A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward
Hi! No, I haven’t abandoned my blog. Real life has been keeping me pretty busy, but I do have some ideas in pots boiling for articles to share. A few months ago, I friend asked me to tell my conversion story. On the fly, I came up with what I thought was a pretty good, …
Continue reading “The Church, Lost and Found: My First Concise, Complete Conversion Narrative”
The next chapter in my conversion story, and the continuation of my post about the first time I went to Mass in Oxford, Mississippi. So I checked the Catholic Church in Oxford off my list. Before I even moved to Oxford, I had made an informal list of churches I wanted to visit. It included, …
A common charge against the Catholic Church that I’ve heard from a number of opponents is against the fact that the Church obligates her children to attend Mass each Sunday and on other declared holy days of obligation, and especially against the fact that “it’s a mortal sin to miss Mass.” Supposedly this is an …
Continue reading “The Sunday Obligation: “Missing Mass is a Mortal Sin”?”
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”
This Sunday is the Solemnity of Christ the King — properly “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of the Universe” — the last Sunday of the liturgical year, before Advent begins it anew, when we celebrate Jesus’s Divine Kingship over all Creation. I had a brief thought this morning at Mass, in response to the criticisms …
This past Sunday I had the opportunity to attend a Mass in Spanish. I thought I would share a bit of my cultural reconnaissance. First, I know exceedingly little Spanish — a truly sad paucity, given that I took Spanish in school for two and half years (though that was now over ten years ago). …
(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 …
This is my 100th post here, apparently. Time flies, and the counter runs up quickly, when I post every day like I have been this month! Brad posted this video, and I’ve seen it floating around the Twittersphere — and it’s excellent: a short but very powerful piece on liturgical reform by the Catholic News …
Continue reading “Expression vs. Impression in Liturgy and Worship”
Last Sunday I attended my first traditional Latin Mass, at a local parish in Alabama while I was home visiting my parents. I had been meaning to check it out for a while. It was considerably different than what I’ve been used to; though I could still observe the basic form of the Mass. I …
One of the many things I love about Catholicism is that in our liturgy, in our worship, in our Sacraments, the focus is on Christ, not on the man at the front of the church. In evangelical Christianity especially, there’s such a tendency to build up a cult of personality around a popular and well-liked …
