• The Crucifix Prayer

    Blessed are you, Lord God,
    Father all-holy,
    for your boundless love
    The tree, once the source of shame
    and death for humankind,
    has become the cross
    of our redemption and life.

    When his hour had come to
    return to you in glory,
    the Lord Jesus,
    Our King, our Priest, and our Teacher,
    freely mounted the scaffold of the cross
    and made it his royal throne,
    his altar of sacrifice, his pulpit of truth.

    On the cross,
    lifted above the earth,
    he triumphed over our age-old enemy.
    Cloaked in his own blood,
    he drew all things to himself.

    On the cross,
    he opened out his arms
    and offered you his life;
    the sacrifice of the New Law
    that gives to the sacraments
    their saving power.

    On the cross,
    he proved what he had prophesied:
    the grain of wheat must die
    to bring forth an abundant harvest.

    Father,
    we honour this cross as the sign
    of our redemption.
    May we reap the harvest of salvation
    planted in pain by Christ Jesus.
    May our sins be nailed to his cross,
    the power of life released,
    pride conquered,
    and weakness turned to strength.

    May the cross be our comfort in trouble,
    our refuge in the face of danger,
    our safeguard on life’s journey
    until you welcome us to
    our heavenly home.

    Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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  • The Prayer of St. Ephrem

    {Making a prostration}

    O LORD, Master of my life,
    grant that I may not be infected with the
    spirit of slothfulness and inquisitiveness,
    with the spirit of ambition and vain talking.

    {Making a prostration}

    Grant instead to me, your servant,
    the spirit of purity and of humility,
    the spirit of patience and neighborly love.

    {Making a third prostration}

    O Lord and King,
    grant me the grace of being aware of my sins
    and of not thinking evil of those of my brethren.
    For you are blessed, now and ever, and forever.

    Amen.

    Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings,
    You have power over life and death.
    You know what is secret and hidden,
    and neither our thoughts nor our feelings
    are concealed from You.
    Cure me of duplicity;
    I have done evil before You.
    Now my life declines from day to day
    and my sins increase.
    O Lord, God of souls and bodies,
    You know the extreme frailty of my soul and my flesh.
    Grant me strength in my weakness, O Lord,
    and sustain me in my misery.
    Give me a grateful soul that I may
    never cease to recall Your benefits,
    O Lord most bountiful.
    Be not mindful of my many sins,
    but forgive me all my misdeeds.
    O Lord, disdain not my prayer –
    the prayer of a wretched sinner;
    sustain me with Your grace until the end,
    that it may protect me as in the past.
    It is Your grace which has taught me wisdom;
    blessed are they who follow her ways,
    for they shall receive the crown of glory.
    In spite of my unworthiness,
    I praise You and I glorify You,
    O Lord, for Your mercy to me is without limit.
    You have been my help and my protection.
    May the name of Your majesty be praised forever.
    To you, our God, be glory.
    Amen.

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  • PWJ: S4E103 – Bonus – “Season Finale” (Part 2)

    David, Andrew, and Matt wrap up Season 4 with the Season Finale. This is Part 2 of that Finale. Listener Survey: https://forms.gle/X4zq7Uk69KmYo1v3A

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  • PWJ: S4E102 – Bonus – “Season Finale” (Part 1)

    David, Andrew, and Matt wrap up Season 4 with the Season Finale. This is Part 1…

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  • PWJ: S4E101 – Bonus – “Jack vs Tollers”

    After the previously-planned interview fell through at the last minute, David sat down to record a solo episode to talk about his newborn son, Sidecar Day, blue flowers in Narnia, and also to make his tongue-in-cheek case as to why C.S. Lewis is better than J.R.R. Tolkien.

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  • PWJ: S4E100 – AH – “After Hours” with The Gray Havens

    The Gray Havens are an American Christian folk pop husband and wife duo, David and Licia Radford, from Crystal Lake, Illinois. On October 8th they will be releasing their new album, Blue Flower, so David Radford came on the show to talk to Andrew and David about how C.S. Lewis inspired their recent work.

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  • PWJ: S4E99 – AH – “After Hours” with Mike “Gomer” Gormley

    As we approach the end of Season 4, David is joined on the show by Michael “Gomer” Gormley. Among other things, they discuss Ted Lasso, tea, and the Atonement. Also, find out what Gomer would do if he ever became the Pope!

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  • PWJ: S4E98 – AH – “After Hours” with Patti Callahan

    New York Times bestselling author, Patti Callahan, returns to the show to talk about her forthcoming book, “Once Upon A Wardrobe”, which will be released on October 19th.

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  • PWJ: S4E97 – AH – “After Hours” with The Tolkien Road

    A few months ago, John and Greta from The Tolkien Road podcast did a series of episodes on religion in Tolkien’s Legendarium. David invited him onto the show to talk about those episodes and to encourage the Pints With Jack listeners to listen to them.

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  • PWJ: S4E96 – AH – “After Hours” with Rod Bennett

    Author Rod Bennett joined David to talk about a presentation on he gave at a big Christian rock festival about C.S. Lewis’ relationship to “Pulp Fiction”.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 2 (“The dawn”, …)

sunrise

Continuing with my chronological read through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters: 87, 92, 89, 93, 94, 103 and 100.

