Wise Words On Wednesday: Space
Category: Catholicism
Sex Au Natural!
A few months ago I went to the Catholic Answers Gala which was hosted by Patrick Coffin. Here he is speaking about his book, Sex Au Natural:
I read his book a good while ago and really enjoyed it. In fact, I’d suggest that it’s one of the best books I’ve read explaining the controversial Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae. Patrick thoroughly explains the Catholic objection to contraception, looking at it from practical, historical, Scriptural and philosophical points of view.
As it happens, he’s having a sale going on at the moment, so head on over to his blog and get some Christmas shopping done!
Free. Total. Faithful. Fruitful.
Baptizing The Punch Buggy
Have you ever heard a game called “Punch buggy”?
It’s game which typically involves two people. While you’re out and about, the first person who spots a Volkswagen Beatle (a “bug”) gets to punch the other person on the arm and, if it’s blue, gets to do it twice! It’s like a violent version of “Eye Spy”. Horrible, right?!
1 Punch
2 Punches
TOT: Healing the Culture
On October 23rd, Dr Delgado and Roger Lopez spoke here in San Diego for Theology on Tap. The title of their talk was “Healing the Culture: “Bringing reason back into medicine and sexuality”.
Main Talk – Part 1 (Download)
Main Talk – Part 2 (Download)
Q&A (Download)
Sweet Sacrifice
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
The Catholic Answer to Jersey Shore
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.
Under the shadow of your wings
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