The deepest desire of our heart

"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine

I’ve written before about the Catena Aurea, but I wanted to highlight a new phone app which I came across recently. The (admittedly rather unimaginatively titled) “Catena” app allows you to access Biblical commentary from the Apostolic Fathers.
There are a few bits of the interface which I find a bit clunky, but it’s a small gripe when compared to having Patristic commentary in your pocket for not just the Gospels, but for the entirety of the New Testament!

* I couldn’t think of a Return of the Jedi pun
As many of you know, I spent about a year and a half living in Seattle. During that time, I attended the Byzantine parish of St. John Crysostom.
There were many things I loved about that parish, but one of my favourites was the preaching of the pastor, Fr. Michael Mandelas. It is no surprise, therefore, that I was delighted to discover that some of Fr. Michael’s homilies are being recorded and uploaded to Soundcloud:
While this is great, personally I consume most of my audio through the Podcast app on my iPhone. Fortunately, Soundcloud exposes the RSS feed for their channels:
http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:301561424/sounds.rss
Happy listening 🙂

The incongruity between what we claim to believe and the lives we live says everything the world needs to know. Any honest outsider can tell that we can’t possibly believe what we say we believe. Not only is our religion a fraud, but so are we Christians. At least, that’s what our actions often communicate to the world
– Messy & Foolish, Matthew Warner
I’ve been following How To Be Christian for quite some time now and really liked the alternative approach they take to apologetics. Today I would like to share a video they did concerning a media personality who has become increasingly vocal over the last couple of years, Bill Nye “The Science Guy”…
Today’s song is from Sidewalk Prophets, “You love me anyway”:
The question was raised as my conscience fell, a silly little lie.
It didn’t mean much but it lingers still in the corners of my mind
Still you call me to walk on the edge of this world to spread my dreams and fly
But the future’s so far, my heart is so frail, I think I’d rather stay inside
But You love me anyway, it’s like nothing in life that I’ve ever known
Yes You love me anyway, oh Lord, how You love me, how you love me
It took more than my strength to simply be still, to seek but never find
The reasons we change, the reasons I doubt and why do loved ones have to die?
I am the thorn in your crown, but You love me anyway
I am the sweat from Your brow, but You love me anyway
I am the nail in Your wrist, but You love me anyway
I am Judas’ kiss, but You love me anyway
See now I am the man who yelled out from the crowd
For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking ground
Yes and I turned away with a smile on my face
With this sin in my heart, tried to bury Your grace
And then alone in the night I still call out for You
So ashamed of my life, my life, my life