• 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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Music Monday: Whatever you’re doing…

This morning I’m road tripping to a monastery to spend a week on retreat. Sanctus Real’s “Whatever you’re doing” seemed like a very appropriate song for this week’s Music Monday

It’s time for healing time to move on
It’s time to fix what’s been broken too long
Time make right what has been wrong
It’s time to find my way to where I belong
There’s a wave that’s crashing over me
All I can do is surrender

[Chorus]

Whatever you’re doing inside of me
It feels like chaos somehow there’s peace
It’s hard to surrender to what I can’t see
but I’m giving in to something heavenly

Time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Revaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow your will
or just climbing aimlessly over these hills
So show me what it is you want from me
I give everything I surrender…
To…

[Chorus]

Time to face up
Clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out
That I’ve wanted to say for so many years
Time to to release all my held back tears

[Chorus]

It’s time to face up
Clean this old house
Time breathe in and let everything out

Quick Apology: The authority to forgive sins…

ForgivenessOne of my favourite things about having a blog is that, every now and then, I’ll get an email out of the blue from someone I don’t know. I love getting emails from people I’ve never met. There’s something quite wonderful in having an interaction with someone from across the continent or even the world, all because of something you’ve written!

Very often when I get emails they contain questions of an apologetics nature. I’m trying to get better at converting these email exchanges into posts. So, in light of that, I would like to share a response I gave to an email I received a few weeks ago. The gentleman asked the following question:

While discussing Christ’s establishment of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I brought up John 20:21-23.  My Protestant friends said that this is Jesus’ way of warning everyone not to hold a grudge against someone by retaining their sin. I know what Jesus was doing here, but I lack the bomb-proof Catholic response to this interpretation; can you help?

I’m not sure if my response qualifies as “bomb-proof”, but here was my reply…

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The Baggage of Sola Scriptura

wpf087e6e3_06Today we have a guest post from Tom Massoth, the father-in-law of my friend John, who will also soon be a guest poster here at Restless Pilgrim.

Tom and his wife of 39 years, Michele, reside in Yorba Linda, CA where they raised their two daughters Lisa and Jennifer. Now blessed with four perfect grandchildren, this retired Boeing engineer dedicates his time to God, family and friends, and various time-gobbling hobbies such as cycling. He is also a a Certified Flight Instructor in both airplanes and gliders. 

Tom has a love of Scripture and is a student of Church history and the early development of Christian doctrines. His particular interest lies in presenting the fullness of the Catholic faith in simple and easy-to-understand terms to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. He prays for a more unified Christian faith in the world and sees open honest dialog as the key to spreading the Good News.

Here is what Tom has to say on the subject of Sola Scriptura…

Following apologetic debates on various internet blogs is usually interesting, sometimes entertaining and often very frustrating. The exchanges start with the initial blog entry that posits a position favored by the author, which invariably includes historical evidence, perhaps quotations from the writings of Church fathers and of course verses from Holy Scripture that are offered as proof of point in question.

The comment boxes then fill in reaction using the same general modus operandi: “Great Point!” leads the pack. “Ridiculous Point!” soon follows. Still another says “Ref. Romans X: Y-Z and you’ll see the real truth and proof of your foolish conclusions!” Another commenter counters with “Hey, this is so easy, just read 1 Cor A: B, which of course refers to Psalm ##, which was foreseen by Jeremiah L: MN-OP.” the beat goes on, and the beat goes on.

The most frustrating scenario, however, is a case when people holding opposing views on a particular topic offer the exact same Bible verse as proof to support their position! We then have two differing viewpoints, both claiming the inspired Word of God as proof of their positions. We know that the Bible cannot contradict itself; so where do we go from here?

Now, I’m not a member of clergy, nor a trained theologian or Bible scholar, but it doesn’t take an expert to see that something is terribly wrong with the way we are attempting to discover and embrace God’s revealed truth. Jumping from proof text to proof text, trying to understand the position, arguments and supporting evidence, it soon becomes apparent that the Bible per se is no longer at the core of the controversies. It was people themselves that had somehow replaced the single truth of God’s Word.

A battle cry of the Protestant Reformation was the idea of Sola Scriptura, i.e. that the Bible and the Bible alone stands as the sole revelation of God’s truth to mankind. I fully accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God, so at a certain level I agree with the spirit of Sola Scripture. That said, for any premise like Sola Scriptura, we must not only understand the basic concept, we must also peel back the layers to see what other conclusions necessarily come along as an implied attachment.

To that end, I would like to discuss a thought experiment that began with a definition of Sola Scriptura, which continued through some intermediate observations and ended with a most unexpected conclusion…

Consequences

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2,000th Post

Today’s is just going to be a very short post. This entry marks my 2,000th post here at RestlessPilgrim.net. I wanted to thank everyone who has read, commented and shared this blog. I’m always extremely humbled when I find out that people take time out of their lives to read what I have to say and I love receiving responses from people I’ve never met in person.

As well as being my 2,000th post, today marks the beginning of my two month sabbatical. I will be posting during this time, but it’s also going to be a period of discernment for the road ahead. I’d very much appreciate your prayers as I try and work all this out.

The White Rose

At “Drinks with Dominicans” the other day I was introduced to “The White Rose”, a group of students in Nazi Germany who spoke out against Hitler. They came from Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox backgrounds and were tremendously influenced by the writings of Cardinal Newman, especially his arguments from Natural Law concerning the dignity of the human person.

I’ve just finished watching the excellently done film about the group, entitled “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXtC08tWxqA

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