"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Last night I gave a talk at St. Patrick’s to the Goretti Group on the subject of love, drawing heavily from C.S. Lewis’ book, The Four Loves.
Love is a many splendored thing (Download)
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In this episode of “Theology With An English Accent” (TEA) is the first of a few talks I’m giving this Lent at St. Ignatius in Los Angeles. This is a longer version of the talk I gave the previous week in Dodge City which was called “What is the point of Christianity?”. The first 20 minutes is basically identical, after which I get into new material.
Life in Christ: Not mere improvement, but transformation (Download)
You can subscribe to “Theology With An English Accent” manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (Feed | iTunes | Google Play).
Hey everyone, this is just a little post to test Google Calendar integration for something I’m working on for a parish website. Below is embedded calendar of the JP2 Group, the young adult community which I used to lead:
Despite what all the tutorials say, it’s not exactly straight-forward embedding a Google Calendar on a WordPress blog. The calendar is shown in an IFRAME which, unfortunately, WordPress automatically removes when you try to save it. To get around this, I installed an IFRAME plugin and this seemed to do the trick. Thankfully, this issue wouldn’t exist on a regular website 🙂
The article Integrating Google Calendar with my Blog first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net
In my previous post, I recounted a little bit of my own story and how I came to reconsider the Catholic teaching concerning intercommunion. In today’s post I would like to present the two main issues around which this teaching revolves.
The Readings this week focus around the concepts of wisdom and watchfulness.
In the First Reading we hear “Lady Wisdom” extolled and praised. In the Second Reading St. Paul talks about the Second Coming of Christ. Finally, in the Gospel Reading Jesus combines both of these subjects and tells a parable in which he compares two different types of people: the wise who prepare for His coming and the foolish who do not. The lesson is clear: Be wise – Be Ready
“Watch with the heart, watch with faith, watch with love, watch with charity, watch with good works…make ready the lamps, make sure they do not go out…renew them with the inner oil of an upright conscience; then shall the Bridegroom enfold you in the embrace of his love and bring you into his banquet room, where your lamp can never be extinguished” –St. Augustine
I know that a lot of people who read this blog don’t live in San Diego. I also know that many of you are involved in ministry in some way, especially youth and young adult ministry. Therefore, I thought I’d do a post outlining some of the things we do here in San Diego which have proven popular, in case you wanted to try the same thing in your Diocese.
1. Theology On Tap
I expect most areas of the country have implemented a Theology On Tap programme. Simply put, you take over a restaurant or bar and have a speaker present on a topic for 45 minutes. There’s usually some Q&A and some group discussion. If you want a good turn-out make sure you do a talk on relationships every now and again 🙂
2. The Mega Series
This was something that we came up with in this diocese. Very often Catholics can feel isolated. This is particularly true of young Catholics when most of the people in their parish are significantly older. What the Mega Series attempts to do is bring large numbers of young adults together in traditional devotions, followed by a social. The goal of this is to remind Catholics that they are not alone and are part of a much larger Church. The three main “mega” events we’ve had have been:
(a) Mega Mass
(b) Mega Adoration
(c) Mega Rosary
3. Bible Study
One of the most popular events in the Diocese is the Young Adult Bible study and it’s very often one of the first “spiritual” events new arrivals attend. Given this, it’s important that the Bible study has a strong social and welcoming dimension.
4. Rosary and Adoration
Very often we try complicated, clever things to attract young adults and youths. However, I’ve seen time and again that simply having a night of adoration or recitation of the rosary attracts significant numbers of people.
5. Holiday Parties
The Young Adult Christmas Party in San Diego this is the social event of the year. Everyone gets dressed up, has dinner together and dances the night away. The other major holidays of the year (Memorial Day etc.) are likewise marked with a substantial gathering.
6. Sports
Here is San Diego there is a thriving Catholic Ultimate Frisbee community, in addition to many other sports.
7. Dancing
About four times a year I teach a dance lesson in the Diocese, usually either Salsa or Swing, and there’s always a solid turn-out.
Do any San Diegans have any other thoughts on what works well in our Diocese? What about those of you from elsewhere in the country? What events seem to be most engaging?
Yesterday was the first guest post we’ve had here on this blog. I’m hoping that it’ll be the first of many to come. If you have an idea for an article which you would like to have published here, please contact me and we can try and work something out.
So yesterday, in preparation for Lent, I invited my good friend Dominic to speak to us on the subject of fasting. He gave us an introduction to the subject, spoke about some of the examples we have from Sacred Scripture and discussed the motivation behind fasting.
Today he’s going to offer some concluding thoughts…
We need to go into fasting with a positive attitude, knowing that fasting is the will of God and is rewarded (Matthew 6:17-18). Also since our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), it is entirely appropriate for us to benefit physically as well as spiritually from fasting.
Pray for strength and take things one step at a time. Guard against spiritual attack. The Devil doesn’t like fasting and he will try to undermine you. You may feel doubts, fear, loneliness or temptations. Stand firm knowing that God loves you and rewards those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6).