Tag: Fr. Donald Calloway

Tell them about “the cells”…

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Today’s post is one of those posts which I’m writing purely for my own benefit. Who said this has to be selfless?! I’m hoping that, in the process of writing this, that the information will stay in my brain, or at the very least, make it easier for me to find when I forget it… 🙂

FMcIf any of you have heard Fr. Donald Callaway give a talk, you will have almost certainly heard him mention at some point something called Fetal Microchimerism, the biological process whereby cells from a fetus pass through the placenta into the mother’s own body (and vice versa).

The amazing thing about this process is that these cells have been shown to persist not only beyond pregnancy, but have even been found to remain in the mother’s body for decades afterwards. As far as I can tell, the scientific community is uncertain as to the consequence of the presence of these cells, with some suggesting that this is a source of potential disease, while others suggest that the child’s cells actually help to defend the mother.

When speaking about Fetal Microchimerism, Fr. Callaway reflects upon the intimate nature of the connection between mother and child. Even after a child has grown up, or even in the tragic cases of miscarriage or abortion, through Fetal Microchimerism, part of the child lives on in the mother.

Of course, where Fr. Callaway really goes to town is in the application of this biology to the area of theology. If this process is found in normal human pregnancies, then it is more than possible that this took place during the Blessed Mother’s pregnancy with Jesus. This would mean that some of the Saviour’s cells passed to His mother and remained there. The Lord’s human nature lived on in Mary’s body, even as He lay in the grave and even after He rose again and ascended into Heaven.

Not only that, if it is true that the child’s cells come to protect the mother from disease, then this has implications for Mary’s Assumption/Dormition, as well as providing a beautiful foreshadowing of the Eucharist, whereby Jesus gives us His Body, in the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, as the “medicine of immortality”.

Wise Men Competition

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I mentioned earlier about Fr. Donald Calloway’s recent events in the San Diego area.

In one of his talks on Blessed Mary he mentioned a car sticker he saw which read “Wise men still find Him with His mother”. One of my friends commented a few days later that she had tried to find this sticker online, but to no avail.

Thinking myself to be something of an Internet Ninja, I went looking for it, but also came up empty. Not wanting to be beaten by the Internet, I decided isntead to make it:

Car Sticker

I had four of these stickers made, so I now have three to give away. If you would like to win one, simply leave a comment below with the name of a favourite speaker you’ve heard recently. Three names will be randomly selected next week and I’ll email the winners.

The article Wise Men Competition first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net

Patron Saint of Chess

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The other day I mentioned that I recently had several opportunities to hear Fr. Donald Calloway speak. During one of his talks he said something concerning St. Teresa of Avila that I had never heard before. He said that in one of her books she spoke about the game of chess. In my childhood I played chess a lot with my Dad, so my ears immediately perked up when he mentioned the game.

Today I set aside some time and tracked down Avila’s text. It comes from The Way Of Perfection in the section where she is speaking about prayer:

Teresa“But you may be sure that anyone who cannot set out the pieces in a game of chess will never be able to play well, and, if he does not know how to give check, he will not be able to bring about a checkmate. Now you will reprove me for talking about games…[but] if we play it frequently, how quickly we shall give checkmate to this Divine King! He will not be able to move out of our check nor will He desire to do so.

It is the queen which gives the king most trouble in this game and all the other pieces support her. There is no queen who can beat this King as well as humility can; for humility brought Him down from Heaven into the Virgin’s womb and with humility we can draw Him into our souls by a single hair. Be sure that He will give most humility to him who has most already and least to him who has least. I cannot understand how humility exists, or can exist, without love, or love without humility, and it is impossible for these two virtues to exist save where there is great detachment from all created things…

This is an error which we all make: if a person gets so far as to spend a short time each day in thinking about his sins, as he is bound to do if he is a Christian in anything more than name, people at once call him a great contemplative; and then they expect him to have the rare virtues which a great contemplative is bound to possess; he may even think he has them himself, but he will be quite wrong. In his early stages he did not even know how to set out the chess-board, and thought that, in order to give checkmate, it would be enough to be able to recognize the pieces. But that is impossible, for this King does not allow Himself to be taken except by one who surrenders wholly to Him.” – The Way of Perfection

…and for this work she has become the Patron Saint of Chess 🙂

The article Patron Saint of Chess first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net

The Surfing Priest

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For the last few weeks Fr. Donald Calloway has been in the San Diego speaking at different parishes, telling the story of his dramatic conversion and encouraging his listeners to dive more deeply into their Catholic faith, particularly in their devotion to Blessed Mary. Here are a few gems from this Friday’s talk:

“If Jesus is our brother, then we must have the same mother as Him, otherwise that’s one pretty funky family…”

“You’re born again? Great! Who’s your mother?”

“Jesus calls her ‘mother’ and we will not, thinking that it is beneath us. What madness is this?”

If you ever get the chance to hear him speak I’d thoroughly recommend it. If you live in the San Diego area, there are still a few opportunities to see him in the next few days.

Fr. Calloway

The article The Surfing Priest first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net