Friday Frivolity: Serving All
Confessions of a Catholic Blogger
Over at Seton Magazone, John Clark posted an article entitled “7 Confessions of a Catholic Blogger”. They’re all spot on…
Wise Words on Wednesday: Pursuit of happiness
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities
– Aldous Huxley
Protestantism: Agreeing on essentials?
When Catholics critique the contradictory beliefs held in different parts of the Protestant world, we are often told that “Protestants agree on all the essentials”. A statement like this, of course, this begs two questions:
1. Which doctrines should be considered “essential” and which “non-essential”?
2. Who gets to make that categorization?
The second question is particularly important. Who gets the final say as to what is “essential” and what is “non-essential”? After all, what happens when two Protestants disagree on what is “essential”?
To pick an example from the dawn of the Reformation, Luther and Zwingli came into conflict concerning their respective understandings of the Eucharist, so much so that this ruptured their relationship. Could we still say that these two fathers of the Reformation agreed on “essentials”?
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Music Monday: How great thou art
A little more country today. Here is Lauren Daigle singing the classic hymn “How great thou art”:
VERSE 1
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
CHORUS
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
VERSE 2
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
VERSE 3
And when I think of God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
VERSE 4
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”
Enemy of the Bible?
A while back I did a post where I gave a “Quick Apology” concerning the charges that the Catholic Church chained Bibles. I came across this article from Dave Armstrong this week where he gives a fuller response:
Explaining the mess up…
A little while ago, I was discussing with a Protestant the issue of baptism in the Early Church. The exchange was quite typical in that he rejected the beliefs of the Early Church, choosing instead to trump the witness of history with his own personal interpretation of the Scriptures.
Why did the Early Church “get it all so wrong”?
In response to this, I did something unusual, departing from my usual strategy. Rather than trying to demonstrate to him that the Early Church was correct, I asked him, in his opinion, why did the Early Church get it all so wrong? After all, the question of whether baptism washes away sin isn’t some trivial doctrine, but one which relates to the question of our very salvation!
