Tag: featured

When West meets East

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PopeChotkiThis is one of the many reasons I love Pope Francis. A while ago, back when the Pope was visiting Rio de Janiero, the public saw the pope wearing something around his right wrist.

This series of beads is known as “chotki” or “komboskini”. It is a prayer rope, much like a rosary, whose invention is typically attributed to St. Pachomius in the fourth century and is still used today by eastern Christians, both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic.

One prays by the chotki by reciting “The Jesus Prayer” on each bead/knot:

“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”

Although typically 100 beads, they can vary. There are also sometimes additional beads with invocations of Mary (“The Theotokos“).

One of the first things I noted reading Pope Francis’ bio upon being a elected Pope was that he had strong connections to Eastern Christianity. It’s great to see him exposing the West to more of what the East has to offer 🙂

#ProtestPP Seattle

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This last weekend I joined the crowd of people outside Seattle’s Planned Parenthood. At 320 other locations around the country many others did likewise, protesting the country’s most well-known abortion provider. It was wonderful seeing all my friends from around the country posting their pictures on Facebook.

Much like last time in Seattle, the counter-protest presence was rather weak. I counted maybe six people who were identifiably there in support of Planned Parenthood. In contrast, the pro-lifers covered most of the city block:

Protest

As you can hopefully see, as usual there was a real cross-section of people present, both men and women, young and old.
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I now have a Goddaughter-in-law!

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A while ago I wrote a short post about my friend Mike. He was Baptized at the Easter Vigil this year and I had the honour of being his Godfather. Well, the ol’ boy just chalked up another Sacrament! A couple of weeks ago he married my former neighbor, Mara.

For Better For Worse

Back when I began Restless Pilgrim I wrote a post entitled Early Church Fathers, Love & Romance and I was going to end this current post with my favourite quotation from St. John Chrysostom, but I thought instead that I’d end with a Scripture as Mike and Mara really did a superb job of choosing the Readings for the wedding. The Second Reading they chose was the same one I read for my sister at her wedding…

…I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. – Ephesians 3:14-19

I’d appreciate it if you’d say a prayer for them tonight 🙂

The Epistle of Joy – Episode #1 (Video)

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So, it’s nearly the end of January which means that we’re just a couple of weeks away from Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

So, what are you going to be doing this Lent? Give up chocolate…again?! Don’t misunderstand me, fasting from treats is a good thing to do, but why not do something a little different this year?

With that in mind, why don’t you join me for Scripture study? Throughout Lent I will be posting videos on YouTube three times a week. Each video will be nice and short, enough time for you finish a nice cup of tea (or coffee, if that is your poison).

For an audio-only version of this video, please click here.

We’ll be working through St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians using the RSV-CE translation. More details to follow in the run-up to Ash Wednesday!

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How to make sure you don’t forget your Novena

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Have you ever tried to do a novena and failed? Maybe it slipped your mind for a few days, or maybe you did remember, but only at inconvenient moments when you didn’t have the novena text with you? If what I’m describing has happened to you, then I have a suggestion for you: use Google Calendar as your prayer buddy.

When I intend to do a novena, I create a repeating event in Google Calendar to remind me. The wonderful thing about it is that you can synchronize the calendar with your cell phone so you have you’ll see the reminder wherever you are. If you include the text for the novena in the event’s description, you won’t even have to go hunting around to find the prayer for that day. Google Calendar will work with both iPhone or Android devices.

Setting Up A Novena

If you’re not sure how to do this in Google Calendar, here are the steps necessary to setup a novena reminder:

1. Create new event
Click at the first day when you’ll be doing the Novena. I’d suggest picking a time when you know you’ll be consistently free over the course of the nine days. Enter the name of the novena and then click the “Edit Event” link:

Novena 1

2. Enter event description
In the “Description” field, enter the text needed for the novena, or include a link to a website which contains the text. Then click on the checkbox next to “Repeat”:

Novena 3

3. Setup Repetition
Clicking on the checkbox next to “Repeat” will cause a new dialog to appear. On this dialog you can setup how this event repeats. Since we’ll be praying a Novena, set it to “Daily” repetition and to end after nine occurrences. Once this is completed, click “Done”:

Novena 2

4. Jesus saves… and so should you
Everything is now correctly setup, so click “Save” and you should see the sequence of reminders created.

Novena 4

Hope this helps. Happy praying!

Swearing

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I’ve recently been involved in a number of conversations about Christianity and swearing.

This week, a Catholic friend whom I very much respect suggested the possibility that it might be okay to “swear intentionally in the proper context”. I took some time to write a substantial reply on social media, so I thought I’d share it here as well, as I think it sums up my main thoughts on the subject…

Objections To Swearing

1. Biblical Baseline

The first objection I see to swearing is the clear motif from Scripture concerning Christian speech. To begin with, we are told that the words of our mouth are important:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:14
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Empty chairs at empty altars: Part 2

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Yesterday I began talking about an exchange I had with Mike, a sedevacantist gentleman who asserts that the Second Vatican Council was a heretical council…

A Future Restoration?

If one ascribed to Mike’s assessment of Catholicism, things really do look pretty bleak: virtually every Catholic has been excommunicated from the Church and, as a result, there are no priests or Sacraments. I was intrigued as to how Mike imagined this dire situation ever being resolved. I mean, if one held to his position, the New Covenant is in tatters! Wouldn’t Jesus need to come back to re-instute the papacy, the priesthood and the Sacraments? But this is a problem since we know that Jesus isn’t returning until His Second Coming. Here is what Mike had to say:

“I can’t tell you the nature of the Divine intercession by which the hierarchy of the Catholic Church will be restored, if this were God’s will”

Doesn’t it seem odd that Jesus would establish the Papacy, only to see it disappear from the earth with no possible way of being restored? In response to this question, Mike asked me why I trusted the Pope. I said that it’s simply because I trust Jesus Christ. He established Peter as the rock. He gave Peter the keys. If the papacy could survive Pope Alexander VI, I’m pretty sure it can survive Pope Benedict XVI!

Vatican II

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