I have the cutest little Grandboys in the world. Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
What Is A Reformed Baptist ~ And Who Cares Anyway?
In one of his caustic letter to me a while back, my brother taunted me by asking me what I thought a Reformed Baptist was. I was a Reformed Baptist before my conversion to the Catholic Church, and as he does with converts to the Catholic Faith, he accused me of not being what he is in the first place.
I stopped by the web site for his local church and found it contained a page called “What Is a Reformed Baptist?” Apparently, that question is asked quite often. The reason is that the word “reformed” usually indicates a position closer to that of the Reformers, who practiced infant baptism and a more “covenant” approach to salvation. But Baptists, on the other hand, are known for their “believer’s baptism” as I discussed in my “Confessions of a Triple Dipper” piece last week. So there appears to be a conflict between the words “reformed” and “Baptist.”
Well, conflict is as common as Bibles in Protestantism, so this apparent oxymoron is of no concern to me. What I believed, before discovering the faith once delivered to the Apostles and kept by Divine Intervention and Promise in the Catholic Church, was easily summed up in the TULIP of Calvinism, minus infant baptism, plus believers baptism. That is what is explained in many words on my brother’s church’s web site.
Ok, so what difference does it make anyway? Even his belief system has changed over the years as has the beliefs of most Protestants who go through life listening to this Pastor, reading that book, learning that Greek word or studying some historical fact. The majority of Protestants are influenced by a variety of sources and find that their beliefs develop as a result of those influences. Nothing in Protestantism is certain or authoritative since there is no authoritative teaching office in Protestantism. It’s every person for themselves.
I remember sitting in Patrick Madrid’s van on a corner in Granville, Ohio. We stopped at the stop sign and Patrick says, “Here we are, a monument of the failure of Protestantism. Indeed, every corner of the intersection had a prestigious looking church on it. There was a Methodist Church, a Lutheran Church, a Presbyterian Church, and a Baptist Church; all preaching God’s Word straight from the Bible. None of them could agree what that Bible said about the basic tenants of faith. If Protestantism were a movement of the Holy Spirit, there would be agreement rather than chaos. The Reformers themselves would have been in harmony with one another and able to write a unified Protestant Creed. Instead, just a matter of years after the outbreak of the Reformation, even the original Reformers themselves called each other heretics and refused to break bread together!
So what’s in a name? I can interpret a label like Reformed Baptist one way, and some other person can interpret that label another way. Whose to say? In fact, I sat down with the yellow pages the other day and made a list of some of the church names I found that leave one scratching their heads as to what these groups are all about. There are probably fine people in all these churches. There may even be amazingly faithful believers in each of them. But I see the names of these organizations indicative of the loss of authenticity and authority in the ecclesial organization of the Protestant world. Here is a sampling.
Genesis the Church
Rainbow Ministries
Catalyst Church
Center Stage Church
Jesus First Church
People’s Church
Without Walls Christian Center
Church on the Green
Touch of Grace Fellowship
Greater Friendship Baptist Church
Mosaic Bible Church
House of Destiny
As the Spirit Leads Christian Fellowship
Intimacy with Jesus Church
Latitude Life Center
Real Life Christian Church
The Journey
Upon This Rock Christian Church (uh, I don’t think so)
Antioch Church of God in Christ
Dream Center
Higher Height Ministries
Another Level of Faith
These are, of course, some of the most obscure names in the yellow pages. There are hundreds, even thousands of other more typical names like First Baptist Church, etc. But even among the main denominations there is disagreement and division. As I grew up, the one thing every Baptist Church was going to go through at some point in time was a split. Even the people who were once known as this Baptist Church or that Methodist Church eventually ended up splitting and coming up with some other name for the defecting group.
So there, I explained what a Reformed Baptist is. But I’m sure it is meaningless to most and confusing to many and a very good example of the fractured nature of Protestantism.
I’d like to refer you to the article that came before this one where I discuss the beauty of Apostolic Succession in action and the joy of being where the faith was given with authority. I was a Reformed Baptist – But from now on I give thanks for the grace of being Catholic.
I stopped by the web site for his local church and found it contained a page called “What Is a Reformed Baptist?” Apparently, that question is asked quite often. The reason is that the word “reformed” usually indicates a position closer to that of the Reformers, who practiced infant baptism and a more “covenant” approach to salvation. But Baptists, on the other hand, are known for their “believer’s baptism” as I discussed in my “Confessions of a Triple Dipper” piece last week. So there appears to be a conflict between the words “reformed” and “Baptist.”
Well, conflict is as common as Bibles in Protestantism, so this apparent oxymoron is of no concern to me. What I believed, before discovering the faith once delivered to the Apostles and kept by Divine Intervention and Promise in the Catholic Church, was easily summed up in the TULIP of Calvinism, minus infant baptism, plus believers baptism. That is what is explained in many words on my brother’s church’s web site.
Ok, so what difference does it make anyway? Even his belief system has changed over the years as has the beliefs of most Protestants who go through life listening to this Pastor, reading that book, learning that Greek word or studying some historical fact. The majority of Protestants are influenced by a variety of sources and find that their beliefs develop as a result of those influences. Nothing in Protestantism is certain or authoritative since there is no authoritative teaching office in Protestantism. It’s every person for themselves.
I remember sitting in Patrick Madrid’s van on a corner in Granville, Ohio. We stopped at the stop sign and Patrick says, “Here we are, a monument of the failure of Protestantism. Indeed, every corner of the intersection had a prestigious looking church on it. There was a Methodist Church, a Lutheran Church, a Presbyterian Church, and a Baptist Church; all preaching God’s Word straight from the Bible. None of them could agree what that Bible said about the basic tenants of faith. If Protestantism were a movement of the Holy Spirit, there would be agreement rather than chaos. The Reformers themselves would have been in harmony with one another and able to write a unified Protestant Creed. Instead, just a matter of years after the outbreak of the Reformation, even the original Reformers themselves called each other heretics and refused to break bread together!
So what’s in a name? I can interpret a label like Reformed Baptist one way, and some other person can interpret that label another way. Whose to say? In fact, I sat down with the yellow pages the other day and made a list of some of the church names I found that leave one scratching their heads as to what these groups are all about. There are probably fine people in all these churches. There may even be amazingly faithful believers in each of them. But I see the names of these organizations indicative of the loss of authenticity and authority in the ecclesial organization of the Protestant world. Here is a sampling.
