• 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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TOT: Social Media – How to use it without being used by it

Faith on Fire“Faith on Fire” is a new initiative here in San Diego to help nurture the younger young adult community.

Like “Theology On Tap”, it is held at a bar or restaurant where there is a talk given by a speaker which is followed by Q&A and some discussion. However, unlike “Theology On Tap”, it is restricted to only those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.

As I mentioned the other day, this Tuesday I was drafted in at the last minute to cover for the speaker who was ill. Fr. Jacob was scheduled to speak on the topic:

“Social Media and Faith: How to use it without being used by it” 

Since he couldn’t make it, I gave the talk instead. The presentation file is available for download here and the audio of the evening is available for download below:

Main Talk (Download)

I based part of my talk on my blog post Don’t Be Too Eager To Hit “Send” and The Mobile Challenge. At some point in the future I’ll hopefully do some other posts on the subject of Social Media to help consolidate my thoughts in this area.

(The book which gave away at the beginning of the Q&A time was The Church and New Media by Brandon Vogt)

Best of British: Part 4

I haven’t done a Best of British posting in ages so I figured it’s about time.

In these posts I wanted to introduce Americans to some of the classic British comedy I watched growing up and which was so influential in the cultivation of my “unique” sense of humour (it’s always good to know whom to blame!).

Red Dwarf

Most people know that I’m a bit of a bibliophile and that I love to read, but I don’t think it’s common knowledge which book I’ve picked up and re-read the most times. The title which gets that dubious honour is The Red Dwarf Omnibus, a collection of books based upon the TV comedy called “Red Dwarf”.

Red Dwarf is a comedy set in deep space about crew of the mining ship “Red Dwarf”. The crew consists of the last human alive, the hologram of his dead bunkmate, a creature descended from a domestic cat, a neurotic android and the ship’s senile computer. If that isn’t the formula for comedy gold, I don’t know what is…

In the clip below, the last human alive, Dave, is teaching the neurotic android, Kryten, how to lie:

Men Behaving Badly

Some of the jokes in “Red Dwarf” were definitely more on the “toilet humour” end of the comedy spectrum. Speaking of immature comedies…one show I loved during my teenage years was the suitably infantile “Men Behaving Badly”. This TV show followed the antics of Tony and Garry, two flatmates struggling with adulthood and grown-up life when all they really want to do is sit on the sofa and drink beer.

The following snippet comes from the end of an episode where Tony has been trying to diet…unsuccessfully. Also, Garry’s friends have found out he has actually got a lot of money squirreled away in his bank account. Because everyone keeps asking him for money, Garry goes out and spends all his money on expensive beer and high-end watches for his friends in an effort to get things back to “normal”:

Bottom

No examination of British toilet humour would be complete without a brief look at “Bottom” 😉. Below is probably my favourite scene in the show’s entire run, in which Eddie tries to teach Richie how to play chess…

Needless to say, I wasn’t allowed to watch this show! 😉

Real Men Still Do This

I was at lunch with a new friend the other day and, as a matter of course, as we were leaving the café, I opened the store’s door for her. Her reaction was one of utter surprise! She asked me if opening doors was an “English thing”! I replied no, it’s a “real man” thing.

It’s a complete joke!

You may have heard the joke that if you see a man opening a car door for a lady then it’s either a new lady or a new car. Unfortunately, this joke appears to be, in fact, reality. This is tragic! It’s so sad when a man does not think enough of the lady in his company so as to perform this simple act of kindness. It’s even more heartbreaking when a husband does not do this for the woman to whom he has pledged his life.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies – Ephesians 5:25, 28

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Tuesday Adventures

Yesterday at midday I got a text from Carrie, the Young Adult Coordinator for the Diocese. The speaker for that night’s “Faith On Fire” was ill and she needed a replacement speaker. This is how I came to find myself a few hours later standing in front of forty or so 18-25 year olds giving the talk “Social Media and Faith-“How to use it without being used by it”

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one speaking that night. After speaking for about half an hour, Timmerie Millington got up and shared with us how Social Media has played an important part in her Pro-Life work.

Throughout the night I rather shamelessly plugged my blog, so if you’re visiting here for the first time because of that, welcome! While you’re here, you should also go check out Timmerie’s Blog:

Church Councils

Two weeks ago in our Acts of the Apostles Bible study we covered Acts 15 where we heard about the Council of Jerusalem in AD 52.

In our discussion we also spoke about Ecumenical Councils, when the bishops of the world are gathered together to settle issues facing the Church. I said I would put something up here listing those councils. Here they are…

AD 325: Nicea
Issue: The Divinity of Christ

AD 381: Constantinople
Issue: The Divinity of Holy Spirit

AD 431: Ephesus
Issue: Mary as “Theotokos” (“God Bearer”)

AD 46I: Chalcedon
Issue: The two natures in Christ

AD 476:  The Fall of Rome

AD 553: Constantinople II
Issue: Condemned a variety of writings.

AD 680: Constantinople III
Issue: The two wills in Christ

AD 787: Nicea II
Issue: The veneration of images

AD 869: Constantinople IV

AD 1054 Eastern Schism. The East has never held another council. 

AD 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215: Lateran I, II, III and IV

AD 1245 & 1274: Lyons I & II

AD 1311: Vienne

AD 1414: Constance 
Western Schism

AD 1453 Fall of Constantinople

AD 1512: Lateran V

AD 1545: Trent
Issue: Dealt with Luther’s teachings and made Church reforms

AD 1869: Vatican I

AD 1963: Vatican II

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