• 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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Don’t be too eager to hit "Send"

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I had this blog entry in my “drafts” folder for over six months and it’s been quite some time since I posted an entry for the “Stuff I’ve had to learn“ category. Today I would like to remedy this situation by presenting a piece of wisdom that I’ve been forced to learn over the years.

This bit of advice has certainly resolved many tense situations and has saved more than one friendship:

Don’t be too eager to hit…

Turbo-Charged Communication

Communication today is certainly quicker than it was in the past.  It is now extremely easy to fire off a quick message to someone on the other side of the world, whereas in times past it required the purchase of stationery equipment, the composition of a letter, the purchase of the appropriate stamp and delivery to the nearest postbox.  A substantial wait was then required before a reply would be received.

I’m all in favour of modern communication methods – cell phones, skype, email and text messaging make communicating with those in far-flung places both efficient and cheap. For me personally, it’s what makes living in America and staying in close contact with friends in England possible. However, I would suggest that our advances in technology sometimes make communication just a little bit *too* easy…

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Patron Saint of…unattractive people?!

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In this month’s “Theology on Tap” here in San Diego we had a talk by Bernadeane Carr entitled “Saints: Our friends in high places”. In it, she talked about the Saints who are associated with a particular cause, complaint or profession, the Saints whom we call “Patron Saints”. I therefore wanted to share with you some of the more…erm…”interesting” patron Saints I’ve come across. Believe it or not, there is a Patron Saint of unattractive people…

His name is Saint Drogo, the son of Flemish nobility. Unfortunately, his mother died giving birth to him (for which he always felt responsible) and his father died while he was a teenager. At the age of 18 he disposed of all of his property, lived a life of extreme penance and became a permanent pilgrim (I’m sure he’d have liked this blog if he was around today). He also worked as a shepherd for some time and it was claimed that he was able to bi-locate – being at Mass and being out in the fields at the same time (many football fans today pray for this gift).

Saint Drogo is the patron Saint of unattractive people because during one pilgrimage he contracted a disease which caused him to develop severe bodily deformities. The people of the village built a small cell attached to the local church to provide him with a place to live and to also protect them from seeing his deformities (nice, hey?!). St. Drogo stayed in his cell for the next forty years, having no contact with anyone, except to receive his simple sustenance: barley, water and the Eucharist.

His feast day is April 16th….my birthday. I think this blog just found its patron Saint.

My Country Music Confession

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I have a confession.

I like Country Music.

There, I said it.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think there’s definitely a stigma attached to Country Music. There is the perception that the music is quite hokey and that every song is about how the singer has lost his woman, his pickup truck, his favourite horse and/or dog.

A while ago, a girl whom I was rather rather sweet on, unashamedly declared that she really liked Country Music. For this, of course, I mercilessly teased her. In fact, that reminds of a joke…

Q. What happens when you play a country song backwards?
A. The guy gets his wife back, his truck back, stops drinking, and his dog comes back to life.

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Then End Is Nigh

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It’s now less than a week until Judgement Day. Well, it is if you believe a chap called Harold Camping. Camping is the president and founder Christian Family Radio and asserts that Judgement Day is going to be this Saturday, May 21st. You may have seen the billboards or commercials around:

I hadn’t come across this group until Ι first visited San Diego when one of their leaflets was given to me Downtown by a street evangelist. Later that day, over an ice tea, I read the leaflet from cover-to-cover (I always try to read the stuff that guys like that give me). It didn’t contain anything about the end of the world, but did give me an introduction to the group’s rather “unique” way of interpreting Scriptural prophecy.

I remember that, through interpretation of some of the writings of the prophets, the leaflet asserted that the “Church Age” had now ended and that true believers should now leave their local congregations, study the Bible on their own and, as you might expect, listen to their radio station.

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Husbands, *love* your wives

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Before we leave the Easter season,  I wanted to share with you something that stood out for me during the last days of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday. It was a slightly odd thing for me, being that it was the subject of marriage….

crown

How did I manage to get to the subject of “marriage” from the Easter celebrations? Well, what was running through my mind throughout the Easter liturgy was the last part of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians:

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” – Ephesians 5:21-27

Now, without a doubt, this is a passage that has been abused over the years.  It has certainly been used for the subjugation of women and the preservation of tyrannical husbands. In response to this, many have rejected the entire passage out of hand. I don’t think either of these two positions is acceptable, since both reactions ignore the passage’s context and miss the important imagery being used by Paul.

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Word Of The Day: Paroikia

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I’m currently preparing the next document we’re going to be reading in the JP2 Group: “The Martyrdom of Polycarp”. Polycarp was a 2nd Century Bishop in Smyrna about whom I’ve written before. I’ve got a lot to do, so I need to get back to my books soon, but before that, I just wanted to share with you something rather cool I’ve just found…

Stranger On The Shore

The account of Polycarp’s martyrdom begins with a covering letter:

“From the Church of God which resides as a stranger at Smyrna, to the Church of God temporarily sojourning in Philomelium, and to all the congregations of the Holy and Catholic Church in every place: may mercy, peace, and love from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be yours in abundance”
– The Martyrdom of Polycarp (Greeting)

The author, a chap called Marcus/Marcion, describes Smyrna’s church as “resid[ing] as a stranger” and Philomelium’s church as “temporarily sojourning” in that city. This concept often comes up in the writings of the Early Church (Clement, Ignatius, …) and draws from an idea we also find expressed in Sacred Scripture:

“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, …”
– 1 Peter 2:11

The early Christians were keenly aware that they did not permanently belong on this earth, but rather, were citizens of heaven, temporarily away from their homeland. As someone with a blog entitled “Restless Pilgrim”, who has traveled quite a bit and is currently living away from his native country, I find it quite easy to relate to this viewpoint.

Strangers temporarily staying in a foreign land

Paroikia

So, in the martyrdom’s introduction, the author is simply expressing a deeply ingrained, Early Church mindset – that we reside here temporarily. However, what makes this really cool is that I’ve now seen the Greek. The noun which is used here is  “παροικια”, or, in our alphabet,  “paroikia” (pa-roy-kee-a) and it literally means “a sojourning” or “a  dwelling in a strange land”.

“So what?” I hear you say.

“I’m glad you asked!” I reply.

“Paroikia” is the root of the word which was later used by Christians to describe the local assembly and its location:  “parish”… This etymology tells us a profound spiritual truth. Particularly if you haven’t moved around much, it’s easy to think of your parish as your “home” – we even refer to our “home parish”. To an extent, this is true, but really, our parish, our “paroikia” is only a temporary dwelling, an outpost of Heaven.  One day we will  have to leave and head to our true and everlasting home.

“Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by either country, speech, or customs; the fact is, they nowhere settle in cities of their own… They reside in their respective countries, but only as aliens. They take part in everything as citizens and put up with everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their home, and every home a foreign land… They spend their days on earth, but hold citizenship in heaven.”
– The Epistle To Diognetus, 2nd Century

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