Safe Haven

5. Keep your sports "hate" confined to the field. That guy you hate inevitably gives half his salary to a children's hospital or something. 4. Win or lose, the guy who hasn't done anything all year will be involved in the crucial play. Please just trust me on this. 3. The championship teams always face adversity. Always. If your team hasn't, they're going to lose when nobody expects them to. 2. The only thing that beats a Feel Good Story is a team of ruthless dream-killers, who hate stories like that.  The St. Louis Cardinals are quintessentially this team. Don't let the fan base, smiles, and ignorance of the Eastern media fool you. Ruthless, most years. I have come to terms with this. After all, I admire the Patriots in football. Mike Matheny and the staff have started wearing hoodies. Coincidence? I think not. 1. Momentum is real, no matter what the experts say.

I actually hate agreeing with Mark Shea.  But what do you want me to do? I recognize that the cultivation of expertise in any one field must be ever and always against the backdrop and with the overriding consideration of the dignity of the human person. Just imagine you are the highest cleric in Argentina; you have spent the balance of your career among the poorest of the poor, in a society so stratified, Adam Smith himself would cry, "Outrage!" Now how do you feel about recent discussions concerning economics? The talking heads in this nation are playing a game, a word game, a game of "gotcha!" But the Vicar of Christ has bigger fish to fry, if you will pardon the pun. Yes, expertise tends to increase the tension between specialized knowledge and wise counsel. But that's the point: Great ideas are built on creative tension.

I love Christ and Pop Culture . Me and Alan Noble are buddies on the interwebs. I told him I read the magazine religiously, and I mean that in the creepy Catholic sense. Even when they annoy me, I can't stop reading it. In many important ways, I'm still an evangelical. (You could legitimately argue that I'm still Reformed in some non-doctrinal, non-ecclesial ways, too, and I think that's good. That tradition holds a non-negligible influence over that expression of evangelical piety, and it will probably stay that way.) Every time Alan writes a post looking for new writers, I punch myself, because justification by faith alone is a deal-breaker over there, and I'm a bloody Catholic; I can't affirm it. But I want to write for them almost as much as I want to be on The Journey Home, which is a lot. I need you to understand that. I love what they do. Let me just get that out of the way. But they are annoyingly temperate, at a time when we really don't need that...

I've always loved this song.  I'll take the risk of sounding inclusivist or Balthasarian or whatever horrible thing you want to call me. Because if you don't take the risk of sounding a little hippie-ish about the mercy of God, you don't understand it. We're on the eve of the Nativity of the Lord, but the Paschal Mystery is never far away. Jesus was born to die. For us. Because He loves us. His love swallows up everything it touches. You just have to let it, let Him. Merry Christmas, "'Cause tonight's the night the world begins again."

Are you sure you don't want to read Called to Communion ? Ahem. I like being Jason Kettinger; it's generally awesome. But there have been days when I wanted to be Casey Chalk. Just sayin.'

A resonance shaking the soul like I have not known, nor could have seen, has taken place. What sort of music is this? What kind of reply must I make? I only know that I heard it, and it was beautiful. There is a song I desire to sing, the words come ready to mind, but I do not sing in haste; I do not sing of my own accord. I long to hear it again, to listen closely, that I might sing well, that I might find my place in the chorus. It is not for me to write the song. The melody, the time are not mine, and they will never be.

No, not just the current one. I mean, in general. If she is a recognized expert on something, OK. But are we forgetting that the First Lady is the president's wife? That's a big job, but it's not a public one, or at least it shouldn't be. It's a horrible liberal innovation anyway, that the First Lady should do stuff. If she does, it should be things no one on Earth with a soul would be offended by, like a librarian encouraging kids to read, for example. I was never offended by Michelle Obama's "For the first time in my life..." comment, because I know what she meant when she said it. Sue me. But then again, call me old-fashioned, but I think the First Lady should smile, decorate the White House, and make the guests feel comfortable. And actually, no, I've never had cause to remark on Mrs. Obama's physical appearance, except to say that she is beautiful. Because she is. If she were not a progressive, and her name were still Robinson, (I thin...

