How the Liturgy of the Hours Derived from Jewish Prayer Cycles

I posted an article over at the Crucified Rabbi Website about how the Catholic Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours) derives from Jewish cycles of prayers found in the Psalms and in other places in the Old Testament. Even Saint Benedict recognized this truth.

Please take a look:

The Liturgy of the Hours and Jewish Prayer (crucifiedrabbi.com)

Is it fun to watch people die? or "On Being an Inglorious Bastard"

So Quintin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds just came out.

I've never seen a Quintin Tarantino film (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, etc). According to several friends, I'm missing out on some great "art". However, from what I can tell, these films have an adolescent fascination with death and cruelty. I'm sure some people find it amusing to watch one person place a gun in the mouth of another person, I just find it strange...hardly entertaining. I've also never seen a Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th. And I admit it - I'm a movie nerd.

I like movies that spark ideas or conversations. For example, I like anything that has Will Smith fighting against quasi-humanoid opponents - I, Robot, and I am Legend (come on, you've got to love it when that one robot winks at Will Smith). I'm a movie nerd.

Anyway, back to Tarantino. I just noticed the top three grossing films at the box office and it's depressing. Here's the list as of Aug 30:

1. Final Destination (28.3 million)
2. Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (20 million)
3. H2: Halloween II (17.4 million)
4. District 9 (10.7 million)
5. G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra (8 million)

Alright, the first three are movies about people being killed. This gives me the heebee-jeebees. Final Destination is about death. In Inglourious Basterds (more on the title below) Tarantino finally became politically correct - now he's slaughtering evil Nazis. Halloween II? It's not even October yet...

District 9 holds the number 4 slot. The film is apparently about humans vs. aliens - something that I usually like. I investigated and discovered that Will Smith is not featured in the film. Bummer.

Number 5 is G.I. Joe. I guess this film is technically violent, but it's just not that cool - definitely not as cool as Transformers (and apparent Transformers 2 was terrible - but I haven't seen it).

So what does this tell me? It seems that America is obsessed with death. We are confirming our identity as a culture of death and violence. I can't imagine paying money to watch two hours of murder - even if it is murdering Nazis. Tarantino's title Inglourious Basterds is apropos when we recall Saint Irenaeus famous quote about glory:

Gloria Dei vivens homo.
"Man fully alive is the glory of God."

Murder is certainly inglorious.

This blog post is a bit different from other posts. I want to invite everyone to the comments box for your opinion. Even if you don't usually comment, please leave a comment.

Why are slasher films ranked one, two, and three at the box office? Has this ever happened before and what does it say about our nation and culture?

Is it the economy? Do people hate themselves? Do we feel like inglorious bastards.

Godspeed,
Taylor

Photos from our vacation in Colorado

Catching rainbow trout on a "pink princess fishing pole" (Not available in your Orvis catalogue)

This August, the Marshall family loaded up the mini-van and drove to Colorado to visit my wife's parents and sister. We had a great time hiking, trout fishing, and riding horses. We even rode a ski lift (which is scary when you see trees and rocks instead of powdery white snow below you).

Here are some photos to give you an idea of how much fun we had.

We're about to the bob-sled down the mountain!

Count 'em: That's six rainbow trout!

Hanging out at a Texas rest stop. One of the signs
behind us (not in pic) read: "Watch out for rattle snakes!"

Riding a pretty blonde horse.

Amazing Video About Being Catholic (Please Watch)

As a somewhat recent convert to the Catholic Church (we've been Catholic just over three years), this video brought tears to my eyes. I've tried to explain to friends and families why we made this transition. For being a brief video, it just about says it all. Being Catholic is so right, true, and beautiful.

Please watch the video and share your thoughts.

Taylor

Why did Abortion become a Kennedy cause?

From the Wall Street Journal (January, 2009):

How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma
By ANNE HENDERSHOTT

For faithful Roman Catholics, the thought of yet another pro-choice Kennedy positioned to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Yet if Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Catholics John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, abortion-rights advocates will have just such a champion.

Ms. Kennedy was so concerned to assure pro-abortion leaders in New York, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Dec. 18, that on the same day Ms. Kennedy telephoned New York Gov. David Patterson to declare interest in the Senate seat, "one of her first calls was to an abortion rights group, indicating she will be strongly pro-choice."

