"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Last night I gave a talk for The Goretti Group. This was a variation on a talk I gave at the Southern Kansas Young Adult Conference.
Is there life before marriage? (Download)
I’ve written a couple of articles for the Goretti Group in the past which you might like to read: Dear Miss Lawrence and “I waited until my wedding night to lose my virginity and I wish I hadn’t”.
In the past few episodes we have indirectly at two of the Sacraments, the Eucharist and Matrimony. In today’s episode we’ll be looking directly at the Sacrament of Confession, what it is, where it comes from and a few pieces of advice to bear in mind when you go.
Episode 3: Confession (Download)
— Notes —
* A brief defense of the Catholic practice of Confession is available here.
* If you would like to read the prayers said by the priest in the Byzantine form of Confession, they are available here.
* The event we talk about at the end of the show took place a couple of days ago and you can listen to the audio here.
Please subscribe to this podcast using iTunes and Google Play and if you have any feedback or would like to pose a question for an upcoming episode, you can send us a message from the website or tweet us at @davidandnessa.
You can look at my more detailed notes, but this is an overview of the content of Book II of “Mere Christianity”…
If you are Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth…[However,] as in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum…but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others
…these people think that long before you got anywhere near the divine point of view the distinction [between good and evil] would have disappeared altogether…
Pantheists usually believe that God, so to speak, animates the universe as you animate your body: that the universe almost is God, so that if it did not exist He would not exist either, and anything you find in the universe is a part of God…
If you do not take the distinction between good an bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God
…[these people believe in] a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not in another…
…God invented and made the universe – like a man making a picture or composing a tune. A painter is not a picture, and he does not die if his picture is destroyed
…if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will…a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on putting them right again
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line…I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that then my argument against God collapsed too – for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies
1. Why does Jack say that when he became a Christian he adopted the more “liberal” view?
2. Is it possible to affirm the truth of other religions while still holding to the absolute truth claims of Christianity?
3. Can you think of any religion completely devoid of ALL truth?
4. Into what two central conceptions of God does Jack say people hold? Do you think we could divide it up in a different way?
5. In what way do these conceptions of God and our attitudes towards the Moral Law and the Universe relate to each other?
6. Why does the very question of asking about evil in the world presuppose the existence of God?
This past week, I gave at talk to the Goretti Group entitled “Is there life before marriage?” In today’s episode, Nessa and talk about some of the issues I raised in that talk. Do some people derive their self-worth from their Facebook “Relationship Status”? What are some common misunderstandings concerning marriage? We then look at the subject friendships, the first area which I suggest deserves careful investment during your single years.
Episode 4: Is there life before marriage? (Download)
— Show Notes —
* If you would like to listen to my original talk I gave to the Goretti Group, it is available here.
* The Bible passage I quote at the end of the episode is this section from Sirach:
Let your acquaintances be many, but one in a thousand your confidant.
When you gain a friend, first test him, and be not too ready to trust him.
For one sort is a friend when it suits him, but he will not be with you in time of distress.
…
A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure.
A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can balance his worth.
A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy, such as he who fears God finds;
For he who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself.
– Sirach 6:6-17
Please subscribe to this podcast using iTunes and Google Play and if you have any feedback or would like to pose a question for an upcoming episode, you can send us a message from the website or tweet us at @davidandnessa.
A few weeks ago I gave my presentation on “Is there life before marriage?” to the Goretti Group. The audio for that evening is available here, but I just saw that the video has been posted on the Goretti Group’s YouTube Channel:
If you would like the audio version of this presentation, you can download it from the feed on iTunes and Google Play.
You also might be interested to hear the discussion of some of the ideas raised in this talk between myself and Nessa on recent episodes of The Restless Heart podcast (Episode 4 and Episode 6). The podcast itself is available on iTunes and Google Play.
Unfortunately, this episode I’m flying solo! Nessa wasn’t able to make it so I thought it best to record on my own, rather than let another week pass without a new episode. In today’s episode I tackle the delicate subject of “Intercommunion” and explain why, under normal circumstances, the Eucharist is not given to non-Catholic Christians.
Episode 5: Intercommunion (Download)
— Notes —
* This episode was based on a two-part series I wrote a few years ago.
* I quote from two Early Church Fathers in this episode. The first is St. Justin Martyr:
“This food we call [the Eucharist], and no one is allowed to partake but he who believes that our doctrines are true, who has been washed with the washing for the remission of sins and rebirth, and who is living as Christ has enjoined… “
“…We do not receive these as common bread and drink. For Jesus Christ our Saviour, made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation. Likewise, we have been taught that the food blessed by the prayer of his word…is the flesh and blood of Jesus who was made flesh.”
– Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 66 (~ AD 150)
* The second Father I quote is St. Ignatius of Antioch:
“They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, in His loving-kindness, raised from the dead”
– Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 7 (~AD 97)
* I also quote from a portion of one of St. Paul’s letters:
“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died”
– 1 Corinthians 11:29–30
* The Spiritual Communion prayer I quote is as follows:
“My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen”
Please subscribe to this podcast using iTunes and Google Play and if you have any feedback or would like to pose a question for an upcoming episode, you can send us a message from the website or tweet us at @davidandnessa.
Nessa is back and we’re picking back up our discussion “Is there life before marriage?”. In today’s episode we talk about discernment, virtue and service.
Episode 6: Is there life before marriage? (Download)
— Show Notes —
* If you would like to listen to my original talk I gave on this subject to the Goretti Group, it is available here. The YouTube video is also available here.
* During our discussion, Nessa shared a quotation from Catholic Teen Posts on Instagram:
Purity is not the elimination of sexual attraction, but the ordering of sexual attraction demanded by love.
– Catholic Teen Posts
* …and the the quotation I offered from Ravi Zacharias was as follows:
“Chivalry in love has nothing to do with the sweetness of the appearance. It has everything to do with the tenderness of a heart determined to serve”
– Ravi Zacharias
Please subscribe to this podcast using iTunes and Google Play and if you have any feedback or would like to pose a question for an upcoming episode, you can send us a message from the website or tweet us at @davidandnessa.