Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Today is the First Sunday in Advent, and along with all of the coverage of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the plethora of Christmas stuff around, we're also presented with another way of celebrating the time before the birth of Our Saviour: Advent. The first season in the liturgical calendar, this year promises to be …
Continue reading "A Couple of Things Worth Remembering About Advent"
Not this time: Pat Robertson advised a viewer of yesterday's 700 Club to avoid putting a "guilt trip" on those who want to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's. During the show's advice segment, a viewer asked Robertson how she should address a friend who was dating another woman "because his wife as he knows her …
Continue reading "Pat Robertson Isn't Correct on Divorce and Alzheimers"
John Richarson, the Ugley Vicar, has his doubts about the course of Anglican Evangelicalism after the "Keele" commitment to stay within in the Church of England: When I was a young trainee clergyman (just six years on from Keele), the phrase going round was that we were ‘in it to win it’. In other words, …
Continue reading "The Perils of Any "Renewal Movement" Staying in an Established Church"
I've dealt with the issue of Catholic Charismatic covenant communities--and why I avoided them--at length on this blog. Now my friend John Flaherty has started a Facebook group on the subject entitled Covenant Community: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It's a road that is potentially painful for some, but it's time for some …
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Being unprepared for major change isn't new in Roman Catholicism, and it's about to happen again: Since changes were approved by the Vatican in December, U.S. bishops have been preparing priests and lay Catholics for the first use of the revised missal on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent. But despite an aggressive effort …
While out and about on holiday earlier this week, I purchased at an antique store a copy of a family Catholic Bible from the early 1950's. In addition to translations that have fallen out of favour (even in the RCC) it contains several fascinating aspects that you don't see any more. First, it gives an …
Word of God Chorus and Orchestra: Praises for the King (W/G 8020, 1980) Throughout the 1970's the Word of God, that Catholic Charismatic covenant community par excellence in Ann Arbor, Michigan, had two distinguishing features. The first was its authoritarian headship structure, whose main architects were Steve Clark and Ralph Martin. The second was its …
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"Teacher, what is the great commandment in the Law?" His answer was: "'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' This is the great first commandment. (Matthew 22:36-38) Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, Abbé de Saint-Cyran was a French monk who made …
In the midst of the ongoing tragedy of the recent tornadoes here in Tennessee and around the South-east, I received a most interesting document: an exchange of 1975 correspondence between Pat Robertson and Bob Mumford (and some other items) re Pat's objections to the "shepherding movement" in vogue at the time. That movement was the …
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The Berets: The Mass for Peace (1969) Catholics have been composing musical settings for Mass since the days of Gregory the Great and before, but the 1960's and 1970's saw the introduction of entirely new styles of music for the sacred mysteries. One of the more innovative productions was the so-called "Mass for Peace" by …
Positive Infinity 