Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 7 (“The heights” and “The Jinn”)

Today I’m going to be looking at two chapters of the Qur’an, one long (#7) and one reasonably short (#72).

Surah 7 – “The heights” (Al-Araf)
Mankind is reminded to follow Allah and also reminded of the cities which He destroyed to punish unbelieving people. The scales of judgement which weigh good deeds are also recalled.

The fall of Satan is described, in an almost identical pattern to Surah 38 (“The letter sad”). The narrative continues, however, describing the Fall of Adam and Eve. Allah told them “do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers”. The nature of the tree or the consequences of eating from it were not really explained. Rather than saying that they will be like gods (as in the Genesis narrative), Satan promised that if they eat the fruit they will “become angels or become of the immortal”. Once they have eaten, they recognize their nakedness and sew together leaves as clothes. God arrives and chastises them. We don’t see “the blame game” which we see in Genesis, where Adam blames Eve (and ultimately God) and Eve blames the serpent.

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The Epistle of Joy – Episode #14 (Video)

Today we finish Chapter 3:

Brethren, join in imitating me, and mark those who so live as you have an example in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself. – Philippians 3:17-21

Here’s my reflection:

For an audio-only version, please click here.

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Just in case…

Just in case you didn’t you didn’t realize it, yesterday was April Fools’ Day.

About a month ago, Joe Heschmeyer sent out an email to a number of Catholic bloggers inviting us to do something a little different for April Fools’ Day this year. Rather than doing the typical “fake news story”, he suggested we do some kind of satirical analysis:

…[the] Catholic issues that maybe have crossed your mind, but you think, “This is much too stupid to write a blog post about.”  It treads the fine line between the serious and the absurd.

I had shared with Joe my theories on He-Man, Christian Allegory and Transubstantiation when we got to hang out last November. It seemed to perfectly fit the criterion of “too stupid to write a blog post about”  🙂

Anyway, just in case you missed them, here are some of the other April Fools’ Day offerings out there:

Shameless Popery: How the Summa might address Zombie Uprising
The Thin Veil: “Pope To Blogosphere”
St. Joseph’s Vanguard: “The New Perspective on Peter”
Almost Not Catholic: I Relent!
Young, Evangelical and Catholic: Pope Excommunicates All Of Us!

Way of the Warrior

I’ve been working my way through my Blog’s “Drafts” folder in an effort to try and finish some of the many half-completed entries I have there. At the time of writing I still have 226 left… :-/

In looking through these drafts I came upon two entries, both concerning movies for which I was fortunate enough to see advanced screenings. The first movie was Warrior and the second was The Way. I’ll write about at The Way later this week, but today I’d like to look at Warrior.

The Warriors

The story of Warrior concerns Paddy and his two sons. The film begins with Paddy leaving church after Mass. We soon find out that Paddy used to be a horrible husband and father as well as an abusive drunk, but now, many years later, has found God and is 1,000 days sober.

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” –  Proverbs 17:17

Paddy’s two sons, Brendan and Tommy are both talented athletes who are soon set on a collision course towards the same Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) tournament.

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TOT: Joyful Discernment

TOT-ND

On the 1st February, a new Theology On Tap series was kicked off at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Paradise Hills. Sister Peter Marie and Sister Elizabeth Marie from the Nashville Dominicans gave a talk on “Joyful Discernment”. They were accompanied by some of their Dominican brothers, Fr. Stephen Maria Lopez and Fr. James Moore, who joined them for the Q&A session.

If you would like to hear audio from other San Diego “Theology On Tap” sessions, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or manually via the RSS feed.

“Joyful Discernment” (Download)

“Q&A” (Download)

Questions asked during the Q&A were:

•  How long have you been a teacher? What has been your favourite subject to teach?

• What is “sanctifying grace”?

• I felt called to a ministry and that’s now complete. I’m not currently feeling called to anything in particular. Should I wait or should I actively be looking?

• Have you ever experienced synchronicities in your life which you felt were of God?

• Is it selfish to ask God for clarity in your vocation?

• Is it free will if God already knows what I’m going to choose?

PWJ: S2E24 – Bonus – “God Save The Queen!”

A rather unusual episode this week! My girlfriend and I recently went on vacation to England, so we thought it’d be fun to sit down and tell you all about it, including how we got to play with the personal belongings of a literary giant, as well as have lunch with an Inkling’s grandson…

S2E24: God Save the Queen! (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunesGoogle PlayPodbeanStitcherTuneIn and Overcast).

Time Stamps

In case your podcast application has the ability to jump to certain time codes, here are the timestamps for the different parts of the episode.

01:50 – Quote of the week
03:01 – Drink of the week
11:18 – Meeting Owen Barfield
14:55 – The Wedding (Heckfield)
16:31 – Bath (Jane Austen Museum, Bath Abbey etc.)
22:26 – Oxford (Merton and Magdalen College, The Eagle and Child etc.)
45:01 – London (Hyde Park, Victoria & Albert Museum, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese)

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