Genesis the Church
Rainbow Ministries
Catalyst Church
Center Stage Church
Jesus First Church
People’s Church
Without Walls Christian Center
Church on the Green
Touch of Grace Fellowship
Greater Friendship Baptist Church
Mosaic Bible Church
House of Destiny
As the Spirit Leads Christian Fellowship
Intimacy with Jesus Church
Latitude Life Center
Real Life Christian Church
The Journey
Upon This Rock Christian Church (uh, I don’t think so)
Antioch Church of God in Christ
Dream Center
Higher Height Ministries
Another Level of Faith
These are, of course, some of the most obscure names in the yellow pages. There are hundreds, even thousands of other more typical names like First Baptist Church, etc. But even among the main denominations there is disagreement and division. As I grew up, the one thing every Baptist Church was going to go through at some point in time was a split. Even the people who were once known as this Baptist Church or that Methodist Church eventually ended up splitting and coming up with some other name for the defecting group.
So there, I explained what a Reformed Baptist is. But I’m sure it is meaningless to most and confusing to many and a very good example of the fractured nature of Protestantism.
I’d like to refer you to the article that came before this one where I discuss the beauty of Apostolic Succession in action and the joy of being where the faith was given with authority. I was a Reformed Baptist – But from now on I give thanks for the grace of being Catholic.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Bishop Wall of Gallup
I was early for Mass this morning, but the place was already as packed as any ordinary Sunday. Before the music began we were seating people with shoe horns. Fr. John even had to make an announcement about moving to the center so people could find places to sit. We started late because people just kept on coming in.
It was a very special Sunday at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Phoenix. Our former Pastor, Fr. John Wall, was returning for a special Mass before leaving for Gallup, New Mexico to be installed as their new Bishop.
Fr. Wall has been special to our family for several years. He was my daughter, Esther's, spiritual director for a while. He's been a real encouragement to us both.
I always knew that Fr. Wall was special. When our Bishop snatched him to be the Vicar of Priests I was very disappointed. He had been such a bulwark of orthodoxy at St. Thomas. But I believe the Bishop understood that and left St. Thomas to Fr. John, Fr. Wall's friend and another guardian of orthodoxy. Fr. Wall has that kind of gentle spirit that tells you he knows the Lord intimately. You know you can trust him to sense and follow the Lord's leadership in all things. He is also a model of obedience to the Holy Father and Bishop Olmsted.
But what I love most about Bishop Elect Wall, is that he loves the Lord Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. His reverence for the Blessed Sacrament and all things Holy set the tone for St. Thomas. It was why we started driving past many other Parishes to attend there.
So there we are this morning, watching all three of our Priests, two of our Deacons, and Bishop Elect Wall process in. When I caught sight of his pink cap (I know there's a real name for it and someone will help me out with that) I nearly cried. What a beautiful thing. Apostolic succession being lived out right here in our Parish. I've been reading The Four Witnesses, and I'm constantly awestruck by how two thousand years has not changed the beauty and authenticity of Sacred Tradition.
Bless you Lord for your Holy Catholic Church. Bless Bishop Elect Wall as he goes to feed your lambs in Gallup.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Nail My Heart
Nail my heart to your feet that it may ever remain there to love You and never leave You again. I love You more than myself; I repent of ever having offended You. Never permit me to offend you again. grant that I may love You always; and then do with me what You will.St. Alphonsus Ligouri
11th Station of the Cross
Click Image for Stations of the Cross
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Judge Roy Moore of Alabama
Some of you may be wondering what Judge Roy Moore has been doing since he was removed from the bench for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom wall. Please read the poem he wrote. It's below his picture.
The following is a poem written by Judge Roy Moore from Alabama . Judge Moore was sued by the ACLU for displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom foyer. He has been stripped of his judgeship and now they are trying to strip his right to practice law in Alabama ! The judge's poem sums it up quite well.
The following is a poem written by Judge Roy Moore from Alabama . Judge Moore was sued by the ACLU for displaying the Ten Commandments in his courtroom foyer. He has been stripped of his judgeship and now they are trying to strip his right to practice law in Alabama ! The judge's poem sums it up quite well.
America the beautiful,
or so you used to be.
Land of the Pilgrims' pride;
I'm glad they'll never see.
Babies piled in dumpsters,
Abortion on demand,
Oh, sweet land of liberty;
your house is on the sand.
Our children wander aimlessly
poisoned by cocaine
choosing to indulge their lusts,
when God has said abstain.
From sea to shining sea,
our Nation turns away
From the teaching of God's love
and a need to always pray.
We've kept God in our temples,
how callous we have grown.
When earth is but His footstool,
and Heaven is His throne.
We've voted in a government
that's rotting at the core,
Appointing Godless Judges;
who throw reason out the door.
Too soft to place a killer
in a well deserved tomb,
But brave enough to kill a baby
before he leaves the womb.
You think that God's not angry,
that our land's a moral slum?
How much longer will He wait
before His judgment comes?
How are we to face our God,
from Whom we cannot hide?
What then is left for us to do,
but stem this evil tide?
If we who are His children,
will humbly turn and pray;
Seek His holy face
and mend our evil way:
Then God will hear from Heaven;
and forgive us of our sins,
He'll heal our sickly land
and those who live within.
But, America the Beautiful,
If you don't - then you will see,
A sad but Holy God
withdraw His hand from Thee.
~~Judge Roy Moore~~
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pray For The Pope
Please keep Our Beloved Pope Benedict in your prayers. I can't imagine the weight of responsibility that comes with steering Christ's Church during such turbulent times.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Spring Break
My daughter, Esther, came home from Franciscan University of Steubenville for spring break last weekend. She loves it there, but she was anxious to spend some time with her close friend Brandon and to catch up with her two little nephews. She got a chance to do all that, but she also got a chance to endure hardship and experience the testing of her faith and her nerves.
She and Brandon and two other friends planned on going to dinner at the of Phoenix's finest restaurants on Wednesday evening. They had planned this for a long time and it was a big event for all of them. Shortly after arriving, the other young lady in the group became ill and passed out. The foursome spent the evening in the emergency ward of a hospital. Eventually the young lady was released to her parents and went home; not much of her condition really discovered.
Friday morning I received a call from Esther. She was in tears and in shock. She had just received a call from Brandon telling her that this young lady had passed away the previous evening. She was Esther's age, 19, and a devout Catholic. We ask that the soul of this faithful departed one, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. We also pray for the comfort and strength that her family needs to get through this shocking tragedy. We also pray for her friends, Brandon in particular, who will be feeling the loss of a life long friend and be experiencing the testing of their own faith as they grapple with the passing of someone so young.
Esther returned to Steubenville Saturday morning, but I would ask you prayers for her and those here who are in mourning.
She and Brandon and two other friends planned on going to dinner at the of Phoenix's finest restaurants on Wednesday evening. They had planned this for a long time and it was a big event for all of them. Shortly after arriving, the other young lady in the group became ill and passed out. The foursome spent the evening in the emergency ward of a hospital. Eventually the young lady was released to her parents and went home; not much of her condition really discovered.
