A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward
Hello, dear friends. I’m still around. I’m continuing to struggle with some things — not least of all a real terror of a paper — but I think the sun is beginning to shine through the clouds, and I hope, I pray, that I’ll soon be able to return to you on a more regular basis. I …
Continue reading “The Outpouring of Divine Mercy: A thought on the Work of God among all Christians”
(This is a little bit I wrote as a comment to a post of my dear blogfriend JessicaHof, “Why go to Church?” The discussion there is worth reading, but I also thought my response here might make a rare, short, succinct post for The Lonely Pilgrim.) The deeper Catholic reason why Catholics must go to …
So a year ago tomorrow — or the second Sunday in September, yesterday — I posted my first entry here, and the Lonely Pilgrim embarked on the final leg of his journey in becoming Catholic. Last night was again the start of the new RCIA class in our parish, St. John the Evangelist Parish of …
Continue reading “The new class: Blog anniversary, RCIA, and some new things learned”
There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, …
For the past little while, since I’ve been engaging with hostile Protestants, I’ve been increasingly troubled. Because to my Protestant-steeped brain, their reading of the Apostle Paul sounds correct—the way I’ve been raised up to read him. I’ve struggled to read the Catholic idea of “justification through faith plus works” in his thought (even though …
A little flash that just occurred to me: Protestants argue sola fide, that we are justified by faith alone. The Catholic position is often presented as fide et operis, by faith and works. But Catholics and Protestants agree that it is not our action or operation, either in having faith or doing works, that saves …
I posted these in a comment to somebody, and thought they might be worth sharing: The best analogy I can think of to the Catholic understanding of salvation — and this has made all the difference in my life and in my Christian walk — is that we are trapped in our sins at the …
Continue reading “Analogies for the Catholic view of grace and salvation”
Today is the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, two saints who almost need no introduction: they are the most prominent men, besides Jesus, in the New Testament — Peter, the foremost of the Apostles, on whom Christ said he would found His Church; and Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, radically converted on the …
Continue reading “Saints Peter and Paul: Apostles to the Protestants?”
I feel like I’ve been on the offensive a lot lately. I apologize for that. I’ve made three posts in the past two weeks against sola scriptura — and I have to confess, it’s been partly out of annoyance at the closed-mindedness the doctrine engenders. Forgive me for that. My deeper aim, in this blog …
I presently have about four posts half-written; so forgive me if I begin another and for a moment indulge my inner fanboy and let loose a cheer for our pope. As I’ve been writing, there has been a longstanding conflict between Traditionalist Catholics and the Mother Church over the reforms of Vatican II, with the …
Continue reading “Pope Benedict XVI: A Father of Reconciliation”