Category: Catholicism

Sweet Sacrifice

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I wanted to just blog briefly about a passage of scripture which I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, 2 Samuel 24:18-24:

That day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

So David went up to do what the Lord had commanded him. When Araunah saw the king and his men coming toward him, he came and bowed before the king with his face to the ground. “Why have you come, my lord the king?” Araunah asked.

David replied, “I have come to buy your threshing floor and to build an altar to the Lord there, so that he will stop the plague.”

“Take it, my lord the king, and use it as you wish,” Araunah said to David. “Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and you can use the threshing boards and ox yokes for wood to build a fire on the altar. I will give it all to you, Your Majesty, and may the Lord your God accept your sacrifice.”

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.

I few years ago I came across this passage only minutes before I was about to do something I really did not want to do.  The part that stuck out to me was that David refused to offer to God the free gifts from Araunah:

“I will not [make a sacrifice that] cost me nothing“

This Scripture passage showed me what makes a sacrifice…a sacrifice. The very nature of a sacrifice is that it costs us something. It reminded me that living a life which gives glory to God sometimes requires us to do what we would rather avoid.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” – Psalm 51:7

altar

Under the shadow of your wings

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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:

NT Wright

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

TOT: Mary, Saints, Angels and more!

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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”.

Saints and Angels

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.

Tithing

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Every now and then the subject of “tithing” comes up. The word “tithe” literally means “tenth”, and refers to the religious practice of offering 10% of one’s income to the things of God. In my experience, you tend to hear much more about tithing in Protestant circles than you do from the pulpit in your local Catholic parish.

Recently a friend asked me about tithing so I said I’d offer a few thoughts about it in a short post. Considering today’s Mass Readings today seems an appropriate day to do this. I’ll first look at the Hebrew Scriptures, then the New Testament data and then finally look at what teaching is explicitly offered by the Catholic Church…

Collection Plate

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Humiliation and Humility

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I’m not completely sure of how I came across the quotation below. I think I saw it on Devin Rose‘s Facebook page ages ago, thought it was brilliant, and so copied it into my quotations folder…

humility

“It’s much easier to deal with humiliation if you have humility. If you’ve never laughed at yourself, it’s hard when others do it for you” – Jerry Suva

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