• 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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"Blessed are the peacemakers…"

Next week is the anniversary of the death of Brother Roger of Taizé in France. If you have never heard of this man then you have really been missing out…

Although he lived much of his life in France, Brother Roger was originally from Switzerland, the son of a Protestant Pastor.  In 1940, after studying Reformed Theology in Strasbourg and Lausanne, Roger felt God calling him to go to Taizé, a small town south of Paris.  For two years he lived a life of prayer and helped those fleeing from the Germans into unoccupied France.

Founding of a community

After being forced to leave Taizé, Roger returned in 1944 where he began to found a group of men living together in community.  This eventually flowered into the ecumenical monastic community which forever after would be associated with the name “Taizé”.  The focus of this community is prayer, silence, peace, social justice and reconciliation.  Brother Roger wrote many books on these topics.

Monks in the “Church of Reconciliation”

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"May they be all be one…"

Below is the reflection I gave on 22nd January 2005 during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in response to the follow passage of Scripture:

After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:

… Consecrate [those you have given me] in the truth; your word is truth….I pray not only for these but for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me.

May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.  I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one.  With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you loved me.

…. I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them – John 17:1, 17-23, 26

Introduction

This is the week of prayer for Christian unity, so I intend to speak for only a couple of minutes so we can get back to the business of prayer.  I wanted to say just a few words about the reading that was chosen for tonight’s service.

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V2, We Love You: Introduction

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m planning on offering a series of blog entries about the “Ecumenical Council” commonly known as “The Second Vatican Council”, or simply “Vatican 2”.

Most Catholics will be able to tell you that Vatican 2 was important, but, in my experience, fairly few are actually able to articulate well why it was important.  Many are not able to explain what exactly Vatican 2 was, what it actually taught and why it is important in the history of the Catholic Church.  It is my hope that this blog will help shed a little light on these issues.

I think that it is best, before I get stuck into the meat of Vatican 2, that I attempt to give something of a general introduction to the concept of councils in general, and ecumenical councils in particular.

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V2, We Love You

At the moment I’m reading through the documents of the Second Vatican Council in preparation for what we will be covering in the JP2 Group towards the end of the year. I thought it would make sense to do a few blog posts about what I’ve been reading.

The Second Vatican Council is probably one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented Councils of Church history, together with the Council of Nicea and the Council of Trent.

I can’t think of Vatican 2 without remembering an incident that happened back in England when I was a member of our church’s hospital visiting ministry.  Each week, two members of our group would go to the local hospital and visit all those patients who had written down “Roman Catholic” on their admission forms.  We would visit each of them, offer them something to read and check to see if they wanted to receive Holy Communion the following day.  It was a large campus and it took us several hours to cover the entire hospital.

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Friday Frivolity: Baby Got Book

Happy Friday!  I don’t know about you, but for me this week has simply flown by.  It’s now only a few hours until it’s time to hit the beach, but to get you through those remaining hours, here’s a little bit of Friday Frivolity….

“And if you’re Catholic, there are even more…” 😀

Oh, and for those ladies looking for a new Bible, I can thoroughly recommend the new RSV New Testament Study Bible which has commentary from Dr. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch 🙂

Who’s your daddy? St. Ignatius of Antioch

This is the first entry in what I hope to be a regular series of posts about the Early Church Fathers.

It is a good thing to study the Early Fathers because by reading their writings we can get a better picture of what the Church looked like during those early centuries, both during the years of persecution and the years of peace.

The Church Fathers speak to us of the Faith they learned from the Apostles and from their immediate successors.  If we would sit and listen, their words can still instruct and inspire us today, just as they did for Christians under their care in their own time.

I would like to begin this series of entries with my favourite Early Church Father, the inspirational martyr and gifted writer, St. Ignatius of Antioch.

“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

– James 1:12

My posts on the Fathers will not normally be this long, but reading St. Ignatius for the first time had some a profound effect on me I want to try and do him justice.  Read to the end, it’ll be worth it, I promise.

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