Tag: featured

Sunday Lectionary: Holy Anticipation

Leave a comment

5th Sunday Of Lent: 23rd March, 2012

As this Lenten season reaches its climax, our Sunday Mass Readings are filled with anticipation.

In the First Reading, the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of a time to come when God would make a new kind of covenant with His people, one dramatically different from the ones made before. Under this new covenant the exiled tribes would be gathered together. It would signal a new era and a new level of intimacy with the Lord. After hearing these words of Jeremiah, God’s people waited in eager anticipation of this promised future.

In our Gospel Reading, Jesus is approached by some Greeks. At their arrival Jesus declares that “The hour has come…”. The “hour” of which Jesus speaks refers to His Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. With the coming of this “hour”, what was promised through the Prophet Jeremiah will finally reach fulfillment through Christ. Not only will the Children of Israel be gathered together, but so too will all people, “wash[ed]…and cleanse[d]” as we sing in today’s psalm.

Jesus says that He must die in order to bring eternal life. If Jesus is the Head of the Church, then His Body must do likewise:

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. – John 12:25

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead – Philippians 3:10

The new life which Jesus brought to mankind is made present to us at every Mass in the Blessed Sacrament. Sometime this week, in preparation for Easter, why not spend an additional Holy Hour asking for the grace to live a life in imitation of our Lord?

Read more

My thoughts on quantum gravity

5 comments

Last month I read an article about Professor Steven Hawking in which he was quoted as saying:

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark”

Well, that’s nice… As intelligent and qualified as you are to answer questions about black holes and quantum gravity, I’m afraid Professor Hawking, this is a philosophical question. It was for this reason, after reading the article, my Facebook status quickly became:

“Hey Stephen, do want to hear my thoughts on String Theory?”

Professor Hawking has recently been increasingly vocal over the question of God. I was originally going to write a longer post about Professor Hawking’s recent assertions, but then I remembered that Fr. Barron had produced a superb video where he addressed some of these issues:

Read more

Sunday Lectionary: God’s Green Fingers

One comment

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: June 17th, 2012

After the feasts and solemnities of recent weeks, we finally return to the regular Sundays in Ordinary Time.  For the next few weeks, our New Testament Reading we will come from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians and, for the remainder of this year, we will be working sequentially through the Gospel of Mark.

The Readings this week make heavy use of plant imagery. So, dig out your trowel, dust off your gardening gloves and let’s get stuck in!

Read more

What’s the earliest depiction of the crucifixion?

4 comments

The earliest depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion doesn’t, in fact, come from a Christian source. It is known as Alexamenos Graffito and, as the name suggests, it’s a piece of graffiti. It was found near Rome’s Palatine Hill and is dated sometime between 1st and 3rd Century:

AlexGraffito

The text underneath the picture says in Greek “Alexamenos worships [his] God”. The picture itself shows Jesus on a cross with a donkey’s head, with another person on the left (presumably “Alexamenos”) raising his hand in worship. It’s clear that this was written by someone who knew Alexamenos and wanted to mock him and his Christian faith.

Read more

TEA: Life in Christ, not just improvement, but transformation

Leave a comment

In this episode of “Theology With An English Accent” (TEA) is the first of a few talks I’m giving this Lent at St. Ignatius in Los Angeles. This is a longer version of the talk I gave the previous week in Dodge City which was called “What is the point of Christianity?”. The first 20 minutes is basically identical, after which I get into new material.

Life in Christ: Not mere improvement, but transformation (Download)

You can subscribe to “Theology With An English Accent” manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found  (Feed | iTunes | Google Play).

Sunday Lectionary: Called, sanctified and sent

Leave a comment

Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist: 24th June, 2012

After being “fearfully, wonderfully made…knit…in [his] mother’s womb”, we read in this week’s Gospel of how Elizabeth gave birth to a son and how he was named “John”.  It’s a solemnity again! This week we celebrate the birth (“nativity”) of the one who would be the herald of the coming Messiah, John the Baptist:

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”

Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. – Matthew 3:1-6

As we celebrate Mass this week, let us pray for courage to step out boldly as prophets, to speak truth to our world and to prepare the way of the Lord.

The baptized have become “living stones” to be “built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.” By Baptism they share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission… “[They] must profess before men the faith they have received from God through the Church” and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God. – Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraphs 1268 and 1270 

Read more

Solo or Sola Scriptura?

One comment

I recently wrote a series of posts (Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4) on the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and thought I’d write a quick follow-up post to address one objection I’ve recently heard…

Solo or Sola?

Some Protestants draw a distinction between Sola Scriptura and Solo Scriptura. They assert that there is huge difference between the two. For example, in the book, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, the non-Catholic author Keith Mathison defines Solo Scriptura as the belief that:

“Scripture [is] not merely the only infallible authority but that it [is] the only authority altogether”

The Shape of Sola Scriptura, Keith Mathison

In contrast, he defines Sola Scriptura as the conviction that:

“Scripture [is] the sole source of revelation; that it [is] the final authoritative norm of doctrine and practice; that it [is] to be interpreted in and by the church, and that it [is] to be interpreted according to the regula fidei”

The Shape of Sola Scriptura, Keith Mathison

The difference he tries to assert in his book is that Solo Scriptura says that the Bible is the highest authority, being both inspired and infallible, but that Sola Scriptura does not declare it to be the only authority.

A distinction without a difference?

I would suggest that there is no principled difference between the two. I say this because they both pretty much boil down to the same thing: the locus of final interpretive authority ultimately lies with the individual Protestant.

Has the decree of his denomination or a council ever overruled his personal interpretation of Scripture?

His denomination may “suggest”, the creeds of the early Councils may “guide”, but the final interpreter of Scripture is still that individual Protestant. Unfortunately, this produces as many “final authorities” as there are Sola Scriptura Christians.

Or, put another way, if nobody is Pope, everybody is Pope.

1 … 68 69 70 71 72 … 137