Another clip from Adventures in Orthodoxy I suspect that people who deny the existence of hell because God is “too good to send anyone there” are really proposing that God is too good to send them there. It is ironic that people who believe in heaven are sometimes blamed for wishful thinking. Isn’t it that more likely true of those who disbelieve in hell? I say this because the person who disbelieves in hell doesn’t really believe in heaven either. He... Read more
After the school Mass this morning I was showing the second graders all the stuff we use for a baptism, and I opened the aumbry and showed them the holy oils. Just the slightest touch of the holy oil canister with sacred chrism leaves a fragrance on your hands. I’m walking back across the church campus thinking that this is what it should be like to be ordained, confirmed and baptized. The oil of gladness touches you and you bear... Read more
The fat prophet said “All arguments are theological arguments.” The fat prophet, of course, being G.K. Chesterton. So it is with the present political debate in the United States. The country seems divided between those who pay taxes and those who receive benefits–those who take responsibility for themselves and those who cannot or will not. It is easy to blame those who are on benefits for being lazy, irresponsible and ‘entitled’. It is easy for those who are working and... Read more
We’re trying something new and different at Our Lady of the Rosary. I’m rather tired of the “Formal-Informal” divide in liturgical circles. It seems there are two styles–Happy Clappy Campfire Liturgy or Strict and Formal Solemn High Maahhss”. While I’m temperamentally biased toward the second I can see that there are lots of Catholics who are turned off by it and tootle off to the Campfire Songs and homely homilies because, while they don’t like that too much, it’s better... Read more
When I was a child I was taught the Sunday School song, “Trust and Obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to Trust and Obey.” So this morning at Mass this song comes back to me in the reading of the gospel. It is the story of the healing of the centurion’s servant. A new understanding of this story and of faith hit me square between the eyes. Here’s a clip: “Lord, do not trouble... Read more
Why are the Muslims so angry about the United States? Ask them. The Muslim Brotherhoodhave been in existence since 1928. The aims of the Muslim Brotherhood are: firstly the introduction of the Islamic Shariah law as “the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society;” and secondly work to unify “Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberating them from foreign imperialism. In other words, they want to bring about a Muslim ‘caliphate’ or empire that stretches... Read more
One of the good things about having the odd troll turn up in the combox is that they give me ideas to blog about. Here’s one: “The Catholic Church’s teachings on sex shackle women to their fertility.” This is one confused person. He doesn’t seem to understand that sexuality itself is shackled to fertility. That’s what sex is for: making babies. The biology is real simple: that organ goes in there to inseminate the woman so she becomes pregnant. It... Read more
The wound at the foundation of all our other wounds is the deep wound at the heart of love. Put simply, we all long for total, overwhelming, unconditional love. It is as if the whole human race is starving and in our starved and desperate state our appetites will turn to most anything to fill the gap that only love can fill. As a consequence, all sorts of perversions, abuse and twisted situations and circumstances arise. In our search for... Read more
Whenever I stir up the pot by writing about those who say they are ‘spiritual but not religious’ the combox fills up with the indignant comments from people who never actually address the points I make, but instead they stomp around in a self righteous air of high dudgeon defending themselves with sentimental arguments which usually end with “who are you to judge???’ Despite my admitted ignorance and arrogance, I do happen to be somewhat of a religious professional and... Read more
Peggy Noonan on Fluke What a fabulously confident and ingenuous-seeming political narcissist Ms. Fluke is. She really does think—and her party apparently thinks—that in a spending crisis with trillions in debt and many in need, in a nation in existential doubt as to its standing and purpose, in a time when parents struggle to buy the good sneakers for the kids so they’re not embarrassed at school . . . that in that nation the great issue of the day, and the appropriate focus of... Read more
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Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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