"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
This past weekend I was visiting a friend in Washington State and, at the church we visited, saw the following cross hanging above the altar:
Cross at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Yakima
…and this reminded me of something else which I came to understand through studying Greek that I had meant to share…
It’s time for another Manvotional from Art of Manliness to be recorded onto MP3. I actually think this is my favourite one to date…
Manvotional (Download)
“Water Lily” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
The unaccompanied MP3 is available here.
There are many words of Jesus to which I find myself returning time and again, finding in them yet another dimension οr shade of meaning. Today I would like to share with you a little “God moment” I had last week related to a certain passage of Scripture.
Recently, I had a few days vacation in Las Vegas. A friend of mine from England was visiting Arizona and we agreed to meet in Las Vegas since it’s sort-of-but-not-really half way between Phoenix and San Diego. This was my first time visiting Las Vegas. Hopefully I’ll write about my impressions of that city sometime soon but, for now, I would just like to share something that happened on the last day.
Now, I’m pretty sure Hell will be hotter than Nevada, although I don’t exactly see how that’s possible! Man, it was baking! Since the weather was like an oven, we decided to take it easy on our final day and just hang out at the hotel’s pool for a little while…
While I was sunbathing I saw a father and his little girl playing in the pool. The child would climb out of the pool and, with a huge grin and cheeky laugh, she would jump into the pool, into the parent’s waiting arms.
For the last few days (the last nine days, in fact!), I’ve been praying a Novena. This has meant that I’ve been praying the rosary every day. As you may know, the Catholic Church has assigned to each day of the week a different set of “mysteries”:
Monday: Joyful Mysteries
Tuesday: Sorrowful Mysteries
Wednesday: Glorious Mysteries
Thursday: Luminous Mysteries
Friday: Sorrowful Mysteries
Saturday: Joyful Mysteries
Sunday: Glorious Mysteries
These mysteries are the events in the life of Jesus and His mother, such as the Resurrection and when Jesus turned water into wine. Catholics are invited to meditate upon these mysteries as they pray the rosary. Previously, whenever I went to pray a rosary, I always had to do a google search to check which mysteries were assigned to that day. However, after nine days of praying the rosary, I’ve come up with a little mnemonic to work it out:
Jesus Saves, God Loves Sinners, Jehovah God
Music: Moonlight Hall Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
My dear Bogwash,
It is indeed an interesting twist of fate, that on the eve of being assigned your human, the Patient makes a decision to embrace with renewed vigor his dormant childhood faith. It is standard policy here at the Training College to assign to our undergraduates (due to their inexperience) those humans who are generally weak in faith, so this recent development is indeed unfortunate.
But while you received the misfortune to be assigned this particular Patient, you have also been extremely fortunate to receive me as your Tutor. We have been rather short-staffed at the College recently and, as such, I have been told to instruct some of you undergraduates personally. This task is, quite frankly, beneath me…but you and I both know that Our Father Below is unaccustomed to being denied. Regardless, if you follow my expert tutelage, we will swiftly crush your Patient’s newfound devotion to the Enemy. If you do as I say and handle him rightly, we will soon have him returning to his former trajectory towards Our Father’s House Below.
In these preliminary stages of temptation you must concentrate your efforts on coming to understand the Patient. What kind of man is he? What are his weaknesses? And more importantly, is he aware of these weaknesses? The less he knows of them the better! I expect a full report in your next letter.
Although the situation is of some concern, we should not panic. Many Catholics have, at some point, renewed the practice of their faith, but ultimately lasted only for but a brief season.
Your Patient has woken up. It is your job to gently lull him back to sleep.
Your affectionate mentor,
Professor Slubgob.
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…
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…
Hello everyone! We’ll have a fresh episode of The Eagle and Child for you next week, but in the meantime, here is this week’s episode of The Lamp-Post Listener. I was invited onto the show by Daniel and Phil to discuss Chapter 16 of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe…
Bonus Episode: Guest Appearance on The Lamp-Post Listener (Download)