David Ancell / Monday, June 23, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
We often hear people talk about gossip, but actually, you won’t find the word in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. What you will find are calumny, detraction, and rash judgment. There may be other circumstances in which talking about other people is sinful, but we’ve definitely crossed the line when we are attacking the character of another without justifying cause. I talk about those thing in this podcast. Here’s one take-home point: just because something is true doesn’t mean we automatically have the right to tell everyone we know.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Thursday, June 19, 2014 / Comments(0)
A couple of weeks ago, my family and I were on vacation visiting family. As we always like to do when we visit this city, we took a walk through the attractive/upscale shopping and dining area. It’s just a beautiful place to take a walk. This time, I noticed something I didn’t remember seeing before.
Down one street I found the Seventh Church of Christ, Scientist. Across the street from there was a Unity Temple. The Christian Scientists were a sect founded by a woman named Mary Baker Eddy based on some supposed insight on healing. They are the ones who don’t believe in the use of medicine. The Unity Temple is some kind of church that seeks a “unity” and “peace and harmony” that doesn’t appear to be based on anything but just letting people believe whatever they believe. Their web site, which I won’t link to here, has as a principle that we create our life experience through our own thoughts.
From that location, I decided to search for the nearest Catholic Church. This would be a place that could really use a place to encounter our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. To my dismay, I found that the nearest Catholic Church was the Cathedral four miles away. It’s not too far, but it’s not too close either. So, I had to ask, where are we?
Why aren’t we there? It just reminded me more that we need to be where the people are, trying in whatever way we can to bring people to an encounter with Our Lord. If someone doesn’t help feed the hungry, they will seek whatever food they can find. Sadly, that food will never satisfy like the fullness of truth. Just imagine if there were a church or chapel there where people could stop and pray in the presence of the Eucharist. Maybe they could go to Confession and be reconciled with God. We could even leave some materials where interested people could discover the Catholic faith.
One place where evangelization is badly needed is simply among where ordinary activity of people takes place. We should be there, not to try to shove something down their throats, but to engage them, inform them, and ultimately challenge them to explore the truth. If other groups are there, why aren’t we?
David Ancell / Wednesday, June 18, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
In this podcast, I decided to go back to a more serious note and talk about lesser known sins. There are sins that I don’t hear a lot of people talk about or seem to know about, and I want to talk about them here. In this episode, I’m talking about sins of thought and how they are committed, as well as how a bad thought might not be a sin if consent of the will is not given.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Tuesday, June 10, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve posted another Lunch Break edition of the podcast.
I’m not an expert on teaching children by any means. Most catechesis I’ve done is with adults. However, I’ve learned a thing or two having a toddler, and it’s actually fascinating and fun. Here is how we’ve begun immersing the toddler in the faith. We want him to know that this isn’t just something we do on the side, but it’s the center of our lives.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Tuesday, June 03, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have posted another Lunch Break episode.
This is the last part of the miniseries, if you call it that, that I did on how God can be known. I’ve heard people talk about the problem of evil or corruption in the Church as an obstacle to belief in God. However, this really can be an argument for, rather than against, Christianity. We are saved by the Cross of Christ. Evil is the result of our rebellion against God. The Scriptures are full of examples of rebellion even among God’s chosen people and sometimes their leaders. However, in the end, God wins. To look only at the evil and corruption is to take a cynical, one-sided view. Look at the saints and what they did with the help of God’s grace!
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Saturday, May 31, 2014 / Comments(0)
I’ve just posted a new podcast episode.
I must admit that this one is much later than I planned it. I wanted to have something posted on the Blessed Virgin Mary in May, which is the month in which we especially honor her. However, here I am at 11:20 PM CDT on May 31st putting this up.
Just for fun, in the first segment, I decided to introduce Benedict, my second son, to the podcast listeners. He actually stayed with me for the second segment as my co-host. I did this with Simon when he was first born, so now that I’m back to podcasting, it’s Benedict’s turn. Then, in the second segment, I did a quick overview of the Church’s teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary. If you want something more extensive on the subject, I did do an RCIA teaching that you can get here.
I’ve been doing some tweaks to try to improve the sound quality of my podcasts, and I think this is the best audio quality I’ve been able to achieve to date. If you’ve been listening to other shows, you may wish to turn your volume down before listening to this one because it actually has a higher volume level. Enjoy!
