I went to Vigil Mass last night and we were up late afterwards celebrating with the new members of the Church.
As a result, I didn’t get to Byzantine Liturgy this morning, which meant that I missed out on hearing St. John Chrysostom’s Pascal Homily. For those of you that don’t know, in the Byzantine Church, this Fourth Century homily is read by the priest at the Liturgy every Easter Day.
Since I didn’t get to hear it today, I decided to read it myself and put it up here for you all to enjoy. Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!
The other day I was sitting in a church which I normally don’t visit, the Immaculate Conception in Old Town, San Diego. After communion I was looking at the crucifix behind the altar and saw the words “Resurrexit Sicut Dixit” written above it. Rather embaressingly, it occurred to me that I couldn’t say for certain what the English translation of these words should be. I’m always amazed at the number of times I come across things while visiting an unfamiliar church building. Good to see all that money spent on my Catholic education didn’t go to waste!
This post is one of those which has languished in my “Drafts” folder for far too long. Fortunately, a recent article by Joe at Shameless Popery reminded me of this topic and prompted me to finish what I had begun…
I had been preparing a couple of apologetics posts and, to save me some typing, I had been digging through my past correspondence with Protestant friends and acquaintances.
A while ago I mentioned an email exchange I had with a chap called Jay. I was looking through some of our early correspondence and I came across something I had written to him which I thought deserved its own blog entry.
Unanswered Questions
I had asked Jay a series of questions to which he had not responded. Rather than answer my questions about his own worldview, he wanted to jump right in and debate topics such as Mary, Purgatory and Papal Infallibility. Because every Protestant group has a different set of beliefs, I had to understand Jay’s worldview in order to meaningfully interact with it. Here’s what I wrote:
“[Jay,] please address my questions so I can understand where you’re coming from. If you want to know what I believe you can just crack open the Catechism. [This will concretely tell you what I believe and give you a good idea as to why I believe it].
[I can’t do the same for you. Your particular matrix of beliefs is your own]. I don’t have such a simple way of finding out how your theology hangs together and exactly what you believe (“Once Saved Always Saved”? Understanding of Sola Scriptura? Sola Fide? etc.)“
A little while ago I published the list of questions which we use at the beginning of our Bible studies. Now, I know some people might find it a bit dull, and perhaps not the most interesting way to learn the Faith, but I’m a big fan of such things since it provides a framework within in which people can understand their faith. We devote time to continued learning about things which interest us in other areas of our lives, so why should it be any different when it comes to religion?
In our group we’ve recently added the names of the Twelve Apostles. Can you name them all? I’ll walk through them after the jump…
Image to Image: The Dynamics of Salvation Created in the image of God, we move towards the image of God. Making sense of the dynamics of this movement is the heart of our tradition. Where have we come from? Where are we going?
The Modern Challenge There are unique problems within modern culture for the Eastern Christian tradition. Thinking through those problems creates a deeper understanding of the task of our faith.
JONATHAN PAGEAU (Artist, Author, Speaker)
Rediscovering the Anthropology of Hesychasm Today Beyond a coherent Christian mysticism, the Hesychastic tradition also offers a general anthropology, a vision and hierarchy of the human person which can give us a way to live in the world today.
Sacred Art as the Only Hope for Reviving Culture As we see the general degradation of cultural forms in Western culture, it is only a refocusing on the highest form of art which will bring us back from the Chasm.
FR DEACON DANIEL DOZIER (Deacon, Writer, Speaker)
– Image & Likeness: Developing a Biblical Worldview Genesis 1:26-27 contains the phrase “image and likeness” in reference to God’s creation of humanity. This talk will explore the biblical and contextual meaning of this phrase and its implications for an authentic Christian spiritual life. We’ll examine both the narrative and cultural context of Genesis and what these together actually communicate about our nature and potential as human persons in our relationship with God, humanity and creation.
This will be a Fantastic opportunity to gather with fellow Christians and great speakers to be enriched by the great gift of Eastern Christian Spirituality and how it offers answers to the challenges of modernity. This conference is not academic in focus. It is our sincere hope this event will assist all Christians seeking to deepen their spiritual life to grow in the Image and Likeness of God!
As I mentioned yesterday, this past weekend I was in Dodge City, Kansas for SKYAC, the Southern Kansas Young Adult Conference.
During the afternoon, I gave one of the “FED Talks”. For those of you familiar with TED Talks, it was of a very similar format. However, whereas TED Talks are short presentations on Technology, Entertainment and Design, the FED Talks in Kansas were focussed on the subjects of Faith, Evangelization and Discipleship.
My own FED presentation was a version of my talk on “Getting More out of the Mass”. Preparing for a ten-minute talk was a surprisingly time-consuming process! It’s hard to clearly communicate something of value in a restricted time window! It completely validated the quotation which is commonly ascribed to Woodrow Wilson:
“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation;
if fifteen minutes, three days;
if half an hour, two days;
if an hour, I am ready now”
For those of you who would like to hear the full-length version of the talk, I should be giving it in San Diego sometime in May.
I’ve been playing around with the graphics program Canva recently and if you’ve looked at the Restless Pilgrim Facebook page recently, you’ll have seen the fruit of this.
This post is one of those which has languished in my “Drafts” folder for far too long. Fortunately, a 
A little while ago I published the list of 
