• 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: Home by another way…

For western Christians, today is the “Feast of The Epiphany” where we commemorate the visitation of the Magi:

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him…

… On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route– Matthew 2:1-12

Since the earliest times the appearance of the Magi has been interpreted by Christians as speaking of the universal nature of the God’s Kingdom and a foreshadowing of the incorporation of the gentiles into the promises of Israel.

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2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,100 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 59 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 126 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 6th with 107 views. The most popular post that day was Daughters Of The King.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, forums.catholic.com, realtimeunited.wordpress.com, newcatholicblogs.blogspot.com, and fathersofthechurch.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for jesus, restless pilgrim, this restless pilgrim, st. ignatius of antioch, and daughters of the king san diego.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Daughters Of The King December 2010
1 Like on WordPress.com,

2

Sunday Lectionary: The Hippo Gospel July 2010
1 comment

3

Top Ten, All Time, Catholic Pick-Up Lines July 2010
2 comments

4

About Me August 2010

5

Who’s your daddy? St. Ignatius of Antioch July 2010
4 comments

Which father are you?

A few years ago, even before I even really knew the Early Church Fathers, I took the quiz “Which Church Father Are You?“.  I took it again yesterday and got the same answer I got the first time around:

“You’re Origen. You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears”

Sounds about right 🙂

If you take the test, please leave a note in the comments below with your result…

Servant Leadership

The notion of leadership recently came up in discussion and the question was asked: What qualities make for a good leader?

If you go into a secular bookshop today you will find a large number of books which attempt to explain what it is you have to do in order to become a great leader.

In recent years, Christian bookshop shelves too have started to be filled with an increasingly large number of books which try to turn their readers into leaders by explaining the “eight key leadership principles” or the “five simple steps”, etc.

Like Father, Like Son…

The first passage of Scripture which comes to my mind when someone mentions to me the word “leadership” is from the Old Testament book of 1st Kings.  In this passage, King Solomon has just died and his son Rehoboam has ascended to the Throne of David.

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Friday Frivolity: Happy Hanukkah

Yesterday was the end of the Hanukkah/Chanukah, the eight-day Jewish “Festival of Lights” which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt.  I thought it therefore appropriate to share with you this little gem for this week’s Friday Frivolity:

Thanks Wallmart…

Early Church Fathers, Love & Romance

Yesterday’s post was rather long, so I’ll keep this one nice and short.

After the Office Christmas Party this weekend one of my coworkers, Kevin, and his girlfriend got engaged.  This put me in mind of two of my favourite quotations from the Early Church Fathers on the subject of love and marriage.

As I think I’ve said before, one of the things which constantly surprises me is that, although these men lived so long ago, they have so much wisdom from which today’s world could benefit.

The first quotation comes from a priest of the late 4th Century called John.  His preaching was so renowned, he acquired the name “golden mouth” or in Greek “chrysostomos”.  He is most commonly referred to as St. John Chrysostom.  He is one of the few to be declared a “Doctor of the Church”, a greatly deserved title.

“An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love” – St. John Chrysostom

Beautiful, isn’t it?  Superb advice – you’d never guess he was a celibate priest… 😉

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