Read the whole thing from WSJ.

HT: Deacon Greg Kandra

Why can't women be Catholic priests?

Why can't women be Catholic priests? This is a very good question and it deserves a good answer.

Here's the short answer: Christ had plenty of female followers. Yet, He did not ordain them - only men. It's Christ's decision and the Church merely follow his pattern.

Moreover, Mary is the greatest human being ever created, and yet she was not a priest. If any human "deserved" to be a priest, it was her and yet she was not a priest.

The reason for a male-only priesthood is that the Church if the "Bride of Christ". Christ is the "Groom". Thus, it is necessary for those who represent Christ (i.e. priests) to be male and represent the Groom to the rest of us who are the Bride of Christ.

Moreover, the physical body of Christ is male and thus in the Eucharist it is appropriate for a male to utter the sacred words: "This is my Body".

I find that the Mary argument works best with Catholics. It shows that priesthood doesn't necessitate holiness or access to God. Some of the greatest saints were never priests (e.g. Saint Joseph, St. Therese).

I'll be on Guadalupe Radio again at Noon (Aug 24)

Dave Palmer at Guadalupe Radio (910 AM in the Dallas/Fort Worth/North Texas region) has invited me back to talk about Catholic Apologetics today at 12:00 pm.

Please tune in and call in with your questions!

You can also listen live online at Guadalupe radio's website.

Saint Paul on Matrimony and Marital Roles

Click on the triangular “play” button above.
23 minutes.

How do we understand Paul’s doctrine of matrimony and marital roles when he writes:

• Saint Paul: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church” (Eph 5:23)
• Saint Paul: “Let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands (Eph 5:24).

Listen and find out! It’s actually very beautiful and encouraging for both husbands and wives.

Click here for articles and free Catholic mp3 download file. It's easy and convenient with no strings attached: The Catholic Perspective on Paul

More Augustine quotes on Purgatory

A Protestant friend of mine on Facebook challenged me to provide more quotes from Saint Augustine regarding prayers for the dead and purgatory. Here are two more quotes to supplement the one given last week:

For our part, we recognize that even in this life some punishments are purgatorial--not, indeed, to those whose life is none the better, but rather the worse for them, but to those who are constrained by them to amend their life.

All other punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on every one by divine providence, are sent either on account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and reveal a man's graces. They may be inflicted by the instrumentality of bad men and angels as well as of the good. For even if any one suffers some hurt through another's wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God, who by His just though hidden judgment permits it to be done, sins not.

But temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But of those who suffer temporary punishments after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains which are to follow that judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment of the world to come.

Saint Augustine City of God, 21, 13 (emphasis mine)

The quote above is from the latter years of Saint Augustine's life (426 - he died in 430). The passage reveals his fully developed theology. Here he makes the Catholic distinction between temporal punishment and eternal punishment and states that the former my be suffered after death. These post-mortem sufferings are not those eternal pains of Hell, but a different kind of punishment: purgatorial pains.
Augustine's words, not mine.

Saint Augustine goes on to explain the need for prayers for the dead and sheds more light on the temporary post-mortem sufferings of the "regenerated":

For some of the dead, indeed, the prayer of the Church or of pious individuals is heard; but it is for those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not spend their life so wickedly that they can be judged unworthy of such compassion, nor so well that they can be considered to have no need of it.

As also, after the resurrection, there will be some of the dead to whom, after they have endured the pains proper to the spirits of the dead, mercy shall be accorded, and acquittal from the punishment of the eternal fire. For were there not some whose sins, though not remitted in this life, shall be remitted in that which is to come, it could not be truly said, "They shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, neither in that which is to come.' But when the Judge of quick and dead has said, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,' and to those on the other side, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels,' and 'These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life,' it were excessively presumptuous to say that the punishment of any of those whom God has said shall go away into eternal punishment shall not be eternal, and so bring either despair or doubt upon the corresponding promise of life eternal."

Saint Augustine City of God 21, 24

Here we have Augustine's approval of prayers for the dead. We also have him citing Matthew 12:32 as proof that sins can be remitted not only in this life, but in the world to come. You may remember from an earlier post this month that Saint Gregory the Great cited the same verse in Matthew as teaching the existence of a purgatorial state after death (visit post: Gregory the Great on Purgatory).

