Coffee Klatch

Here is the most popular version of the Prayer of St. Francis. It’s a great thing to think about and consider and pray. You can find other versions of this prayer and links, background info, etc., on Wikipedia.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Christ is risen! This has been an Easter greeting for almost 2,000 years! And the proper response is, “He is risen indeed!” It’s always nice to hear people use these greetings on Easter Sunday. It truly is the reason for the holiday and is worth celebrating.

Oh, and last night at the Easter Vigil mass I came into full communion with the Catholic Church, celebrating my confirmation and First Communion. It was incredibly moving and joyful. And I even had a friend drive down from Grand Rapids just to be here for that. He drove back this morning after the Easter service.

In case you missed the earlier post about my becoming Catholic, I wrote an essay that explains the how and why of my journey over the last few years and why I became convinced that Catholicism is not only right for me, but is the true historical Christian Church. You can read my essay here: A Pilgrimage Ends, A New Journey Begins.

He is risen indeed!!

When I was a student at a Baptist College, I heard about the “Church Fathers” but all I knew was that they lived a long time ago, had long weird-sounding Latinish names, wrote about theology, and were contained in these big sets of old books in our library.

In the last few years, I’ve come to appreciate the Church Fathers for who they were: actual Christians from long ago who wrote about what they believed and how they practiced their Christianity. What’s interesting is that the early Christians wrote about doctrine for the purpose of clarifying what they believed, often in response to heresies that were arising at the time. So if we want to get a snapshot of what Christians believed at a particular time, like how they interpreted various Scripture passages or doctrines, we can read what Christians wrote at the time. We can also trace doctrines through time and build a continuity of beliefs by reading these things from people who lived at different times.

There are lots of resources online for finding out what the Church Fathers believed, as well as reading what they wrote. I’ve included these in my Links Sidebar also.

Fathers Know Best
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Church History Timeline
Chronology of Christianity (1AD-Present)
Church Fathers
Early Church Fathers Overview: Snapshot of the Fathers of the Church
Early Church Fathers

A friend and I have put together a Google Group whose purpose is emailing quotes from the Early Church Fathers. The group is called Fidelis Fidei Patriae (”faithful to the faith of the fathers”), and features a daily (or at least bi-daily) quote from one of the Church Fathers on some subject of Catholic faith, illustrating the faith of the early Church. It’s not a prolific email list, currently only 2 or 3 emails a week, and the quotes are short and have full references.

It’s a great way to learn the thought and theology of our Fathers in the faith.

If you’re interested in subscribing, please visit http://groups.google.com/group/fidelis-fidei-patriae. It’s totally free, of course, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

[tags]religion, theology, church fathers, saints, catholicism[/tags]

Well, since it’s going through the grapevine faster than I can talk individually with people, I figured I’d better get this on the blog. After a spiritual pilgrimage that has lasted about six years, and involved me seeking, reading, researching, talking, praying, counseling, and leaving the Baptist church for the Lutheran church, I’m finally coming to the end of my journey. I’m becoming a Catholic.

Incredible as it may seem, given how ANTI-Catholic I was growing up, I’ve come to the point where my desire for the historical Church matched up with the answers to so many questions I had. Most of the things I thought about Catholicism were wrong. If you’re going to learn about a belief system, it’s a good idea to start with their own official teachings. THEN you can evaluate whether or not you think them credible or worthwhile. But you certainly can’t make an unbiased decision when your only information sources are biased against them. And that’s what I grew up with.

You may have wondered if I was working my way in this direction from the various posts I’ve made about religion during the last year. They seem to have grown progressively Catholic in their point of view.

Rather than blogging about the whole thing or answering the same questions from many different people, I’ve written a relatively brief essay explaining my pilgrimage and the questions and thoughts I had along the way. You’re welcome to download it, print it out, share it with friends, or whatever you like. Just remember that it’s not a theological treatise. It’s a brief narrative that explains the questions I had and the answers I found, without too much detail or citation. Maybe the bigger work with lots of documentation and citations will be forthcoming. But first things first. (For what it’s worth, I do offer a list of websites and books at the end of the essay.)

You can find my essay at: http://coffeeklatch.pfitzinger.net/essay/

The very short version is that I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the Early Church, trying to learn what kind of Church Jesus actually left us. Quite a lot of works by Early Church Fathers (Church leaders during the first 400 years) demonstrated a consistency with each other, with the Bible, and with official Catholic doctrine of today. I began attending RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation) in November and will be officially entering the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass (the Saturday before Easter). For more details about why and how and what I’ve learned, please read the essay. It’s not THAT long of a read.

I do welcome comments and questions, whether through personal emails, Instant Messenger, blog comments, or whatever.

