Category: Catholicism

Hints & Guesses

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The album “Hints & Guesses” is the first full-length album from Alanna-Marie Boudreau, a young musician from New York who was recently touring here in San Diego.  About a month ago I received a copy of Alanna’s new album in advance of its release this September (iTunes, Website), so after a few weeks of listening to the album in my car, I wanted to share my impression of it.

The title of the album comes from a line in a TS Elliot poem, The Four Quartets, which speaks about the glimpses we get of something beautiful and awe-inspiring, but which hasn’t yet been fully revealed. In an interview on her YouTube channel, Alanna compared it to seeing the early morning sunlight before the sun itself has risen, explaining it as “the sense of home-sickness that you can’t really describe”. These are themes to which a restless pilgrim can certainly relate!

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What’s the earliest depiction of the crucifixion?

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The earliest depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion doesn’t, in fact, come from a Christian source. It is known as Alexamenos Graffito and, as the name suggests, it’s a piece of graffiti. It was found near Rome’s Palatine Hill and is dated sometime between 1st and 3rd Century:

AlexGraffito

The text underneath the picture says in Greek “Alexamenos worships [his] God”. The picture itself shows Jesus on a cross with a donkey’s head, with another person on the left (presumably “Alexamenos”) raising his hand in worship. It’s clear that this was written by someone who knew Alexamenos and wanted to mock him and his Christian faith.

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Quick Apology: You can’t pray to dead people

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Continuing in my series of brief apologetic responses, today I would like to look at the subject of Saintly intercession. As I mentioned last time, these will not be thorough, nuanced rebuttals, but simply how I typically would reply when I only have a brief window of opportunity to respond to objections to my Faith.

Objection

I often see on internet forums the following common objection to Saintly intercession:

“You can’t pray to dead people”

Response

In response to this objection I point out that the Saints are not dead:

“…have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” – Matthew 22:32

If Jesus says that the Saints (“Abraham…Isaac….Jacob”) are alive and well, then I think it’s pretty safe to assume that they are indeed alive. Last week we had the Feast of the Transfiguration when Jesus speaks with Moses…a “dead” man (Matthew 17:1-4). Therefore, it is incorrect to call those Christians who have passed away “dead”. They are more alive in God than they have ever been!

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Why palms?

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Today’s post is one of those blog entries which I wrote quickly wrote and then forgot to schedule for publishing. Well, better late than never…

Tonight I went to an Eastern Orthodox parish for Saturday Vespers and I was struck by how they decorated their church in preparation for Palm Sunday:

Gregory Of Nyssa

Now, the reason for decorating with palms was obvious, given that Sunday is called “Palm Sunday” and in the liturgy we’ll hear the account of Jesus being welcomed with palm branches:

The next day a great crowd who had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” – John 12:12-13

However, I got to wondering…why palms? Was there any significance to it?

Thinking about it, I realized that many of the icons in my own parish featured palm branches. What was the symbolism? I was curious, so I went looking…

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