5. Well, yeah, supporting and facilitating the murder of children makes you unworthy of the Body and Blood of Christ. That should be rather obvious. 4. How sad are we here in the US, that the faithful shepherd who is willing to deny Communion to such sinners--as canon law and true mercy require--is "controversial"? 3. The only reason this is "political" at all is because people don't believe that the spiritual realm with its eternal consequences actually exists. 2. If you believe this, please leave. There are thousands of social clubs who'd be happy to have you. I prefer my atheists honest. 1. With all due respect, I don't care what John Allen thinks about anything.

It's the third line of, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel". We've probably sung this 18 million times. We might even know that we should be preparing our hearts to receive Him there in just a few days on the great feast of Christmas. But do you realize that this one line in the title of this post perfectly summarizes the context into which Christ came? A faithful Jew of the first century would know exactly what this line means. If Exodus 12 and the events surrounding the first Passover were the great salvation event for the people of the first covenant, and the giving of the Law was the setting of the terms, then the Exile was the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 28:15-68. The siege of Jerusalem in 586 BC was awful. They starved to death. Parents ate their children in desperate attempts to stay alive. And for the next several hundred years, God's People were trampled by foreigners, by vicious men, who cared nothing for God and His Law. Jeremiah the prophet tells us more detai...

I watched the whole interview , and I have a few general comments. First, we're talking about Jesus Christ, and what he does. Being sons of the Catholic Church is not a matter of waving a flag, or wearing a pin on your lapel. If you accept her authority, the only defensible reason to do so is because what she guards and protects has been revealed by God. Catholicism isn't so awesome in the practical living out that "smells and bells" would be enough without this. Please pause and reflect on the inanity of what you are saying before you accuse any convert of doing this for an aesthetic reason primarily. [climbs off soapbox] Are our liturgies rightly executed beautiful? Of course. But they are precisely that because they are true. God, who is Goodness, Truth, and Beauty has revealed Himself. If you make the effort to claim that the true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is not limited to the Catholic Church, but is invisible, including all true believers from whatever ...

I'm not saying there's no good in reading fiction; I just don't have an infinite amount of time in which to read the things I must read, the things I'm inclined to read anyway, and anything else. And I just flat-out don't agree that fiction is superior, anyway. They're all stories; at bottom, human stories, so I don't see the difference, myself. You need imagination and creativity to make a difference for God and people in this world, in any case. And I'm telling you, if you don't think you can get it from reading non-fiction, you need to read better non-fiction. And there's no merit badge at the end for having read Middlemarch. It's true I don't trust people who willfully don't read anything at all; it's quite another to tell people what they must read, and why. You can't possibly know that. I'm only insistent about this point because I am but a mortal man, and because "for pleasure" has no meaning in my uni...

The Ten Books That Have Stayed With Me: 10. Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella 9. War, by Sebastian Junger 8. Dead Man Walking, by Sister Helen Prejean 7. Anthem, by Ayn Rand 6. Radical Son, by David Horowitz 5. Congress: The Electoral Connection, by David Mayhew 4. The Days Of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Jim Bishop 3. Upon This Rock, by Steven Ray 2. Dune, by Frank Herbert 1. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee I could easily do another 10, and perhaps I will. But these were the 10 I first thought of, and my basic criteria are: 1) I say, "This book changed the way I think and feel about the world," or 2) Someone else said I needed to read it, and I finally did. I didn't put any books up that I haven't finished, and I won't. So, there are dozens and dozens more books I have yet to finish, so I can't mention them. Also, if I read a book, and I feel I can't articulate the main theme or purpose, (that is, understand it) you won't see it on a list like this...

Today, a Reformed person said this: " The 2nd commandment means something. But the idea that it prohibits absolutely all images doesn't add up. As Brian pointed out with the carved cherubim. But recall that those cherubim were not at the focus of Israel's worship. When a church sets up an  image of Christ or the saints in a central spot to where you can't help but look at it during worship, and then you have people kneeling, engaging in prayer, bowing etc, that's a problem. "You shall not bow down to them or worship them" means the 2nd commandment has a liturgical context to it. God is warning us away from vain liturgy that forsakes the Word and tries to capture God in a picture." This is why we have ecumenical councils, my friend. No one really cares what you or I think about what the 2nd Commandment means. Any dude with a Bible can pick it up and attempt to tell someone what it means, in any place. And an ecumenical council isn't one unless i...