[tags]Catholic, Catholicism, conversion, religion, doctrine[/tags]

While there have been people for ages theorizing that Jesus was married and had children (some Gnostic gospels (not accepted as inspired or part of the Bible) claimed this and the Merovingians even claimed to be descended from Jesus), the whole Da Vinci Code craze has brought it to mainstream thought. Even though it was written as fiction and is full of research errors, many people take the Da Vinci Code as truth. That topic has been discussed ad nauseum by bloggers, theologians, newspaper reporters, and the general public, mostly being disproven, so I’ll let that lie.

The big news today was that somebody is claiming to have found Jesus’ “real” tomb, complete with tombs of his mother, wife, and at least one child. James Cameron (of Titanic infamy) has produced a documentary movie called The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which accompanies a book called The Jesus Family Tomb. They’re based on the discovery of this tomb that has similar names to people in the life of Jesus. It is quite the controversy and has been discredited by eminent archaeologists, but the contronversy continues.

The claim is based on there being a 2,000-year-old cave with tombs with the names of “Jesus, son of Joseph,” Mary, Mariamne (supposed to be Mary Magdalene), and “Judah, son of Jesus.” They’ve even tried to link this tomb through forensic “evidence” to the one of Jesus’ supposed brother, that turned out to be a fake.

Problem: Jesus, or Yeshua or Joshua, was the 6th most common name in Israel at that time. But “Jesus, son of Joseph” alongside a tomb of someone named Mary is supposed to raise the certainty to near-fact. Except for the actual fact that “Joseph” was the 2nd most common name then and Mary was also one of the most popular girl names. (See Ilan, Tall. (2002). Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Part I: Palestine 330 BCE-200 CE. Tubingen: Mohr.)

That would be like saying that a grave in England with the name William, son of William, found alongside a grave named Mary conclusively would have to be William of Orange.

The spouse and child information would be relevant IF THERE WERE ANY RECORD OF JESUS BEING A HUSBAND AND FATHER. But there isn’t because he wasn’t and so this movie and book are simply another example of shoddy research attempting to capitalize on the success and popularity of other fictional stories.

Here are some external links of interest:

• Reuters: Filmmaker shows relics from disputed Jesus tomb
• Jerusalem Post: Israel may open ‘Jesus tomb’ to public
• Associated Press (via mlive.com): NewsFlash - Scholars criticize new Jesus documentary
• Singing in the Reign: A Titanic Claim: Jesus’ Body Found?
• Kath.Net: Jesus’ Family Tomb Discovery is a Titanic Fraud

[tags]Jesus, Talpiot, Da Vinci Code, archaeology[/tags]

This morning I was listening to NPR on the way to work, like I usually do. They featured a story called “Experiencing Other Faiths to Find Your Own,” about a girl from Davidson College (NC) who took a year to travel abroad and explore other ways of looking at religion.

With a small group of students, Gillian Siple, a religion major, lived in China, Thailand and India. She meditated in monasteries and ashrams, lived and studied among Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus — not your typical study-abroad program.

She remembers living at a meditation center in Thailand, wearing the traditional garb of a yogi. “I remember waking up at 4 o’clock in the morning and taking out my mat and I can remember just thinking, ‘What if my friends saw me now? Would anyone recognize me? I am so far from the person and the life that I live back at Davidson right now. There’s no remnant of that life on my body right now.’”

Even her faith began to fall away. She says that when she mediated, she felt an uncommon sense of peace. She wondered: Have I gone into this too deeply? Am I still a Christian, or am I becoming something else?

She said she now calls herself a “Christian Pluralist,” meaning that she is open to the validity of other religions. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s actually possible. A Christian is someone who follows Christ and His teachings. One of those teachings, very clearly put by Him, was that there IS no other way.

• John 14:6 says: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
• Acts 4:12 says: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

True Christianity has no allowance for other religions being “correct.” Granted, nobody should be forced to believe anything and everyone should be allowed to believe whatever they want and follow whatever religion they choose, but that does not make everyone right. There’s a big difference between allowing everyone to believe what they want and endorsing what everyone believes.

“Christian Pluralism,” then, is really an oxymoron. You can’t have both with integrity; one or the other must be compromised to be held to by one person. From this story, it sounds like Gillian has compromised her Christianity for the sake of Pluralism.

But that’s not really a surprise. When listening to her tell her story, I was struck by the feelings she expressed about when she was on this trip and tried to reconnect to her Christian God. She went into her room and knelt and tried to pray. She got as far as “Dear God…” and no words would come. I think that was when she said she began wondering what she was becoming if she couldn’t pray to this God that she no longer knew.

My thought: If you immerse yourself in error, of COURSE you will lose connection with the Truth. Investigating and learning are good, and learning about other religions can help you appreciate your own faith, but becoming steeped in the ways of error will not help you learn the Truth. Maybe it’s the difference between intellectually learning something and becoming personally involved, making it part of you.

This isn’t a popular concept nowadays, but it needs to be said. People today want to hear that anything is legitimate and valid as long as it is believed with sincerity. It makes people feel better about themselves and it soothes the guilty heart to be told that there are no absolutes. What counts is being nice to people and keeping your religion to yourself. They say there’s no such thing today as being wrong in the area of religion. But true Christianity (and true Islam and several others) teaches that there IS such a thing as right and wrong and that following other religions is error. There is no reconciliation there. Apart from dialogue, whose purpose is basically to encourage civility, but not necessarily acceptance.

