Monday, December 31, 2007

The Reason Why Many People Have An Incorrect Or Insufficient Understanding Of Grace

"In the natural order...no one has ever philosophized about the natural order of life in man without starting from, or at least reverting to, the nature of man on which it rests and to which it conforms. But in the supernatural order this point is often neglected; no foundation analogous to nature is looked for, and that is the reason why a clear, sound idea of the supernatural order is so rarely achieved."

-Matthias Joseph Scheeben in Nature and Grace.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

One More Fruit Of My Semester

This time I give to you for your reading pleasure (and especially you priests and seminarians out there) my term paper for my Second Vatican Ecumenical Council class, The Necessity of the Study of the Fathers of the Church for Priests in Light of the Second Vatican Council's Optatam Totius.

Enjoy!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

I Present To You....

Daniel Mark Garland III!


He was born on December 21, the feast day of St. Peter Canisius, and weighed in at 6 pounds 7 ounces, with a height of 19 1/2 inches. He arrived at 6:39am on his due date (already a very obedient child!). Thank you all of you who have kept us in your prayers! We are incredibly grateful.
Blogging will be sparse over the next week or so. My wife and I are trying to catch up on sleep and it doesn't look like it's going to happen soon, since the baby likes to sleep all day and stay awake all night. So, in the meantime, a very blessed Merry Christmas to all of you from the Garland Family!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

One Of The Fruits Of My Semester

For your reading pleasure, I present to you my term paper for my Catholic Theology of Tradition and Development of Doctrine class, The Development of the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Friday, December 14, 2007

The Liturgy

“The liturgy is not exclusively a form of instruction, even though it is wholly instructive and includes some formal periods of instruction. It is an active memorial, a presence and a realization, in short, a celebration of the Christian mystery itself—of the whole Christian mystery, for if the liturgy celebrates particular mysteries successively, according to its well-known sequences of feasts—Christmas, Epiphany, Presentation in the Temple, our Lord’s fast, the Passion and Resurrection, etc.—they all form a unique cycle. It is like a unique celebration reaching its climax or innermost center by means of preparation and successive stages. Christmas, Epiphany and our Lord’s fast find their whole meaning in Easter, the mystery of death inseparable from the mystery of new life. Whatever the feast, it is always the celebration of the Covenant, whose sacrament is the Mass, the heart of all the feasts, which is also the memorial of the Lord’s Pasch.

The liturgy adds a sanctoral cycle to its temporal one, because it never separates the Body from the Head, the saints from their Lord and Master. In the celebration of the liturgy the whole mystical vine of salvation is communicated. It is truly the total reality of the Covenant that is offered to us.

It is not only taught to us or merely brought to our notice; it is celebrated, realized, rendered present and communicated not simply as a doctrine and truth, but as a reality. The doctrinal feasts were instituted relatively recently. They have a lot to recommend them, but even before the institution of a feast of Christ the King the liturgy was from beginning to end, and still is, the very realization and proclamation of the universal Lordship of Christ; it taught and teaches this by all that it is; it brings home this truth in a living way, exactly as a family inculcates the sense of duty in a child without giving him theoretical lessons on the subject. There was talk of instituting a feast of Redemption! It is unlikely that this will happen, and it would be quite superfluous if proper use is made of the liturgy, because the liturgy is, from beginning to end, the active celebration of the Redemption, and its efficacious enactment. The liturgy does not theorize on the Redemption, but it ceaselessly brings us into loving communication with Christ our Savior, with his Cross and its fruit, the hope of eternal life. Similarly…the liturgy teaches scarcely any lesson about the Eucharist—and none before the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. But the liturgy celebrates the Eucharist; it offers us the means by which we may prepare ourselves to approach it; the liturgy brings us into communication with it and envelops it in a whole cult and worship, which radiates naturally from it.”

-Yves Congar in The Meaning of Tradition.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Welcome Home


Today Josh Mcmanaway from A New Testament Student blog came into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church! I had the honor and privilege of being his sponsor. Go over to his blog and congratulate him on his first communion, confirmation, and reception into the Catholic Church!
...And in case anyone is wondering, he took St. Thomas Aquinas as his confirmation name....as if there was anyone else!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Happy Holidays, Infidel!


Today is the feast of jolly old St. Nicholas of Myra, who allegedly punched Arius in the face at the Council of Nicaea! However, St. Nick's method of ecumenism wasn't the only method in use by the Fathers of the Church. Mike Aquilina reveals that St. Nicholas' style was the way of the minority and probably spurious at that (somebody should have told St. Jerome!). Check it out!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

What Does The Gospel Of Judas Really Say?


"It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal."

That seems alot different than what the National Geographic Society has revealed it to say! Dr. April Deconick takes a look at the Coptic manuscript and finds out that the NGS needs lessons in translation! Read it here.


Hat tip to Josh at A New Testament Student.