Tag: featured

Reading List Update

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It’s time for a quick reading list update. So far this year, I’ve finished the following books

The Screwtape Letters The Great Divorce , Mere Christianity, Problem of Pain – C.S. Lewis
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks – Penguin Classics
Every Man’s Journey – James P. Campbell
Hold Me Tight – Dr. Sue Johnson
After Jesus – Reader’s Digest
St. Francis of Assisi – G.K. Chesterton
Jesus of Nazareth – Pope Benedict XVI
Weaving The Web – Tim Berners-Lee*
Roots of the Reformation – Karl Adam*

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Tithing

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Every now and then the subject of “tithing” comes up. The word “tithe” literally means “tenth”, and refers to the religious practice of offering 10% of one’s income to the things of God. In my experience, you tend to hear much more about tithing in Protestant circles than you do from the pulpit in your local Catholic parish.

Recently a friend asked me about tithing so I said I’d offer a few thoughts about it in a short post. Considering today’s Mass Readings today seems an appropriate day to do this. I’ll first look at the Hebrew Scriptures, then the New Testament data and then finally look at what teaching is explicitly offered by the Catholic Church…

Collection Plate

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The Senses of Scripture

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Fairly early on in the life of our Bible Study Group in San Diego, we took some time to read through the section of the Catechism beginning in paragraph #101 which addresses the subject of Sacred Scripture. We did this because when I first read that portion of the Catechism I was delighted to discover some truly wonderful guidance for understanding more fully the depth of God’s word.

In this post I would like to take some time to discuss the material outlined in the section of the Catechism entitled “The Senses of Scripture” (CCC #115). In five short paragraphs, it explains that there are two primary senses of Scripture: “Literal” and “Spiritual”, with the latter sense being subdivided into three additional subcategories: “Allegorical”, “Moral” and “Anagogical”.

Senses

Let’s look at each of these senses in turn…
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Catholic Bucket List #2: Try a Tridentine Mass

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Continuing my Catholic Bucket List series from the other day, this week’s suggestion is:

Bucket List Item #2: Attend a Tridentine Mass

A little background

So what’s a “Tridentine Mass”?

Well, when Joe Catholic attends a Mass today, he typically attends a “Novus Ordo” (“New Order”) Mass. This formulation of the liturgy was brought about in the Seventies through Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council.

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The Chronological Qu’ran

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I first encountered Islam about six years ago when I was living in London. After meeting a Muslim for the first time, I decided that I should probably become more familiar with the religion, given that it is followed by 1.6 billion people, approximately 23% of the world’s population.

In my naiveté, I decided to start reading the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Oddly enough, I had been given a copy of the Qur’an at my (Catholic) school’s prize-giving about ten years earlier. I dug out my copy and started reading…

I’ll admit that I found the text of Qur’an very dry and I gave up after reading it when I was only about a third of the way through. Jumping straight into the Qur’an is very difficult, particularly if you don’t know much about Islam. It would have been helpful to know, for example, that the chapters (“suwar”) are not placed in chronological order, meaning that as I read sequentially through the chapters, I was jumping between very different periods in Muhammad’s life.

quran

I’ve recently been reflecting on the subject of Islam and have concluded that the need for Christians to be familiar with this religion will only become greater with time. I’ve therefore decided to do more posts on this subject over the coming months. I have already written an introduction to Islam and the odd apologetics post, but in preparation for these upcoming articles, and for the sake of gaining credibility, I have decided to read the Qu’ran from cover-to-cover, but on this occasion I will read the chapters in chronological order.

Below you will see my reading plan, with the chapters arranged in (rough) chronological order. Discerning the exact chronology of the chapters is somewhat difficult for Muslim scholars to discern, particularly give that some chapters even contain verses from different periods. I found several different chronological orderings on the Internet, but I have chosen this one. There were other orderings I found on Christian websites, but in an attempt to limit Christian bias (which I will already bring to the text), I chose to use a chronology from a Muslim website.

My plan is to post some very brief thoughts about the chapters I read each day. I’ve also written a glossary of Islamic terms to make these easier to follow. From time to time, I’ll visit an Imam in San Diego, in order to clarify anything which I have found confusing.

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Bible Alone? Part 4

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Over the last few days I’ve been looking at the subject of Sola Scriptura. Today I would like to discuss the alternative to Sola Scriptura which I realized made more sense of both history and the Biblical data…

The Alternative: Apostolic Authority

Ironically, the answer itself was in Scripture. After the Ascension, writing the New Testament wasn’t the priority because it wasn’t what Jesus commanded the Apostles to do. At the Great Commission Jesus told His disciples to “teach” all nations what He had taught them (as opposed to write a book). If you wanted to know the truth in c. 30AD you would go to Jesus. Who would you go to after the Ascension? You would go to the Apostles He taught and commissioned. It was this living Tradition that sustained the Church – primarily by orally passing on to others what Jesus had taught. Jesus wanted to found a Church, not a book club.

In the Book of Acts, when there was a disagreement over the question of Gentile circumcision, the Christians didn’t use Scripture to decide the answer, but called a Church Council. I could only think of one Church today which still calls [Ecumenical] councils to resolve matters of doctrine and practice…

The more I read Scripture, the clearer it became that the Early Church was one which exercised authority (1 Corinthians 16:16, Hebrews 13:17) given to her by Christ – to forgive sins, no less! Even in my most anti-Catholic moments I could still clearly see that Matthew 16 showed Christ giving Peter a special authority. I could only think of one Church today which claimed to still have that same authority passed on from Peter….

“If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he confidence that he is in the Church?” – St. Cyprian (A.D. 251)

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