• 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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Manvotional: Winston Churchill

I’m a regular reader of the website The Art of Manliness. I love their content, but wish that more of it was made available in audio format, in particular the “manvotionals”. At the moment I’m trying to get hold of the guys who run the site to make this request and also to offer my services as part of the team who’ll provide the audio version of their posts.

As part of my pitch, I’ve recorded a recent “manvotional” posted on their website from the autobiography of a man who is consistently voted as being the greatest Briton of all time, Sir Winston Churchill.

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 11.25.08 AM

Manvotional (Download)

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

The unaccompanied MP3 is available here.

Music Monday: How can I keep from singing?

I’ve been on a real Chris Tomlin kick recently. As I drove back into Seattle the other week, I was rocking out to “How can I keep from singing?” with the windows down and the stereo blaring at full volume 🙂

There is an endless song
Echoes in my soul
I hear the music ring

And though the storms may come
I am holding on
To the rock I cling

How can I keep from singing Your praise?
How can I ever say enough?
How amazing is Your love!
How can I keep from shouting Your name?
I know I am loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing

I will lift my eyes
In the darkest night
For I know my Savior lives

And I will walk with You
Knowing You’ll see me through
And sing the songs You give

I can sing in the troubled times, sing when I win
I can sing when I lose my step and fall down again
I can sing ’cause You pick me up, sing ’cause You’re there
I can sing ’cause You hear me, Lord when I call to You in prayer
I can sing with my last breath
Sing for I know that I’ll sing with the angels and the saints around the throne

Pray He finds figs

If you’ve ever had the chance to speak about the Christian faith with a Muslim, chances are that you will have heard the following objection raised to the divinity of Jesus (whom they call “Isa”):

“Does God know everything? Of course He does! If so, why did Isa (Jesus) not know when you can get figs? In Mark’s Gospel he goes to a fig tree looking for fruit, but he didn’t even know they weren’t in season! Isa therefore cannot be God”

If you’re a Christian who knows his faith, it’s tempting to laugh at such an objection and ignore it. However, today I would like to respond to this argument. I would like to do this for two reasons. Firstly, Scripture commands us to “be ready to give an answer” (1 Peter 3:15). Secondly, I think that the Biblical text being referred to here is really interesting and one upon which we would do well to meditate.

Fig Tree

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Travel Log: Keeping it weird in Portland

Today I’m in Oregon for Oktoberfest and it reminded me that I never wrote about my trip here last month. After a week on retreat at Mount Angel, I spent the weekend in Portland:

Portland

I got to visit the famous Powells, a three-story bookstore covering an entire city block. I was so proud of myself, I managed to leave without buying anything – quite an achievement!

Powells

I spent most of Saturday morning visiting the extensive Saturday market down by the waterfront.

I also took an “Underground” walking tour of the city where I heard about some of the rather quirky history of Oregon’s most well-known city.

During our tour we went past one Portland’s iconic locations, Voodoo Donuts. The lines outside were crazy, with people waiting over an hour just to get a donut! During the tour we heard the story of how the business began. It turns out that a club owner created donuts which he said were hang-over cures. He could say this because the sugar frosting was replaced with crushed-up aspirins and the jam filling with pepto-bismol! The government discovered what he was doing and freaked out because he was putting drugs in the food he was selling. Rather than letting it sink his business, he then used the media storm as free advertising. He switched to making the kind of delicious sugar-filled treats they sell today and people flocked to buy them!

Walking

Finally, while in Portland I went to Mass at the Grotto on the outskirts to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. I returned the following day to spend some quiet time in the grotto grounds:

Grotto

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