A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward
This started out as a response to someone’s blog, but I got carried away. Here are some answers to some common misunderstandings regarding the Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church, especially with reference to the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. Pardon me for just dumping it here with so little introduction or conclusion, but I …
Continue reading “What Sacred Tradition Is and Is Not: 7 Answers to Common Misconceptions”
I have other things to do today [insert other usual disclaimers which I then go on to ignore], but my dear friend Laura of Catholic Cravings and my new friend Ryan of the Back of the World are inaugurating their splendid new effort, O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and tomorrow, by my reckoning, being …
Today is the feast day of St. Augustine, and though I have a lot of other things on my plate today, I thought it was an opportune time to make a first post in a matter that’s been boiling over in my head for a while. A couple of months ago I finished reading Alister …
Continue reading “The Doctrine of Justification: Augustine is Catholic”
A post that’s relevant to our recent focus here on Baptism just came across the feed. From the Deacon’s Bench: The Sunday after the Epiphany is the Sunday of the baptism of Jesus. And on each of these Sundays, year after year, Benedict XVI administered the first sacrament of Christian initiation to a certain number …
Continue reading “Pope Benedict ordered change in baptismal liturgy before resigning”
Part of an ongoing series on Baptism In Depth. An important context for understanding what Baptism is and how the New Testament Church viewed it can be found in the Old Testament types (Greek τύποι, ‘examples’, ‘figures’) which New Testament authors saw to foreshadow Baptism. The two most important types for Baptism which the Apostles …
Continue reading “Types for Baptism in the Old Testament (Baptism In Depth)”
Today, while reflecting on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, I had a few more thoughts about the recent controversy over Substitutionary Atonement. Certainly there is a real sense in which the Atonement is substitutionary in the Catholic mind: For in the Sorrowful Mysteries, we are encouraged to think on Christ bearing the sufferings for …
Continue reading “Some more thoughts on Substitutionary Atonement”
I don’t have a lot of time for an update today, and am in no mood for argument; but this is an important day: the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the celebration of our Blessed Mother being assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life, as …
[NOTE: This is not to be confused with Substitutiary Locomotion.] I suppose it’s time to raise my blowhole for a few moments. It’s been a hard few weeks, with yet another ugly head rising from the stump of my thesis, just as soon as I thought I’d dealt the death blow. I pray, once again, …
Part 2 of a series on Indulgences. Part 1. So last time, I showed you the basic idea of indulgences: First, that sin has temporal consequences, apart from the guilt which Jesus forgives by His grace — the misery that our sin causes for us and others, called the temporal punishment, which we still must …
As always, this turned out to be longer and more involved than I intended. So consider this part 1 in a series on Indulgences. And no, I haven’t forgotten about Baptism. The other day Pope Francis granted a plenary indulgence to those devoted faithful who would follow his tweets or other coverage of the World …