Tag: featured

Top Ten, All Time, Catholic Pick-Up Lines

2 comments

I’m currently in the middle of writing an introductory post about the “Early Church Fathers” and I came across a wonderful quotation from one of my favourite Fathers, the great preacher, St. John Chrysostom:

“An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world.  Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love” – St. John Chyrsostom

Wonderful stuff!  But how exactly does one find this woman?! Unfortunately, this amazing preacher and Father of the Church does not tell us!  Do not fear!  I have stepped into the breach and have compiled my definitive list of the “Top Ten, All Time, Catholic Pick-Up Lines”!

Please feel to add your own suggestions in the comments 😀

Part 1 | Part 2

Great Apostasy Questions

7 comments

A while back, I produced a post in which I listed some Canon Questions, some specific questions I ask when talking to non-Catholics about the Table of Contents found in their Bible. Following my post concerning my recent encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness, I’ve decided to do another post similar to my Canon Questions, but this time concerning the “Great Apostasy”, the belief that that the Church effectively disappeared from the earth some time after Christ’s death.

Apostasy

Groups like the Mormons hold to the Great Apostasy and use this as an explanation for the significant differences between their doctrine and the doctrine of historic Christianity. Muslims hold to this narrative too, to justify the teachings of Muhammad which stand in stark contradiction to the New Testament. Additionally, most Protestant groups, while typically not holding such a radical version of this doctrine, usually hold to some variation of it, saying that somewhere along the line the Church went off-track in a rather major way.

Read more

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 12 (“Ta-ha”)

Leave a comment

golden-calf

Today’s chapter of the Qur’an focuses on the life of Moses…

Surah 20 – “Ta-ha” (Taha)
We start with the origin story of Moses, starting with the Burning Bush. Unlike the Biblical account, Moses has his family with him at the time he encounters the bush. Allah calls to Moses and tells him to worship Him alone, to “establish prayer” and then warns him of Judgement Day. Allah instructs Moses in transforming his staff and hand, then tells him he’s going to go to Pharaoh who “has transgressed [i.e. tyrannized]”. Moses asks Allah to “untie the knot from my tongue” and to grant his brother Aaron as a minister. Allah grants his request.

Read more

Council of Jerusalem Guidelines

Leave a comment

I mentioned a couple of times last year that I was leading a Bible study working through the Acts of the Apostles. During that time, Paul Pavao over at The Rest of the Old, Old Story was writing a series of posts working through books of the Bible (he was also recently recently kind enough to advertise this blog).

When my Acts of the Apostles Bible study was just beginning, Paul wrote a post about the Council of Jerusalem which is found in Chapter 15 of Acts. The Council of Jerusalem was the first recorded council of Church. The apostles and elders of Jerusalem were called together to respond to an issue concerning the Gentile converts to Christianity. Did a Gentile convert need to be circumcised? Did he have to become a Jew before he could become a Christian?

Twelve Apostles

The Council’s Response

At the Council there was extended discussion around the issue before Peter stood up and affirmed that the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised. St. James then said:

Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the pollutions of idols and from unchastity and from what is strangled and from blood. – Acts 15:19-20

In his blog post, Paul wrote:

“The council decides that they will ask just four things from the Gentiles, and they make it clear that circumcision is not necessary for the Gentiles. There may be people who understand why those specific four things were chosen, but I’m not one of them.”

In the comment section of the article I offered my two cents, saying:

“I’ve always seen the requirements from the Council of Jerusalem as measures to ease tensions between Jews and Gentiles in the Church.

“If I was a lifelong Jew who subsequently recognized Jesus as the Messiah I may find it hard to get used to the relaxed restrictions of the New Covenant. I may be a little sensitive about it, so if my gentile brothers and sisters could refrain from consuming strangled meat, food sacrificed to idols and blood, it would be far more likely that family harmony would be maintained.

“Just a thought”

As my own Bible study progressed towards Acts 15, I had the opportunity to do a little bit of research looking at this question and to dig into it a little more…

Read more

Lectionary Resources

8 comments

A few people have recently asked me where I get the material for my “Lectionary Notes” posts. Here’s the process I go through each week:

1. After we conclude our Bible Study in the JP2 Group, we all go to the church next door for adoration. In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament I read the Lectionary Scriptures for the following week and spend a little bit of time praying through them.

2. When I next have some time, I read through the texts again using my NIV Study Bible.

Regarding Bible translations, translators have to make a choice between translating from the original language word-for-word (“formal equivalence”) or providing a looser translation but which attempts to better convey the thought expressed by the original writer (“dynamic equivalence”). This essentially results in a trade-off between readability and fidelity to the original words of the text. I quite like the NIV in that it falls somewhere between formal and dynamic equivalence, but with a leaning more towards dynamic equivalence.

The NIV is not a Catholic Bible and unfortunately therefore is missing the books of Wisdom, Sirach etc. Some of the study notes also have a non-Catholic skew, but on the whole it has excellent cross-references and always at least offers an interesting point of view.

3. The next book I reach for is my Ignatius New Testament Study Bible. I can’t say how much I love this book. It’s the RSV translation, which follows the “formal equivalence” approach. I would not-so-humbly suggest that it is a far superior translation to the NAB which is used in the Lectionary. Ignatius Press have produced a superb resource here, with excellent notes, maps and word studies. Every Christian should own a copy – it’s a bargain at $16. I will wait here while you click on the link and go and order a copy from Amazon. Seriously, I’ll wait…Done? Okay, let’s continue!

Read more

Wise words for newlyweds

2 comments

Last month I wrote a post talking about the large number of my friends who got engaged or married in December. In the article I asked my married friends to write in the Comments, giving their advice for my newly-engaged and newly-married friends.

flowers

Many thanks to all of you who responded to my request and shared with us lessons learned. Here are some my favourite quotations…

Read more

Manvotional: Spartacus

Leave a comment

A few days ago I published a post which contained an MP3 recording of a “Manvotional” recently published on The Art of Manliness. I’ve been trying to contact the owners of the website with the suggestion that they should offer these posts in MP3 form. So far I’ve had no response, but I’ve decided I’ll keep on recording them until I hear from them. Today’s “Manvotional” concerns the slave who famously rebelled against the might of the Roman Empire, Spartacus.

Screen Shot 2015-09-30 at 4.27.42 PM

Manvotional (Download)

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

The unaccompanied MP3 is available here.

1 … 89 90 91 92 93 … 137