March 2007 Archives

Don’t forget, April 6th is both Good Friday and the First Friday of the month. In keeping with our First Friday commitment, we’ll be fasting and praying for an end to abortion. Check the Against Abortion file on the right sidebar for details.

I won’t be blogging during Holy Week. There just won’t be time to put anything worthwhile together. But I’ll leave this post open for comments, and check-in from time to time.

Those of you in RCIA, let us know how you’re doing as Saturday evening approaches. I’ll be thinking of you, and I’ll keep everyone here in my prayers.

Thanks to Alicia, who turns out to be a ballad herself.

Given the actions of the Episcopal Church in the past few days, there are some really interesting discussions going on across St. Blogs relative to conversion. I'm going to link them in the hopes that people check them out on their own.

However, I want to make one thing abundantly clear: You’re in no rush.

We’re going to take a look at the unity of Catholicism in this post. This is one of the four marks of the Church professed each Sunday in the Nicene Creed. The object of this particular mark is a perpetual unity in faith and communion.

It gets a bit weird when my own comments are moderated...

A couple of weeks ago, I was teasing Dr. Mabuse about the weather in the Great White North. It was snowing and in the teens, I believe. I know, I know, teasing Canadians about their weather isn't very sporting, but we all have our weaknesses. Well, last weekend was the good Doctors revenge.

It was 80 degrees here. The sky was blue, the sun was shining.

So of course I got sunburned and have been aching for three days from all the yard work.

Well, they say that revenge is a dish best served cold. That must mean it’s really tasty in Ottawa.

The more I’ve worked on the Marks of the Church posts, the more difficulty I’ve had getting them to come out correctly and with any amount of brevity. I think it best to start things off a little differently than I had originally planned. I want to post a preface to the main discussion first. Hopefully, this preface will lay the groundwork for what comes next, and thus make what follows a bit easier to get into.

There are two fundamental things to consider. First we need to think of faith.

I do enjoy Latin.

Hmm...religious ed classes, eh? Isn't that kinda what I'm doing here?

I've turned comments back on but with authentication. I'll check for comments of-and-on during the weekend.

Comments will be closed till after this weekend. Sorry, but there's a reason. Anybody that wants to comment can feel free to e-mail me directly, and if I have a chance I'll post them to the proper place. The address is still on the bottom right sidebar.

"It takes courage to live through suffering; and it takes honesty to observe it." - C. S. Lewis

I’ve been scarce from the blog lately. My apologies. I’ve been busy in the real world with a couple of major real life crises – four in fact. There are a few people that I know that are suffering greatly right now and needed a little help. Unfortunately, I am not the most gifted person when it comes to pastoral care - never have been. Three of the four things I was helping with are going well, one isn’t. In baseball a .750 batting average would make me a millionaire. Baseball is, however, a game.

I want to post a modified version of something I wrote for one of the situations I encountered in the past couple of weeks. There may be another post later, but I have to decide whether or not it’s wise to venture there on this blog.

I want to take a few minutes to consider pain and suffering – especially the pain and suffering of innocent people.

What do we mean by the “marks of the Church”? What exactly are they?

Odds are fairly good that if you’ve has ever attended a Catholic Mass they’ve already encountered the marks of the Church. You may not have realized it, but these marks are part of our profession of faith.

The marks of the Church are:

The Church is one
The Church is holy
The Church is catholic
The Church is apostolic

They probably seem a bit more familiar now.

Why are they important? The marks of the Church form a basis upon which a great many misunderstandings get their start. I’ve been questioned or accosted by Protestants of various stripes that have taken exception to each element. They can be stumbling blocks for anyone thinking of converting – regardless of how high or low a church they’re coming from. I know this from personal experience. It was this one line in the creed that held me back from my own conversion for several years.

The questions generally come across in some variation of the following:

“What do you mean by ‘one true church?’”
“How can a human institution be holy?”
“What do you mean by ‘catholic’? Is this different than ‘Catholic’?”
“The Catholic Church doesn’t have any more association with the apostles than any other church on earth.”

See what I mean about confusion?

For the next few posts I’m going to try to define each one of these marks.

[As a side note, I’m not doing these four in the same way I did the Papacy posts from late last year. I’m going to post these as I write them instead of writing them all first and posting one at a time. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will end up easier in the long run.]

Could the author of Est Puzzlementem drop me an e-mail please? My e-mail address is on the right sidebar toward the bottom.

Thanks.

I seem to be rather swamped with projects this week. In the midst of this swamped-ness, I find a strong need to write something for a person that's enduring a rather serious time of unjust suffering.

I'll be back on Monday if I don't make it back again this week.

...but is anyone out there reading ye ole blog from WFAA TV in Dallas?

Just kinda wonderin'...

The original joint statement of the Dallas area Catholic bloggers

I am 46 years old. About 15 months ago my wife and I had a charming baby girl we named Frances Grace. I was 44 at the time.

Now, we have never been what you would call well-to-do. In fact, I live paycheck to paycheck and am carrying more debt than is wise. Our house is too small. By the grace of God, we get by. When we found out that my wife was pregnant, it threw us for a loop. We were completely unprepared.

Because we were so unprepared, more than one voice suggested that we consider abortion. It was never a consideration for either my wife or myself, but there were four such suggestions based on purely practical matters. We shouldn’t have kids at our age, we don’t have the money, and we don’t have the space.

Frances Grace is now a wonderful little girl that loves to laugh when her daddy tickles her. Her older sisters dote on her. Her mother worries endlessly. She’s off to a good start.

But the very first reaction of several people who know us well was abortion. They didn’t think that we could possibly go through with the pregnancy (one that was terribly hard on my wife). Abortion was the very first reaction – not even “Congratulations, but…” When I said that it wasn’t even a consideration, the reaction was either surprise or resignation.

Our culture has come to see abortion as logical. The acceptance of God’s blessing in the form of a child is met with shock and surprise.

Frances' story is part of why I wanted to take a stand against abortion. It seemed logical to make that stand here in Dallas – where Roe was originally argued. So today we fast. Today we pray. Today we ask others to join us in these things to end the scourge of abortion.

Today the battle is joined, not with guns or swords but with prayer and self denial - two weapons our opponents will never understand.

It began here. Let it end here.

For the first time, Germany has come out on top in the Non-US hit count competition. It was a near run thing until the final week of February. The UK and Germany were very close much of the month. Japan also appears on the list for the first time. We welcome back the long missing Kiwis, who surged late to make a run for fourth against Canada.

374 - Germany
296 - UK
151 - Japan
76 - Canada
71 - New Zealand

One of the most common complaints I’ve gotten over the years has to do with Matthew 23:9. In this verse we read: “And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” This is supposed to be a one line refutation of Catholicism because we call our priests “Father”.

Well, it’s happened again. Yesterday in real life, last week by e-mail, and a couple of weeks ago in an Evangelical drive-by comment left here on ye ole blog. In each case, someone tossed out the “call no man father” line with a smug grin and expected me to cave completely, withered by their superior knowledge of the Bible, intellectually bereft of a decent response, utterly defeated.

I think not.