Views of a new Catholic in an old world on the joy and inexhaustible meaning found in the Faith
Recently, I mentioned that I am a contrarian. That fact, explained here in a post originally published May 14, 2010, is one of the reasons why I am Catholic.
My wife can tell you that I am wired differently than most people. I tend to go against the crowd. Webster wrote a post a while back called Because I am Usually Howling with the Mob. Not me. I tend to avoid mobs, crowds, and popular opinion. [Read more...]
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that witnessing to atheists, at least in the manner that seems to be popular in the Catholic blog-o-sphere nowadays, is in a sad state of affairs.
Posts thumbing our noses at atheists, posts basically saying that atheists are idiots, and posts attempting to stick their noses in what some believe to be atheist formed pools of pee-pee (I reckon), is pretty much de rigueur. [Read more...]
Have you ever asked your mom to pray for you? I have. And one of the truly amazing graces is that as a believer in the Communion of the Saints, I can ask the Mother of our Lord and Savior to pray for me as well. [Read more...]
Back in the Fall, I shared a post with you about fallen Hollywood heroes asking for mercy. Does Hollywood matter? Does anything, given the finiteness of our earthly existence? I’m reminded of a title of an album by John Cougar Mellencamp: Nothing Matters, And What If It Did? [Read more...]
Fellow Patheos Catholic Portal blogger Max Lindenman sings the praises of Joanne McPortland, and you know what? So will I. Not that you need my approval or anything, but you have my express permission to follow her blog, which she christened Egregious Twaddle, and just recently broke out of mothballs. [Read more...]
Before I was a Catholic, I didn’t put much stock in the name of Jesus. Sure, I knew that Mary had been told to name her son this by the angel Gabriel. I kind of knew that Isaiah had mentioned a name, and that it was Immanuel which, according to the Matthew, meant “God with us.” [Read more...]
Words can be tricky things. Words spoken. Words written. Words thought of. Words acted upon. Words seemingly written in clarity. Words being read in a fog of misunderstanding. Words with only one meaning. Words with many meanings. A writer’s or blogger’s stock-in-trade is words. And words are the ultimate double-edged swords. [Read more...]
No longer does the Church exercise temporal powers over domains. The Papal States are back in the hands of secular powers. The saintly soldiers of the military orders have all laid down their arms. Rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s, then, what is the role of the Church in the world today? [Read more...]
A reflection for December 9, 2009 from The Little Blue Book: Advent & Christmas Seasons 2009-2010. I have no idea who wrote it, but after yesterday’s Gospel reading, it hits the mark.
“I said if I were going to do a Christmas show, we have to use the passage from St. Luke (about the birth of Christ).”—Charles Schultz, creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip
On this day (December 9) in 1965 (I was two years old!) the classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premiered on TV. It was based on the infancy narrative of St. Luke. In the plot, Charlie Brown tries to find the true meaning of Christmas. Linus recounts the story of the birth of Jesus.
The program won an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and led to more than thirty additional Peanuts TV specials. [Read more...]
A friend of mine asked me recently, “If you could be any animal, what animal would you choose to be?” I didn’t think about my answer very long.
In the past, before I was a Catholic, I would probably have just lept to the first thing that popped into my head. An eagle, or a tiger, or some other fearsome predator, you know, one that is lethal and smart, such as these. [Read more...]
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