My thought: If God came down to earth and told us what was right and wrong and what to believe and how to live, it would become our obligation to follow Him. (And you know what? That HAPPENED!)

Be sure to visit the NPR page itself to read the whole article that prompted this post. You can even click the “Listen” button at the top and hear the story just like it was broadcast this morning.

[tags]religion, Christianity, pluralism, NPR[/tags]

Apparently, at the end of every year, Pat Robertson spends some time in prayer, asking for a revelation about the coming year. Well, he’s announced yesterday that he’s gotten his 2007 revelation. Specifically, he says that God spoke to him and told him there will be a “mass killing” in the form of a huge terrorist attack sometime during the year, probably after September.

“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”

Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.

God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

In January 2006, he announced that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was God’s punishment for ceding land from Israel to the Palestinians. I May 2006, he said that storms and possibly a tsunami would hit the U.S. coast. In 2004, he predicted that President Bush would “easily win” re-election that fall. In 2005, he predicted that Bush would win “victory after victory” in advancing his agenda, including pushing through a new Social Security reform package and nominating new justices to the Supreme Court. Well, Bush did win re-election with 51% (hardly “easily”) and he did nominate two new Supreme Court justices, but Bush has hardly won that many victories and he certain did not get his Social Security package passed. There was also no tsunami, although Robertson claims that the flooding in New England was a partial fulfillment. Funny thing is that that occurred in mid-May. A scant week after Robertson announced his prediction about the storms and tsunami.

“I have a relatively good track record,” he said. “Sometimes I miss.”

Well, according to the Bible, then, he’s a FALSE PROPHET! Deuteronomy 18:21-22 says, “You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?’ If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.”

I wonder if Pat Robertson realizes how much he damages Christianity and the name of Christ when he so publicly pronounces God’s judgement like he does. If he was 100% correct and the signs were clear that things were in fulfillment of prophecy, that would be a different story. But he’s not, they don’t, and he ends up being a laughing stock for much of the U.S. and the rest of the world.

If he wants to truly serve God, he should try selling most of his personal wealth (it’s well over $100 million) and serving God’s people humbly and locally. Think how much good he could accomplish with even just HALF of his wealth! The message of Jesus when He was on earth was about loving others and caring for those who were less fortunate, not about amassing personal wealth and trying to become the center of the world’s attention.

[tags]pat robertson, predictions, terrorism, religion[/tags]

Happy New Year everybody! Welcome to 2007! Here’s wishing the best to you and yours. May you be given the opportunities to grow intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually this year.

If you’re looking for something to make your own in terms of a New Year’s resolution, I would like to suggest learning more about your faith: its origins, its history, how it has changed since its origin, and how it can be made more real and affect your life and actions during this coming year. If you’re NOT religious, maybe you could pick one to learn about this year, whether or not you choose to accept it for yourself. Or maybe you can do the same thing that I’m suggesting, examining the history and development of your non-religion.

My reason: too many people live day to day as Christians (or followers of other religions) taking things as they’re given them, without delving deeper into not just the reasons why they believe what they do, but the history of their beliefs. I’ve spent much of 2006 learning more about what kind of Church Christ actually left us, learning more about the Early Church Fathers, reading what they wrote, and learning more about what the early Christians believed and practiced and how they worshipped. I plan to continue this in 2007. There is a lot to be learned and there can even be some surprises as you get to the roots of your religion.

If you haven’t made any New Year’s resolution, I encourage you to consider this for yourself.

A familiar quote from Handel’s Messiah, which we hear frequently at this time of year, is a quote from the 40th chapter of Isaiah. It involves a prophecy about the Messiah to come. Here are the first five verses:

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

If you’ve heard Handel’s Messiah before, these verses will sound very familiar. This is the King James Version that Handel used directly in his oratorio. A week or two, I heard a sermon that at one point referred to the part in verses 3 & 4: “Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.” And the comment, which made total sense when seen in this light, was about how this referred to the coming of a king.

When a king was going to visit a place, a messenger would be sent ahead of him, telling the people that he was coming and giving them time to prepare. They would especially fix the roads, smoothing out the rough roads, etc., to make it easier and more enjoyable for the king and his entourage to get to their town.

In this case, it was John the Baptist telling people that The King (the Messiah) was coming and that they needed to prepare. But it was their hearts and lives they needed to prepare. Instead of physical roads, they needed to prepare the spiritual roads and themselves for His coming.

Pretty cool, huh? And it definitely brings more sense and understanding to a passage that many of us have sung without really pondering the meaning.

May we all today prepare our hearts and lives during this Advent season so that Christmas may renew our relationship with that same Messiah and King.

Current music: Medieval Christmas, by Kemper Crabb