• 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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Voting for Pro-Choice Politicians

I’ve had a three different conversations recently related to voting for pro-choice politicians. Each time I’ve had these conversations, I’ve been told that pro-lifers shouldn’t let a politician’s opinion about abortion be a deciding factor as to whether or not one can vote for that candidate.

The argument is made that a candidate may indeed be in favour of “reproductive rights” (a delightful euphemism for something quite so barbaric), but I’m told that this is okay if that candidate is in favour of some social programme. I’m told that this is what it really means to be pro-life…

A game you can’t win

The real advantage of this position for the pro-choice advocate is that he can play this game ad infinitum. He will always be able to come up with another social cause which he’ll say demands our attention before we can get around to looking at abortion directly.

Even in some utopian future where there are state-funded programmes for every possible social ill, the pro-choice advocate can still postpone protecting the unborn by demanding first that more money be devoted to these government programmes.

The unanswered question

Each time I’ve had this conversation, I’ve asked a question:

Would you mind engaging in a thought experiment? Let’s say that there was a party or candidate which was onboard with all of your desired social programmes…but they also campaigned for the right for parents to have their child killed up until their first birthday. Would you vote for that candidate or party?

Question posed to pro-choice advocates

I’ve used different versions of this question, sometimes talking about a party which supports slavery, rather than infanticide. Either way, I have yet to hear an answer to this question.

Questions like this put the pro-choice advocate in a bind. After all, very few people could countenance supporting a politician who supports infanticide or slavery. This intuition points to an important truth, that one cannot vote for a party which endorses something obviously intrinsic evil.

I explain that I cannot vote for a candidate who endorses the killing of the unborn for the same reason that my interlocutor would refuse to vote for someone who endorses slavery, regardless of the candidate’s economic issues.

PWJ: S3E9 – TWHF (Pt 1, CH 12-13) – "The Riddle of Psyche"

Orual tries to work out what’s going on with Psyche by discussing the matter with Bardia and the Fox. Is she mad? Who is it that comes to her in the night? The god? The Brute? A man?

S3E9: “The Riddle of Psyche” (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunesGoogle Play, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube.

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Music Monday: King of my heart

Here’s a mash-up from Phil Wickham:

‘Cause You are good
You are good, oh oh
You are good
You are good, oh oh
You are good
You are good, oh oh
You are good
You are good, oh oh

You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down
You’re never gonna let
You’re never gonna let me down

Personhood and Death Certificates

This past week was the March For Life in Washington DC, so I thought I’d do a post on the subject of abortion…

A couple of weeks ago, I published a brief post a blog post related to Martin Luther King. Earlier in the week, I had been speaking to someone on Facebook about abortion. The pro-choice advocate had been arguing against any legal restrictions against abortion. He said that ethical behaviour isn’t brought about by the law, it only cultivates fear of being caught. I responded with a quotation from Dr. King, to show why laws which protect people are necessary:

The other day I was looking at the management panel for the Restless Pilgrim Facebook Page and noticed that someone had left a response:

“A clump of cells is not a person”

Facebook user
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