Friday morning I received a call from Esther. She was in tears and in shock. She had just received a call from Brandon telling her that this young lady had passed away the previous evening. She was Esther's age, 19, and a devout Catholic. We ask that the soul of this faithful departed one, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. We also pray for the comfort and strength that her family needs to get through this shocking tragedy. We also pray for her friends, Brandon in particular, who will be feeling the loss of a life long friend and be experiencing the testing of their own faith as they grapple with the passing of someone so young.
Esther returned to Steubenville Saturday morning, but I would ask you prayers for her and those here who are in mourning.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
It Was Just A Bump
If you put my name in google you'll eventually find a post that Patrick Madrid put up back in 2004 stating that I had survived a car accident. It was 04/04/04, which is why I remember the date. My daughter, Esther and I were leaving Safeway and turning left to go home. It was just a few blocks from our condo. A lady from out of state ran the red light, or at least that is what I was told. I don't really remember getting hit broadside on my side of the car. I remember when I came to my head hurt and my ear was bleeding and the car was way down the road from where it was supposed to be. I saw the other lady's car glide across the street and over a power box which gave into the impact easily and laid flat on the ground under the front of her car. It's weird what you remember. I remember one guy in the on coming lanes, stopped at the light watching the whole thing with horror on his face. I vaguely remember the sound of a muffled thud. But for the most part it was more like something in a dream just as you begin to wake up.
The ambulance came and I was strapped to one of those back boards. Those things are so uncomfortable! I remember the paramedic hopping into the back with me and saying, "hi, my name is ???? and I'll be your paramedic for the next, oh, 30 seconds or so." We were right in front of Thunderbird hospital, so it was a really quick ride.
I thought I'd spend the rest of my life on that accursed back board. They took a cat scan right away. Then after laying there for what seemed like forever, they took x-rays and then I had to wait a specific length of time for a second cat scan. I didn't understand then why the long wait.
Fortunately, I took the impact and Esther only suffered a strained shoulder and wrangled nerves because they kept us apart for hours at the hospital. She was a trouper though.
All that to mention a news story that hit yesterday and the two ways that it affected me. Natasha Richardson fell on the ski slope on Monday. Actually it was on the bunny hill. She was a beginner and she had an instructor with her. She slipped and apparently hit her head. She seemed fine afterwards, even laughing and joking about the incident immediately afterward. But within an hour of the mishap, she started to feel ill and had a terrible headache. No one could have foreseen that within 48 hours the mother of two young sons and the wife of Lian Neeson would be dead from traumatic brain injury.
I began praying for her when I heard about the accident on Monday. I have watched this couple with some interest since shortly after their marriage about a decade ago. Neeson, being Irish and Catholic, wanted a full Mass wedding, so Richardson's divorce and the annulment seemed to all happen far too fast. I cannot judge, because I know absolutely nothing of the situation. My own situation could seem as questionable to anyone who was unfamiliar with the details of my situation, so I'll be the last to judge. It just got my attention because I knew of some folks who had waited years for an annulment and I was curious about this celebrity situation, hoping that their diocese had taken due care in considering their case.
So when I head the news yesterday, I started watching CNN regularly between naps. (I'm down with bronchitis. This is my third respiratory infection in ten weeks. Ug.) I also read an ariticle written by a medical consultant that said that injuries, no matter how seemingly minor, near and above the ear can rupture an artery that runs there and cause the kind of brain bleed that killed Natasha Richardson. Apparently that was the reason I was kept so long and had to have two cat scans. I definitely had a concussion, but they were watching for a brain bleed. They mentioned that to me at the time, but I had no idea what they were talking about, and to be honest, I was too out of it to really register what they meant. But I gave thanks all over again that all I got out of that accident was a weird ear!
The most important way this story impacted me was I started praying earnestly that this little family who has been so terribly devastated by Natasha's passing, would be drawn into a much closer relationship with Christ through His Church. So many Catholics are Catholic because of nationality or family history or ethnicity rather than because they have a personal relationship with the Jesus who established their religion. I am asking the Blessed Mother to not only minister to Neeson and his sons as they grieve, but also to somehow use this tragedy to draw them deeply into the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son through it. Would you pray with me that this horrible tragedy will somehow bear holy fruit in this family's life?
The ambulance came and I was strapped to one of those back boards. Those things are so uncomfortable! I remember the paramedic hopping into the back with me and saying, "hi, my name is ???? and I'll be your paramedic for the next, oh, 30 seconds or so." We were right in front of Thunderbird hospital, so it was a really quick ride.
I thought I'd spend the rest of my life on that accursed back board. They took a cat scan right away. Then after laying there for what seemed like forever, they took x-rays and then I had to wait a specific length of time for a second cat scan. I didn't understand then why the long wait.
Fortunately, I took the impact and Esther only suffered a strained shoulder and wrangled nerves because they kept us apart for hours at the hospital. She was a trouper though.
All that to mention a news story that hit yesterday and the two ways that it affected me. Natasha Richardson fell on the ski slope on Monday. Actually it was on the bunny hill. She was a beginner and she had an instructor with her. She slipped and apparently hit her head. She seemed fine afterwards, even laughing and joking about the incident immediately afterward. But within an hour of the mishap, she started to feel ill and had a terrible headache. No one could have foreseen that within 48 hours the mother of two young sons and the wife of Lian Neeson would be dead from traumatic brain injury.
I began praying for her when I heard about the accident on Monday. I have watched this couple with some interest since shortly after their marriage about a decade ago. Neeson, being Irish and Catholic, wanted a full Mass wedding, so Richardson's divorce and the annulment seemed to all happen far too fast. I cannot judge, because I know absolutely nothing of the situation. My own situation could seem as questionable to anyone who was unfamiliar with the details of my situation, so I'll be the last to judge. It just got my attention because I knew of some folks who had waited years for an annulment and I was curious about this celebrity situation, hoping that their diocese had taken due care in considering their case.
So when I head the news yesterday, I started watching CNN regularly between naps. (I'm down with bronchitis. This is my third respiratory infection in ten weeks. Ug.) I also read an ariticle written by a medical consultant that said that injuries, no matter how seemingly minor, near and above the ear can rupture an artery that runs there and cause the kind of brain bleed that killed Natasha Richardson. Apparently that was the reason I was kept so long and had to have two cat scans. I definitely had a concussion, but they were watching for a brain bleed. They mentioned that to me at the time, but I had no idea what they were talking about, and to be honest, I was too out of it to really register what they meant. But I gave thanks all over again that all I got out of that accident was a weird ear!
The most important way this story impacted me was I started praying earnestly that this little family who has been so terribly devastated by Natasha's passing, would be drawn into a much closer relationship with Christ through His Church. So many Catholics are Catholic because of nationality or family history or ethnicity rather than because they have a personal relationship with the Jesus who established their religion. I am asking the Blessed Mother to not only minister to Neeson and his sons as they grieve, but also to somehow use this tragedy to draw them deeply into the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son through it. Would you pray with me that this horrible tragedy will somehow bear holy fruit in this family's life?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Blessed Saint Patrick's Day
I will be forever grateful to St. Patrick for pointing the way home for me. As one lady in my RCIA class said, "Good old St. Patrick. He's still bringing them home!"
