Purify Your Bride

I’ve been thinking of Matthew 5:4 a lot lately, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”. I have been noticing how often I decline to mourn. When I see stuff on world hunger or abortion I want to mourn but then Idon’t. Isee things as being so hopeless. Why get emotionally involved in situation when it […]

There is a story that Pope Leo XIII saw a vision that indicated that during the 20th century Satan would be allowed more power. I’m not sure I believe it but I guess it is possible. I would wonder why he didn’t publish what he saw so nobody would have to guess what, if anything, […]

My daughter was asked to say a prayer as part of the global day of prayer in our city. I went there and I was very proud of her. She did a great job. Still it got me thinking. As a protestant I used to get very excited about events like that. Every time there […]

Al Gore has actually put his finger on something that I am seeing more and more in politics and religion. People have faith in reason but that faith is being shaken because so many people seem to be thinking irrationally. Gore, of course, makes the mistake most people make and assumes he is immune from […]

The pope did not intend his book to be magisterial. He wanted to demonstrate how to read the gospels with great depth and still remain orthodox. He saw the two modern errors of liberalism and fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is an unquestioning discipline that is afraid of critical analysis. The concept is that if you have faith […]

Cardinal Law is seen as the bad guy in the sex abuse scandal. He is the only bishop to lose his job so far. When you look at the details of what he did or failed to do it is not hard to understand why. Still he did something that allowed the Boston Archdiocese to […]

There was a lot of fuss over the president of the Evangelical Theological Society, Dr Beckwith, becoming Catholic. I hadn’t heard of him or the ETS but apparently many had. He was well respected among evangelicals. This creates a huge problem for them. You might wonder why. Can’t they just say they disagree with his […]

Greg K makes a good postabout arguments for God. At least I think it is good because it is similar to thoughts I have had recently. The basic idea is that there are many pieces of evidence that point to the truth of the Catholic faith. Not one of them is airtight. It is always […]

I found an article by Scott Hahn which relates to some of my contemplations on the final judgement. He talks about the paradox of Jesus as sitting on the white throne and judging the nations and at the same time being portrayed as a lamb looking as if it had been slain. It occurred to me […]

There has been much fuss lately about a few cases where protestants converting to the Catholic faith have left again after a few years. Many people point out that their theological reasons for leaving the church are not very strong. That is true about most people leaving the church. They don’t usually leave because of […]

Once on the topic of Hell you almost always run into the question. How could a good God send anybody to hell? Certainly He wouldn’t send ME to hell. Would he? It is related to the atheist argument ‘bad things happen therefore there is no God’. The trouble with both these lines of reasoning is […]

There isn’t much talk about hell these days. It isn’t fashionable. It makes people feel bad. So we don’t talk about it. The trouble is if we don’t talk about it we tend to lose focus on why our faith is so important. If we don’t mention hell we tend to forget why we go […]

When protestants are asked to explain their lack of unity they often reply they do have unity in the important doctrines. This sounds pretty good. Most protestants really believe that anyone who has sincerely given their heart to Jesus will share a faith very similar to theirs. One reason for this is because most christians […]

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and […]