It took me a while to appreciate the Sacred Heart of Jesus devotion. To tell the truth, as a convert, it all seemed kind of sappy, sentimental and well, French. All hearts and flowers and perfume--almost like a Valentine from Jesus. Yucch. But then I learned about St Margaret Mary Alacogue and realized that she (like [...]
Some time ago I read a blog post identifying the degradation of American Christianity into what was termed Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It's given me much pause for thought and the analysis seems to me to be spot on. Today's post is a further speculation on this analysis with a long contribution from a regular reader to [...]
Yesterday's post was about the Fear of God, but today spend a few moments meditating on the Mercy of God because God's Mercy and his justice are never separated. They are two sides to the same coin. We often tend to think of God's justice as his punishment for sin. If we're not careful we imagine [...]
"The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Says the Proverb. The critics of Christianity like to say, "Oh, I would rather choose to do good than be forced to do good out of the fear of hell." That's very nice, but what usually happens is that they don't actually do much good because they [...]
The old debate still rages in which Catholics dispute with Protestants who say that salvation is by "faith alone." Yes, we like to pick out the verse from the epistle of James which says that "faith without works is dead." If we're going to talk the talk we have to walk the walk. Action speak louder [...]
"You shall have no other Gods before me." trumpets the Lord in the Old Testament. St Benedict puts it the other way, "Prefer nothing to the love of Christ." Elizabeth Scalia is a daughter of St Benedict--a Benedictine oblate, writer, wife and mother. Blogging at The Anchoress she's also one of the Patheosi--bloggers here from a variety [...]
Now at the end of re-reading The Lord of the Rings, it occurs to me that I should have blogged my way through. There were so many details seen now and seen in more clarity where Tolkien's Catholic imagination shines through. I'm going to back again to glean from the chapter in The Return of the King on [...]
There seems to be an undefined group of Catholics who some call "Peace and Justice Catholics". They are typified as aging hippies. They named their churches "Prince of Peace" in the sixties as a kind of flower power protest. These peace and justice Catholics are portrayed by conservatives as left wing, tree hugging, bra burning, gay [...]
Remembering that the New Testament is hidden in the old and the old is made manifest in the New, yesterday's feast provides three powerful images from the past that converge at Pentecost: Wind, Fire and Witness. The mighty rushing wind connects back to the first day of creation where in the first verses of the Bible [...]
Sorry for the break from blogging, but parish and family life have been very busy this last week. What's killing American Catholicism? This is the third part of a series. The problems all begin with the letter 'C'. The first part was Cultural Catholicism. The problem when people are more cultural than Catholic. The Catholic faith transcends [...]