Don’t Engage with the Tempter

There are so many sources of temptation today. Though they classically come from three sources — the world, the flesh, and the devil — or what Aristotle might call their efficient causes, they manifest in many different people, places, and…

Christ the Teacher and the Accuracy of the Gospels

Some people have trouble accepting the accuracy of the Gospels. Even if we accept that some of the New Testament was written just 20 to 30 years after the Resurrection, that’s still 20 or 30 years. That’s a lot of…

Warning: Adult Content

Recently, I read a good book called Do Hard Things, by brothers Alex and Brett Harris. (It also has a foreward by Chuck Norris. I know better than to cross Chuck Norris.) It’s about rebelling against society’s low expectations of…

Be a Sheep!

Don’t be a sheep! I am not a sheep! I think for myself! You’re all just a bunch of sheep! We see it on signs and bumper stickers. We hear it and read it. We’re told by the world not…

Eucharist in the Head and Heart

Editor’s Note:  This is a re-post from last year; I thought it fit give that we celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi last Sunday. My son just received his First Holy Communion, so I’ve been thinking and talking a lot…

Should We Debate?

I don’t like to debate. Really, I don’t. I’ve always seen myself as a catechist rather than an apologist. And yet, I find myself in debates at times — often lengthy ones — especially on social media. When I’m in…

Conspiracy!

Last month, we explored the intersection of False Memory and True Scripture. Can people manufacture false memories — memories of things that didn’t happen? Yes. Is that evidence against the apostolic witness? Far from it. Let’s consider another angle. Here…

False Memory and True Scripture

Psychological studies have shown that we’re not fully reliable witnesses. Our brains can be tricked–by ourselves or by others. Witnesses to an accident or crime, for example, can lead themselves (or be led by others) to remember details that were…

Father Forgive Them

This marks my last of five Biblical meditations on the Sorrowful Mysteries and 40 Days for Life, using Rosary Army’s Scriptural Rosary.  In the Fifth Sorrowful Mystery meditation, consider Jesus’ words from the cross: “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them;…

Bearing Witness to the Truth

Since taking part in my first 40 Days for Life, I’ve been reflecting on the Sorrowful Mysteries — in particular, a set of Biblical meditations from Rosary Army’s Scriptural Rosary.  In the Second Sorrowful Mystery meditation, we read this: “Jesus…

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2019/11/09 By

Growth Beneath the Snow

“The plants were hidden under the snow. And the farmer…remarked with satisfaction: ‘Now they’re growing on the inside.’ I thought of…your forced inactivity…Tell me, are you also growing on the inside?” St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, #294 The plants cannot…

2019/01/11 By

Physical minimalism, spiritual excess

Almost a year ago, I wrote about Seasons of Change and how, in the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis tells us that “(t)he horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable possessions we have produced in the…

2018/12/14 By

Faith in Receiving the Word

God asked faith of Abraham and Isaac. He asked it of St. John of the Cross, of Mother Theresa, and others. Sometimes their extreme examples seem just that — extreme. They seem to be on the edges of what’s possible,…

2018/11/09 By

Cowardice to Shame to Anger: A Lesson from Screwtape

“But hatred is best combined with Fear. Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful–horrible to anticipate, horrible to feal, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses…

2018/10/12 By

There is No Third Way

Tertium non datur. That’s the law of the excluded middle. It is used in philosophy, especially logic, but there is a lot of other “middle” that we can exclude besides philosophy. In my last post, There is a Third Way,…

2018/06/08 By

There is a Third Way

A while back, I had an exchange with a disheartened young man. He said that he keeps encountering 5 types: “(o)ld, rambling and cynical men; bored, cliquey housewives; clueless and hard-headed men; disinterested and troubled women; and unhelpful, indifferent men…

2018/04/13 By

On Pride and Christian Privilege

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape educates a lesser demon on using a new Christian’s pride: “He must be made to feel (he’d better not put it in to words) ‘how different we Christians are’; and by ‘we Christians’…

2018/03/09 By

Seasons of Change

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis tells us that “(t)he horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable possessions we have produced in the human heart…” We hate monotony, sameness. Some of us constantly ask “what’s…

2018/02/09 By

Proof and Belief

In my last two posts, we’ve thought about the words “absolute” and “relative”, as well as “objective” and “subjective”. Another word that gets thrown around lightly is “proof”. “Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the…

2017/10/13 By

Absolute Truth and Relativism

Last time, we thought about objective and subjective statements. Let’s look at a similar (and sometimes confused) pair of words: absolute and relative. Why do we care about these words? In 1884, Pope Leo XIII wrote against the relativistic philosophy…