"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Today is my Godson’s birthday so I thought I’d do a little bit of a giveaway to mark the occasion. The prize up for grabs is a signed copy of Getting Started In Apologetics by the very excellent Patrick Coffin.
Entering is easy. Simply leave a comment below, together with the text of your favourite prayer (I’m always on the lookout for new ones!).
At the end of the month I will then use a random number generator to pick the winner and then mail out the CDs.
Good luck!
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
A couple of months ago I found myself back around my old stomping ground of Washington DC. It was great to return to one of my favourite US cities, catching up with friends and re-visiting all my favourite places.
As providence would have it, I had the opportunity to hear Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo speak at the Catholic Information Center (CIC). Deacon Sabatino is founder of the Institute of Catholic Culture, a Virginia-based organization about which I have previously written.
Since writing that earlier blog post, I visited Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Nebraska and did a double-take when I saw an office with his name on it! Clearly this guy gets around! his brother’s name on it!
Anyway, during this “Year of Faith”, the CIC has been hosting a series of lectures on the documents of the Second Vatican Council and I just so happened to be in town for Deacon Carnazzo’s lecture on Orientalium Ecclesiarum, the Decree concerning the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, a subject close to my heart.
No, I’m not a Roman Catholic…
Deacon Carnazzo is himself an Eastern-Rite Catholic and during his talk he explained the origin of the Eastern Churches and gave a brief introduction to life as an Eastern Catholic. In his talk he encouraged all Western Catholics to become familiar with the Eastern Church. How is this to be done? Well, if you want to get to know someone, you share a meal with them. For Catholics, this means sharing in the Eucharistic feast.
So, in the spirit of this, I have set up a Facebook event and invited my friends to come with me to celebrate the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul at the end of the month at my local Byzantine parish. If you’re in town and you’d like to come, feel free to shoot me an email.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
The article Going back East first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net
This week I’m leading Bible Study at St. Brigid’s, so once again I’m posting my notes for this Sunday’s Mass Readings…
This week’s Readings speaks to both the continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments, focussing on the idea that morality flows from God, that living a holy life flows from imitation of God.
There is one wedding “tradition” which I had never come across prior to coming to the United States. It’s the “tossing of the garter” where, in front of all guests, the groom takes off his bride’s garter (sometimes using only with his teeth) and then tosses it to all the single guys, much in the same way as a bride throws a bouquet:
Now, maybe I’m overly sensitive or maybe it’s just because I’m English, but I think this is a custom which is both extremely tacky and undignified:
Summary
Our protagonist walks upstream on the hard water for an hour, but only advances “a couple of hundred yards”. However, the foam forces him to leave the water and walk on the great flat stones on the banks.
After hearing “an immense yet lovely noise vibrated through the forest” for several hours, he finally arrives at a massive waterfall which he says “was like giant’s laughter: like the revelry of a whole college of giants together laughing, dancing, singing, roaring at their high works”. Lewis comments that his senses “were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity. On earth, such a waterfall could not have been perceived at all as a whole; it was too big”
He then notices that “a hawthorn bush not twenty yards away seemed to be behaving oddly”. It turns out to be his “bowler-hatted companion” he met on the bus whom the Big Ghost had called Ikey, who wanted to setup a shop in The Grey Town.
The Intelligent Ghost was trying to cross the ground in a stealthy fashion without being seen, but making slow progress through the heavenly environment. He makes his way to a tree when the wind blows, dislodging golden apples which land both around and on him!
Upon recovery, The Intelligent Ghost attempts to fill his pockets with the apples. However, “his ambitions were gradually forced down” from multiple, large apples to the single, smallest apple he could find. Even though he is bent double, “inch by inch, still availing himself of every scrap of cover, he set out on his via dolorosa to the bus, carrying his torture”.
A great voice suddenly says “Fool. Put it down”. Jack realizes that that the waterfall itself was speaking, that it “was also a bright angel who stood, like one crucified, against the rocks and poured himself perpetually down towards the forest with loud joy”. The giant tells The Intelligent Ghost to put the apple done since “There is not room for it in Hell”. Instead, he invites him to remain in Heaven and “learn to eat such apples” and tells him that “the very leaves and the blades of grass in the wood will delight to teach you.”
The ghost either doesn’t hear the angel, or chosoes to ignore him and continues his journey back to the bus…
Questions
Q1. Why do you think Lewis’ senses are increasing in capacity?
Q2. What is The Intelligent Ghost so afraid of?
Q3. What is The Intelligent Ghost trying to do? What problems does he have?
Q4. How can the waterfall also be an angel?
Q5. What does the angel tell The Intelligent Ghost to do instead?
When talking about the Bible, we Catholics inevitably end up talking about the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. I had always wondered how much of the Bible we hear proclaimed in the Liturgy. The other day I got a little curious and tracked done some statistics…
