"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Today we return to the my series of articles about Our Lady. In this post I’d like to look at a reader’s concerns regarding the level of attention which is given to Mary within the Catholic Church.
The concerns expressed by Monica are common among many Protestants. Are they valid? Do we lose Christ when we give attention to His mother?
This last weekend I finished C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity: A Biography. Just to be clear, this isn’t a biography of C.S. Lewis, it’s a biography of a book he wrote.
George Marsden recounts the genesis of what is probably Lewis’ most famous Christian apologetics book, Mere Christianity. He traces how Lewis’ talks to the RAF transitioned into radio addresses on the BBC and these were converted into three separate books which were ultimately collected together under the single title “Mere Christianity”.
It was interesting to hear the criticisms which were offered at the time against both Lewis and his arguments by skeptics, as well as the reception of his work over time among different Christian denominations.
If you like learning about C.S. Lewis, but want to read something a little different from the usual popular biographies, I’d thoroughly recommend this book!
It has come to my attention that not yet everyone has gone to see the newly released movie Les Miserables…
I find this unacceptable. If this is you, please turn off your computer and go to the cinema straight away. Seriously, what are you waiting for? Power down and go watch it now. Don’t worry, we’ll wait for you until you come back…
[Three hours later]
I know, I know, you’re welcome… Wasn’t that wonderful?! Aren’t you glad you watched it? You cried your eyes out too, didn’t you? 😉 Now that you’ve seen the movie, I’ll feel free to continue with spoilers…
Continuing my exchange with Jerry, we moved onto the subject of Scripture itself. As you’ll see, I spent a lot of time asking questions about Jerry’s various assertions and trying to get at his underlying assumptions…
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:
This post is one of those which has languished in my “Drafts” folder for far too long. Fortunately, a recent article by Joe at Shameless Popery reminded me of this topic and prompted me to finish what I had begun…
I had been preparing a couple of apologetics posts and, to save me some typing, I had been digging through my past correspondence with Protestant friends and acquaintances.
A while ago I mentioned an email exchange I had with a chap called Jay. I was looking through some of our early correspondence and I came across something I had written to him which I thought deserved its own blog entry.
I had asked Jay a series of questions to which he had not responded. Rather than answer my questions about his own worldview, he wanted to jump right in and debate topics such as Mary, Purgatory and Papal Infallibility. Because every Protestant group has a different set of beliefs, I had to understand Jay’s worldview in order to meaningfully interact with it. Here’s what I wrote:
“[Jay,] please address my questions so I can understand where you’re coming from. If you want to know what I believe you can just crack open the Catechism. [This will concretely tell you what I believe and give you a good idea as to why I believe it].
[I can’t do the same for you. Your particular matrix of beliefs is your own]. I don’t have such a simple way of finding out how your theology hangs together and exactly what you believe (“Once Saved Always Saved”? Understanding of Sola Scriptura? Sola Fide? etc.)“
While I was on my blogging sabbatical, a lot happened. In particular, the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of redefining marriage to include unions between same-sex couples. In the run-up to the Court’s decision, Facebook was awash with memes, articles and status posts about the issue.
I’d like to spend today’s post reflecting upon some of the things I saw online this past month…
