David Ancell / Wednesday, August 20, 2003 / Comments(0)
Jeff Miller reports this post on a marketing campaign designed to fill the spiritual emptiness of those who are still insistent on seeking nothing in particular with exactly that. They propose eliminate that Cross because it turns people off. Sadly, people who go for this may numb the pain for a while, but that foretaste of the pain of loss they feel will continue with the practice of this kind of spirituality.
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David Ancell / Tuesday, August 19, 2003 / Comments(0)
Suffering is a topic of the Christian life that I have the most difficulty with. Can you imagine that? Yet the Lord gave me this insight that I felt that I must blog. Maybe I heard it somewhere and don’t remember.
We really ought to learn to bear suffering well in this life. Here is one practical reason. For most of us, our death will likely involve suffering. If we have suffered well in this life, it will greatly reduce the chances that we will curse God on our deathbed in our suffering. Instead, we will offer our suffering to God as we are in the habit of doing and possibly even avoid Purgatory.
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David Ancell / Tuesday, August 19, 2003 / Comments(0)
The author of Times Against Humanity sent me an e-mail about his blog. I like it, and I have now placed it on my list of blog links. Look for Spiritual Pyromania to reflect it soon.
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David Ancell / Tuesday, August 19, 2003 / Comments(0)
In the aforementioned George Weigel article about banning certain hymns, I didn’t previously notice that Jeff Miller also blogged this article. He goes on to place a strong, though somewhat tongue in cheek, argument about an Index of Forbidden Hymns. He wisely notes that some churches will use it as a hymnal.
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David Ancell / Monday, August 18, 2003 / Comments(0)
My cousin sent me this clock. Enjoy!
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David Ancell / Monday, August 18, 2003 / Comments(0)
Amy Welborn blogs about an athiestic music professor at a Catholic school. Honestly, I find it absurd that a Catholic university really thinks athiesm is compatible with working there. However, I have to agree with the comment that says that even this lunacy is preferable to those who claim to be Catholic but are publicly opposing the Church’s teachings.
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 17, 2003 / Comments(0)
I just finished listening to a tape series by Fr. Stravinskas that I mentioned earlier. He said that no heresy has ever been started by a lay person, and no reform of the Church has been led by the clergy. Indeed, if we reform our lives and live in holiness, we will reform our clergy. Besides, where do these guys come from?
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 17, 2003 / Comments(0)
I’ve often wondered why our hierarchy is unwilling to discipline dissenters, especially when they scandalize the faithful. Although many documents have been issued, few, if any have been enforced. This is a different story with the dissenters and their “dogma.” They are often more dogmatic than the orthodox. How many stories do you hear of priests being excluded from seminary on account of orthodoxy? How many times have we seen attempts to suppress orthodoxy by calling the orthodox “rigid” or “oppressive”?
Perhaps one reason that dissenters are not disciplined is that the orthodox don’t want to stoop to their level. However, I am not making excuses for those who do not exercise lawful authority. The orthodox have one major difference – they are right!
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David Ancell / Sunday, August 17, 2003 / Comments(0)
Kevin Miller posts an interesting article on the Dormition and why Mary may well have died just like we do just before she was assumed. This would be one more way that Mary was like her Son.
I think he presents a good case. Of course, this is an issue on which believers are free to believe that either Mary died or she didn’t. We die because we sin, and Christ died for us because we sin. Mary didn’t sin, so it is quite possible that the effects of sin (e.g. labor pains, death) didn’t touch her. However, we know that she suffered as she watched her Son die the death of criminals on the Cross. Mary is called Co-Redemptrix for a reason. While the heart of Jesus was pierced by a lance, we read the prophecy of Simeon in Luke 2:35 that says that Mary’s heart will be pierced by a sword.
So, did Mary die before she was assumed into Heaven? I don’t know. I can see both sides, and the Church has not seen fit to settle the matter. However, I do know that she is alive, body and soul, in Heaven, forever reunited with her Son, Jesus Christ.
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David Ancell / Saturday, August 16, 2003 / Comments(0)
It’s been another one of those long days. I had to work, and I still haven’t gotten to my spring cleaning. Not much to say today. For those of you in school who are looking forward to all the free time you are going to have once you are out and working and don’t have to study all day, I’m afraid that it just hasn’t worked that way for me.
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