Monday, March 16, 2009
Unchecked Bigotry
I would imagine if I put something on the back of my car that said "Kill all the Muslims" I would find myself facing hate crime charges, and rightly so. But this afternoon I was driving down a local street and saw this lovely ditty on the back of a car. You who, ACLU! Are you really standing up for the rights of ALL Americans?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Confessions Of A Triple Dipper
I have wanted to write this article for years. I've talked it over with friends, prayed about it, started it half a dozen times, but I never felt like I had the words. While reading Dr. Beckwith's book, I found what I needed to express what has been on my mind. So with the good Doctor's help, I'm going to try to finally get this one to press.
If you have been following my Out of Darkness series, you know that in 1995, God moved into my life in an unprecedented way. The Hound of Heaven had been at my heels all my life and had made many attempts to woo me, but I was more stubborn than most. I professed faith and was baptized when I was six years old. From that point on, it was an on again, off again relationship. I wanted God on my own terms and any time the going got tough, I threw my hands up and ran from the anvil of spiritual growth.
But in 1995, God gave me an ultimatum. Yes, He does know the meaning of tough love. I knew in my heart that He meant business and that His patience with my selfishness had run out. It was time to walk the talk or walk away entirely. God had drawn a line in the sand.
I didn't step over that line enthusiastically. I basically just allowed His grace to nudge me over it. If you read the early chapters in the series you know that my childhood had left me angry and unable to trust God. Yet I knew that He was the answer somehow, but I couldn't imagine how. But I was unwilling to go it alone. Some Christian commitment, eh?
So I stepped over the line, started giving heed to what God wanted in my life. I started making a genuine effort to follow Him. I started working out my own salvation in fear and trembling. Unlike previous times, this time I made a conscious choice to reject the temptation to call it quits, to run from the pressure of obedience. I continued to cooperate with His grace. It was not long (though it felt like an eternity) before I realized that He was not only giving me the grace to follow, He was carrying me through the fire of purgation from sins long embraced. He was renewing my mind and changing my point of view from that of a victim to that of a cherished daughter of God. As I yielded to Him, He revealed His true nature to me. (John 14:21)
Now I had believed in Jesus and the cross since I was six. I had reaffirmed that belief in my early twenties when I moved out of the house and decided to claim the baptist faith as my own. My Pastor at the time knew of my sin-twisted relationship with my father/pastor and decided it would be good for me to decide for myself if I wanted to be a Christian. I prayed the sinners prayer again and was again baptized in order to be obedient. (more on believer's baptism in later paragraphs)
But though I had tried to begin again in my twenties, it was years later when He broke through my walls of self defense. There were times when I had made attempts to follow Him, but for reasons known only to Him, this time (1995) I began to rise from the ashed of my ruined life and really come to know new life. After a year or two of this amazing new life, I made the decision one day that since my walk with God was so radically different now, perhaps I had not really been "saved" before this time. This is a typical concept in the life of Evangelicals, especially in my former church where this discipleship program had radically changed so many lives. A number of folks also decided that perhaps this amazing new chapter in our lives was what others called a"born again" experience rather than just a new, deeper phase in our walk with God.
For the Catholics reading this, let me translate a bit here. To a fundamentalist, salvation comes at a singular point of time when one places their trust in Christ's death on the cross as the purchase of their own salvation. They make a commitment in their heart to trust their lives to Jesus and from that moment through all eternity, they are "saved." Nothing, no sin, no change of religious rite, nothing in all creation can take that salvation away because it was not earned and therefore cannot be lost. Period.
Now fundamentalists do hope that from that time on, the "newly born again" christian will begin to live a life that is appropriate for a christian. They hope that they will grow in grace and become a new person, but that isn't necessary for salvation. It is the moment of trust in Christ's death.
Now to a fundamentalist, baptism is not a sacrament. In fact they have no sacraments. Baptism to them is an act of obedience that hopefully a newly "born again" person will follow through with. It must follow that point of time, that "born again experience." Any baptisms previous, especially infant baptisms in other churches, don't count. Baptism has to follow that point in time experience.
Now days, especially with programs like the one I took part in, there is a rash of folks who decide that even though they made a public confession of faith, prayed a sinners prayer, and was baptized, they never really knew new life until somewhere down the road when they encountered God in a new and dynamic way. At the fellowship I attended, there were several people, including myself, who decided that since it seemed to them that they had begun to live a new life with Christ sometime after their baptism, that they should be baptized again in order to be obedient. After all, we believed in "believers baptism", and sometimes it's hard to pin point the exact time that true saving faith became a reality. So I went into the water again in hopes of getting it right this time. This would be my third baptism!
A year or two after this the Lord called me to begin my journey home to Rome. As a candidate for acceptance into the Catholic Church, I was asked if I had been baptized. I'll never forget the looks on John and Mimi's faces when I told them I had been baptized three times! They had never heard of such a thing. And it's no wonder, because this would never happen in the Catholic Church.
I'm going to check in with Dr. Beckwith to help me explain from scripture why this would not happen in the Catholic Church and why the protestant understanding of salvation is not the original understanding of those following Christ for the first 1500 years of Christianity.
I love Dr. Beckwith's term for the Early Church view of salvation. He calls it the Journey of Justification. Journey's take time, they experience many twists and turns and changes in the landscape. They have enjoyable periods and challenging periods. They start at a point in time, but they continue to eternity.
Chapter Six of Dr. Beckwith's book is a powerhouse of both Early Church and scriptural evidence that from the beginning baptism was seen as that point in time Sacrament of grace that sets our feet on the journey that only those who have been washed, sanctified, and justified can embark on. (1Cor. 6:11)
Dr. Beckwith uses the example of Abraham. I remember the first time I read this through as a convert, I recognized the markers in Abraham's life that we would have considered a salvation experience or at least the solid evidence of a salvation experience having happened in the past. I mean, how much faith does it take to listen to a God, that you were not raised believing in, enough to leave everything you know and your family to go somewhere? Keep in mind, in those days you stayed with your relatives forever! You were buried with your relatives. You served your father till he died. You didn't just pick up and leave the way we do nowadays.
And go where, to what? Just somewhere that this God will show you. No map quest, no address, not even a nod in the general direction! Just "follow me." Oh, wait, isn't that what Jesus said when He chose His disciples and they became His followers? And Abraham followed, faithfully, for a long time and never turned back. Now any baptist worth their salt would say that that was saving faith. OK, but that story is found in Genesis 12. That is the "once upon a time" part of the story.
