"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Orual undergoes her first major test of her queenship.
S3E14: “The Warrior Queen!” (Download)
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Andrew and Matt pick up from where David and Brenton left off last week in Screwtape Proposes A Toast, in the section of the address where Screwtape talks about liberty and democracy.
S4E72: Screwtape Proposes A Toast (Part 3 – “The Kids Are Alright”) (Download)
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Earlier in the year, Matt interviewed Douglas Gresham about life with his stepfather, C.S. Lewis. Today Douglas returns to talk about his life in the post-Lewis years.
S4E13: – “After Hours” with Douglas Gresham” (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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I have a confession.
At the beginning of the year I announced that one of my New Year Resolutions was to read the Bible from cover-to-cover in a year. It was all going so well… I had managed to get through the hard bits: the genealogies of Genesis, the battles of Exodus and even the liturgical rubrics of Leviticus. In fact, at the halfway point of this year I was even a little ahead of schedule in my daily reading.
Ah, but then things went awry… I had a couple of tough, busy weeks and it all went to pot. I got out of the habit of reading my Bible each day. The habit was broken and before I knew it, two months had passed and I hadn’t done any of my set reading.
As of yesterday, I was miles behind on my assigned schedule and hadn’t done any devotional reading in ages. Today that changed. Today I set aside some time. I read my Bible for about half an hour. It was long overdue. It was a small beginning, but at least it was a start.
This struggle to re-establish the habit of daily Scripture reading got me to thinking about a similar struggle in the Spiritual life…
Times of failure are so hard. It’s always tempting to think “Well, I’ve screwed this up. There’s no point trying again”. If you’re working towards a goal, failures and setbacks can be so demoralizing. There is the temptation to give up, particularly when the final goal seems so far off.
If you’ve ever tried dieting and ended up binging one evening, you’ll know the temptation just to throw in the towel. Starting again just seems too hard and helpless. I’ve heard people express something similar in reference to Confession, choosing to forgo Confession entirely rather than repeatedly confessing some habitual sin.
Today we encounter one of my favourite chapter titles in Mere Christianity: “The Obstinate Toy Soldiers”. Today we speak more about Christ’s Resurrection and what it achieved, and how we can benefit from it.
This is our first remote episode. Matt moved to New York this month, so over the next few weeks we’ll be working out technical issues as we get used to doing this podcast remotely over the next.
Please send any objections, comments or questions, either via email through my website or tweet us @pintswithjack or message us via Instagram!
Episode 33: The Obstinate Toy Soldiers (Download)
I’m winding down for the evening, but I wanted to quickly share something from Divine Liturgy this morning. The Gospel today on the Byzantine Calendar was the healing of the woman with a haemorrhage:
And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. – Mark 5:25-29
As I heard the Scriptures proclaimed today I had an epiphany, seeing an Old Testament connection to this passage which I had not previously seen:
And when [the priests] go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off the garments in which they have been ministering, and lay them in the holy chambers; and they shall put on other garments, lest they communicate holiness to the people with their garments – Ezekiel 44:19
As you can see, in the Old Covenant the garments of the priests where to be kept away from the rest of Israel, but what a wonderful reversal we have with the New Covenant! Jesus, “our Great High Priest”, goes about among His flock, freely available to the people, with His vestments bringing healing and holiness.
There’s a beautiful practice in the Eastern Churches which is inspired by today’s Gospel. I first saw it at my old Ruthenian parish, but I’m told that it’s more common in Melkite and Antiochian churches. As the priest passes along the aisles, you’ll occasionally see members of the congregation reach out and touch the priest’s vestments, made holy not by his own sanctity, but by virtue of the office given to him by Christ through the Church.
Last week I wrote two posts on the subject of dating outside of the Catholic Faith. In an effort to keep those posts focussed, I had decided to address the specific scenario of a couple composed of two Christians, a Catholic and a Protestant.
However, as I was writing, there was one issue related to dating outside of the Catholic Faith that I particularly wanted to raise, but since it didn’t naturally fall within the parameters which I had set for those articles, I decided to omit it. In today’s brief post, therefore, I would like to return to this issue.
In the previous post, I presented three main areas for potential conflict between a Catholic and a Protestant:
1. The Wedding
2. Religious Practice
3. Children and family life
In addition to these three areas, when a Catholic dates a non-Christian (as opposed to a non-Catholic), there is another area of potential conflict which is particularly worth considering:
4. Chastity
Is your potential spouse committed to chastity? Will this person do everything possible to help you remain chaste?
It is worth pointing out that potential contention over the subject of chastity is certainly not limited to the situation where a Catholic is dating a non-Christian. It is possible that conflict may arise when dating a Protestant or, as I highlighted in my previous post, even a fellow Catholic. There is no guarantee that someone who identifies as “Catholic” actually will believe or practise the entirety of the Catholic Faith.