Surah 87: “The most high” (Al-Ala)
Allah tells Muhammad that he will make him recite the Qur’an and remember it…unless God wants him to forget it. This relates to the rather troublesome subject of abrogation in the Qur’an where, even within the lifetime of Muhammad, some chapters were overridden or replaced.

Allah promises to lead Muhammad and his followers to true religion, but the wretched to the fires of Hell.

Questions

Q1. The text says “…the Hereafter is better and more enduring. Indeed, this is in the former scriptures. The scriptures of Abraham and Moses”. Where does the Pentateuch teach about the afterlife?

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 1 (“The clinging substance”, …)

unborn

As previously mentioned, I am going to read through the Qur’an in chronological order from beginning to end. I will be writing up my notes from the chapters (“suwar”) each day, starting today with the chapters which were composed at the beginning of Muhammad’s ministry in Mecca: 96, 68, 73, 74, 1, 111 and 81.

Surah 96 – “The clinging substance”/”Recite” (Al-Alaq)
This short surah accuses a man of sinning because he sees himself as “self-sufficient”. We are reminded that God made man (with a vague description of human development), that God sees everything and that if the man does not repent, God will drag him by the hair and angels will throw him into Hell.

Questions

Q1. “Created man from a clinging substance”. Is this a reference to a fetus?

Q2. “Who taught by the pen”. Is this a reference to the Bible?

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The Chronological Qu’ran

I first encountered Islam about six years ago when I was living in London. After meeting a Muslim for the first time, I decided that I should probably become more familiar with the religion, given that it is followed by 1.6 billion people, approximately 23% of the world’s population.

In my naiveté, I decided to start reading the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Oddly enough, I had been given a copy of the Qur’an at my (Catholic) school’s prize-giving about ten years earlier. I dug out my copy and started reading…

I’ll admit that I found the text of Qur’an very dry and I gave up after reading it when I was only about a third of the way through. Jumping straight into the Qur’an is very difficult, particularly if you don’t know much about Islam. It would have been helpful to know, for example, that the chapters (“suwar”) are not placed in chronological order, meaning that as I read sequentially through the chapters, I was jumping between very different periods in Muhammad’s life.

quran

I’ve recently been reflecting on the subject of Islam and have concluded that the need for Christians to be familiar with this religion will only become greater with time. I’ve therefore decided to do more posts on this subject over the coming months. I have already written an introduction to Islam and the odd apologetics post, but in preparation for these upcoming articles, and for the sake of gaining credibility, I have decided to read the Qu’ran from cover-to-cover, but on this occasion I will read the chapters in chronological order.

Below you will see my reading plan, with the chapters arranged in (rough) chronological order. Discerning the exact chronology of the chapters is somewhat difficult for Muslim scholars to discern, particularly give that some chapters even contain verses from different periods. I found several different chronological orderings on the Internet, but I have chosen this one. There were other orderings I found on Christian websites, but in an attempt to limit Christian bias (which I will already bring to the text), I chose to use a chronology from a Muslim website.

My plan is to post some very brief thoughts about the chapters I read each day. I’ve also written a glossary of Islamic terms to make these easier to follow. From time to time, I’ll visit an Imam in San Diego, in order to clarify anything which I have found confusing.

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Wise Words on Wednesday: Is there another way?

matt

Instead of lecturing people about going to church on Sunday, let’s inspire them to want to go. Instead of telling them to dress more appropriately for Mass, let’s give them something worth dressing up for. Instead of telling them not to sleep around, let’s fascinate them with the pursuit of purity. Instead of preaching that giving is better than receiving, let’s just give.

– Matthew Warner, Messy & Foolish

Visit the Sistine Chapel!

When I have friends who want to visit Rome, I always tell them to visit the Sistine Chapel early in the morning if they would like to be an experience which is even remotely peaceful.

The first time I visited the Sistine Chapel, we arrived in the early afternoon and it was bedlam! Prior to entering the chapel, we saw signs with two instructions:

  1. Be quiet
  2. Do not take photographs

However, as when we entered the chapel, we found lots of people talking, and not even very quietly. The custodians would periodically walk through the chapel saying “Silenzio….silenzio…”. We also saw lots of tourists taking photographs. Many were even foolishly trying to take pictures of the ceiling with woefully inadequate cameras. The custodians would walk past tutting at these people and wagging their fingers at them.

Needless to say, this irritated me greatly and I spent the rest of my time in the chapel planning how I would do things if I was in charge. Every camera I saw would be snatched from the tourist’s hands and smashed on the marble floor. A little harsh, perhaps, but the word would soon get out… I would pile up the remains of the smashed electronics at the entrance to the chapel as a warning to all future visitors, much in the same way monarchs used to put the heads of traitors on spikes. Under my regime guidance, the Sistine Chapel would once more return to being a peaceful sanctuary, away from the harshness of the outside world… 😉

Fortunately, if you would like a peaceful Sistine Chapel without my draconian rule, you can now visit it from the comfort of your own home! The Vatican has published on their website a panorama which allows you to explore (at least to some degree) one of the world’s most famous chapels:

screen-shot-2016-12-05-at-5-47-50-pm

Music Monday: Lux Aeterna

Returning once again to classical music, today’s selection is one of the most stirring renditions I’ve heard of Edward Elgar’s “Lux Aeterna”, performed by the VOCES8:

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternum, quia pius es.
May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord, with Thy saints forever, for Thou art kind.

Requiem aeternam
Eternal rest

dona eis, Domine,
give to them, O Lord,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

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