• 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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Sunday Lectionary: The Big Question

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 26th, 2012

The Readings this Sunday ask a basic question: whom do you choose?

In the First Reading, Joshua asks this question of Israel. Whom will they serve? Yahweh or some other god? In the Gospel Reading, after hearing the “hard teaching” of the Lord about His Body and Blood, Jesus asks the Twelve if they wish to leave along with some of the other disciples.  Peter answers the  question in the same way I hope we would all answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.

We have a fundamental choice in life. Do we choose God, or do we choose something or someone else? As we hear God’s Word this week and gather around the altar to “taste and see that the Lord is good”, let us renew our commitment to the Lord and say with Peter We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God”.

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TOT: Voting Your Conscience

Cy Kellett“Theology On Tap” continues apace. Last week we heard from Fr. Matt Spahr, the pastor at the Immaculata parish, speaking about discernment. This week we heard from Cy Kellett:

Aug 7: “What is your purpose? What is your call?”
Learning to listen to God’s voice and follow it. -Fr. Matt Spahr

Aug 14: “Citizens and Disciples”
Voting your conscience! What does that look like?- Cy Kellett

Aug 21: “How to live the single life AND meet Mr/Mrs Right”
Living the single life according to God’s will.- Karen Saroki

Aug 28th: “Love, dating and relationships”
Calling all people wanting to love and be loved according to God’s holy desire.” – Jackie Francois

Here’s Cy’s biography:

Cyril Jones-Kellett is the Community Relations Officer for AM 1000 KCEO, San Diego – an Immaculate Heart Radio Station.

He served for a decade as editor-in-chief of San Diego’s Southern Cross. Before his writing career, he spent years working on the streets of Boston with the homeless mentally ill. Part of that time was spent living in an urban Catholic Worker house dedicated to serving homeless men. He also spent four years supervising a home for severely traumatized children.

For fun he likes to spend time with his three teens tying to impress them with his knowledge of pop culture.

Aside from the digs at my homeland, it was a great talk. Here’s the audio:

Theology On Tap

                                       
Cy Kellett – Main Talk                 Cy Kellett – Q&A

(The intro/outro music is Public Domain and available here)

UPDATE: Cy mentioned Peter Singer during the Q&A. For more information on his opinions, please see my post entitled A Nice Conversation About Killing Small Children.

Update on “Twelve for 2012″…

listenAt the beginning of the year I posted my Twelve for 2012, the twelve books I was going to read this year. I thought I’d post an update on how I’m doing with the list.

Here are the books on the list which I finished:

The Church and the New Media
– Brandon Vogt

I’m Not Being Fed! 
– Jeff Cavins

The Passion of Jesus Christ
– John Piper

Father Brown of the Church of Rome
– G.K Chesterton

The Story of Christianity
– Justo Gonzalez

 I suppose that it’s no surprise that I was unable to restrict myself to my initial reading list! Yes, that’s right, I’ve been naughty and read some books that weren’t on the list:

The One Thing
– Matthew Kelly

Pillar of Fire and Truth
– Catholic Answers

Quitter
– Jon Acuff

I am currently reading:

How To Listen When God Is Speaking
– Mitch Pacwa, SJ

…and here are the books which I still have yet to read:

Rediscover Catholicism – Matthew Kelly
Godless Delusion – Patrick Madrid & Kenneth Hensley
The Path of Life – Cyprian Smith OSB
Jesus of Nazareth – Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus Among Other Gods – Ravi Zacharias
Philosophy For Dummies – Thomas Morris

So I have six books to read in five months. This means that I have to read at least one book each month until the end of the year. Fortunately, the books on the list which I’ve already read are generally the longer ones. All the remaining books to read, with the exception of Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, are reasonably short.

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