Catholic and Enjoying It!

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

A Curious Quirk of the Recent Atheist Fad… …is the odd way in which so many of the more vociferous New Atheists have gone in for Jesus Trutherism and have vocally denied what no serious historian denies: that Jesus existed. It is a measure of the odd gullibility that faithlessness engenders that so many atheists charge headlong into confident expostulations about the non-existence of Jesus of Nazareth, which are precisely as sound a claim as denials that the Holocaust occurred.... Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

The Raving Theist is Having a Jolly Time! He was rather surprised by the reaction to his conversion. If you browse his site you will find his various attempts to respond to the wide variety of exploding heads with their sundry “he’s just kidding/he’s insane/when-I-spew-the-venom-of-dementia-it’s-because-I’m-so-cool-and-rational” responses to the news. I hope that once he’s answered to his (not their) satisfaction (his mob of hate-filled atheist shouters will never be satisfied) he gives himself some breathing space to just go be... Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

A reader who returned to the Church after 30 years writes (yesterday): For many of us Catholics it’s simply one hour a week when we make room for God in our lives, I know because I did this too. We go to Mass, we sometimes sing, we listen to 3 scripture readings, we try to pay attention to the priest or deacon as he gives us the homily, we fidget, we wonder why she wore THAT to Mass (what was... Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

Guys in Lab Coats with Tape on Their Glasses Who Think Love = “Chemical Reactions” and Who Can’t Get a Date are Anointed as Authorities by CNN Meanwhile, everybody laughs at the very idea that priests could possibly know the first thing about love or marriage. What’s being steeped in the teaching of Christ compared to a test tube? Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

Could You Live Like Jesus for a Year? Answer: No. “WWJD?” while it looks nice on a bracelet and is well-intended, is the wrong question. The right question is, “What would Jesus have me do?” Attempts to “live like Jesus” immediately involve us in all sorts of absurdities if, by that, we mean “attempt to re-enact the life of Christ in the 21st Century.” For instance, we neither can, nor should, attempt to live as Jesus did, under the constraints... Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

More Tasty Goodness from Audrey Assad http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1843362&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1Audrey Assad “Fields of Gold” from Voda Films on Vimeo. Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

Aimee Cooper writes: I wanted to let you know: I’m going to be teaching a new class I’ve developed, “The Catholic Gospel: What is it Really?” at the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization here in Denver. It’s a huge, a great honor, and I’m putting the word out, wondered if you’d give it a mention on your blog. I developed it out of the door-to-door evangelization program I began last year as my thesis project at the... Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

When the Anglicans get behind the Latest Thing with complete religious zeal, that fills me with near certitude that the whole thing is a fraud Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea

The Editors of Dappled Things write: No matter your favorite Christmas theme or tradition, there’s something for you in the Christmas 2008 issue of Dappled Things, now available online. Do you feel nostalgia for times you never knew when you think of the medieval boar hunt? Delight with feature author John Zmirak over God’s gift of animals in “Nearer My Dogs to Thee.” Meet his hounds Franzi—a “cuddly, pokey Dog Lebowski”—and Susie, a “lean and elegant huntress” who has a... Read more

January 5, 2009 By Mark Shea