Faith & Reason Studios

27/04/2022

You know how we have good anniversaries, things that we look forward to celebrating? I also have some bad anniversaries - I think a lot of us do, dates on the calendar that represent something terrible that happened. And as we look at the calendar and expect what's to come, -- how we'll feel that day, we make a plan for the space of grief maybe that we'll feel then. And a few years ago, I was looking at one of these dates -- one of these bad anniversaries, looking at when it would fall on the calendar that year. And it happened to be on Easter Sunday. And this was one of those moments that I was just reminded again: that the pain of what i had been through then would not be the end. And I hope that in light of the Resurrection, you can also feel like the pain of your bad anniversary will not be the end for you either.

-- I hope it doesn’t get old — me sharing this: there is hope. 💜🙏 God can bring something good out of our pains. He will redeem them — maybe not the way we’d like or as soon as we’d like, but let’s hold on to the very real hope Jesus offer us.

“This is what the Apostles came to understand through their post-resurrection encounters with Christ and through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost… their lives were not over, they were just beginning – a gift from the One who makes all things new...

“And this is what we must also come to believe – to believe in a way that utterly changes our lives. After traveling with the Lord through this Lent and His Passion and Death, we have arrived at new life – both during the remaining days of our life on earth and in fullness on the day of the Resurrection of our bodies when they will be reunited with our souls as the completion of time." (Deacon Bickerstaff)

17/04/2022

Happy Easter 🤍💛

Happy Easter.

"The world...is full of resurrections... Every night that folds us up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early, and have seen the first of the dawn, will know it - the day rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life." George MacDonald, The Seaboard Parish

"On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn." GK Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

"To preach Christianity meant (to the Apostles) primarily to preach the Resurrection. … The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences, were the ‘gospel’ or good news which the Christians brought." C.S. Lewis, Miracles

“All writers, not ours alone but foreigners also, who have sought to represent Absolute Beauty, were unequal to the task, for it is an infinitely difficult one. … There is in the world only one figure of absolute beauty: Christ. That infinitely lovely figure is, as a matter of course, an infinite marvel.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Letter to niece Sofia Alexandrovna

"The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue."J. R. R. Tolkien

14/04/2022

Though there is some debate about whether or not this room is the true Upper Room, many scholars do hold it to be the right place.

When I walked in, I thought to myself, “Huh, the ceiling is much higher than I thought.” If you’ll notice, though, the architecture is drastically different than other structures in the Holy Land. It’s very European and there’s a reason for that—this is Crusader architecture.

Holding to a lot of tradition and some archeological evidence, this very well may be the place where the Last Supper—the First Mass—was held.

On this night, nearly 2,000 years ago, Christ knelt to wash His Apostles’ feet. Peter says something of note.

He says, “You will never wash my feet.” John 13:8

Peter thinks he’s being super pious and humble. But Christ rebukes him and says, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”

Why is this comment from Peter of note?

Because he tries to refuse to let Christ do something for him. But see, this is how Christ is—He wants to affect change in our life. He is not distant and untouchable; He wants a relationship with us.

How often do we refuse things from Christ?

He wants to wash us in His mercy—many refuse.

He wants to wash away Original Sin on our soul through Baptism—many refuse.

He wants to wash us with forgiveness—many refuse.

He wants to wash us clean with His blood—many refuse.

He wants to wash us with His love—many refuse.

But, if we refuse these things, either because we think we are unworthy or we don’t need Christ, well, we will miss out on inheritance with Him. And that is a great tragedy for so many.

Peter quickly realizes the error of his comment and asks to be washed all over. That should be our response, as well, Catholic Pilgrims. Only Christ can cleanse us anew.

Have a blessed Holy Thursday.

11/04/2022

This day, 77 years ago, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hung at Flossenburg, for arranging a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hi**er.

Just days later, the Americans liberated the POW camp.

A founder and member of the Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer was instrumental in organizing Christian resistance and calling the German Church to action!

In 1936, authorities banned Bonhoeffer from teaching at the University of Berlin. In 1937, N***s shut down Bonhoeffer’s Finkenwalde underground seminary. In 1938, authorities announced that every German pastor had to swear loyalty to Hi**er.

In 1939, Bonhoeffer was given the opportunity to escape N**i Germany and return to Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he was educated. He spent two weeks in New York and returned home stating:

“I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”

In April 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested for helping smuggle 14 Jews out of Germany. He spent 18 months awaiting trial in Tegel Prison, writing and ministering to fellow prisoners.

On July 20, 1944, an assassination attempt against Hi**er titled “Operation Valkyrie” failed. Bonhoeffer was charged for knowing about the plot. On April 8, 1945, he was court-martialed without representation and sentenced to death.

The next day, Bonhoeffer was ordered to strip naked before being hanged. Hermann Fischer-Hüllstrung, a Flossenbürg prison doctor, described Bonhoeffer’s last moments:

“Through the half-open door, I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer still in his prison clothes, kneeling in fervent prayer to the Lord his God. The devotion and evident conviction of being heard that I saw in the prayer of this intensely captivating man moved me to the depths.”

Bonhoeffer’s last words were, “This is the end - for me, the beginning of life.”

A prophetic voice and fearless man who was fiercely committed to Christ, Bonhoeffer’s writings and words still move and stir people to Godly resistance!

Here are some of his most powerful and poignant words:

“We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds: we have been drenched by many storms; we have learnt the arts of equivocation and pretence; experience has made us suspicious of others and kept us from being truthful and open; intolerable conflicts have worn us down and even made us cynical. Are we still of any use? We shall not need geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but rather plain, honest, straghtforward men. Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough, and our honesty with ourselves remorseless enough, for us to find our way back to simplicity and straightforwardness?”

“The ultimate question for a responsible man to ask is not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation shall continue to live.”

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

Asked in 1943 how it was possible for the Church to sit back and let Hi**er seize absolute power, Bonhoeffer replied:

“It was the teaching of cheap grace. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ."

01/04/2022

14/03/2022

C. S. Lewis, On Living in an Atomic Age

28/02/2022

Under fire, in disaster, in good times and bad-
the Mass continues on.

28/02/2022

Some wisdom from our Byzantine lung as we head into Lent. 💜

23/02/2022

Charles Wallace suggested, “Let’s sing Dona nobis pacem. It’s what we’re all praying for.”
They raised their voices in the old round, singing over and over, Give us peace, give us peace, give us peace.
Meg’s voice trembled, but she managed to sing through to the end.
A Swiftly Tilting Planet

23/02/2022

😆😆😆

Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. But why is the Church celebrating a feast day for a chair? Here's your answer.