation to participate in the gospel.
Read more

Ambo or Pulpit?

4 comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’ll know that a good portion of my posts either come from questions people have asked me or from my own wondering about a particular subject. Today’s post falls into the latter category…

When Jesus preached to the crowds, Scripture records that one time He ascended a mountain to teach them (Matthew 5:1) and on another occasion He got into a boat and moved a little way from the shore (Luke 5:3). There is theological significance to both of these actions, but there’s also a very practical reason that the Lord did this – He wanted His preaching to be heard clearly by as many people as possible.

The necessity to clearly hear the words of preaching continues today and we see it reflected in the architecture of our church buildings in the presence of a pulpit/ambo/lecturn.

Pulpit-large

For quite a while, I’ve noticed that Catholic liturgists typically use the word “ambo” to describe the preacher’s platform, rather than “pulpit”, which you hear more often both in the Protestant world and in popular culture. However, is there really a difference between “ambo” and “pulpit”, or is this just a case of Catholic/Protestant “potato/potahto”?

Read more

Gay Marriage in Christian History?

Leave a comment

In the wake of the SCOTUS decision concerning same-sex marriage, I’ve seen lots of people on Facebook making the assertion that the Church used to perform same-sex weddings in antiquity. In defense of this quite provocative assertion, typically a single authority is cited, the Professor of Medieval History at Yale University, John Boswell.

I was planning on writing a rebuttal to this assertion, but after doing a little bit of googling, I came across this article by Robin Darling Young who reviews Boswell’s book and does a tremendous job on demonstrating the considerable bias required to reimagine Church history in an attempt to support such an outlandish hypothesis:

Screen Shot 2015-08-12 at 10.43.52 AM

1 … 141 142 143 144 145 … 321