If you're interested in Saint Paul's argument for purgatory ("saved through fire") please visit my other site - The Catholic Perspective on Paul.

No Posts - I'll be back on Tuesday

I apologize for the lack of posts. I'm in Colorado with my family. I'll be back on Tuesday.

I'll be on the radio talking about Apologetics (Aug 10)

Dave Palmer at Guadalupe Radio (910 AM in the Dallas/Fort Worth/North Texas region) has invited me to come on today and talk about Catholic Apologetics sometime around 12:30pm.

Please call in!

You can also listen live online at Guadalupe radio's website.

My new book, The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity

Speaking the Jewish custom for praying for the dead, I have a new book coming out this Fall:

The Crucified Rabbi:
Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity

You may remember the show I did on the Catholic Answers radio show earlier this year on "Whether the pope wears a yarmulke". This is the final book form that began to come together in 2007.

In the book, I talk a little about my conversion to the Catholic Faith, but also about Messianic prophecy, Davidic typology of the Kingdom of God and how it relates to Catholic ecclesiology. I look at Jewish tevilah washings and the mikvah as they relate to baptism, infant baptism, and baptismal regeneration. The Passover and the Holy Mass. Hebrew notions of priesthood and the New Testament notion of priesthood. There's even a chapter on "Jewish Vestments, Catholic Vestments" with lots of cool quotes form Philo and Josephus on the symoblism of vestments.

I also look at the Temple architecture as it has related to the traditional architecture of Catholic Cathedrals. Marriage, divorce, and annulments in light of the stipulations of Moses. Jewish Nazirite vows and the Catholic monastic tradition. Jewish feast days and how they relate the Catholic liturgical calendar (and how they relate to Christian eschatology). There's also a section on saints and praying for the dead. Lastly, I look at Jewish and Catholic tradition regarding the resurrection of the body and the afterlife.

There's lots of Scripture and lots of rabbinical quotations if you're in to that sort of thing. It is also explains why Catholics do not participate in "Messianic Judaism" for ecclesiological reasons.

Here's another photo:

I'm hoping that it will be out by Yom Kippur 2009. If not, then Hanukkah 2009.

Please visit the book's site: The Crucified Rabbi (www.crucifiedrabbi.com)

Saint Augustine on Purgatory

Did Church Fathers other than Saint Gregory the Great teach Purgatory? You betcha.

The Acts of Paul and Thekla, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, St Cyprian, St Basil, St Gregory Nyssa, St Ephraem, St Jerome, and St Augustine - all taught purgatory.

Remember, the Jews pray for the dead and the early Church carried over this OT practice.

Here's Saint Augustine on purgatory:

"And it is not impossible that something of the same kind may take place even after this life. It is a matter that may be inquired into, and either ascertained or left doubtful, whether some believers shall pass through a kind of purgatorial fire, and in proportion as they have loved with more or less devotion the goods that perish, be less or more quickly delivered from it. This cannot, however, be the case of any of those of whom it is said, that they 'shall not inherit the kingdom of God,' unless after suitable repentance their sins be forgiven them. When I say 'suitable,' I mean that they are not to be unfruitful in almsgiving; for Holy Scripture lays so much stress on this virtue, that our Lord tells us beforehand, that He will ascribe no merit to those on His right hand but that they abound in it, and no defect to those on His left hand but their want of it, when He shall say to the former, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom," and to the latter, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.'"

Saint Augustine, Enchiridion, 69

St John Chrysostom on the power of Anointing the Sick

One of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Faith is the anointing of the sick:

"The Apostles anointed the sick with oil and cured them." (Mark 6:13).

"The presbyters are called to anoint the sick with oil and pray over them. Their sins are forgiven" (James 5:14).

Writing in the 300s, Saint John Chrysostom testified to the sacrament's power:

"For not only at the time of regeneration, but afterwards also, they have authority to forgive sins. 'Is any sick among you?' it is said, 'let him call for the elders of the Church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up: and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him.'"

John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, 3:6 (A.D. 386)

Notice how Saint Chrysostom confirms the words of Saint James that this sacrament "forgives sins". This is why it administered in illness and before death.

