I just finished reading through the book of Genesis again — this time with tens of thousands of Catholics who are spending 2021 reading the entire Bible together with Father Mike Schmitz (along with Jeff Cavins) via the “Bible in a Year” podcast. To read Genesis is to read an epic drama! At some points […]
People love formulas. Religious people really love them! We love creeds, propositions, systems, and theological conclusions that help us to make sense of the bible, the world, God, life, good, evil, right and wrong. And don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, those things will keep us out of big trouble. When we make conclusions based on […]
Do you believe a person becomes a Christian as the result of saying a “sinner’s prayer”? If so, I have five questions. Question 1: Then what? After I say the “sinners prayer” to be saved, then what? When I went to Navy boot camp in 1987 one month after my eighteenth birthday, and just one […]
If you haven’t read the introductory post yet, you can pause and read it here first. It will help give a little context to where I’m headed in this second post in the series. I decided to do this series on the conscience for a variety of reasons. Here are three that stand out in […]
INTRODUCTION – The Conscience – Every Person’s “Mental Moral Monitor” “Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.” – John 8:9 In his popular Catholic Dictionary, Father John A. Hardon […]
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THE PHRASE, “THE BIBLE IS SUBJECT TO INTERPRETATION?” I’ve heard it more times than I can count, and honestly it makes me wonder what the people who say it think the Bible actually is. My own passion to learn to interpret the Bible carefully and properly led me to take both […]
In September of 2020 I was encouraged by a friend to listen to a lecture by the late Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. on the state of American Protestantism. In his six-hour lecture, Fr. Hardon mentioned books that he had written which had gone out of print. One of them was called “Christianity in Conflict […]
The Epistle of the St. Paul to the Romans narrated by Kenny Burchard – New American Bible (Revised Edition). Read along here.
One of the most often-used and erroneous mischaracterizations of the teaching of the Catholic Church is that the Church teaches “salvation by works,” whereas Protestantism “correctly” teaches salvation by grace through faith alone – or, “justification by faith alone.” In order to correct both errors (the error that the Catholic Church teaches salvation by works, […]
A reflection on the Gospel reading for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Matthew 11:25-30 (NABRE) At that time Jesus exclaimed:“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,for although you have hidden these thingsfrom the wise and the learnedyou have revealed them to little ones.Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.All […]
Not sure I’ll be able to do this every week, but here’s my first stab at a rundown of articles and posts I found helpful this week. In honor of Independence Day in the U.S., this week’s rundown is mostly a sampling of stories and sites with an emphasis on Catholicism in the United States. […]
This post is the result of some reflection I have been doing on insights I have gained from Abbot Jeremy Driscoll in his podcast on Theology at the Eucharistic Table. What follows is a mixture of some of his words and ideas, and some of my own. Since the thoughts are mingled together I won’t try too hard […]