Category: Catholicism

The Way

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We are living at a great time for faith-related films. Virtually all of my trips to the cinema this year have been to see movies in which Christianity has played a positive part in the storyline. Last week I reviewed Warrior and today I’d like to say a few words about my most recent cinema outing to see The Way…

The Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile pilgrimage route from the town of St. Jean Pied de Port in France to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The story begins with the death of a pilgrim, Daniel Avery, shortly after beginning this pilgrimage. His father, Tom, who had a strained relationship with his son, travels from America to France to identify his son’s body and return him home.

When Tom arrives in France, he meets a policeman who explains to him about the pilgrimage his son was undertaking. Shortly before Daniel left America he asked his dad to go on a trip with him, but his father declined the offer.

Now that his son is dead, he decides to honour belatedly his son’s request. He resolves to walk the Camino in his son’s place and take Daniel’s ashes along with him, scattering them along the way (you’re not actually allowed to do this).

Tom is extremely single-minded in his journey. In many ways, the audience is left to guess at what is going on inside the head of this stoic figure, as he doesn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. Tom is played expertly by Martin Sheen who, incidentally, was inspired to take his screen name from our beloved Grandpa Sheen. He gives a great performance as Daniel’s father.

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Sunday Lectionary: All you need is love

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I’m going to start trying to make these Sunday Lectionary posts a little bit shorter, both so that I get more of my weekend back and also so more people read them!

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time: October 23rd, 2011

The Readings this week focus around the “vertical” and “horizontal” dimensions of our faith, how we love God and how we love our neighbour. This finds its simplest and clearest expression in today’s Gospel passage when Jesus is asked which is the greatest of all the commandments…

“Therefore the first commandment teaches every kind of godliness. For to love God with the whole heart is the cause of every good.

The second commandment includes the righteous acts we do toward other people. The first commandment prepares the way for the second and in turn is established by the second. For the person who is grounded in the love of God clearly also loves his neighbor in all things himself.

The kind of person who fulfills these two commandments experiences all the commandments.”

– St. Cyril of Alexandria, Early Church Father, 5th Century

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Dateless: Something Something Relationships

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Last week I wrote a short post saying that I was soon going to try and tackle a question I often hear asked among my female friends:

“Why doesn’t that nice Catholic boy ask me out?” 

I wrote that blog entry announcement partially to ensure that I didn’t chicken out! The subject of relationships and dating is tricky and it’s inevitable that many people would not agree with my conclusions. I’ve tried to do this series a couple of times before but I always managed to find something else to do instead. By publicly saying that I’m going to do it, I’m making sure that I actually will…

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Addressing a bishop?

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I’ve got a meeting today at the Diocesan Center and Bishop Brom is going to be in attendance. This got me to thinking…

How do you address a bishop?

Okay, I just checked… It appears that I have two options. I can either address the Bishop as…

“Bishop Brom” …or… “Your Excellency”

Phew! Social faux pas narrowly avoided!

Now I’ll be able to engage him in conversation and finally find out if it’s true that he can only move diagonally…

Bible Canon Questions

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Today over at St. Joseph’s Vanguard Devin wrote an article about How Evangelicals Know Their Canon Is Correct. It describes an exchange Devin had with an Evangelical concerning which books belong in the Bible.

Now, not all Evangelicals will hold those views expressed in the article, but I have to say that Devin’s exchange bears a strong resemblance to conversations I myself have had with non-Catholics concerning Sacred Scripture…

In my experience, when a Catholic-Protestant dialog reaches this stage it often stagnates. You then spend a lot of time going round and round in circles… 🙁

In an effort to stop this from happening, I find that it is generally best to keep asking questions. These questions will hopefully reveal to the non-Catholic his unknown dependency upon Catholic Church with regards to the formation of the Canon.

You may recall a little while ago I wrote about an exchange I had with a chap called Jay. When we were talking about the Bible, these were some of the questions I asked him:

1.  Let’s say I don’t believe James should be in the Bible.  Show me why I’m wrong. What’s to stop me from just taking this book out of the Bible?

2.  Let’s say I believe that Clement’s letter to the Corinthians should be in the Bible.  Show me why I’m wrong.  He was alive during the time of the Apostles and Clement has strong credentials for being taught by them…

3. Who wrote the Letter to the Philippians? What about the Gospel of Mark? How do you know?

4. Who were the people who painstakingly copied the New Testament manuscripts throughout the centuries?

5. Have you checked the authenticity of every book in the Bible? Are you sure that we have all the available “inspired texts”? How did you reach your opinion over what and what isn’t the Word of God? Are you 100% certain? Can I trust your judgment on this? Because if you’re wrong I could be ignoring text which is the Word of God and reading text which isn’t…

6. Who assembled the canon of the New Testament and when? Please give me names and dates.

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