Priest drowns while trying to save his nephew

Father Ricardas Repsys' Catholic parishioners said Wednesday they weren't surprised their quiet, compassionate priest died doing something selfless: trying to rescue his drowning nephew in Lake St. Clair.

Full story from Detroit News.

Saint Gregory of Tours on the Assumption of Mary

August is the month of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here is one of the earliest quotes about the assumption of the Blessed Mother by Saint Gregory of Tours from the end of the 6th century:

The Apostles took up her body on a bier and placed it in a tomb; and they guarded it, expecting the Lord to come. And behold, again the Lord stood by them; and the holy body having been received, He commanded that it be taken in a cloud into paradise: where now, rejoined to the soul, she rejoices with the Lord's chosen ones."

Gregory of Tours, Book of Miracles, 1:4

All the early accounts assume the presence of the Holy Apostles at the assumption of Mary. This is typically how it is depicted in religious art.

Read also:
Is the assumption of Mary in the Bible?

and

Finding the historical date of the assumption of Mary

Mel Gibson's marriage receives annulment decree - from his own father

Mel Gibson's marraige has been declared null and void - not by the Holy Father but by his own father.

Mel's 90-year-old father Hutton Gibson in Houston, Texas has paved the way for his son to marry his pregnant Russian girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.

"After the discussion ended, Hutton pounded his fist on the table and said, ‘It is true that this union did not have what it takes to be a true marriage.'"

This is where sedevacantism and sedeprivationism lead. (What's sedeprivationism? - click here).

Things haven't been so complicated since the days of Henry VIII.

NineMSN has the story.

Did you know that Gluttony has Six Daughters?

I just got back from vacation in South Carolina. A beautiful place with lots of great food (when you visit, be sure to order "shrimp and grits"). I ate a bit too much - gained a couple of pounds. So I was reading on the topic and here's what I found.

Did you know that the "deadly sin" of Gluttony is the proud mother of six? According to Saint Gregory the Great (Moralia, 31, 45), the capital sin of gluttony (eating and drinking too much) has "six daughters". The daughters of gluttony are:

1. excessive joy
   
2. unseemly joy
   
3. scurrility (levity in behavior)
   
4. uncleanness (related to vomiting and sexual impurity)
   
5. loquaciousness
   
6. dullness of mind as regards the understanding

On this topic, Saint Thomas Aquinas reminds us of this verse: "I thought in my heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I might turn my mind in wisdom" (Ecc 2:3).

Time to go eat my salad for lunch...

Episode #10 The Celibacy and Fatherhood of the Apostle Paul

Click on the triangular “play” button above.
21 minutes.

• The Apostle Paul was celibate and yet he called himself a “father”.
• Did Christ really prohibit calling all men “father”? If so, why did Paul call himself a spiritual “father”?
• Learn how the Catholic discipline of celibacy and spiritual fatherhood are related in Saint Paul and in the Catholic Church.

Visit the website: Catholic Perspective on Paul

Subscribe to “PaulCast” via iTunes

Saint Gregory the Great on Purgatory

Gregory the Great was a saint, church father, pope, liturgist, theologian, and patron of missionary work in pagan lands.

In the passage cited below, Saint Gregory discusses purgatory. First, he states that there is "cleansing fire" that "purges" away "minor faults". Second, he cites Scripture to substantiate the doctrine. Third, he makes a logical argument from the words of Christ demonstrating that sins can and will be forgiven in the world to come.

"Each one will be presented to the Judge exactly as he was when he departed this life. Yet, there must be a cleansing fire before judgment, because of some minor faults that may remain to be purged away.

Does not Christ, the Truth, say that if anyone blasphemes against the Holy Spirit he shall not be forgiven "either in this world or in the world to come" (Mt 12:32)? From this statement we learn that some sins can be forgiven in this world and some in the world to come. For, if forgiveness is refused for a particular sin, we conclude logically that it is granted for others. This must apply, as I said, to slight transgressions."

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, 4:39 (A.D. 594).

What's the take-home principle? It's this. The Church Fathers already had a robust theology of post-mortem purgation by the sixth century and they found it justified in Sacred Scripture.

For more Scriptural proof for Purgatory visit: The Apostle Paul on Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead.