Ordinary Old Catholic Me

Who Do You Say He Is? Part Two

When one thinks about it, the union of God and Man in the Person of the Trinity Jesus Christ is really the only solution to the separation of man from His Creator because of sin. God became human, not to abuse him, to manipulate him, but to save him and reunite with him. Jesus is the perfect bridge, fully God and fully Man. It is up to each of us to agree that He is also the one true Messiah. 

Who Do you Say He Is? Part One.

Peter had the answer. The New Testament has the Answer. The Catholic Church has the Answer. It's not easy, though, to really accept it because we are so limited. My struggle is your struggle in trying to do so. Some thoughts in Part One. Bottom Line? He is Truly God and Truly Man and what He did brought us back from the brink of eternal death into Eternal Life. 

Who Do You Say He Is? Promo

A little promo to tell you that I will be recording a little later today or tomorrow. The title? Who Do You Say He Is? Well, you know WHO, right? Who do you say Jesus Christ Is?
 

Beware the Divider!

Everything around us is division these days. And the Devil loves it. And he looks to stoke the anger that escalates the division. Let us not allow that, in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Light and Dark All and Nothing

Thanks to William Shatner for generating the thoughts and readings in this week's podcast. The things he said about his experience of seeing the earth from the cusp of space and of the darkness of space beyond got me onto St. John of the Cross' view of the Dark Night of the Soul. 
 

Bring Back the Men With Chests

A trip to my dentist's office, entirely manned (pardon the expression) by women got me onto a CS Lewis phrase, "Men Without Chests". We have made a mess of the truth of men, and women. We have made a mess of the truth of everything, and there are no men with chests, people of virtue and comprehension of objective truth, to speak up!

A Man for This Season

You remember how your mother used to say "Just Because Everyone is Jumping Off a Cliff, that doesn't mean you should"? Just because everyone says its true or good doesn't mean that it is. We used to know that. We used to know it because most of us agreed what was good and true based on principles beyond ourselves, those so called "higher principles" of God and Objective First Things. But from time to time humanity strays, wildly, from the good and the true. It happened in the time of St. Thomas More. A great and mighty King, Henry VIII, wanted something very badly. He wanted to divorce one perfectly good wife and get another so that he could have a male heir. He simply declared himself the Head of the Church in England and thus separated himself and the entire country from the Catholic Church. And everyone was expected to go along to get along. Well, in this case, in order to keep their heads. Most did. Thomas More was one who did not. We are facing a similar struggle hundreds of years past the 16th Century. Some powerful people are purveying relativistic truths, and for now, the consequence is belittlement and shunning to deny them. But we are just as capable of taking heads off as were the servants of Henry VIII. And we are trending that way. We need a Thomas More. We need to listen to his keen understanding of human nature, and stand against its base tendencies before in this modern society lose our very souls. 

Keeping Focused to Keep the Faith

A bit more this week on the short story read last week. It was called "The Hint of An Explanation" by Graham Greene. This week I look at my reaction to the story and the urgent need to realize in the depths of body, mind and soul the nature of the Eucharist, the living Christ.

The Hint is All

We Catholics say we know that the Eucharist truly is God. But in a strange way "knowing" and "believing" are two separate realities. I know it is so. But I have to repeat, over and over, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief", because that unbelief crops up the moment after I have actually received Him. But there are Hints as to how absolutely the Supernatural Second Person of the Holy Trinity is surely there, and one day we will grasp it with total unswerving faith. 
Have you ever read the short story, "The Hint of an Explanation". It's power has gripped me again about the Power of God against Satan in the Gift of the Eucharist. 

Too Rigid to Be a Saint?

In these days of unclear teaching about clear truth, it is possible to say that a person on the road to publicly declared Sainthood might not be the culture's, including alas, the modernistic collaborative Catholic Culture's, cup of theology.  Suggesting that some persistent sin, as detailed in the Catechism, can lead to hell is considered too harsh, too "rigid". So is it possible that someone say, like the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, could find his public path to declared Sainthood a rough one. Something to consider on Ordinary Old Catholic Me.