• 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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Ambo or Pulpit?

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’ll know that a good portion of my posts either come from questions people have asked me or from my own wondering about a particular subject. Today’s post falls into the latter category…

When Jesus preached to the crowds, Scripture records that one time He ascended a mountain to teach them (Matthew 5:1) and on another occasion He got into a boat and moved a little way from the shore (Luke 5:3). There is theological significance to both of these actions, but there’s also a very practical reason that the Lord did this – He wanted His preaching to be heard clearly by as many people as possible.

The necessity to clearly hear the words of preaching continues today and we see it reflected in the architecture of our church buildings in the presence of a pulpit/ambo/lecturn.

Pulpit-large

For quite a while, I’ve noticed that Catholic liturgists typically use the word “ambo” to describe the preacher’s platform, rather than “pulpit”, which you hear more often both in the Protestant world and in popular culture. However, is there really a difference between “ambo” and “pulpit”, or is this just a case of Catholic/Protestant “potato/potahto”?

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Music Monday: Shoulders

When confusion’s my companion
And despair holds me for ransom
I will feel no fear
I know that You are near

When I’m caught deep in the valley
With chaos for my company
I’ll find my comfort here
‘Cause I know that You are near

My help comes from You
You’re right here, pulling me through
You carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness all on Your shoulders
Your shoulders
My help comes from You
You are my rest, my rescue
I don’t have to see to believe that You’re lifting me up on Your shoulders
Your shoulders

You mend what once was shattered
And You turn my tears to laughter
Your forgiveness is my fortress
Oh Your mercy is relentless

My help is from You
Don’t have to see it to believe it
My help is from you
Don’t have to see it, ‘cause I know, ‘cause I know it’s true

Gay Marriage in Christian History?

In the wake of the SCOTUS decision concerning same-sex marriage, I’ve seen lots of people on Facebook making the assertion that the Church used to perform same-sex weddings in antiquity. In defense of this quite provocative assertion, typically a single authority is cited, the Professor of Medieval History at Yale University, John Boswell.

I was planning on writing a rebuttal to this assertion, but after doing a little bit of googling, I came across this article by Robin Darling Young who reviews Boswell’s book and does a tremendous job on demonstrating the considerable bias required to reimagine Church history in an attempt to support such an outlandish hypothesis:

Screen Shot 2015-08-12 at 10.43.52 AM

Something other than God…

FulwilerAs you may well know, I’ve been working through a long list of books during my sabbatical. I recently finished one of them, Something other than God, written by Jennifer Fulwiler. Mrs. Fulwiler grew up an an atheist, but blogged her way into the Catholic Church.

I really enjoyed the book. It’s a page-turner and I finished it in short order. In it she discusses how she grappled with the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, the person of Jesus Christ, the problem of suffering, as well as the Church’s teachings of contraception and abortion. I’d say it’s a really good book to give to a real range of people, from atheist to fallen-away Catholic.

There were a couple of passages from Mrs Fulwiler’s book I just wanted to share in this post before I pass on the book to someone else. The first quotation is about Purgatory. I wanted to share it because she writes very eloquently about it, using the same line of argumentation I used in my earlier post about purification after death:

“The Catechism basically said: If you’re a believer and a jerk, you don’t walk right in to heaven after you die. ‘All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” Heaven is the place of perfect good and perfect love. To enter it while in a disposition of selfishness or hatefulness or unkindness would be like entering into a gleaming clean house with muddy boots; the house would not be clean anymore” -Jennifer Fulwiler, Something Other Than God

The second quotation I wanted to share also related to the subject of the departed in faith, but in the case the practice of praying for them:

“The Catechism explained that praying for the souls of the dead is a tradition going back to the first Christians and to the Jews before them. On the walls of the catacombs, where the earliest Christians worshipped, there were scrawled prayers for friends who’d died during persecutions. The living sent their love for the deceased into the spiritual world, like adding water to a stream that would eventually float their lost friends home.” -Jennifer Fulwiler, Something Other Than God

Someone at our parish died a week or so ago and it was the first time I got to pray the Panachida, the funeral prayers of the Byzantine Church. After the service it’s traditional to sing the psalter (or at least as much of it as you can) over the body. Mrs Fulwiler’s description of praying for the dead perfectly coalesced with this quite moving experience, “adding water to a stream that would eventually float [our friend] home”.

Mangled Matins: Cyprian (10th October)

So today at Matins our priest gave me a new book to add to the pile of books I use to Cantor. Oh joy! More books to manage! 😉

The one I was handed today was the Byzantine Monthly Manaion, which contains many of the changable parts of Matins.

Tomorrow is October 2nd and we’ll be celebrating The Holy Hieromartyr Cyprian and the Virgin Martyr Justina. To help me learn the parts from tomorrow, I recorded myself singing them and I’ve included them below. They’re neither perfect nor polished, but here they are…

Saint Troparion (Tone 4)

Day Troparion (Tone 1)

Kontakion (Tone 4)

Prokeimenon (Tone 7)

Alleluia (Tone 6)

Communion Hymn (Psalm 111:6-7)

I think I’ll probably record the changeable parts in advance each time I’m singing Matins, so just in case anyone out there is also having to sing Matins and wants to learn them/suffer along with me, I’ll probably be posting them up here most days.

Manvotional: Spartacus

A few days ago I published a post which contained an MP3 recording of a “Manvotional” recently published on The Art of Manliness. I’ve been trying to contact the owners of the website with the suggestion that they should offer these posts in MP3 form. So far I’ve had no response, but I’ve decided I’ll keep on recording them until I hear from them. Today’s “Manvotional” concerns the slave who famously rebelled against the might of the Roman Empire, Spartacus.

Screen Shot 2015-09-30 at 4.27.42 PM

Manvotional (Download)

“Five Armies” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The unaccompanied MP3 is available here.

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