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Sunday Lectionary: The Hippo Gospel

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I thought I’d write a brief entry on today’s Gospel, the parable of The Good Samaritan. The interpretation I’m going to give may be one you’ve never heard before.  It comes from St. Augustine, bishop of fifth century North Africa in his work “Questions on the Gospels”.

I had never heard of this interpretation of the parable until I started studying the Early Church Fathers where I found this explanation also offered by others such as Ireneus and Origen.

I’ll talk about the Early Church Fathers specifically in another post, but for now, let’s look at one of the ways St. Augustine explained this parable:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’“

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PWJ: S4E61 – AH – “Barfield Buffet” (Part 2)

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Today we conclude the “Barfield Buffet” and Barfield Month.

S4E61: “Barfield Buffet” (Part 2) (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube. The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.

More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.

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Sunday Lectionary: Be doers of the word

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Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time: September 2nd, 2012

There are a number of themes found in this week’s Readings, but they all centre around remaining in right relationship with God through observance of His Word.

In our First Reading, Moses reminds the people of their obligation to observe what God has commanded. If they do this, then they shall remain in covenant with Him and be light to the other nations. In the Second Reading, St. James exhorts his listeners to “Be doers of the word and not hearers only”. Finally, in the Gospel our Lord answers the criticisms of the Pharisees when they complain about his disciples not washing their hands. He responds with a stinging rebuttal, claiming that they “disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition”. He goes on to say to the crowd that “nothing that enters one from outside can defile”. It is what we say and what we do which makes us “unclean”.

This Sunday, as we hear the Word of God proclaimed, do we “humbly welcome” it and allow it to penetrate our lives? Do we act on what we hear or are we “hearers only”? As we renew our covenant with the Lord in the Eucharist, let us commit ourselves to be “doers of His word” and to live lives which reflect the holiness of the Lord.

Does not hearers only

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Knowing God’s will

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It has been said that it’s easier to preach a hundred sermons rather than to live one out. Equally, I’ve found that, more often than not, the advice we freely hand out to friends, family and even strangers is usually the advice that we ourselves need to hear.

At the moment I’m taking a bit of time out to consider the things going on in my life and to ponder where all this is heading… I have done this at other points in my life and, more often than not, I’ve ended up tying myself up into knots trying to discern God’s will for my life.

The other week I said something to a friend that, tonight, I realise I needed hear myself:

“Knowing God’s will? Well, that’s easy! Love the Lord your God will all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind…and love your neighbour as yourself. Everything else is just details” (c.f. Mark 12:29-31)

Important details, sure, but still details nonetheless…

PWJ: S1E24 – MC B3C11 – “Faith” (Part 1)

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Faith

For the last two chapters of Book III we will be looking at the final theological virtue of “faith”. This chapter focuses on faith in terms of holding onto rational truths despite raging emotions.

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, Stitcher and TuneIn).

Please send any objections, comments or questions, either via email through my website or tweet us @pintswithjack. Be sure to follow our new Instagram account!

Episode 24: “Faith” (Part 1) (Download)

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Discernment Frustrations

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At the end of last week I scribbled a very short post about my recent discernment efforts. Today I’d like to say something about my discernment frustrations…

Definitely older, maybe even a bit wiser…

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the discernment in my mid-twenties wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. I tied myself in knots and got extremely frustrated.

This time I approached things a little differently. I had a rough plan of attack, a shortlist of people with whom I wanted to speak and an approximate timeframe. In rare moment of decisiveness, I even managed to bypass my usual extended period of procrastination and got on with the task in hand…

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Into the breach!

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If we’re friends on Facebook, you may well have seen a video I posted last week:

This video is part of the Into the breach initiative from the Diocese of Phoenix. Bishop Olmsted, the Bishop of that Diocese, recently released an apostolic exhortation to men, asking them to “Step into the breach”, to fill the void in our society left by an absence of authentic masculinity. In this exhortation, the good Bishop discusses what it means to be a man and gives some of the practical guidance for living out the masculine calling in all its fullness.

I was very much impressed by this apostolic exhortation and I took it with me on my retreat this week so that I could spend some unhurried time reading through it and considering the challenges it poses. After subsequent rereading, I thought that it deserves to be more widely known, so I recorded it onto MP3, making it available to a wider audience.

Audio Download

Into The Breach – Introduction (Download)
The three questions and the context for answering them

Into The Breach – Question #1 (Download)
What does it mean to be a Christian man?

Into The Breach – Question #2 (Download)
How does a Catholic man love?

Into The Breach – Question #3 (Download)
Why is fatherhood, fully understood, so crucial for every man?

Into The Breach – Conclusion (Download)
Sent forth by Christ and Faith of our Fathers

If you don’t want to download multiple files, a recording of the entire document as a single MP3 is available here (80MB).

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