• 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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#ProtestPP Seattle

This last weekend I joined the crowd of people outside Seattle’s Planned Parenthood. At 320 other locations around the country many others did likewise, protesting the country’s most well-known abortion provider. It was wonderful seeing all my friends from around the country posting their pictures on Facebook.

Much like last time in Seattle, the counter-protest presence was rather weak. I counted maybe six people who were identifiably there in support of Planned Parenthood. In contrast, the pro-lifers covered most of the city block:

Protest

As you can hopefully see, as usual there was a real cross-section of people present, both men and women, young and old.
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Scripture Nerd Moment…

This afternoon I came across something which made me chuckle while I was out taking my afternoon stroll with Scott Hahn (Dr. Hahn couldn’t make it in person but was considerate enough to be present on my iPod).

I was walking through one of Seattle’s many lovely parks and I came across some children’s play equipment:

IMG_1482

I noticed that the bars of the fence enclosing the area had names written on them. I assumed that these were the names of the donors who helped pay for the equipment. It was then that I noticed one particular entry:

IMG_1483The Thomas family appeared to have wanted a Bible verse included with their name. Their choice of verse made me chuckle. Can you guess what text is found in Luke 18:16?

Music Monday: Hope in front of me

The next two Music Mondays are going to be from an artist I’ve recently discovered, Danny Gokey. This week, it’s his song “Hope in front of me”

There’s also an amazing acoustic version available.

I’ve been running through rain
That I thought would never end
Trying to make it on faith
In a struggle against the wind
I’ve seen the dark and the broken places
But I know in my soul
No matter how bad it gets
I’ll be alright

There’s hope in front of me
There’s a light, I still see it
There’s a hand still holding me
Even when I don’t believe it
I might be down but I’m not dead
There’s better days still up ahead
Even after all I’ve seen
There’s hope in front of me

There’s a place at the end of the storm
You finally find
Where the hurt and the tears and the pain
All fall behind
You open up your eyes and up ahead
There’s a big sun shining
Right then and there you realize
You’ll be alright

There’s a hope still burning
I can feel it rising through the night
And my world’s still turning
I can feel your love here by my side

You’re my hope
You’re the light, I still see it
Your hands are holding me
Even when I don’t believe it
I’ve got to believe
I still have hope
You are my hope

Changing the Creed

I could tell I was tired this morning… During the Divine Liturgy I went into autopilot as we sung the Creed, which unfortunately meant that I sang loudly “I believe in the Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Oops!

In case you are unaware, in Eastern Christianity, the last part of that sentence is not included in the Nicene Creed. This creed was the product of two Ecumenical Councils, Nicaea and Constantinople, so technically we should call it the Nicene-Constantinoplean Creed.

The argument surrounding the clause “and the Son” is known as the “Filioque Controversy”, since “Filioque” is the Latin word which was added to the Creed in the West. This controversy dates back to the Great Schism of 1054. The history surrounding it is a little complicated, but the long and the short of it is that one of the reasons much of the Eastern Church broke communion with Rome was due to the addition of this word to the Creed in the West.

Schism

However, my purpose in this post isn’t so much to speak about the Filioque, but to talk about another slip up I made today when I sang “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…”

More changes?!

Back when I lived in San Diego, I often attended the San Diego Orthodox Young Adults Group. Once when I was hanging out with them, one of my Eastern Orthodox friends asked me why the Catholic Church made so many changes to the Creed. What did he mean? There were changes in addition to the Filioque?! That was news to me! However, he then pointed out that in the West we say:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,

In the East, however, the phrase in bold, “God from God”, does not appear!

Creedal Variations

I spent a little bit of time digging into this issue and I was rather surprised to find out that there were actually quite a few creedal variations in the ancient Church. In fact, you could go as far as to say that all the ancient versions differ at least to some degree from the official text given at Nicaea and Constantinople.

For example, the Councils used the first person plural throughout: We believe… We confess… We await…”. However, the Byzantine Churches changed it to the first person singularI believe… confess… await”. Historically, the Latin Church did the same, although until relatively recently, English-speaking Catholics would say “We”. However, following the liturgical reforms of 2011 and retranslation of the Roman Missal to represent more faithfully the Latin text, all Catholics now say “I” instead.

Another textual variation in the Latin text is the one mentioned by my Eastern Orthodox friend. It is true that, in addition to the Filioque clause, the Latin liturgical text has another difference. In the Latin, it reads Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero”, which translates asGod from God, Light from Light, true God from true God”. It turns out that the clause, “God from God”, although not found in the Creed from Constantinople, is actually found in the earlier creed from Nicaea. For some reason, this was retained in the Latin. The Armenian text includes this and other variations as well.

Conclusions?

So what should we conclude? I’m not really sure, but I think we can acknowledge two things. The first is simply that there is more variation in the “Nicene Creed” than we commonly think, and the second is that I need to make sure I have a nice cup of tea before I attempt to sing any complex theology in the mornings.

UPDATE: Michael Lofton just recorded a livestream with even more details on this subject:

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