• 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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The best monastic order

This week was the feast day of St. Dominic, so I thought I would share a rather religiously nerdy joke I came across recently…

A Dominican and a Jesuit were arguing about whether the Dominicans or the Jesuits were more favored by God. Finally, they decided that the only one who could settle the matter was God. So they prayed, the heavens opened up, and a piece of paper came fluttering down. When they picked it up, this is what it said:

My children,

Please stop quarreling about such absurd and trivial matters.
Sincerely,

God, O.P.

(You’re welcome Jenna…)

Lectionary Resources

A few people have recently asked me where I get the material for my “Lectionary Notes” posts. Here’s the process I go through each week:

1. After we conclude our Bible Study in the JP2 Group, we all go to the church next door for adoration. In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament I read the Lectionary Scriptures for the following week and spend a little bit of time praying through them.

2. When I next have some time, I read through the texts again using my NIV Study Bible.

Regarding Bible translations, translators have to make a choice between translating from the original language word-for-word (“formal equivalence”) or providing a looser translation but which attempts to better convey the thought expressed by the original writer (“dynamic equivalence”). This essentially results in a trade-off between readability and fidelity to the original words of the text. I quite like the NIV in that it falls somewhere between formal and dynamic equivalence, but with a leaning more towards dynamic equivalence.

The NIV is not a Catholic Bible and unfortunately therefore is missing the books of Wisdom, Sirach etc. Some of the study notes also have a non-Catholic skew, but on the whole it has excellent cross-references and always at least offers an interesting point of view.

3. The next book I reach for is my Ignatius New Testament Study Bible. I can’t say how much I love this book. It’s the RSV translation, which follows the “formal equivalence” approach. I would not-so-humbly suggest that it is a far superior translation to the NAB which is used in the Lectionary. Ignatius Press have produced a superb resource here, with excellent notes, maps and word studies. Every Christian should own a copy – it’s a bargain at $16. I will wait here while you click on the link and go and order a copy from Amazon. Seriously, I’ll wait…Done? Okay, let’s continue!

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Lectionary Notes, August 14th

August 14, 2011: Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The readings this week focus around the Gentiles (those of non-Jewish ethnicity) and their place in salvation history. In the First Reading we hear the Lord proclaim through the Prophet Isaiah, that His house will be a house of prayer “for all peoples” and in the Psalm we sing about God’s glory being proclaimed “among all nations”. In the Second Reading, St. Paul gives us some insight into the relationship between the Jews and Gentiles in God’s plan for salvation. Finally, in the Gospel we read about Jesus’ encounter with a Canaanite women who, although a Gentile, is granted her request by the Lord because of her great faith.

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“Uncle John” RIP

Last week John Stott fell asleep in Christ.

Dr. Stott was born in England in 1921. As a teenager, he came to faith in Christ through the Anglican church. He would go on to dedicate his life to serving Christ for the next seventy years.

As well as being Curate and Rector of All Souls Langham Place for thirty years, he was a superb scholar, authoring over fifty books, including “Basic Christianity”. He lived a modest life and the royalties of his books were poured back into missionary work and leadership training overseas. Even after retiring, he continued to work tirelessly for the Kingdom and continued to inspire the new generation of Bible teachers. All of this earned him something of a household name among evangelicals.

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Journey Home

A great quote yesterday from Happy Catholic:

“We are not citizens of this world trying to make our way to heaven; we are citizens of heaven trying to make our way through this world … we live as those who are on a journey home; a home we know will have the lights on and the door open and our Father waiting for us when we arrive. That means in all adversity our worship of God is joyful, our life is hopeful, our future is secure. There is nothing that we can lose on earth that can rob us of the treasures God has given us and will give us.” – The Landisfarne

Voice of truth

This Sunday’s Gospel reading is of Peter walking on water with Jesus. In preparation of that, here is the song “Voice of Truth” by Casting Crowns:

Oh, what I would do to have the king of faith it takes to climb out of this boat I’m in onto the crashing waves,
To step out of my comfort zone into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is, and he’s holding out his hand

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me time and time again “Boy, you’ll never win, you’ll never win…”

But the Voice of truth tells me a different story
the Voice of truth says “Do not be afraid!” and the Voice of truth says “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaVg0cWkgAw

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