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The thing you learned in RCIA...

 I moderate a Facebook group for Catholic Converts. Someone posed a question today for the ground that I thought was very good. " What was the one thing you learned in RCIA that made such an impact on you, that you knew you had made the right decision in becoming Catholic?" The following was my answer... I don't know if it was so much actually in RCIA but in my personal conversion process as I was doing serious research on what the Catholic Church actually taught. My spiritual director at the time had given me a copy of the Catechism and told me to read it through and see if there were any "deal breakers" and go from there.    There was one series of sections about Catholic social justice in the middle that honestly scared me. Coming from the Episcopal church as clergy where terms like "social justice" were code words for extreme political agenda that were used to bludgeon opponents, I very much feared that that would be the deal breaker. B

Dune 2: I have opinions

So, finally got around to seeing Dune 2 , which is a designation I don't care for. It's really not a sequel. It's just the continuation of the first movie, which stopped right after the Harkonnen attack House Atreides on Arrakis. Really, the first film only got to the very start of the good part of the novel when Paul Atreides first encountered the Fremen on Dune. So, really "Dune 2" is just the good part of the first novel. SPOILER ALERTS: I AM GOING TO NOW DISCUSS THE FILM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.  I had mixed feelings about going to see this movie. I did not particularly care for the first one, but Dune is one of my all time favorite Science Fiction novels. I have read the entire series, as well as the expanded prequel universe his son wrote, the Butlerian Jihad trilogy being by far the best of his son's work. They got progressively worse as they went along after that.  Really, the first 4 original Frank Herbert novels are all amazing in their own right. Th

The Hound of Heaven

  In 1890, a poem was published in England by a homeless man named Francis Thompson. He had submitted the poem to a magazine at the urging of a Catholic priest who had been counseling him for his chronic opium addiction and recognized the beauty of the man’s writings. The editor of the Catholic magazine was also so impressed with the poem that he went into the streets and searched out this homeless poet and found him lodging at a halfway house. The poem, entitled “The Hound of Heaven,” quickly became one of the most famous religious poems in the English language and had a profound impact on later writers like JRR Tolkien, GK Chesterton, and Robert Frost because the poem tells the story of a human soul who tries to flee from God. The soul thinks that it will lose its freedom in the company of God, but ultimately finds that only true freedom can be found in God’s loving embrace. This theme is at the center of today’s Mass readings. In the reading from 2nd Chronicles (36:14-16, 19-23)

Food for Thought...

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An interesting interview of Malcolm Guite

The podcast Journey to the Stage did a great interview with poet Malcolm Guite. Here is part two . He talks about poetry and Tolkien, etc. I had the great pleasure of meeting Guite when I was in Cambridge. He's a lovely chap and a true English National Treasure.

Thoughts on the 3rd Sunday of Lent

Today, the Gospel reading confronts the hearers today with a profound image of Jesus performing an act that seems out of character for Jesus. The act might seem excessive, or even violent. Did Jesus, in fact, act out of violence in today’s reading? This is a depiction of Jesus that would seem to be at odds with the more peaceful images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd or of the loving Son of the Father who dies for the world for the forgiveness of sins. To give a little background to the Gospel passage, the first reading is from the Book of Exodus (20: 1-17) . The story tells of the giving of the Ten Commandments, which form the foundation of God's covenant with His people. Among these commandments is the injunction, "You shall not kill." This commandment reminds us of the sacredness of human life and the inherent dignity of every person. It calls us to reject violence in all its forms and to strive for peace and reconciliation in our relationships. The Psalmist ( Psalm 19

Upcoming Election Thoughts

As I posted a few weeks ago, I follow politics and I vote (or at least try to). Being a leftover Jeffersonian agrarian, there is not much left on the Federal level that much enthuses me any more. We have a sham Federal election every 2 years, but the two headed uni-party has been in control of the American system for so long that they have rigged the entire system to virtually ensure one or the other of the so-called political parties always has power. These so called parties try really hard to spin the tale of the idea that we really have a choice as the American voters, but it is not really a choice. They try to spin is as Liberal versus Conservative, but there really are not any true Jeffersonian Conservatives any more on the Federal level. Republicans try to pretend to be Conservative, but they are really still the party of Lincoln. Lincoln was by far the farthest to the Left of all the candidates who ran for President in 1860. Most modern Republicans, despite howls to the contrary

This makes the world a better place...

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