• 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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Giving Thanks

For those of you not living in the United States, today is Thanksgiving.

A few days ago, after making a snide remark about the upcoming national holiday, a friend suggested to me that, given that I have a lot to be thankful for, I really shouldn’t be so curmudgeonly about Thanksgiving. My friend was quite right. After all, if the central focus of Catholic worship is “Eucharist” (literally “Thanksgiving”), then perhaps I should be a bit more enthusiastic about a yearly national holiday in which people call to mind all things for which they are thankful….not forgetting, of course, that Squanto was Catholic! Mea culpa.

Pray, tell me

So, since today focuses on “thanksgiving”, I’d like to take this opportunity to find out your thoughts about “giving thanks” for your food when out in public

Do you pray before you begin a meal at a restaurant? If so, do you pray out loud or in silence? Catholics usually begin and end their prayers with a sign of the cross – do you omit that when you’re in public or just do a very small, quick one? What about if you’re with other people, some of whom aren’t Catholic or Christian?

Religious Oppression

Our new Bishop, Bishop Flores, when speaking to all the Young Adults at the “Mega Mass”, spoke about a time when he went to dinner with a group of young adults and was rather surprised when they just began eating their food without saying grace. When he queried this, one of his dinner companions said that they didn’t do it because they didn’t want to “impose their religion” upon other people in the restaurant!

Table Manners

Growing up, we generally said grace before meals when we sat down together as a family. I grew a bit slack during my teenage years, but in my twenties I started to pray much more regularly before eating, one of the good habits which arose from dating a wonderful and extremely faith-filled lady.

However, I still didn’t generally say grace when I was out at restaurants or when I was with non-Christians. I just felt too awkward. This all changed when I once saw a small group in a restaurant saying grace. I found something extremely touching about them bowing their heads in prayer, thanking God with gratitude for their meal, unashamed of any odd looks this might draw. So, inspired by their example, I now just get over myself and pray regardless, throwing in a nice large sign of the cross at the beginning and end to boot 🙂

So what’s your opinion? Do you have any particular blessings you pray before eating? Leave your comments below!

Sex Au Natural!

A few months ago I went to the Catholic Answers Gala which was hosted by Patrick Coffin. Here he is speaking about his book, Sex Au Natural:

I read his book a good while ago and really enjoyed it. In fact, I’d suggest that it’s one of the best books I’ve read explaining the controversial Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae. Patrick thoroughly explains the Catholic objection to contraception, looking at it from practical, historical, Scriptural and philosophical points of view.

As it happens, he’s having a sale going on at the moment, so head on over to his blog and get some Christmas shopping done!

Free. Total. Faithful. Fruitful.

Baptizing The Punch Buggy

Have you ever heard a game called “Punch buggy”?

It’s game which typically involves two people. While you’re out and about, the first person who spots a Volkswagen Beatle (a “bug”) gets to punch the other person on the arm and, if it’s blue, gets to do it twice! It’s like a violent version of “Eye Spy”. Horrible, right?!

green vw beatle

1 Punch

2 Punches

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TOT: Healing the Culture

On October 23rd, Dr Delgado and Roger Lopez spoke here in San Diego for Theology on Tap. The title of their talk was “Healing the Culture: “Bringing reason back into medicine and sexuality”.

prolife

Main Talk – Part 1 (Download)

Main Talk – Part 2 (Download)

Q&A (Download)

Sweet Sacrifice

I wanted to just blog briefly about a passage of scripture which I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, 2 Samuel 24:18-24:

That day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

So David went up to do what the Lord had commanded him. When Araunah saw the king and his men coming toward him, he came and bowed before the king with his face to the ground. “Why have you come, my lord the king?” Araunah asked.

David replied, “I have come to buy your threshing floor and to build an altar to the Lord there, so that he will stop the plague.”

“Take it, my lord the king, and use it as you wish,” Araunah said to David. “Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and you can use the threshing boards and ox yokes for wood to build a fire on the altar. I will give it all to you, Your Majesty, and may the Lord your God accept your sacrifice.”

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.

I few years ago I came across this passage only minutes before I was about to do something I really did not want to do.  The part that stuck out to me was that David refused to offer to God the free gifts from Araunah:

“I will not [make a sacrifice that] cost me nothing

This Scripture passage showed me what makes a sacrifice…a sacrifice. The very nature of a sacrifice is that it costs us something. It reminded me that living a life which gives glory to God sometimes requires us to do what we would rather avoid.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” – Psalm 51:7

altar

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