Tag: featured

TOT: Adulting the Catholic Way

Leave a comment

TOT-PK

Tonight’s “Theology On Tap” was hosted by Paul Kim. Paul came to speak to use about “Adulting the Catholic Way”. Paul is a husband and father of two, as well as a well-known Catholic speaker, beatboxer and avid Instagram picture-taker!

If you would like to hear audio from other San Diego “Theology On Tap” sessions, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play or manually via the RSS feed.

“Adulting the Catholic Way” (Download)

If you would like to hear a little bit of his beatbox, please click here…

Questions: An apologist’s best friend

2 comments

questionToday I wanted to talk about an apologetic strategy I use a lot: asking questions. You see, regardless of the topic, be it abortion, Christianity or Catholicism, there is always the temptation to spend most of your time telling someone what they should believe. People are rarely very receptive to being told. When I’m in that mode, it becomes very easy for me to become pompous and prideful. Questions help prevent this.

Rather than telling someone what they should believe, I find it is generally much more effective to ask the person what they believe and why. This communicates to the other person that you care what they think and you want to know more. Even though you are talking less, you have guiding control over the conversation through the questions that you ask. Not only that, but if you ask questions, it will probably encourage your friend to open up and ask you questions about what you believe. This allows you to follow the advise a wise priest once told me: “It’s best to start giving answers only once they’ve started asking you questions”

I would suggest that the goal is to ask questions which reveal the flaws in that person’s worldview. Once these are revealed, you can then present your own perspective, thereby giving you an opportunity to demonstrate the cohesiveness of your own world view.

“He who asks questions has control”
– Socrates (387 BC)

A while ago, Aggie Catholics put together a great list of questions to ask when you’re evangelizing…

TOT: Beauty

Leave a comment

October 11, 2018: Erica Tighe @ St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church

About the speaker: Erica is the owner and designer of Be A Heart as well as a designer for Blessed is She; she moved to Brazil post-grad to work for Heart’s Home and currently lives in Los Angeles and travels through out the country sharing the message that beauty can save the world as a witness of hope for humanity.

You can subscribe to the San Diego Theology On Tap Podcast using either iTunes or Google Play.

Main Talk (Download)

Q&A (Download)

Epilogue (Download)

Manvotional: Winston Churchill

Leave a comment

I’m a regular reader of the website The Art of Manliness. I love their content, but wish that more of it was made available in audio format, in particular the “manvotionals”. At the moment I’m trying to get hold of the guys who run the site to make this request and also to offer my services as part of the team who’ll provide the audio version of their posts.

As part of my pitch, I’ve recorded a recent “manvotional” posted on their website from the autobiography of a man who is consistently voted as being the greatest Briton of all time, Sir Winston Churchill.

Screen Shot 2015-09-21 at 11.25.08 AM

Manvotional (Download)

“The Descent” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

The unaccompanied MP3 is available here.

“Getting” The Begetting

Leave a comment

As part of one of my New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve begun reading through the New Testament. The other day I discovered something about the genealogy of Jesus which I thought was rather interesting. Matthew’s Gospel begins thus:

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, … and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam,  …Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, … Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

To our modern minds, this list seems rather dull, but to a First Century Jew it is tremendously exciting and important. If you want to know the man, you learn about his family. Anyway, Matthew’s list is about begetting! How can that not be exciting?! 😉

Read more

“This requires ceremony…”

2 comments

The other night I went to see the movie Courageous with a bunch of other guys on a “man trip” ;-). I’ve written about this movie before, but over the next few weeks I’d like to mention a few other thoughts which came to mind while watching the film…

The Resolution

In the story, a group of four men decide to sign a Resolution, a statement of conduct (derived from Scripture) which they promise to follow as both men and as fathers.

In a certain scene, one of the men shows a copy of the Resolution to his wife. She gets really excited and then starts asking him lots of questions. What will the final Resolution look like? What is he going to wear when he signs it? etc. The man gives his wife a look of complete incomprehension and confusion. It’s clear that he hadn’t even considered these things. To this she responds:

“If you’re gonna do this, then do it right. Something like this requires…ceremony!” 

I had to smile at this, since, to my Catholic ears, I heard:

“If you’re gonna do this, then do it right. Something like this requires…liturgy“ 🙂

 

The Liturgy Ceremony

Later in the film we see what this ceremony looks like…

All the men are wearing suits and their family members are present, also in formal attire. They meet in a beautiful park underneath some trees. A long-time friend and minister to one of the men officiates, calling each of the men forward one-by-one.  Each man then repeats the Resolution out loud in the presence of his family and pastor, after which he signs a framed copy of the Resolution written in beautiful calligraphy, which he later hangs in a prominent place in his home.

Read more

1 … 66 67 68 69 70 … 172