"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Matt and I talk about the final day of the International C.S. Lewis Symposium and our final adventure before leaving North Carolina.
S2E39: “North Carolina, Day 3: Electric Boogaloo” (Download)
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Read moreJust a quick micro-rant today concerning one of my pet hates…
You may think that “Maybe” is a fairly innocent word…
…but it’s not, not at all.
When someone sends you a Facebook invite, please don’t choose “Maybe”.
Check your calendar.
Make a decision.
Be decisive.
Thank you, that is all.
I haven’t written a Bucket List entry in quite a while, so I thought I’d come back with a nice simple one:
Bucket List Item #3: Light a votive candle
In virtually every single Catholic church you’ll find a place where there are a collection of lit candles, often in front of a statue or icon. Every now and then you’ll see someone go up and light a candle, usually lingering for a few moments in prayer.
Our San Diego C.S. Lewis Reading Group will starting a new book this week, The Four Loves.
Once again I will be providing an outline of the arguments presented in each chapter, together with quotations and explanatory notes. The chapters in this book are generally a good bit longer than our previous book (Mere Christianity), so I may well experiment with the format of these posts as I work through each chapter.
1. Lewis thought that St. John’s statement that “God is love” would provide a clear plan for this book
“‘God is love,’ says St. John. When I first tried to write this book I thought
that his maxim would provide me with a very plain highroad through the
whole subject. I thought I should be able to say that human loves deserved
to be called loves at all just in so far as they resembled that Love which is
God”
2. He therefore divided love into two types:
(a) Gift-love
“The typical example of Gift-love would be that love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family which he will die without sharing or seeing”
(b) Need-love
“…that which sends a lonely or frightened child to its mother’s arms”
3. These types of love reflect both divinity and humanity
(a) Divine Love
“Divine Love is Gift-love. The Father gives all He is and has to the Son. The Son gives Himself back to the Father and gives Himself to the world, and for the world to the Father, and thus gives the world (in Himself) back to the Father too”
(b) Relation to God
“…what…can be less like anything we believe of God’s life than Need-love? He lacks nothing… We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves”
3. Lewis thought he could just praise Gift-love and disparage Need-love
“I was looking forward to writing some fairly easy panegyrics on the first
sort of love and disparagements of the second… But I would not now deny the name love to Need-love… The reality is more complicated than I supposed”
In this section, Jack uses the term “panegyrics” which refers to a speech in which something is praised. He also refers to his “master, MacDonald” was an author and minister he greatly admired, George MacDonald.
It is a common misconception that, when people convert or revert to the Catholic Church that they only do so when they fully understand all of the Church’s doctrine. This certainly was not true for me. I had come to the point of recognizing that Sola Scriptura made little sense and that Christ founded a visible Church. However, there were many of the Catholic Church’s teachings I didn’t really understand. For me, most of these difficulties surrounded the person of Mary. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the Catholic fascination with the mother of Jesus…
All this started to change when I discovered Biblical Typology and started to see Mary pre-figured in the Old Testament. I have written before about how Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant and how this helped me to understand Mary’s Holiness. I have also written about how Mary is the Queen Mother and how this aided my understanding of her as intercessor. Today I would like to write about another very important parallel which I discuss in the talk Mary & The Early Church. Once I began to see Mary as the New Eve I began to see the significance of Mary in the story of Salvation History…
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A few months ago, David and his wife, Marie, were sent an audiobook about the influence on C.S. Lewis by G.K Chesterton and thought it was the perfect opportunity for a cross-over episode with the author, Alan C. Duncan!
S4E67: “After Hours” with Alan C. Duncan (Download)
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If you’re in the San Diego area in November, you should come out to my parish, Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church in San Diego, as we will be hosting “The Word of Life” Biblical conference.
Our speaker will be Fr. Deacon Daniel Dozier. I’ve heard him speak at a previous event in Phoenix, Arizona and I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed.
The conference will run from 10:30am – 4:30pm. Registration is by donation, with a suggested donation of $25. You can register here.