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Reading List Update

July 1, 2013 pilgrim Leave a comment

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*
~~The Confessions of St. Augustine~~ – St. Augustine
~~Imitation of Christ~~ – Thomas à Kempis

This month I finished:

Philosophy For Dummies – Thomas Morris
Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde

I am currently reading:

Jesus Among Other Gods – Ravi Zacharias

…which leaves the following books still unread:

The Path of Life – Cyprian Smith OSB
Introduction to the Devout Life – St. Francis de Sales
Rediscover Catholicism – Matthew Kelly
Everlasting Man – G.K. Chesterton

The article Reading List Update first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net

Announcement

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 8 (“Ya Sin”)

December 15, 2016 pilgrim Leave a comment

Today I’m going to be looking at a longer chapters of the Qur’an: Surah 36.

Surah 36 – “Ya Sin” (Ya-Sin)
This chapter covers the usual material. Muhammad’s commission by God is, of course, reaffirmed. He is told that some people to whom he speaks will not listen to him, but his job is to warn them anyway.

This chapter describes a pair of missionaries arriving at a city. It is not clear if this is an historic story or not. Either way, the message of the missionaries is rejected, but then a man comes from the city and pleads with his fellow inhabitants to listen to these men. He draws particular attention to the fact that they do not ask for money. For his own part, the man testifies that Allah made him, he will return to Him and thus Allah is worthy of worship and the intercession of the city’s false gods is worthless. The text abruptly switches to speaking about Paradise so my footnotes suggest that this means that the man was killed for his faith. While I can understand this explanation, the Qur’an seems to me to jump randomly from topic-to-topic without warning on a regular basis.

Allah then identifies various “signs” to be submitted for consideration:

The bringing forth of life from dead earth
The production of fruit from trees
The departure of the sun at nighttime and the cycles of the moon
The salvation of Noah’s family through the Ark

I’m not 100% sure, but it seems that these signs are all meant to point to new life and Allah’s saving help.

Apologetics

Mary, the interfering mother? (4)

April 20, 2014 pilgrim 2 comments

Continuing my response to Monica’s comments concerning Mary, today I would like to continue providing a Catholic response to her objections, which today will chiefly focus around the subject of mediation.

Apologetics

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

October 7, 2017 pilgrim 2 comments

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”

Apologetics

Restless Popery

April 25, 2014 pilgrim Leave a comment

Yesterday on Facebook, Joe from Shameless Popery shared that he had intended to write a post on the supposed Pagan origins of Easter, but that our mutual friend, Steve, had referred him to Easter: The Pagan Conspiracy, a post I wrote on the same subject last year.

Joe had initially said he wasn’t going to write his own defense. Fortunately for us, rather than depriving the world of another of Joe’s excellent articles, he did write his own post on the subject, building off my original entry:

Apologetics

Stories In Ink

June 26, 2014 pilgrim One comment

A few weeks ago I did a post on the subject of Christians and tattoos, linking to a couple of articles which addressed that question from different perspectives. As a result, some of my Christian friends started talking about their tattoos on Facebook…

Despite my own feelings on the subject, I found the whole thing fascinating. So, in a follow-up post, I asked people to submit a picture of their tattoo and the story behind it. Below are the three submissions I received.

Points will be deducted for spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Don’t worry, that wasn’t one of them… 🙂

Catholicism

Lectionary Notes July 24th

July 20, 2011 pilgrim 3 comments

Sorry it’s a bit late – it’s been a hell of a week…

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 17, 2011

Reading 1: 1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12

Scripture:

The LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” Solomon answered:

“O LORD, my God, you have made me, your servant, king to succeed my father David; but I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. I serve you in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a people so vast that it cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. For who is able to govern this vast people of yours?”

The LORD was pleased that Solomon made this request. So God said to him:

“Because you have asked for this— not for a long life for yourself, nor for riches, nor for the life of your enemies, but for understanding so that you may know what is right— I do as you requested. I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you.”