Now on down the road a bit, Abraham is old, Sarah is old, there is no heir to his fortune except a servant. So Abraham and Sarah fall into that old trap of "helping God out." They work things out so that Abraham has a son by another woman. But God is faithful even when we are not. So He takes Abe out into the night and tells Him to look into the heavens and count the stars. He promises him that this handmaid's son will not be his heir, that God will do what He planned to do originally. He will make Abraham's descendants as numerable as those innumerable stars. And Abraham believes without seeing. He has no idea how God is going to pull this off. He places his trust in God's promise. Again. Didn't he believe God before when he packed up and moved away from his whole tribe to follow God to an undetermined destination? But in this moment, Abraham's trust in God, His walk with God grew deeper. He realized that what God was promising was something supernatural and only God could do it and He didn't need Abraham's help. Abraham's faith grew. And God counted it as righteousness.
Down the road another stretch we find this child of promise, Isaac, a growing lad. His father's pride and joy. God had been faithful. Then God tests Abraham's faith. (God doesn't test us to torment us, He tests us to purify us, to deepen our walk with Him.) He comes to Abraham and says that He wants him to take Isaac up on a mountain and sacrifice him to God. You know, slit the throat, light the fire, smoke in God's nostrils - sacrifice! Abraham doesn't flinch. He knows this son of promise is exactly that, a son of promise and God doesn't break His promises. So as crazy as this request sounds, Abraham knows that God can do anything and since He promised Abraham descendants through Isaac as numerous as the stars, this can't be the end of the story. So off they go into the wilderness and up the mountain, where Abraham raises his hand to sacrifice the lad and God intervenes and pronounces that Abraham's faith is so pleasing to God that He will reiterate His promise to him to make him the father of a great nation.
Now I don't know about you, but I am amazed at Abe's faith when he pulls out of Ur on the first day of this story. I'm amazed and inspired by his faith in believing that God can do the impossible in the middle of this story. But I am dumb struck at his faith in offering his son. I have a Grandson named Isaac. I joke all the time that I love him so much that if he needed a liver, a kidney, a heart, whatever, I'd gladly give him mine. But I can't imagine the searing pain that must have been in Abraham's heart when he lifted that knife. His faith must have been unfathomable.
So, if Abraham had been a baptist, when would he have gotten baptized? Can you see it might have been hard for him to determine when his faith had been what God wanted it to be, because God spent his whole long life grooming him to be a type of Himself, offering His Son on the cross for the innumerable souls that would be the descendants of Abraham. While protestants like to use the passage in Genesis 15 to claim that Abraham's faith in God's promise was what "saved" him, the author of James claims that he was justified by his obedience in offering his son in Genesis 22. Is James teaching error in his inspired epistle? Who is right then?
I love this paragraph from Dr. Beckwith's book. He shows through the very Pauline writings that so many protestants use to try to proof text away progressive justification that our salvation is a Journey of Justification:
"Although Paul certainly refers to justification as a past event (Rom. 5:1-2; 5:9; 8:24; 1 Cor. 6:11), he also presents it as a continuing process (1 Cor. 1:18; 15:2; 2 Cor. 2:15), as well as one that has not been fully achieved (Rom. 2:13; Gal. 5:5; 1 Cor. 3:15; 5:5; I Tim. 2:15; 2 Tim. 4:8; 18)."
Had Abraham been a Catholic, he would have been baptized either as an infant had his tribe been Catholic (speaking figuratively here of course) or as an adult when he left his parent's pagan religion and became Catholic. That would have been what justified him in the first place. Then he would have continued to experience the deepening of his faith that we all do as we walk with the Lord. All of us who have followed Christ for any length of time can pin point a number of turning points in our lives where God tested and deepened our faith. We know that life was never the same afterward and that it was the beginning of a new kind of journey. But the journey started with the grace of our baptism. And as long as we continue to allow the Lord to lead us through this journey of justification, there will be new turning points ahead when He will again take us deeper into His Sacred Heart.
I feel for my Protestant brothers and sisters who struggle to reconcile this journey with the protestant view of imputed justification. I was baptized three times because I wanted to be obedient, but I was sadly misguided by my protestant upbringing into thinking that I needed to search for that moment when God declared me righteous instead of cooperating with His continuing work of making me righteous.
Doctor Beckwith has a far superior way of making these issues clear in his book, but here on my blog I just try to express how the deep things of God work in the heart of one who is constantly amazed by the Splendor of His Truth.
If you have been following my Out of Darkness series, you know that in 1995, God moved into my life in an unprecedented way. The Hound of Heaven had been at my heels all my life and had made many attempts to woo me, but I was more stubborn than most. I professed faith and was baptized when I was six years old. From that point on, it was an on again, off again relationship. I wanted God on my own terms and any time the going got tough, I threw my hands up and ran from the anvil of spiritual growth.
But in 1995, God gave me an ultimatum. Yes, He does know the meaning of tough love. I knew in my heart that He meant business and that His patience with my selfishness had run out. It was time to walk the talk or walk away entirely. God had drawn a line in the sand.
I didn't step over that line enthusiastically. I basically just allowed His grace to nudge me over it. If you read the early chapters in the series you know that my childhood had left me angry and unable to trust God. Yet I knew that He was the answer somehow, but I couldn't imagine how. But I was unwilling to go it alone. Some Christian commitment, eh?
So I stepped over the line, started giving heed to what God wanted in my life. I started making a genuine effort to follow Him. I started working out my own salvation in fear and trembling. Unlike previous times, this time I made a conscious choice to reject the temptation to call it quits, to run from the pressure of obedience. I continued to cooperate with His grace. It was not long (though it felt like an eternity) before I realized that He was not only giving me the grace to follow, He was carrying me through the fire of purgation from sins long embraced. He was renewing my mind and changing my point of view from that of a victim to that of a cherished daughter of God. As I yielded to Him, He revealed His true nature to me. (John 14:21)
Now I had believed in Jesus and the cross since I was six. I had reaffirmed that belief in my early twenties when I moved out of the house and decided to claim the baptist faith as my own. My Pastor at the time knew of my sin-twisted relationship with my father/pastor and decided it would be good for me to decide for myself if I wanted to be a Christian. I prayed the sinners prayer again and was again baptized in order to be obedient. (more on believer's baptism in later paragraphs)
But though I had tried to begin again in my twenties, it was years later when He broke through my walls of self defense. There were times when I had made attempts to follow Him, but for reasons known only to Him, this time (1995) I began to rise from the ashed of my ruined life and really come to know new life. After a year or two of this amazing new life, I made the decision one day that since my walk with God was so radically different now, perhaps I had not really been "saved" before this time. This is a typical concept in the life of Evangelicals, especially in my former church where this discipleship program had radically changed so many lives. A number of folks also decided that perhaps this amazing new chapter in our lives was what others called a"born again" experience rather than just a new, deeper phase in our walk with God.
