"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Back in the early days of this blog, I wrote a post entitled Don’t be too eager to hit “Send”. In that post I spoke about how it’s prudent to exercise caution when sending email, particularly when you’re in a bad mood, as it’s very easy to send someone a nasty message which you may soon come to regret. Today’s post is something of a companion piece: Don’t be too eager to hit “Share”…
Every now and then I have readers email me directly. Here’s one I received earlier this week:
“Last week my Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion was saying, “THIS IS THE Body of Christ.” It struck me as wrong. Is this ad-libbing, embellishing, inappropriate, or no problem?”
In case anyone is interested, here was my reply…
I was fortunate enough to spend Christmas 2015 with my family back in England. One of the many things I enjoy about taking trips to England is the plane ride because the time spent at 30,000 feet is usually very productive! I’m not sure if it’s simply because I’m stuck in a seat for nine hours, or because people are waiting on me hand and foot, but for whatever reason I tend to get a lot of writing done. The fruits of previous transatlantic plane rides have included my series on Catholic dating, the top 11 reasons why every man should learn to dance and, one of my personal favourites, the article which explains how the He-Man cartoon teaches transubstantiation.
This last return trip to the States was a little different, however. Rather than spending my time writing, I spent it reading. Over the course of this flight, I read Room 24: Adventures of a New Evangelist by Katie Prejean from cover-to-cover. The book is available through Ave Maria Press and Amazon, and hopefully after you’ve read this review you’ll go order a copy, visit her website and follow her on Twitter.
On the return flight to America, I had the entire row of seats to myself which made for a much more comfortable flight. As I write this review, I am once again on a plane, this time from New York City, and once again I have the entire row of seats to myself. Now, I’m not promising that if you buy this book it will automatically entitle you to extra leg room, but please allow me a few minutes to explain why I enjoyed this book so much…
I wanted to write a short follow-up to my post to an article earlier this week: Analysis Paralysis and making the first move. In that post I shared a quotation from the TV show “Person of Interest” about playing the game of chess:
“No one could possibly predict [all the possibilites]… Which means that that first move can be terrifying…there’s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities… But it also means that if you make a mistake, there’s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.” – Harold Finch
This post was one of my most popular, so thank you to all of you who shared it on Facebook. It’s always great to know that something I’ve written has been of interest and encouragement 🙂
What has prompted this current post is a discussion I saw about the post Reddit. On one of the threads there were concerns that this quotation could simply be an excuse to avoid making careful decisions. I would like to respond to this concern by telling a story from my time at school…
Earlier this week I posted an article Critics of Matthew Kelly? where I discussed some of the criticisms of Matthew Kelly I’ve seen recently on the Internet. If you recall, there has been some complaints about a passage in Matthew Kelly’s latest book, “Rediscover Jesus”:
Was this some sort of vision, perhaps prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the dramatic conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the once-skeptical half-brother of Jesus. – Rediscover Jesus (Page 99)
There was one article in particular that caught my eye which I thought deserved a short post of its own. It was written by a chap called Jeff from Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts. Jeff’s criticism of the passage from the book was as follows:
“It implies one of two things; either Mary was not a virgin throughout the rest of her life or Joseph had other children…. Mary’s virginity is not even up for debate as the Church declared her perpetual virginity as Dogma. The issue with Joseph having other children is that Catholic tradition holds that he too was a virgin.” – Traditional Roman Catholic Thoughts
I’m not really sure how confidently we can say that “Catholic tradition holds that [Joseph]…was a virgin”. It is true that certain Fathers did assert that St. Joseph was a virgin, beginning, I think, with St. Jerome in the late 4th Century. However, mid-Second Century traditions point to St. Joseph’s having children from an earlier marriage. The earliest surviving account of this is the Protoevangelium of James.
The narrative that St. Joseph was a widower is one which is vigorously upheld in the East, among both Catholic and Orthodox Christians. In fact, you’ll notice that in icons of “The Flight Into Egypt” there are often four people depicted: Christ, the Theotokos, St. Joseph and also St. Joseph’s son, St. James.
Since today is Australia Day, I thought I’d write a few words about Matthew Kelly, an Australian evangelist and founder of the Dynamic Catholic Institute who has written many well-known books such as “Rediscovering Catholicism” and “The Rhythm of Life”.
In recent months I’ve noticed an increasing number of voices on the Internet criticizing Matthew’s work and organization. After seeing some of these blog entries and Facebook discussions, I’ve been left a little uneasy by some of the unbridled criticism I’ve read…
There’s a good chance that by now, if you read a lot of Catholic blogs, you’ve heard of Charlie Johnston.
Charlie is a Catholic layman who lives in Denver, Colorado. A convert from Protestantism, he claims to have received visitations from Jesus, Saints and angels for most of his life.
I’d like to take today’s post to give a little introduction to what Charlie has been teaching and share a few thoughts as to how one might respond to this sort of thing.
So what has Charlie been saying? His central message is that there is “a Great Storm” coming, a series of catastrophic events for the entire world. He speaks of wars, governments falling, economic collapse and millions dying. North Korea, China and the Islamic religion have all made appearances in his messages at some point.
In addition to his warning of coming troubles, Charlie spends a lot of time talking about how Christians are to behave during this coming tumult: “Acknowledge God; take the next right step; and be a sign of hope to those around you, knowing that God is always close at hand”.
Charlie says that, during the the troubles, people will think it’s the end of the world but that will not be the case. He speaks of of an eventual rescue through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which ultimately renders his message as one of hope. After this divine rescue, Charlie says that there will be a long period of peace, prosperity and Christian unity.