Over at Amazing Catechists, I wade back into the religious education debates with a piece laying out what might be a philosophy of education, but really it’s just what I see happening. I start with a disclaimer: This isn’t a scholarly piece, and you could take the components I’ve put here and divide them out differently. (I tackled the subject from a completely different angle last summer, when I wrote about the Four Ways of Loving God.) Think of this more... Read more
Today’s topic: What are the pitfalls of the grab-a-priest method of securing a sacramental confession, and if not that method, when should you go to confession? First some basics. You need to go to confession if you’ve committed a mortal sin. And you should do it ASAP. In the meantime, make a sincere act of contrition, that is to say: Pray to God and tell Him you are sorry for committing that sin. Example: God, I am very sorry for... Read more
Julie Davis comments here on the pending execution of a Christian woman for the crime of not adhering to her father’s religion.* I grew up with the usual American public school version of history, which went Greek Democracy, Roman Republic, Magna Carta, Pilgrims, 1776, and look everything’s great! It’s a tempting narrative for good reason. When you have an awareness of the way God is acting in your life, you begin to see at key moments what the Grateful Dead... Read more
UPDATE: I’ve gone and done it. Check the “Satire” category to see the results of my efforts to date. Advise me. Sometimes I fantasize about making an anonymous satire blog, but of course I never do it, since, well, I have enough things to go to confession for without adding, “I published 98% of my uncharitable thoughts on the internet.” I’m keeping it at a cool 10%, thank you very much. Meanwhile, the inimitable Larry D. is back to work at... Read more
The fourth Monday of Easter is the Feast of the Bacon Cheeseburger, when we commemorate the divine lifting of the Jewish dietary laws: Peter began and explained it to them step by step, saying, “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when in a trance I had a vision, something resembling a large sheet coming down, lowered from the sky by its four corners, and it came to me. Looking intently into it, I observed and saw the four-legged animals of the earth, the... Read more
William Peace tells the tale that tops all the weirdo-magnet stories I’ve heard to date. And he’s a magnet and I’m a longtime reader, so it’s pretty top. Religion Tips 101: Try not to develop a theology that’s smack-dab contrary to the plain meaning of well-known scriptures in your religion of choice. Stalking people? Out shopping? Really? Hateful gods aren’t that appealing. I guess some people go in for that, but overall . . . not so much. If you... Read more
H/T to Christopher Smith for the link to this CDC study: Adverse Family Experiences Among Children in Nonparental Care, 2011–2012. I’m closing comments because my fabulous wonderful supertastic niece is visiting, and I want to hang with her, not moderate, and anyway there’s not much to discuss. It’s a study. Find out what it says. To paraphrase one of my favorite finance professors, such reports give us no answers, only questions. He said it of financial reports, but it’s true of... Read more
One of the striking features of Harvard’s planned Black Mass, being hosted by Satanists who don’t believe in Satan, is that the exhibitors don’t actually believe their own religion. If Catholics are concerned about the event, it is because we do believe ours. The Catholic faith is not a set of feelings or preferences. It is a series of statements about reality. About things that are true. Things that are real. The occult is gravely dangerous not because it is... Read more
The readings yesterday and today give us the martyrdom of St. Stephen, who made his audience so mad with his preaching that they stoned him to death. That audience included the future St. Paul, whose conversion came while he was on his way up to Damascus for the purpose of finding more Christians to kill. (Keep following along with the daily Mass readings, and we’ll be to that story shortly. Meanwhile: If you think you know someone who is so far... Read more
Picking up the #mywritingprocess tour, having been so graciously tagged by Kathy Schiffer (whose writing I enjoy immensely). 1. WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON? Currently on my desk: Edits for a retreat I wrote this winter, to get rid of the typos and make it all-audiences. [I’ve done the rewrite and the forward edit, and am part way through the backwards edit.] Workbook for the French class I’m supposed to be teaching this fall. [All in my head still, but... Read more
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