An excellent post on despair on Catholic Kung Fu, written by Marquette University’s Anne Carpenter, prompts a reader to think about what the economy of salvation actually involves, and our particular place in that economy. Many a Church-goer would be familiar about that most basic Scriptural narrative, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son (John 3:16) and in his Son the whole universe obtains salvation. “Maybe for the world and the cosmos”, some might quietly... Read more
On this day, Pope Benedict XVI returns to his status as Joseph Ratzinger, only with the title of “Bishop Emeritus of Rome”. As Ratzinger makes the transition from Pontiff to contemplative, the Catholic Church thereby loses a pope of outstanding theological subtlety. If there is one area in the life of the Church where Ratzinger would have made a significant impact, it would be in its liturgical life, particularly in his attempts to try and minimise the differences between the... Read more
Many Christians do not like liturgical prayers. The seemingly mechanistic corporate drones that are the hallmark of liturgical prayers quite often come across as either uninspiring or insincere. In response, there has been a tendency by many contemporary Christians to favour spontaneous prayers “from the heart”, often driven by the unspoken assumption that prayers are more legitimate and honest when they are consonant with one’s individual dispositions. Whilst there is some truth to that, the emphasis on individual sincerity to... Read more
Valentine’s Day has been set aside to celebrate the joys of human love. For many others, however, the day will come not as a happy occasion but a bitter reminder of heartbreak: of relationships that have failed to endure or materialise, of affections left unreciprocated, and hopes of the receipt of love being met with the reality of that love being placed in someone other than oneself. If the heartbreak is fresh, getting through Valentine’s Day can be nothing short... Read more
In the monastic life, every single day is bookended by the recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours. Before going to bed, the Night Office or Compline is recited before retiring for the night. The significance of liturgy in the moments before retiring seem to ascribe a liturgical significance to all aspects of human life, even sleep. Thus, sleep is not marked by the absence of consciousness or activity. Graham Ward wrote in his Christ and Culture that even in... Read more
We rarely think of days as being prophetic. Indeed, many Christians often treat our days only as a line of empty vessels of time which we fill in accordance to our whims and fancies. The week, therefore, as mentioned in a previous post, passes by us as a conveyor belt of empty units of time to be filled. In contrast to this attitude Blessed John Paul II, in a little known but moving apostolic letter entitled Dies Domini... Read more
In introductory philosophy at Campion College, a theme that is touched upon is that of absurdity. Put simply, it is the expectation of meaning and order meeting up with the (apparent) reality that says that no such meaning or order exists. When studying this theme, students would have been introduced to the writings of Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche. The general trajectory of their thought goes that the lived experience of meaninglessness must be given priority over notions of order... Read more
Weekly updates and the resultant flood of information can make it difficult at times to put specific blogposts in the context of a blog’s wider agenda. With this in mind, a sample of the five most popular posts on the Divine Wedgie for the 2012 have been provided below: A Theology of Money with Philip Goodchild: With ongoing concerns about financial meltdowns in Europe as well as jitters about the state of the global economy continuing in 2013, this post... Read more
The Christian Church is three days into the Christmas season, the period that commemorates the first coming of its founder Jesus Christ. It is not contentious to say that, long after the Christmas trees are down, Christians will continue the hard task of waiting for Christ to come again. However, in that waiting, many Christians seem to operate under the assumption that, until He comes the second time round, Christ is somewhat absent or at least separated from creation. In... Read more
Newspapers have today aired the story concerning the photo-sharing website Instagram. The company recently made its own contribution to the flurry of changes to privacy policies on social networking sites. If the news is to be believed, what seems to set this apart from other changes in the terms of service is the implication that Instagram would from next year have a global license to any images posted on facebook without any royalty implications. In other words, under the new... Read more
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