Tag: featured

Catholics Come Home: Part 5

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Today I continue the “Catholics Come Home” series which began a few days ago. Today the evangelization suggestions focus around parish life…

leave church

10. Your parish
It’s important to support and build up your parish home. It is to your parish that you will be inviting people. Just as you would prepare your home if you had people coming over to visit, you should help make your parish a vibrant and welcoming place.

“As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another“ – John 13:34-35

Serve your parish in whatever way you think appropriate. I’d invite you to get creative! Think about what you love and then consider how this could this be used for the glory of God and for drawing people to Jesus and His Church. For example, do you love board games? Organize a board game night!

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Catholic Dating: Fear of rejection

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So, earlier today I wrote that I wanted to resurrect the abandoned blog series I began last year. I wanted to finally return to address the question I’ve so often heard asked about Catholic guys: why do they seem so averse to asking girls out on dates?

I would suggest that the main reason is simply fear of rejection.

It’s a pretty basic answer, but I think that this is all-too-often the reason why the Catholic guys I know haven’t dated more. This reason applies to non-Catholic men as well, of course, but I think there are some uniquely complicating factors for Catholics and I’ll talk about those in a bit.

Living Dangerously

Asking someone out is not exactly a stress-free activity. It involves risk. It involves “putting yourself out there” and risking  rejection. Sometimes that rejection can be swift and direct (“Sorry, but no thank you”), sometimes laced with platitudes (“You’re really special, but I think of you as more of a brother”) and sometimes you’ll just be ignored. However, in the mind of a guy there is always the irrational fear that it’d be cold and brutal (“You want to go on a date? Ewh! Ewh! Get away from me!”).

This fear of being shot-down is very real for a lot of guys, particularly those of the more sensitive variety. The lack of confidence and fear of rejection can lead to a paralyzing insecurity.

rejection

Asking someone out requires courage and willingness to be vulnerable, but I think there are two complicating factors which are unique for Christian men… Read more

The Way

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We are living at a great time for faith-related films. Virtually all of my trips to the cinema this year have been to see movies in which Christianity has played a positive part in the storyline. Last week I reviewed Warrior and today I’d like to say a few words about my most recent cinema outing to see The Way…

The Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile pilgrimage route from the town of St. Jean Pied de Port in France to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The story begins with the death of a pilgrim, Daniel Avery, shortly after beginning this pilgrimage. His father, Tom, who had a strained relationship with his son, travels from America to France to identify his son’s body and return him home.

When Tom arrives in France, he meets a policeman who explains to him about the pilgrimage his son was undertaking. Shortly before Daniel left America he asked his dad to go on a trip with him, but his father declined the offer.

Now that his son is dead, he decides to honour belatedly his son’s request. He resolves to walk the Camino in his son’s place and take Daniel’s ashes along with him, scattering them along the way (you’re not actually allowed to do this).

Tom is extremely single-minded in his journey. In many ways, the audience is left to guess at what is going on inside the head of this stoic figure, as he doesn’t exactly wear his heart on his sleeve. Tom is played expertly by Martin Sheen who, incidentally, was inspired to take his screen name from our beloved Grandpa Sheen. He gives a great performance as Daniel’s father.

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Camino inaccuracies

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The Way is a movie starring Martin Sheen about a man’s journey across Spain, walking the Camino. While I enjoyed it, there were a few inaccuracies I feel compelled to point out:

1. Rain

If this movie were accurate, there would need to be many more scenes of them walking in the rain.

2. Flies

At no point in the movie do we see the walkers getting irritated by or swatting away flies. Depending on the time of year that you walk the Camino, this is something you have to do quite a bit at certain points.

3. Popping blisters

There needs to be at least one scene where the group are gathered around looking at a blister on someone’s foot. By the end of the scene, that blister must be popped, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

4. Arguing about the relative merits on compeed

Following on from the above scene, there needs to be a sharp disagreement as to the relative merits of compeed.

5. Food

Food is a big part of the Camino. I’d have loved to have seen Sheen’s group gathered around a table more often sharing a meal. They could be discussing whether or not Spanish Red Wine should be considered medicine and why vegetables are so hard to find on the trail. I also think we should see them drinking orange juice and eating Napolitana, two staples of the Camino.

6. Miming

Refusing to learn Spanish, at least one character has to express their sleeping and dietary requirements to a hostel owner through the medium of mime.

Early Church Fathers, Love & Romance

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Yesterday’s post was rather long, so I’ll keep this one nice and short.

After the Office Christmas Party this weekend one of my coworkers, Kevin, and his girlfriend got engaged.  This put me in mind of two of my favourite quotations from the Early Church Fathers on the subject of love and marriage.

As I think I’ve said before, one of the things which constantly surprises me is that, although these men lived so long ago, they have so much wisdom from which today’s world could benefit.

The first quotation comes from a priest of the late 4th Century called John.  His preaching was so renowned, he acquired the name “golden mouth” or in Greek “chrysostomos”.  He is most commonly referred to as St. John Chrysostom.  He is one of the few to be declared a “Doctor of the Church”, a greatly deserved title.

“An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love” – St. John Chrysostom

Beautiful, isn’t it?  Superb advice – you’d never guess he was a celibate priest… 😉

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Mere Christianity – Book IV – Chapter 3 (“Time and beyond time”)

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Book-4

Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…

1. Some people struggle with the idea of prayer

(a) It relates to how God hears prayer

“A man put it to me by saying ‘I can believe in God all right, but what I cannot swallow is the idea of Him attending to several hundred million human beings who are all addressing Him at the same moment.'” 

(b) Specifically, how God can hear prayers at the same time

“Most of us can imagine God attending to any number of applicants if only they came one by one and He had an endless time to do it in. So what is really at the back of this difficulty is the idea of God having to fit too many things into one moment of time”

2. Our trouble stems from how we experience life in time

“Our life comes to us moment by moment One moment disappears before the next comes along: and there is room for very little in each. That is what Time is like”

(a) They assume that God experiences things in the same way

We tend to assume that the whole universe and God Himself are always moving on from past to future just as we do. But many learned men do not agree with that. It was the Theologians who first started the idea that some things are not in Time at all: later the Philosophers took it over: and now some of the scientists are doing the same.

(b) However, God is not in Time

“His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty-and every other moment from the beginning of the world-is always the Present for Him”

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Roman Catholic All Day

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Today I wanted to advertise Roman Catholic All Day, a Catholic clothing website which was recently started by two of my friends here in San Diego:

Not only do they have some great products, but 10% of the value of each order is donated to a Catholic organization. So, buying one of their t-shirts practically means you’re performing a spiritual or corporal work of mercy! 🙂

Their clothing line will be expanding soon through a Kickstarter Project. In the meantime, take a look at heir Facebook page and give them some feedback on their upcoming products.

Christmas is only a couple of months away now, so why not buy a t-shirt or two for the favourite Catholic in your life? Oh, and just in case you were wondering, my size is a “medium”… 😉

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