• 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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Is England in London?

Yesterday I uploaded to Facebook a picture of a can of Boddingtons as my profile picture. This prompted a childhood friend of mine to go on a lovely little rant:

“Hmmm, since when has Boddingtons originated from ‘Britain’? Was it brewed in Scotland, N.Ireland or Wales? I don’t think so! England!!!!!!!! You can bet your life if it was a Scottish product it’d say imported from Scotland on it 😀 Plus… If the collective ‘Britain’ really has to be used they should at least have the decency to use the ‘Great’ at the beginning of it! Phew… Sorry- Rant over! PS  I guess I should be grateful that it doesn’t state ‘Imported from Europe’ on it :-D”

I told him that if this sort of thing bothers him, he shouldn’t move to the USA!

I find that Americans are usually rather flummoxed when it comes to knowing the difference between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom so I thought that today I’d offer a brief explanation…

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Staying Connected

I wrote this post over a year ago but I never felt quite comfortable in publishing it. I now think it’s time…

I have my friends in Washington DC on speed dial. I am only a few clicks away from video chatting with my family in England. I regularly send emails and texts which could wait until we meet in person, but I choose not to delay because of the ease of communication. We live in a world in which we are increasingly connected to one another…

This idea of a deep connection between people in far-flung locations is nothing new. Catholicism has clearly understood this concept for two thousand years. I mean, think of all the things that Catholics “share”. Regardless of where we are in the world, we are all washed in Baptism. We share in the same Spirit. This connection through the Spirit is indeed profound; we are all bound together, even with those who have already died and are in Heaven. We pray common prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. We share a common Sunday liturgy. We proclaim the same creed. And finally, of course, we share the same Eucharist meal.

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Best of British: Part 2

Yesterday I began talking about some of the British comedy shows I enjoyed growing up.

It would be almost impossible to mention all of the shows that I loved; there are simply too many! When I first wrote out a list of my favourite British comedy shows I noticed that a large number of the comedians had careers which spanned several successful shows.

For example Ronnie Barker played both a prison inmate in Porridge and a miserly shop keeper in Open All Hours. Geoffrey Palmer stared in both Butterflies, as well as opposite Judi Dench in the wonderful As Time Goes By. Penelope Keith is another great example, being cast in both The Good Life and To The Manor Born. Lenny Henry has starred in many shows but I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight his role as the perfectionist/evil chief in Chef!, a show that I think fairly few people have seen, even though it was, in my opinion, some of his best work.

A lot of people know Rowan Atkinson from Mr. Bean, but not so many have seen his other shows such as The Thin Blue Line. Probably my favourite series of his was Blackadder. That show was genius. It ran for four seasons, with each season being set in a different historical period: The Middle Ages, Elizabethan England, the Regency and the First World War. For those of you who only know Hugh Laurie as the broody Dr. House, you really need to also see him play the idiot Prince George:

More “suggestions” on Saturday (all suggestions are mandatory)…

Best Of British

Everyone knows that, when it comes to comedy, it doesn’t get any better than British. Unfortunately, I regularly meet Americans who have not been exposed to the veritable treasure trove of chortles that my country has to offer.

This makes me sad. Instead of enjoying classic shows such as Hancock’s Half Hour, Fawlty Towers (“Don’t mention the war!”) and Rising Damp, they just sit watching the billionth season of The Office (the American version), waiting for it to finally get funny again. I have therefore decided to compile over a series of posts a list of British comedy shows that simply must be watched…

I was fortunate to grow up in an era of great British comedy. Every Saturday night my family would gather together in the living room. We would eat dinner on our laps, which was considered a huge treat, since eating was not typically allowed in the living room. We would then settle in for an evening of great TV. We would receive Yorkshire wisdom from Last of the Summer Wine and listen to the grumpy rants from Victor Meldrew in One Foot In the Grave.

I’ve started watching many of these shows again as an adult. Now when I watch old episodes of Hi-De-Hi! I’m stunned by how many of the jokes went over my head as a child (probably a good thing!). Another show like this was ‘Allo ‘Allo, a comedy set in the unlikely location of France during the Second World War. Actually, it’s quite surprising how many British comedies used wars as their backdrop, the most famous of which is probably Dad’s Army, which tells the story of the men in England’s “Home Guard”:

More ramblings and recommendations tomorrow!

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