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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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”.
The relationship between “The Simpsons” and religion has always been a rather interesting one. There was a bit of a hoopla in the press and blogsophere recently when an article in the Vatican newsletter, L’Osservatore Romano, had the headline “Homer and Bart are Catholics”. It was a silly piece which caused, in my opinion, a lot of fuss about nothing.
Having said that, the article was in reference to an analysis done by a certain Fr. Francesco Occhetta which concerned one of my favourite Simpsons episodes: “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star”, where Homer and Bart come into contact with the Catholic Church. So, for this week’s “Friday Fivolity”, here are some of my favourite quotations from that episode…
Marge: “All of that standing, sitting and kneeling…It’s like ‘Simon Says’ without a winner!”
Marge:“Catholics can be a peculiar bunch. No birth control, no meat on Friday…”
Homer:“No MEAT?! What do they eat, light bulbs?!”
Homer:“Face it, Marge. Catholics rule! We got Boston, South America, the good part of Ireland, and we’re makin’ serious inroads in Mozambique, baby!”
Marge:“Homer, you’ve been gone all night—and you look like you accepted someone as your personal something. Were you at that Catholic Church?” Homer:“Look, I know I was supposed to yell at that priest, but he’s so cool! He plays drums in a band with a bunch of other priests!” Marge:“I knew they’d try to convert you! That’s what they do! Well, I’m not having another twelve kids.” Homer:“Marge, no one’s saying twelve. Nine, ten, tops!” (Gets out a pamphlet entitled ‘Plop ’til You Drop’)
Bart:“This is a Catholic church. Chicks got no authority here”
Bart:“Don’t you get it? It’s all Christianity, people! The little, stupid differences are nothing next to the big stupid similarities!”
Homer: (after finishing confession) “Woo-hoo, I’m clean! In your face, Lord!“ Fr. Sean:“Not yet, Mr. Simpson. I can only absolve you if you’re a Catholic” Homer:“Uh-huh. And how do I join? Do I whale on some Unitarians?” Fr. Sean:“Well, it’s a little harder than that. It starts with looking deep inside yourself…” (Homer groans) “But it ends with bread and wine” Homer:“Woo-hoo!”
A slight “oopsie” when they had Ned, an Evangelical, praying before the statue of a Saint…
I hope you enjoy. Now, since it’s Friday, I’m off to go and eat some light bulbs… [wave]
Previously I had posted the feed for my recordings of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. However, it just got even easier! It is now possible to find that feed through Apple’s iTunes Store 🙂
You can either search for “Ignatius Of Antioch” or “JP2” directly, or browse podcasts under the category of “Christianity”.
Well, we’re finally here! The last letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch! I’m posting this a bit earlier than usual because the next couple of weeks are going to be rather busy.
Each of the Ignatius’ letters are special for different reasons, but his letter to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, holds a special place in my heart.
In some ways it reminds me of the book of Proverbs, since Ignatius often offers Polycarp advice in the form of short exhortations.
This is the only personal letter Ignatius wrote to a fellow bishop and should, in my not so humble opinion, be required reading for all pastors and all those who minister in the Church.
When I have friends who enter the seminary, they usually receive a card from me with a quotation which comes from somewhere in this letter. Whenever I become discouraged in the ministries in which I serve, this is the document I usually dig out.
I said this was Ignatius’ last letter, but that is not strictly true, for there was one final letter he wrote, to both his “God Jesus Christ” and to the “Catholic Church”. However, this was a letter of a different kind… Rather than being written in private, this letter was written in an amphitheatre before thousands of jeering Romans. Rather than using parchment, he used his own flesh and, in place of ink, his own blood.