• 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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What works in your diocese?

I know that a lot of people who read this blog don’t live in San Diego. I also know that many of you are involved in ministry in some way, especially youth and young adult ministry. Therefore, I thought I’d do a post outlining some of the things we do here in San Diego which have proven popular, in case you wanted to try the same thing in your Diocese.

1. Theology On Tap
I expect most areas of the country have implemented a Theology On Tap programme. Simply put, you take over a restaurant or bar and have a speaker present on a topic for 45 minutes. There’s usually some Q&A and some group discussion. If you want a good turn-out make sure you do a talk on relationships every now and again 🙂

2. The Mega Series
This was something that we came up with in this diocese. Very often Catholics can feel isolated. This is particularly true of young Catholics when most of the people in their parish are significantly older. What the Mega Series attempts to do is bring large numbers of young adults together in traditional devotions, followed by a social. The goal of this is to remind Catholics that they are not alone and are part of a much larger Church. The three main “mega” events we’ve had have been:

(a) Mega Mass

(b) Mega Adoration

(c) Mega Rosary

3. Bible Study
One of the most popular events in the Diocese is the Young Adult Bible study and it’s very often one of the first “spiritual” events new arrivals attend. Given this, it’s important that the Bible study has a strong social and welcoming dimension.

4. Rosary and Adoration
Very often we try complicated, clever things to attract young adults and youths. However, I’ve seen time and again that simply having a night of adoration or recitation of the rosary attracts significant numbers of people.

5. Holiday Parties
The Young Adult Christmas Party in San Diego this is the social event of the year. Everyone gets dressed up, has dinner together and dances the night away. The other major holidays of the year (Memorial Day etc.) are likewise marked with a substantial gathering.

6. Sports
Here is San Diego there is a thriving Catholic Ultimate Frisbee community, in addition to many other sports.

7. Dancing
About four times a year I teach a dance lesson in the Diocese, usually either Salsa or Swing, and there’s always a solid turn-out.

Do any San Diegans have any other thoughts on what works well in our Diocese? What about those of you from elsewhere in the country? What events seem to be most engaging?

The Divine Eucharist

This last weekend I was in LA to attend a debate between Dr. James White and Shaykh Mustafa Umar on the divinity of Christ.

Despite Dr. White’s rather scathing view of Catholicism, even denying it the classification of “Christian”, I jumped at the opportunity to see him in-person. You see, I have consumed a lot of his material over the years. His apologetics material concerning the Watchtower, Mormonism and Islam have been of considerable help to me in my own encounters with members of those groups. Not only that, but my understanding of Reformed theology is almost entirely drawn from his various videos which are available online.

Umar White

The debate itself was constructive and enjoyable, despite having a rather disappointingly truncated Q&A session at the end. After the debate, the line for Dr. White was considerable, but I did get a change to speak to Shaykh Umar. Although I found the Shaykh’s answers to my questions unconvincing, I found him to be down-to-earth and very pleasant.

Aside from announcing that I’ve ticked off another bucket list item, I wanted to do a quick post about this last weekend because I wanted to briefly mention a line of argumentation used by Dr. White during the debate…

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Questions for 1, 2 & 3 John

Before I left San Diego, I went through all the Johannine epistles (1, 2, 3 John). Here are the questions we devised:

1 John

72. Who wrote this letter?
The Early Church identified it as John the Apostle, son of Zebedee. This would explain the preservation of the letter as well as the numerous parallels with John’s Gospel and the Book of Revelation. In recent years some have suggested that it is a disciple known as “John the elder”, a character from the Early Church about whom we know relatively little.

73. When was this letter written?
It was probably written after the publication of John’s Gospel, sometime in the 90s.

74. To whom was it written?
Probably to the Christians around Ephesus where John is said to have settled.

75. Why was this letter written?
Primarily to respond to a heretical, schismatic group. These could have possibly been Docetists, Gnostics, Cerinthians or possibly even converts from Judaism. The issue seemed to surround the nature and identity of Christ. John spends most of the letter talking about the authentic fellowship with God.

76. What are some of the words which John uses a lot in his writings?
Life, death, light, dark, beginning, abide, …

2 John

77. To whom is this letter addressed?
It is addressed to “the elect lady and her children”. Although this could have possibly been an actual person, it is more likely that John is speaking of a neighbouring Church is sisterly, feminine terms.

78. What is the main content of this letter?
John is writing to a sister church. He encourages them and warns them of the antichrist

79. Who is the antichrist?
According to John, anyone who “will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh”.

3 John

80. To whom is this letter addressed?
It is addressed to “the beloved Gaius”. He is most likely in the leadership of the one of the local congregations.

81. What is the main content of the letter?
A man named “Diotrephes” is exalting himself, refusing to accept John’s authority, refusing welcome to those John sends and excommunicating anyone who does so.

1-16 | 17-27 | 27-42 | 43-52 | 53-57 | 58-67 | 68-71 | 72-81

Music Monday: Pray

One of my new favourites, Sanctus Real’s song “Pray”:

VERSE 1
I bow my head to pray, I don’t know what to say
I’m not sure how to fix the things I’m dealing with
I’m in a desperate place, I need to share the weight
But I just don’t know how, to let it all pour out
Though I’m silent, my heart is crying
Cause I was made to come to You

CHORUS
So I pray
God I need You more than words can say
Right here in this moment
You know my heart, You know my need
You know every part of me
So even if it’s just to speak Your name
I’m gonna pray

VERSE 2
I failed to find the time, but You’ve been calling out
I let the days go by as if I could live without
But it’s gotta be here now, I won’t be pulled away
Cause it’s just You and I, so let the world around us fade

BRIDGE
(Father) Will You meet me here right now?
(Father) I surrender, lay it down
(Father) And every time I close my eyes
I know that I was made
To lift my hands and pray
I lift my hands and pray

You know my heart, You know my need
And every single part of me
So even if it’s just to speak Your name
I’m gonna pray x2

You know my heart, You know my need
You know every part of me
More than words, You are my life
Take it as an offering

History and the dog who never barked

A while ago, during a discussion in the comment section of this blog, I made the assertion that the historic Church of Christianity was the Catholic Church. A non-Catholic disputed this claim, asserting that the Catholic Church only came into existence with the reign of the Emperor Constantine.

In response to this claim, I shared with her my post entitled Before 300: Pre-Constantinian Christianity, where I provide evidence for twenty-one doctrines which were believed by Christians prior to AD 300 and the rise of Constantine.  The original purpose of that post was not only to show that the Catholic Church was in existence long before Constantine arrived on scene, but also to provide non-Catholics with a simple way to compare their own beliefs to that of the early Christians.

After reading that article, my internet friend appeared to concede that the Catholic Church did actually exist from the earliest of times. Wonderful! However, despite denying its existence only moments before, she now claimed that the Catholic Church had persecuted the “true” Christians in the early centuries! I’ve heard similar claims in the past made by other Protestants as well as Muslims, in an effort to explain why the belief system that we find in the Early Church is incompatible with their own.

Today I would like to examine the assertion that the Catholic Church suppressed “true” Christianity in the early centuries and I will attempt to dismantle it using an argument which may be referred to as “The dog who never barked”

Sherlock3

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