For the Catholics reading this, let me translate a bit here. To a fundamentalist, salvation comes at a singular point of time when one places their trust in Christ's death on the cross as the purchase of their own salvation. They make a commitment in their heart to trust their lives to Jesus and from that moment through all eternity, they are "saved." Nothing, no sin, no change of religious rite, nothing in all creation can take that salvation away because it was not earned and therefore cannot be lost. Period.
Now fundamentalists do hope that from that time on, the "newly born again" christian will begin to live a life that is appropriate for a christian. They hope that they will grow in grace and become a new person, but that isn't necessary for salvation. It is the moment of trust in Christ's death.
Now to a fundamentalist, baptism is not a sacrament. In fact they have no sacraments. Baptism to them is an act of obedience that hopefully a newly "born again" person will follow through with. It must follow that point of time, that "born again experience." Any baptisms previous, especially infant baptisms in other churches, don't count. Baptism has to follow that point in time experience.
Now days, especially with programs like the one I took part in, there is a rash of folks who decide that even though they made a public confession of faith, prayed a sinners prayer, and was baptized, they never really knew new life until somewhere down the road when they encountered God in a new and dynamic way. At the fellowship I attended, there were several people, including myself, who decided that since it seemed to them that they had begun to live a new life with Christ sometime after their baptism, that they should be baptized again in order to be obedient. After all, we believed in "believers baptism", and sometimes it's hard to pin point the exact time that true saving faith became a reality. So I went into the water again in hopes of getting it right this time. This would be my third baptism!
A year or two after this the Lord called me to begin my journey home to Rome. As a candidate for acceptance into the Catholic Church, I was asked if I had been baptized. I'll never forget the looks on John and Mimi's faces when I told them I had been baptized three times! They had never heard of such a thing. And it's no wonder, because this would never happen in the Catholic Church.
I'm going to check in with Dr. Beckwith to help me explain from scripture why this would not happen in the Catholic Church and why the protestant understanding of salvation is not the original understanding of those following Christ for the first 1500 years of Christianity.
I love Dr. Beckwith's term for the Early Church view of salvation. He calls it the Journey of Justification. Journey's take time, they experience many twists and turns and changes in the landscape. They have enjoyable periods and challenging periods. They start at a point in time, but they continue to eternity.
Chapter Six of Dr. Beckwith's book is a powerhouse of both Early Church and scriptural evidence that from the beginning baptism was seen as that point in time Sacrament of grace that sets our feet on the journey that only those who have been washed, sanctified, and justified can embark on. (1Cor. 6:11)
Dr. Beckwith uses the example of Abraham. I remember the first time I read this through as a convert, I recognized the markers in Abraham's life that we would have considered a salvation experience or at least the solid evidence of a salvation experience having happened in the past. I mean, how much faith does it take to listen to a God, that you were not raised believing in, enough to leave everything you know and your family to go somewhere? Keep in mind, in those days you stayed with your relatives forever! You were buried with your relatives. You served your father till he died. You didn't just pick up and leave the way we do nowadays.
And go where, to what? Just somewhere that this God will show you. No map quest, no address, not even a nod in the general direction! Just "follow me." Oh, wait, isn't that what Jesus said when He chose His disciples and they became His followers? And Abraham followed, faithfully, for a long time and never turned back. Now any baptist worth their salt would say that that was saving faith. OK, but that story is found in Genesis 12. That is the "once upon a time" part of the story.
Now on down the road a bit, Abraham is old, Sarah is old, there is no heir to his fortune except a servant. So Abraham and Sarah fall into that old trap of "helping God out." They work things out so that Abraham has a son by another woman. But God is faithful even when we are not. So He takes Abe out into the night and tells Him to look into the heavens and count the stars. He promises him that this handmaid's son will not be his heir, that God will do what He planned to do originally. He will make Abraham's descendants as numerable as those innumerable stars. And Abraham believes without seeing. He has no idea how God is going to pull this off. He places his trust in God's promise. Again. Didn't he believe God before when he packed up and moved away from his whole tribe to follow God to an undetermined destination? But in this moment, Abraham's trust in God, His walk with God grew deeper. He realized that what God was promising was something supernatural and only God could do it and He didn't need Abraham's help. Abraham's faith grew. And God counted it as righteousness.
Down the road another stretch we find this child of promise, Isaac, a growing lad. His father's pride and joy. God had been faithful. Then God tests Abraham's faith. (God doesn't test us to torment us, He tests us to purify us, to deepen our walk with Him.) He comes to Abraham and says that He wants him to take Isaac up on a mountain and sacrifice him to God. You know, slit the throat, light the fire, smoke in God's nostrils - sacrifice! Abraham doesn't flinch. He knows this son of promise is exactly that, a son of promise and God doesn't break His promises. So as crazy as this request sounds, Abraham knows that God can do anything and since He promised Abraham descendants through Isaac as numerous as the stars, this can't be the end of the story. So off they go into the wilderness and up the mountain, where Abraham raises his hand to sacrifice the lad and God intervenes and pronounces that Abraham's faith is so pleasing to God that He will reiterate His promise to him to make him the father of a great nation.
Now I don't know about you, but I am amazed at Abe's faith when he pulls out of Ur on the first day of this story. I'm amazed and inspired by his faith in believing that God can do the impossible in the middle of this story. But I am dumb struck at his faith in offering his son. I have a Grandson named Isaac. I joke all the time that I love him so much that if he needed a liver, a kidney, a heart, whatever, I'd gladly give him mine. But I can't imagine the searing pain that must have been in Abraham's heart when he lifted that knife. His faith must have been unfathomable.
So, if Abraham had been a baptist, when would he have gotten baptized? Can you see it might have been hard for him to determine when his faith had been what God wanted it to be, because God spent his whole long life grooming him to be a type of Himself, offering His Son on the cross for the innumerable souls that would be the descendants of Abraham. While protestants like to use the passage in Genesis 15 to claim that Abraham's faith in God's promise was what "saved" him, the author of James claims that he was justified by his obedience in offering his son in Genesis 22. Is James teaching error in his inspired epistle? Who is right then?
I love this paragraph from Dr. Beckwith's book. He shows through the very Pauline writings that so many protestants use to try to proof text away progressive justification that our salvation is a Journey of Justification:
"Although Paul certainly refers to justification as a past event (Rom. 5:1-2; 5:9; 8:24; 1 Cor. 6:11), he also presents it as a continuing process (1 Cor. 1:18; 15:2; 2 Cor. 2:15), as well as one that has not been fully achieved (Rom. 2:13; Gal. 5:5; 1 Cor. 3:15; 5:5; I Tim. 2:15; 2 Tim. 4:8; 18)."
