• 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.

    Read more »
  • 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.

    Read more »
  • 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

    Read more »
  • PWJ: S4E102 – Bonus – “Season Finale” (Part 1)

    David, Andrew, and Matt wrap up Season 4 with the Season Finale. This is Part 1…

    Read more »
  • 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.

    Read more »
  • 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.

    Read more »
  • 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!

    Read more »
  • 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.

    Read more »
  • 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.

    Read more »
  • 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”.

    Read more »

The solution to any anxiety is more prayer!

ignatius-loyola

“After you have made a decision that is pleasing to God, the Devil may try to make you have second thoughts. Intensify your prayer time, meditation, and good deeds. For if Satan’s temptations merely cause you to increase your efforts to grow in holiness, he’ll have an incentive to leave you alone.”

– St. Ignatius of Loyola

(Thanks to Anh for this one)

When it takes an atheist to explain the faith…

Yesterday I posted a video of some Dominican Nuns reacting to Pope Francis’ election. Here is the other video which I really wanted to post during my Lenten blog fast:

For those of you who don’t live in the US, the chap on the right is Penn Jillette, one half of the magic group “Penn & Teller” and a vocal atheist. I’m pretty sure everyone knows the guy on the right, the former British tabloid writer and editor, Piers Morgan.

Until recently I had no idea that Piers called himself a Catholic, but when Pope Benedict resigned he became incredibly vocal about it, tweeting and saying many things that would give a first year theologian a rather impressive aneurism.

I love the way it takes an Atheist such as Penn to explain to a professed Catholic such as Piers the basics of Catholicism…

A little bit on the Eucharist

I was looking through some old emails I wrote several years ago to a friend who was leaving the Catholic Church. Here’s the short section I wrote about the Eucharist…

The Eucharist

From the conversation we had, I’m not particularly sure whether or not you still believe in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist, so in case you do, I’ll be brief.  Denial of Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist is a very common teaching among many Protestant denominations (but as always, not universally).

Scripture

The Eucharist was a central part of life for the Apostles (Acts 2:42) yet in most Protestant churches Holy Communion is pretty rare.  If the Eucharist is only symbolic, why is unworthy reception of the Eucharist (1 Cor 11:27-30) spoken of in such strong, sacrilegious, life-and-death terms?  Scripture records Jesus saying in John 6:35-70 that we must eat His body and drink His blood.  If he was only speaking symbolically why did he lose so many followers that day?

Church History

Outside of Scripture, something that you will find without exception among the Early Church Fathers is the belief that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is one of the central topics examined in the Didache (70-90 AD), probably the earliest Christian writing not to be included in the canon of the Bible. This First Century document calls the Eucharist a “sacrifice”.

As you may have now read, St. Ignatius of Antioch (96 AD) described the Eucharist as “the medicine of immortality and described the Gnostics as those who “abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes.”Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6

The historical witness for this doctrine is undeniable. Absolutely undeniable.

Whilst I was still in my rather anti-Catholic phase I heard someone say “If you say you’re not being fed in the Catholic Church then you clearly don’t know who you’re eating”.  As much as this sounded arrogant and as much as it irritated me, it did prompt me to really examine the teaching of the Eucharist because, if it was true, to miss out would be a tragedy.

last supper

1 430 431 432 433 434 581