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Monday, May 26, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
This is the second part of my short talks on how God can be known. We cannot scientifically prove the things of God, but neither can we scientifically prove that all knowledge can be proven by science. We can know who God is through revelation and history. The third and final talk in this series will be posted hopefully next week.
Category: Uncategorized
David Ancell / Monday, May 19, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have posted another Lunch Break edition of my podcast.
While I have tried to be less focused on apologetics in my Lunch Break shows, this show is definitely more focused on them. I’ve seen a lot of people in life who treat the things of God as nice ideas (if that) rather than something that should affect our whole lives. God has revealed himself in love to us. This is good news. We can know that there is a purpose to life. Because of this, God must be everything, and everything needs to point to him.
Category: Podcasts
David Ancell / Saturday, May 17, 2014 / Comments(0)
Ok, hopefully this is the last post about my site. I finally decided how I wanted to my site to look, and I found out it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought to accomplish it. I have more work to do, and I think I will just make updates to this post rather than keep posting about the site.
From about 2005 – 2010, I had a site and a blog that were similar in appearance and developed on a content management system that I had personally created. However, the need to move the page resulted in my creating a new site rather hurriedly because the new server couldn’t support my system. I could not remake a blogging system, so I used WordPress with a theme that didn’t match my page. I have realized that my blog is the main thing that gets content, so I decided to make it the focus of my site. From now on, going to www.davidancell.com will take you to the blog that now has the name of my web page. If you use the old address, you will be redirected.
I built my own WordPress theme, and I literally learned how to do this last week. I used my old blog from 2005 as the model. Needless to say, it still needs some work. I still need to:
Recreate my links and blogroll. Update: Links and blogroll are back up, as well as the page of recommended books.
Restore the ability to comment Update: Comments are working again!
Replace that logo. That picture of me looks like my toddler kept me up for three nights straight, but it’s from 2005, when he didn’t exist. Update: I did it! My wife took my picture for a new logo, and now I’ve got it up.
And last but not least . . . Make this design responsive so you don’t have to zoom on a mobile device. I just had it but lost it. Update: I have started on this. If you use this site on a smartphone or tablet, you should notice that the sidebar drops to the bottom. My next project is to add a menu and search that can be accessed from the top of the page when using a mobile device.
I hope you will enjoy the new site!
Update #1: I just added an RSS Feed link so you can subscribe to the blog. I also managed to get my links to my Twitter feed, Google+ page, and main site back on the page.
Update on 6/28/2014: As I am learning some tricks, I have done more with this site than I thought I was going to do. I have added custom fonts and changed the look of the sidebar a bit. The biggest thing you will notice is that I have added a top menu bar. Even on a mobile device the button that reveals the hidden menu looks like the menu bar. The main thing I need to do is fix the logo at the top. I just need to get a new picture taken. Any ideas for what that should look like?
One thing that I will say is that, while his page should work on older browsers, I am targeting newer ones. I know it looks funny on any version of Internet Explorer older than version 9.
Update on 7/6/2014: My web page has now been officially redesigned. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. In the future, I want to revise the code for HTML 5, but that’s an under-the-hood project that may not even be noticed. It will take a long time as I need to read up more on HTML 5. Of course, as I learn more, there may still be some design changes.
Category: News on My Life, Technology
David Ancell / Friday, May 16, 2014 / Comments(0)
I have heard, and I believe, that there is a “God-shaped hole” in each of us. If we don’t give our lived to God, we are going to give our lives to something to try to fill that hole. That something will never satisfy us because we were made for God. However, I wonder how it is perceived by people who do not believe. I have to think that God would make it possible to know what it is that is missing as he is madly searching for us. He loves us. I wonder if many atheists have such anger against believers because deep inside, they know they are wrong.
Earlier this week, I finished reading Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God, and I want to join the release party. Fulwiler is a very witty and gifted writer. A couple of good examples can be found here and here.
She was not a notorious sinner, but she was an atheist. Faced with the feeling of the logical conclusion that she would one day cease to exist, she tried to drown out that feeling with exciting life experiences and a career. Then came motherhood. Her experience drove her to explore the questions by starting a blog and getting people to discuss his with her. She tries going to Mass and even living the moral teaching of the Church, even though it really affected her life through a serious medical condition. In the end, she became Catholic. At the same time, her husband was exploring as well and came into the Church with her.
Too bad I have to sleep and go to work. It was hard to put this book down. The book is both funny and fascinating, and I’d especially recommend it to anyone who struggles with not only belief in God but also trust in him.
Category: Books