The Arrow's Path

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.  

     The liturgy of Palm Sunday can often seem a little disjointed. If weather permits, Mass actually opens outside the building with the Liturgy of the Palms. The priest reads from the Gospel of Matthew 21:1–11, which presents the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This is a very joy-filled scene that brims with hope and expectation. Crowds gather. Cloaks are laid on the road. Palm branches are waved as the people cry out, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” There is a great moment of recognition where Jesus is welcomed as the coming King and Messiah. However, as the people process into the Church, this joyful Gospel turns out to not even be the primary focus. Instead, the Church proclaims the Passion of Christ in its entirety. The liturgy starts with joyful expectation but ends with the most powerful story every told.        At first glance, the triumphal entry and the Passion seem to stand in stark contrast to each other. The beginning is marked...

The Church of England is, sadly, lost. This picture from the enthronement of the person pretending to be the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday tells you all you need to know. The heterodox apostasy of this picture is staggering. A woman, being sworn in by the dean of Canterbury cathedral, who is himself a partnered homosexual, with a crazed feminist priestess peering over the throne...I am truly saddened.   

I had a question from a reader: I walked into Mass this morning (the 5th Sunday of Lent) and all the statues, candles, pictures and crucifixes were covered with violet cloth. It gave me the eeriest feeling of the world without God. Tonight, at a different parish, nothing is covered. What's up with this? Someone told me this is Passion Sunday. That's new to me as well. My response: This custom tacitly references the parable (if it is a parable) that Jesus tells of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The Rich Man dies and goes basically to hell (gehenna) and can see over into what the text refers to as 'Abraham's bosom' but can't get there. He can see Lazarus in paradise (the same poor beggar he walked by for years and never helped while he was alive) but he can't get to Abraham's bosom because he's permanently separated from God. He has to stand in the shadows and peer across the chasm, but can't cross over into the light. I preface that story from the...