“For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you” (John 13:15). Our Lord told the apostles this at the Last Supper. Later on Jesus tells the apostles that they are to love one another as He has loved them (John 13:34), that if they truly love Him they […]
What series am I describing? Murder. Kingdoms. Thrones. Vengeance. Games. The rise and the fall of civilizations. Swords. A cast of profoundly varied personalities and nuanced characteristics. Power struggles. Misguided ideals. Dominion. Plots and subplots and pretext and context. Multiple popular literary genres. An array of different languages, cultures, tribes, and legal systems. The intricacies […]
Just about everybody agrees that Jesus is presented as divine in the Gospel of John. In the very first verse, John says that “the Word was God” (John 1:1), and towards the end of this Gospel, the Apostle Thomas confesses Jesus to be “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). However, the divinity of Jesus […]
Full disclosure: I did not actually read the book “The Benedict Option”. Spiritdaily and a NY Times article is where I gleaned information about this movement in the Church. I did, however, have limited exposure to the idea of Covenant Communities in my parish. About years ago, a very holy, sincere parish priest and several parish families were trying to form a […]
The Fourth Way — the Argument from Gradation or Degrees of a Quality The Fourth Way to demonstrate the existence of God is from the objective degrees of desirable qualities of things. In order for qualities to be objective rather than subjective, degrees of quality must be relative to a fixed point of reference that […]
My view is simple. When I meet a person who says, “I am Catholic, but,…” it is my immediate conclusion that he/she is not Catholic. In matters of faith and morals, the Church has a reasonably long history of leading the flock. Fulton J Sheen Even though he died quite some time ago, what Fulton J […]
As stated in the previous installment, I will be approaching the problem of evil. For me, the problem of evil was elephant in the room for theism. When I was younger, my grandmother was battling cancer. She fought it for nine years. I would go with her to her chemo treatments and other appointments while […]
The Third Way – The Argument from Necessity Building upon the Argument from Efficient Cause, the Third Way demonstrates that there are things that are non-necessary, (meaning that it’s possible for them “not to be,”) and which are caused by a necessary thing that “has to be.” This argument says that whatever has been brought […]
As stated in Part I, I will now show you how I saw the Resurrection as not just possible but probable, so probable that I cannot in good conscience deny it. This will not be in full detail. I will have reading suggestions at the end of this article that are devoted to the problem. […]
There used to be a time when many of the world’s Catholic Christians submitted to the Church’s vision of faith and morals. The teaching authority of the Church was respected and trusted by Catholics the world over. However, the 21st century is a different time. There are more baptized Catholics now than ever before. Sadly, […]
If anyone reading has ever driven down Interstate 70 from Wichita, Kansas to Denver, Colorado, then you will know how completely uninteresting the drive can be. The fields of Kansas are beautiful but it is very challenging to drive in a straight line for hundreds of miles. During this drive, I obviously had some time […]
Plato realized that the intelligible is immaterial by identifying a fundamental difference between the intelligible and the material. The intelligible is universal, while the material is particular. The concept of dog is universal: it applies to all dogs, whatever might be the medley of particular properties possessed by each material dog. Plato proposed that there […]
Last month I presented the First Way St. Thomas Aquinas explained the logical existence of God. Here is the Second Way. While this is a quick read, it may take some effort to discern St. Thomas’ subtle concepts because of the different use of words between his time and ours. The Second Way: The Argument […]
The historicity of God—God’s presence in history—should never be taken for granted, yet we do have a tendency to forget that God is active in history. The apostles and St. Paul testified about historical facts. They were not acting as ethical philosophers who had invented a new code of ethics. No, they were people who […]
Thomas Aquinas’ Ways But on one particular day, she grabbed my full, locked-on attention. She was talking about St. Thomas Aquinas’ famous Five Logical Proofs of God’s Existence, or five ways to demonstrate God’s existence. Up until that moment, I’d pretty much taken the Catholic Church’s teachings for granted. But this was new! These five […]
There are any number of reasons to believe that a God exists. But actually proving that God exists is much harder. And once you prove that a God exists, you still have to connect said God to the God of Christianity. Philosophy is hard mental work; most of the bad ideas driving our culture today […]
“Always be ready,” Scripture tells us, “to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Here is my defense for my hope in Christ, and it comes down to this: either we exist for a larger purpose or we don’t. There are […]
Do we really need to believe in certain miracles to be Christians? That is the question Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times asked Evangelical pastor Rev. Tim Keller and more recently former President Jimmy Carter. The answer Kristof seems to want is, “No, you can be skeptical about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection […]
With the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation coming up later this year, it’s sad to note that while great strides have been made in ecumenical outreach between the various Christian communities out there, there are still many things that divide us. However, there are more than a few Christians, typically those outside of mainline Protestant […]
I first began to understand certain mystical truths as I prayed at the place where Jesus was crucified on the first Good Friday. I have written about some of these insights when I spent a night in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but some were too much for me to understand at the time, and […]
As a cradle Catholic, I spent every Sunday morning in church, every Wednesday night in Faith Formation Classes and then as I got older, every Sunday night in youth group. My faith was a part of my everyday life, and just as my brain does not have to remind my body to breath, I never […]
I was working in a Youth Summer Conference job (they were very similar to Steubenville conferences) when I had the most uncomfortable experience in my life. The summer staff, ten of us split into two groups of five, were blindfolded and put in a car by our bosses. We drove for what felt like three […]
As a child I thought that being a Catholic was simple. One must say grace during meals, attend Mass on Sundays and other days when required, and occasionally say the rosary. I attended a Catholic grade school (with actual nuns!), and received the sacraments of baptism, confession, communion, and confirmation. The religious instruction seemed as […]
Sharing the Catholic faith with our separated brothers and sisters can be a challenge, especially when there isn’t a shared understanding of early Church history. Many still believe that the Catholic Church was actually created when the Emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan, making the Christian faith legal in the Roman Empire. The other […]
The Catholic Church in Detroit is Unleashing the Gospel
The Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Detroit is getting “turbocharged.” At least that is what George Weigel says. In a recent article at First Things entitled “Motown and the Turbocharged Church”, Weigel had nothing but good things to say about Archbishop Allen Vigneron’s plan to “Unleash the Gospel” in the archdiocese. “Motown may no […]
Conciliar Reform in the 1960s: Politics Become Religion
Why do many Roman Catholics put up so much resistance to reintroducing traditional liturgical elements to the Mass? In two recent articles, Catholic Stand writer Nicholas LaBanca interviewed two Eastern Catholic priests, Fr. Thomas Loya of the Byzantine Rite and Fr. Alexander Wroblicky of the Ukrainian-Greek Rite. Both men observed that Millennials take to elements […]
Athletic Spirituality and Competition, Part I
I was privileged enough to play collegiate baseball for four years and professionally for two years before riding into the sunset of retirement where the real challenge began- figuring out how to relate my athletic experience to everyday life. My whole athletic life was spent striving for goals that were physically attainable if I put […]
Set Apart for Love of Christ: A Vocation Story
Have you ever stopped to consider the sacred vessels used by the priest at Mass, the vessels in which the Lord of Heaven and earth comes to humbly dwell so that He may physically be present with us? Think of the chalice into which the priest places the wine mingled with water. Following the words […]
Petulant Children Seeking Patience
“The virtue of patience is the one which most assures us of perfection.” -St. Francis de Sales Patience, where have you gone? I’m trying so hard to find you as this dear little one settles down for a nap, but his incessant whimpering for ‘mama’ is difficult to ignore. All of my tried and true […]
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