The Arrow's Path

I have a friend who, like myself, was largely kicked out of the established Anglican church. While I went to Rome, he decided to go more Protestant, or at least more conservative Anglican. In the Catholic world, he would largely be labeled a "rad trad" but he has a good heart. While I don't agree with him on some things, he does understand about what it means to be a church planter, something that I think both the Catholic Church and other ecclesial bodies or denominations are not exceptionally good at as whole.  There are exceptions, of course. Religious orders and certain Protestant denominations that do church planting well do it very well indeed, but on the whole, it's a mixed bag of (some) success and (more likely) failure. Church planting is extremely hard, but in some ways might actually be easier than entering an existing church that is dying or dead because you get to start with a clean slate.  He wrote a very insightful substack article on his experience 2.5...

     Divine Mercy Sunday is a profound occasion for Catholics to reflect on the boundless mercy of God and the importance of receiving the Eucharist. In many Dioceses around the country, many children receive First Communion on this day. The readings on this Sunday of the Divine Mercy offer us many insights into the significance of this sacrament called the Eucharist, particularly on a day dedicated to celebrating God's mercy.      The Acts of the Apostles is the second half of the Gospel of Luke . In Acts 2:42-47, we encounter the early Christian community just shortly after the Resurrection. This earliest of Christian communities is devoted to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and the prayers. Today’s passage highlights the central role of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. The breaking of bread signifies not only the physical act of sharing a meal, but also the spiritual nourishment that comes from receiving Christ in Communion...

I had a question posed to me as follows: One thing that I've struggled with is which parts of the bible to take literally, which parts are interpretive, and which are pure allegory for something else? Is every word from the words of the letters of Paul to be set in stone and unmovable? Are we to take the Book of Kings or the Book of Issiah as clear history? My response: OK, let's talk about the basic Catholic approach to interpreting Scripture. It's a bit different than a lot of methods in the Protestant realm(s). The Church interprets Scripture through the 4 Senses of Scripture. So of like the lenses of your glasses to help you to read. If you are looking through the lens of a wrong prescription, your view of the object is distorted or fuzzy.    A lot of Protestants get sucked into this "It's either literal or figurative but it can't be both" dichotomy. The way we interpret Scripture in the Catholic tradition is not an either/or distinction. I ...

I have been out of sorts lately. I do not know how to describe where I have been mentally and spiritually the last few months. It's not a "dark night of the soul" kind of thing or anything like that. It's not some sort of spiritual oppression or demonic attack. (At least, I don't think it is.) It has been what I can only describe as a Jimmy Carter-style spiritual malaise. I just feel like I just don't really want anything to do with worship or things religious.   It is not like I am opposed to them or am angry about anything specifically that I know of. It is feels like when someone says, "Hey, let's go out to eat fast food and some hamburgers..." It's not that you are not hungry , or even opposed to going out to get some sort of fast food, but and you don't know what you want exactly, but all you do know is that you just don't want a hamburger. That is the way I have been feeling about Lent this year: i was hungry for something, b...

Someone sent me a question about the Pope's recent comment that went viral about God not hearing the prayers of people who invoke His name in war, or words to that effect. It was a rather long query, which largely only asked on question. The poster was saying she had Protestant friends who were using the quote to badmouth the Pope and how she should respond. I wrote up a response to the question: ________________________________________________________ Well, a few things to take into consideration here:   1. Whenever a catchy quote from a Pope is taken and run with in the media and people start losing their minds over it, it is *very important* to read the quote in the actual context of what the Pope was actually saying. I am very much in favor of always reading primary sources and not hearsay or what the media says that he said. Read it for yourself before jumping to conclusions. In this instance, it was from a homily he gave, the exact text of which you can read here ...

 I laughed really hard at this.