Had Abraham been a Catholic, he would have been baptized either as an infant had his tribe been Catholic (speaking figuratively here of course) or as an adult when he left his parent's pagan religion and became Catholic. That would have been what justified him in the first place. Then he would have continued to experience the deepening of his faith that we all do as we walk with the Lord. All of us who have followed Christ for any length of time can pin point a number of turning points in our lives where God tested and deepened our faith. We know that life was never the same afterward and that it was the beginning of a new kind of journey. But the journey started with the grace of our baptism. And as long as we continue to allow the Lord to lead us through this journey of justification, there will be new turning points ahead when He will again take us deeper into His Sacred Heart.
I feel for my Protestant brothers and sisters who struggle to reconcile this journey with the protestant view of imputed justification. I was baptized three times because I wanted to be obedient, but I was sadly misguided by my protestant upbringing into thinking that I needed to search for that moment when God declared me righteous instead of cooperating with His continuing work of making me righteous.
Doctor Beckwith has a far superior way of making these issues clear in his book, but here on my blog I just try to express how the deep things of God work in the heart of one who is constantly amazed by the Splendor of His Truth.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Dr. Beckwith's Return To Rome
A week or so ago I finished Dr. Beckwith's book "Return to Rome." I was only vaguely aware of Dr. Beckwith's return to the Church because readers were commenting that my brother was giving him a hard time. (I guess I'm in good company then, Doctor.)
Recently, I was surfing around and found a very thoughtful comment by a man named David Bennett about my brother's harsh reaction to Dr. Beckwith's reversion. I found it very enlightening not only about his reaction to the good Doctor, but also about his reaction to my own conversion and that of others. I may comment on his comments later.
Reading this post made me interested in knowing more about what made Dr. Beckwith decide to come home to Rome, so I hit Amazon.com and ordered a copy.
What really impressed me about Dr. Beckwith's book was how well he described his thought process. He began with a far better understanding of the Early Church than most protestants have. That was a great advantage to him because it helped him see through the fiction of a Bible Only Early Church. Yes, there are many people who still think of the early Christians as folks sitting around with their Scofield Reference Bibles on their laps in the caves, discussing the meaning of Romans 9. It was to Dr. Beckwith's credit that he realized that even the Reformers didn't see Sola Scriptura the way it is seen today. Even they knew that without the Church to interpret scripture, there would be chaos. (And there is massive chaos.)
I could probably come up with a series of articles on the points Dr. Beckwith made, but I've already got my plate full as it is. So what I thought I would do is just make a note of each of the jewels I found and let them speak for themselves. Maybe it will make you hungry enough for the whole story that you'll have to use that link in the first paragraph and get yourself a copy!
Recently, I was surfing around and found a very thoughtful comment by a man named David Bennett about my brother's harsh reaction to Dr. Beckwith's reversion. I found it very enlightening not only about his reaction to the good Doctor, but also about his reaction to my own conversion and that of others. I may comment on his comments later.
Reading this post made me interested in knowing more about what made Dr. Beckwith decide to come home to Rome, so I hit Amazon.com and ordered a copy.
What really impressed me about Dr. Beckwith's book was how well he described his thought process. He began with a far better understanding of the Early Church than most protestants have. That was a great advantage to him because it helped him see through the fiction of a Bible Only Early Church. Yes, there are many people who still think of the early Christians as folks sitting around with their Scofield Reference Bibles on their laps in the caves, discussing the meaning of Romans 9. It was to Dr. Beckwith's credit that he realized that even the Reformers didn't see Sola Scriptura the way it is seen today. Even they knew that without the Church to interpret scripture, there would be chaos. (And there is massive chaos.)
I could probably come up with a series of articles on the points Dr. Beckwith made, but I've already got my plate full as it is. So what I thought I would do is just make a note of each of the jewels I found and let them speak for themselves. Maybe it will make you hungry enough for the whole story that you'll have to use that link in the first paragraph and get yourself a copy!
Dr. Bechwith provided me with some of the best, most succinct explanation of how the Early Church believed in a progressive salvation rather than a forensic justification followed by (possibly) a gradual sanctification. This is the meat of a matter I've wanted to write on for a long time. You'll see more of that down the road.
One line that really endeared me to Dr. Beckwith's spirit was on page 96. This line comes in the middle of a discussion on how Protestants seem to emphasize the Pauline epistles over the teachings of Jesus Himself. This is because, I believe, dispensationalism drew an imaginary line through time at the point of the cross and called everything before the cross "under the law" and everything after the cross "under grace." So in their minds, Jesus came and spent three years teaching the law and then died to make every word He said null and void by ushering in the "Age of Grace" where all our sin is covered and our action mean nothing. He poured out His Heart on the mountain teaching us the Beatitudes, and then died so that we don't have to try to live that way.
I've always said that once I learned that that line of demarcation was a protestant invention, the whole of scripture fell into place. Every difficult passage in scripture made perfect sense once you took out the protestant boundaries.
Oops, I started preaching and forgot Dr. Beckwith's endearing line. It goes like this: "It is no wonder, then, that it was only when I began to reconsider Catholicism that I consulted, with an openness to be corrected, the teachings of Jesus, the larger context in which the Pauline Protestant proof-texts rested, and those New Testament passages that seemed "Catholic" but were often "reinterpreted" to fit the Reformed theological system." The first thing I want to point out is Dr. Beckwith's openness to be corrected. I once asked my dear brother if he had ever for even an instant considered the possibility that the Catholic Church might be right. any scholar knows that in order to come to a correct conclusion, you have to come at a problem from an objective position. Anyone can proof-text their way into believing something. The Bible can be used by any religion to proof-test themselves into feeling justified in their position. Even terrorists could have a field day with some of the Old Testament passages. If a person comes at every word of the Early Fathers and every word of scripture with the intent of defending his position, he will find plenty of verbiage to pack into his arsenal. It is only when the presuppositions are removed that truth has a chance to be recognized.
I used to call what the Doctor refers to as "reinterpreted" as "weknows." (He has letters after his name, I invent strange words. Whatever.) A weknow is an invisible boundary we set on a passage like 1 Peter 3:18-21 in order to say that since "we know that baptism doesn't save us" this passage must mean something completely different than it says right there in front of us. I was aware of dozens of weknows in the New Testament before considering Catholicism, but I figured if I just asked my brother he would be able to explain how they fit into our Reformed theology. (That attitude may sound foolish, but that is exactly what I thought when I encountered a difficult passage.) But alas, all I needed to do was take out that invisible line through the middle of the New Testament and eureka, these passages made perfect sense!
That is why Dr. Hahn's book was the breaking point for me. When I read "The Father Who Keeps His Promises" I saw the whole of salvation history without the innovative boundaries. I realized it had been the same God and the same loving Father who had been bringing us the revelation of Himself over time and history and the whole of salvation history is one seamless expression of His love and grace.
Did I say something about just mentioning items from Dr. Beckwith's book and not writing a series here? sigh. OK, back to my "list."
