Tag: featured

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 17 (“The Night Journey”)

Leave a comment

night

Happy Christmas everyone! I hope your day is filled with joy. As for me, I’m working my way through a very long chapter of the Qur’an…

Surah 17 – “The Night Journey” (Al-Isra)
This chapter begins with an brief reference to event which gives its name to this chapter: The Night Journey. We are told that, in a single night, Muhammad travelled from Mecca to Jerusalem. There’s a second journey made later that night to Heaven, but it is not mentioned in this chapter.

Then begins some teaching concerning the Children of Israel. We are told that Allah “gave Moses the Scripture and made it a guidance for [them]”. Again, there is no indication that the Hebrew scriptures have been corrupted at all.

After a brief mention of Noah, we are told that Allah told the Children of Israel that they would “surely cause corruption on the earth twice” and he promised punishment on both of these occasions.

1. On the first occasion, Allah promised that a servant of His, someone with great military power, would invade their homes. He then promised that the Israelites would eventually be victorious.

2. On the second occasion, Allah sent enemies who entered the Jerusalem Temple and destroyed it.

I’m not exactly sure which events are being described here, since we are given very little information. The destruction of the Temple was done first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans.

Read more

Best Statue In Rome

One comment

I just saw on Facebook that one of my friends is currently visiting Rome.

About a year and a half ago I also went to Rome. During my stay, my senses were flooded with beautiful architecture, paintings and statues, one of the highlights of which was Michelangelo’s Pieta found in St. Peter’s.

Now, no offense to Michelangelo (he is,  after all, my favourite Ninja Turtle), but the Pieta was’t my favourite statue. Rather, it was this statue found outside the “Ospedale Santo Spirito”:

“We are taught from the very first moment to discover Christ under the distressing disguise of the poor, the sick, the outcasts, Christ presents Himself to us under every disguise: the dying, the paralytic, the leper, the invalid, the orphan. It is faith that makes our work, which demands both special preparation and a special calling, easy or at least more bearable” (Mother Theresa, No Greater Love, 166)

Shameless Publicity

One comment

On this blog I regularly share edifying resources that I’ve come across in my Internet wanderings. Today I’d like to publicise a site that is probably my favourite Catholic blog on the Internet:

Shameless Popery is written by a chap in the DC area named Joseph Heschmeyer. He posts articles pretty much every day on a wide range of subjects pertaining to the Catholic faith.  He’s a lawyer by training and his systematic and methodical writing style is testimony to his logical and orderly way of thinking. I want to keep him humble so I’ll cease the adulation here, but I’d strongly encourage everyone to go subscribe to his blog.

Read more

How Hebrew is your Faith?

2 comments

How Hebrew is your Faith? I think that within Christianity there is always this Marcionite tendency to try and sever Christianity from its Jewish roots.

When I was back living in London, I had the privilege of hearing the testimony of a man called Roy Schoeman. Roy is the son of Jewish parents who escaped the Nazi persecutions in Germany before World War II. He studied for a while under the noted Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg before eventually falling into atheism. Some time later he had a dramatic conversion and, a little while later, found his way into the Catholic Church.

When I first heard Roy speak, it renewed my appreciation for the Jewish roots of Christianity. I have since listened to a number of his talks and I’ve found that his Jewish perspective often gives me a new awareness when looking at the Sacred Scriptures. I have found this particularly true for St. Paul’s epistles, especially the letter to the Romans.

I would thoroughly recommend everyone to spend some time in the Audio and Video section of his website, listening to his testimony and to some of his talks, I think you’ll find them really enlightening.

“After all, if you [Gentiles] were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature…[and] grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will…[the Jews]….the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!” – Romans 11:24

Resurrexit Sicut Dixit

Leave a comment

IC

The other day I was sitting in a church which I normally don’t visit, the Immaculate Conception in Old Town, San Diego. After communion I was looking at the crucifix behind the altar and saw the words “Resurrexit Sicut Dixit” written above it. Rather embaressingly, it occurred to me that I couldn’t say for certain what the English translation of these words should be. I’m always amazed at the number of times I come across things while visiting an unfamiliar church building. Good to see all that money spent on my Catholic education didn’t go to waste!

Read more

1 … 95 96 97 98 99 … 137