Worth a thousand words
I took this photo a few weeks ago…
Tag: Protestantism
“This requires ceremony…”
The other night I went to see the movie Courageous with a bunch of other guys on a “man trip” ;-). I’ve written about this movie before, but over the next few weeks I’d like to mention a few other thoughts which came to mind while watching the film…
The Resolution
In the story, a group of four men decide to sign a Resolution, a statement of conduct (derived from Scripture) which they promise to follow as both men and as fathers.
In a certain scene, one of the men shows a copy of the Resolution to his wife. She gets really excited and then starts asking him lots of questions. What will the final Resolution look like? What is he going to wear when he signs it? etc. The man gives his wife a look of complete incomprehension and confusion. It’s clear that he hadn’t even considered these things. To this she responds:
“If you’re gonna do this, then do it right. Something like this requires…ceremony!”
I had to smile at this, since, to my Catholic ears, I heard:
“If you’re gonna do this, then do it right. Something like this requires…liturgy“ 🙂
The Liturgy Ceremony
Later in the film we see what this ceremony looks like…
All the men are wearing suits and their family members are present, also in formal attire. They meet in a beautiful park underneath some trees. A long-time friend and minister to one of the men officiates, calling each of the men forward one-by-one. Each man then repeats the Resolution out loud in the presence of his family and pastor, after which he signs a framed copy of the Resolution written in beautiful calligraphy, which he later hangs in a prominent place in his home.
“If Protestantism Is True” Review
About a month ago I received my copy of Devin Rose‘s new book “If Protestantism Is True”. I’ve been a subscriber to Devin’s blog for some time, distributed some of his podcasts at the JP2 Group and occasionally interacted with him over the Internet.
I was therefore looking forward to read his book. Unfortunately, I had Vocation Director prescribed reading this month and that had to be done first! Last week I finally completed my reading assignments and so I finally got started on Devin’s book and, since it’s nice and compact at 162 pages, I read it from cover-to-cover this weekend.
The curious case of celibacy
I’ve written quite a bit lately about my recent period of discernment. I’m sure I will write some more on this subject sometime in the future, but for now I would just like to mention one other thing that has come up during this time.
When I began in earnest to pray about my vocation, I contacted a handful of friends, explained the situation and asked them to pray for me. Also, during this time, when friends asked me “What’s new?” I told them about my discernment (with varying levels of detail) and some of my thoughts about my vocation.
Apart from a few notable exceptions, I noticed a consistent trend among my non-Catholic Christian friends. Whenever I mentioned the word “celibacy”, I almost immediately encountered some resistance, regardless of whether I was talking about celibate life as a layman, priest or monk.