A little note on this new propensity for people to call themselves, "Reformed Catholics". It's dishonest. If you believe that the Catholic Church has distorted the gospel (and in all fairness and sympathy, this is what the children of the Reformation believe) then separation from a false 'Church' is an honest and principled course. In fact, if I may make a brief digression into Catholic moral theology, it is a sin to act against certain conscience, even if that conscience turns out to be badly misinformed. This is why a person who grows up in what was a schism is not a schismatic, properly speaking. If a person knowingly persists in schism, knowing that it is one, that's a different story. That's why Lumen Gentium, 14 is so carefully worded, with respect to knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ: If you know that, and refuse to enter or stay, you're rejecting Christ, not some guys calling themselves the 'Catholic Church'....

Granted, I like Kenny a lot. I've been hanging out with his music a lot, as a result. One song I really love by him is called, "Forever" . I was thinking about this song recently, and it came to me: Change the gender in the second verse, and this whole song verse corresponds to Song of Songs 3:1-3. Stew on that for a while. And in general, the song captures that theme throughout the book: "Love is as strong as death." Have I said this before? I don't know. But alas, here are the words to that verse: Once, I dreamed that you were gone I cried out, trying to find you I begged the dream to fade Away, and please awaken me But night took a hold of my heart And left me with no one to follow The love that I lost to the dark I'll always remember... [Me again] I'll bet you don't read the text or hear the song the same way again. You're welcome.

One of the things that I appreciate about holy mother Church and our deepening understanding of the implications and the depth of the riches of Christ is that we don't have to choose between unity and truth, for Christ is the fullness of those things; that unity and truth is defined in Him, and by Him. Some people think that Vatican II fundamentally changed the way Catholics understood the manner in which the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded. They see the conciliatory words toward especially Protestant communities as a concession to a modern ecumenical reality. We have to reject this, even as we are aware that many groups within the Catholic Church had explicitly or implicitly adopted a(n) hermeneutic of discontinuity in their thinking about the Council. But let's define "ecumenism" first. Ecumenism is dialogue for the purpose of establishing agreement in the truth concerning God. Ecumenism is not a passive acceptance of mutually exclusive dogmas or p...

5. Some call it "whitewashing"; I call it perspective. 4. I only care marginally about the teachings of the Puritans, anyway. That is, to understand them well enough to refute them, quite frankly. 3. You have a curiously defensive reaction for a person who is supposed to believe that we're all wicked worms who do nothing of value before God, anyway. 2. I don't always agree with Dr. Anthony Bradley of King's College, NYC, but when I do, it's enthusiastically. Stay questioning, my friends. 1. Have mercy on us all, O Lord. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.

5. No, that's not what I'm saying. 4. In fact, it's not even close. 3. Yes, I agree with you that I am a terrible communicator. 2. But you have an obligation to ascertain what I am saying (accurately) before you destroy me. Granted, I have not always had the discipline to do this, but I am trying. 1. RIP, Nelson Mandela.

5. I find it odd, and yet classically me, that I can overlook tons of things if I like a person. O Lord, give me the grace to love everyone as You do, so that I may not turn them away from You. 4. It really isn't our place to "call down fire from Heaven." Sometimes, a clinical "that's not correct" with a citation better serves than passion. 3. [Take your own advice, Sparky.--ed.] I know. 2. In ecumenical dialogue, we should expect that we have different conclusions, but also different sources and methods. If we cannot critically examine those sources and methods, even simply to see them (our own) in contrast to others, we simply aren't ready for that dialogue. 1. Actually, Mr. Dukeman, I don't question anything in Matthew 24. I question your authority to give the definitive interpretation of that text, in light of CCC, 100, and the prudence of being the arbiter of the soul of Benny Hinn, even in light of his error. Anything else is outside th...

This merits some reflection. On the other hand, before the anti-"capitalism" forces get too pleased with themselves, how much is too much? Who gets to decide? What gives the social teaching its reality, its practicality? What keeps the social teaching from being a bunch of platitudes, spouted by amateurs, determined to appear "above the fray?" If you think that sounds harsh, just keep in mind that 1) I'm a Catholic, determined to keep the teaching so far as I'm able; and 2) the questions will be just as direct from the economists, and the non-Catholics. Paging David Anders! The science of economics was created to try to deal with the problem of scarcity. We have to assume several things because of the social teaching as I understand it at this point: 1. the right of private property is real, but not absolute; 2. there is such a thing as "distributive justice," such that massive inequities of wealth are an injustice to him who has little; 3. soci...