I was very blessed by the fact that right there in the middle of Dr. Beckwith's discussion on justification was my life verse. This verse was brought to my attention by my Christian counselor, Diane, as she helped me learn to be a true follower of Christ. It is John 14:21. "He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him" Dr. Beckwith's point, and mine as well, is that just knowing and believing God's words is important to salvation but KEEPING those words, i.e. DOING what He taught is required. But in a personal aside, this verse carried me through the painful separation between myself and this dear lady who lead me through the arduous process of obedience and healing. Because of God call to me to come home to His Church, I actually had to cling to this verse as I followed Him away from a person and a fellowship that had meant so much to me.
I loved how the Doctor used the passages about Abraham to show how justification isn't a point in time thing, it is a progressive process. I have used that example myself.
Dr. Beckwith uses the example of Phil. 2:12-13. In AWANA, a youth Bible memorization program often used in evangelical groups, the children were taught to memorize verse 13, but we carefully avoided verse 12. "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Any time you see a verse that sounds like it is saying that salvation is something God does with or without your cooperation, check your context! There will always be the other side of the coin there also.
Another aside! Are you getting the idea that this book really got me charged up? The fact that justification is a past, present and future process is skillfully presented by Dr Beckwith. He has the education to present something that complex in precise language and I'll be referring to his explanation in future articles. But I'll tell you how God presented it to me, His little child.
I was struggling with this issue something awful. I remember debating with myself even as I slept. When I woke the next morning I hurt all over like I'd been fighting with an angel or something. I stood my my closet door trying to figure out what to wear to work and I just kind of leaned on the wall for support and poured out my heart to God about how difficult this discernment process was. I looked up at the ceiling and cried out to Him, is this true? Can someone who started out following you actually be lost by turning away? His answer was immediate and it changed my life and my relationship with Him forever. He said, "Have I ever left you? Even when you tried to escape me, did I ever leave you for a moment?" I had to answer honestly that He had never once left me. He had been that faithful Hound of Heaven Who never stopped reaching out to me for an instant even when I scorned His love. His gentle reply was "Then who would have to do the leaving? Are you going anywhere?" With tears I quickly answered, "No, no, no! I'm not going anywhere you aren't!" With that, my "forensic" relationship with God turned into a passionate love affair that continues to this day. He never lets me go and He, through His Sacraments, gives me the grace I need to stay faithful to Him. I'd take passion over a contract any day.
Well, I think I might as well surrender to one of those "to be continued" situations. There is no way I have time to explain all the gems I found in this little book and discuss how it impacted me. I'll be back with more of this later. In the meantime, check out that link in the first paragraph.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Flu Bug Has Come To Our Little Family
As I mentioned in the post below, it was a rough weekend. Saturday night Kim came down with the flu and she's still down. Now Gabriel has it. I woke up feeling a little under the weather, but I whipped out my echinacea bottle and attempted to fight back. We'll see how it goes. Isaac hasn't gotten it yet but he just can't stay away from his brother, so who knows.
All that to say I'm sorry I haven't gotten any writing done, but it's coming. I have five days off starting tomorrow, so hopefully I'll continue to keep the bug at bay and get caught up.
Keep our little family in your prayers. Nana has discovered new depths of exhaustedness (my word) this past week. I hope this thing stays away from you and yours!
All that to say I'm sorry I haven't gotten any writing done, but it's coming. I have five days off starting tomorrow, so hopefully I'll continue to keep the bug at bay and get caught up.
Keep our little family in your prayers. Nana has discovered new depths of exhaustedness (my word) this past week. I hope this thing stays away from you and yours!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
It's Been A Rough Weekend
We had the boys all weekend and mommy got a virus and has been down most of the time. Gabriel's usual halo has slipped a bit lately and he's been challenging us on most everything. He's two, what can I say? Basically, I'm worn out and could use some prayer. The picture is of Isaac enjoying a chocolate breakfast pastry. He required a full blown bath after this one.
Is it Monday yet?
Is it Monday yet?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Stuck Between My Worlds
I am anxious to post some thoughts that came from my recent reading, but my Grandsons are here all weekend this weekend. That means Nana's writing time is likely to be zipppp. But I'll try to remain hopeful.
In the meantime, I thought I would share a picture I had Kim take last night of my little kitty, Geoffrey. He is 22 lbs of fluff and he thinks he's a little kitten. I midwifed when Geoffrey and his two siblings were born. Their mom rejected the two boys at first, so I had the privilege of taking him out of his sack, cleaning him up and getting him to breathe. He's been rather attached ever since.
Here kitty kitty.
In the meantime, I thought I would share a picture I had Kim take last night of my little kitty, Geoffrey. He is 22 lbs of fluff and he thinks he's a little kitten. I midwifed when Geoffrey and his two siblings were born. Their mom rejected the two boys at first, so I had the privilege of taking him out of his sack, cleaning him up and getting him to breathe. He's been rather attached ever since.
Here kitty kitty.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Return to Rome by Dr. Francis Beckwith
It's been a while since I've had this problem. I am reading a book that has taken over my life the past couple of days. I'm a really busy person, but I'm almost taking this book to the restroom, sticking it to the wall of the shower, driving and reading, etc. Well, almost, but not quite. But I've had my face in this book every chance I've gotten since yesterday or the day before.
I have so enjoyed Dr. Beckwith's reversion story. I have one more chapter to go and then I plan on using all my scribbles in the margins to post a couple of comments. Dr. Beckwith's background in philosophy has given me a whole different perspective on the conversion process as well as on some of the doctrinal issues that all Tiber swimmers have to deal with; especially those who started their journey in Geneva like I did.
I don't claim to be able to think on the same plane that Dr. Beckwith does, but I'm having a blast feeding off the crumbs from his table! Stay tuned.
I have so enjoyed Dr. Beckwith's reversion story. I have one more chapter to go and then I plan on using all my scribbles in the margins to post a couple of comments. Dr. Beckwith's background in philosophy has given me a whole different perspective on the conversion process as well as on some of the doctrinal issues that all Tiber swimmers have to deal with; especially those who started their journey in Geneva like I did.
I don't claim to be able to think on the same plane that Dr. Beckwith does, but I'm having a blast feeding off the crumbs from his table! Stay tuned.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Midwife at Auschwitz ~ by Matthew M. Anger
This amazing article appeared in the Seattle Catholic. About time you feel that living a life of virtue is difficult, remember midwife Stanislawa Leszczynska. She delivered babies in Auschwitz and dispenses mercy in a place where mercy was unknown. I have to warn you, this is not an easy article to read.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Fr. John's Homily
Along the side of the blog is a like for Fr. John's homilies. Few Priests shoot from the hip like Fr. John. This morning his homily sounded like he and I had done lunch this week or something. He spoke on several subject, one of which was suffering. It goes very well with my last post. I'm not sure when they post this morning's podcast, but when it's there, check it out.
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