• 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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Stir Fry 2.0

Continuing with my “chicken” theme, I got a new stir fry recipe and made it tonight:

Here’s the recipe:

1. Cut four chicken breasts/thighs into half inch strips.

2. Coat in cornflower (should be about 3 tablespoons).

3. Cover with soy sauce (about 2 tablespoons) and leave to marinade in the fridge for 30 minutes.

4. Chop vegetables: courgette, broccoli and carrot.

5. Chop onion long and thin. Spring onions are apparently best, but I used a red onion.

6. Fry onions in a wok without oil.

7. Once the onions start to soften, add the vegetables and cook for about 3 minutes.

8. Empty the wok. Start the jasmine rice.

9. Add oil. Peanut oil is apparently best, but I used olive oil (3 tablespoons).

10. Add the chicken and cook until it starts to brown, at which point add more soy sauce, honey (2 tablespoons), garlic (2 cloves) and a chili. A red birds eye chili was suggested, but I just used generic chili from the supermarket.

11. Allow this to simmer for 5-10 minutes to allow the cornflower to thicken the sauce.

12. When you are ready to serve, add the vegetables back in again, adding 2 tablespoons of coriander, finely chopped snowpeas and some almonds or cashew nuts.

Thanks Careina!

Catholic Bucket List #2: Try a Tridentine Mass

Continuing my Catholic Bucket List series from the other day, this week’s suggestion is:

Bucket List Item #2: Attend a Tridentine Mass

A little background

So what’s a “Tridentine Mass”?

Well, when Joe Catholic attends a Mass today, he typically attends a “Novus Ordo” (“New Order”) Mass. This formulation of the liturgy was brought about in the Seventies through Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council.

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Hocus Pocus

This was an interesting little tidbit I heard the other day…

Have you ever wondered about the origin of “hocus pocus”, the phrase commonly uttered by magicians?

Well, the story I recently heard was that it came from a corruption of the words of the Latin Mass:

hoc (enim) est corpus meum”
“This is my body”

It sounded reasonable, but I went and did a little bit of digging…

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that this explanation was the conjecture of John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. It can be found in his rather nasty sermon in 1694:

“In all probability those common juggling words of ‘hocus pocus’ are nothing else but a corruption of ‘hoc est corpus’, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.”

It’s possible that the Archbishop is right here, but it’s clear that he isn’t exactly the most impartial judge!

It has been suggested instead that the phrase is simply “faux Latin”, a collection of nonsense words conjured up out of thin air 😉 to aid the magician in his stagecraft.  I’ve found references to a performer of the 1620s who called himself “Hocus Pocus” and who used the following incantation in his act:

 “Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo.”

Unfortunately, there’s a lack of definitive evidence to confirm with any real certainty the origin of this phrase – there really are quite a wide range of possibilities. Still, speculation is fun 🙂

The Gospel of John

One of my goals with this blog has always been to put people into contact with decent resources to help them deepen and strengthen their relationship with God.

Today I’d like to to share a resource that Msgr. Pope blogged about a while ago:

“[Fr. Francis] has been a great teacher of mine though his retreats and tape ministry. He has also been instrumental in my spiritual life through his careful and clear articulation of a theology of transformation, and insistence that we, as Christians, come to know and live the normal Christian life, a life of on-going and total transformation by the grace of God. He is a humble and prayerful man of God, a holy priest”

Fr. Francis has a number of resources on his YouTube channel which include commentaries on the Sunday Mass readings. What I would like to draw your attention to here, however, is his series on my favourite Gospel, the Gospel of St. John.

So, if you’d like to work through John’s Gospel with a great teacher, now is your opportunity…

Talk 1: Part A | Part B
Talk 2: Part A | Part B
Talk 3: Part A | Part B
Talk 4: Part A | Part B
Talk 5: Part A | Part B
Talk 6: Part A | Part B
Talk 7: Part A | Part B
Talk 8: Part A | Part B
Talk 9: Part A | Part B
Talk 10: Part A | Part B
Talk 11: Part A | Part B
Talk 12: Part A | Part B

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