When Jesus Knocked.

Ever wondered what happened when Jesus knocked? I know I do. Here are a few ideas.







Some images are not mine and other are of my own invention.

Thanks

Thank you everyone for the gratitude and recognition you have all expressed about my recent graduation. I appreciate it. Thank you also for the prayers for my finals. I apologize for being a bit behind on posting anything. My brain has been turned off for the last few days . . . also been celebrating with other recently made Master Theologians. In brief, for those who have asked, I would love to go on to get a Phd, but I want to take a short break from formal schooling for a bit. I might take a few theology classes from time to time at the local University.

Anyway, I will be back to posting in some kind of regularity in a few days.

Done(dot)com

Finished my written and just passed my oral examination earlier. I now have an MA in theology from the University of Notre Dame. I'm really tired. But if you are interested, the oral exam was a lot of fun and the written exam was not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be.

A Letter from the Board

Dear MA Degree Seeking Student,

Thank you for your hard work you have done at the university over the past few years. In light of the information that you have penned in answering the questions on your comprehensive final two days ago, the board has decided to deny you the opportunity of receiving your MA in Theology from the university for the following reasons:

1. Jesus is 2 natures in 1 person and not 2 persons in 1 nature.
2. The Trinity is 3 persons in 1 being and not 1 person in 3 beings. Also, it is not appropriate to refer to the Trinity as the ‘Three Stooges’.
3. Vatican II was a church council and not the name of a Pope.
4. ‘Savoir-faire’ is not an economic theory, but it refers to the method chosen by the catechesist to hand on the faith.
5. Jesus did not ‘Bitch-out’ the Pharisees.
6. Answering a multi-part question with the sole phrase “The Pascal Mystery” is unacceptable for a person seeking a degree of higher learning. Besides the word is “Paschal” and not “Pascal”.
7. The Holy Spirit can be referred to as the Wind of God or even the Breath of God, but it is not correct to refer to God’s sending of the Spirit as God “breaking wind. The Holy Spirit is not a “Holy Flatulent”, as you have so eloquently stated in your final.
8. The Incarnation refers to the Word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus. Do not refer to the incarnation as ‘Mary’s being knocked up by God.” This is inaccurate.
9. The ‘Symphony of the Faith’ is not a “boring piece of music written by an old dead German-Dude.” The Symphony of Faith refers to the harmonious relationship between the Word of God, worship, community and service.
10. The self-emptying of God known as ‘kenosis’ does not refer to a ‘self-emptying bowel movement of God.’

In light of the above sampling and the questionable and sketchy information you have written, the board is not only denying you your degree but is also suggesting that you do not pursue any further education in the area of Theology. Perhaps a bank teller might be a more suiting profession.

Thank you,
The University Board.

Hate Your Job? Do This.

If you ever find yourself having one of those 'bad days' and you think your job or your schooling or your life can't get much worse just do the following. I assure you, you will feel much better by the end.

On your way home from work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the thermometer section and purchase a rectal thermometer made by Johnson &Johnson. Be very sure you get this brand. When you get home, lock your doors, draw the curtains and disconnect the phone so you will not be disturbed. Change into very comfortable clothing and sit in your favorite chair. Open the package and remove the thermometer. Now, carefully place it on a table or a surface so that it will not become chipped or broken. Now the fun part begins. Take out the literature from the box andread it carefully. You will notice that in small print there is a statement:

'Every Rectal Thermometer made by Johnson &Johnson is personally tested and then sanitized. '

Now, close your eyes and repeat out loud five times,'I am so glad I do not work in the thermometer quality control department at Johnson &Johnson.' HAVE A NICE DAY; AND REMEMBER, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE WITH A JOB THAT IS MORE OF A PAIN IN THE ASS THAN YOURS!

Remember, if you haven't got a smile on your face and laughter in your heart...
Then you are just an old sour fart;
Maybe you should go and work for Johnson &Johnson!!!!!


From the Email Bag via Matty Matt B.

Not Said By Jesus Sunday

Comps

I take my comprehensive finals tomorrow starting at 8am EST. I will be writing for about 4 hours. Prayers are greatly needed. The more I study and review, the more I come to realize that I don't know as much as I like to think I do. I have so many abstract thoughts and theories and examples in my head that I expect my brain to start oozing from my ears any second now.

I do my 20 min oral on Wednesday at about 3pm EST. Prayers are appreciated for that too.

From Reverant to Student: A Dialogue

The New Oxford Review has a reply about the article I wrote on protestant rapture theology. The Editor gave me a chance to reply. Click on the link to read both the Reverend's comments about the article I wrote as well as my response to the reverend.

From my response:

I do not have any problems with the word"rapture." But I do have problems when people propose the Protestant view of the rapture based on misreadings and misunderstandings of Scripture. When read in the proper context, as with 1 Thes­salonians 4:17 and St. Paul's further explication in 1 Corinthians 15, it is clear that the rapture of which Paul speaks (being "caught up" or seized by Christ) is that moment when Christ gathers together the elect and the reprobate at the general resurrection at the end of time.

Click on the above link for the entire story.

Bible Publishers Sued for Anti-Gay References

This is crazy!

From Article:

A Michigan man is seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional distress and mental instability he received during the past 20 years from versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin. . . . Fowler admits that every Bible printed is a translation that can be interpreted in many ways, but he says specifically using the word “homosexual” is not a translation but a change. . . . Zondervan, for its part, issued a statement to the Grand Rapids press stating it does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations it publishes

Not Said By Jesus Sunday

It Gonna Be Hot Tonight

Oh mais yea, the AC just broke today. It is already over 85 degrees in the house. Be back later after the AC is fixed. Till then: Peace, Love, and Jazz.

Strange but True: Sixth Commandment Voted off the List.

This is really sad.

From the Article:

San Jose, CA., Jul 8, 2008 / 11:57 pm (CNA).- Reaction continues to the decisions of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), which took place between June 21 and June 28. The assembly nullified proscriptions against sexual behavior outside of marriage and called for a vote to delete the church’s constitutional standard requiring fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness. It also initiated a process that could remove mention of the Bible’s prohibition against homosexuality form the Heidelberg Catechism

Beating Up On Mom

Something that bothers me is when people say something to the affect "Well, I'm Catholic so that gives me the right to belittle the Church, go against the Church, not listen to Bishops of the Church, and basically beat up the Church." This phrase bothers me because it is like saying, "I am my mother's child; therefore, I can punch her in the stomach." No one would dare say or do such a thing to their own mother. Yet, it seems acceptable to do it to one's own Holy Mother Church. Anyway, the former phrase and those similar can be heard on the day-time talk radio of New Orleans due to the soon to come parish closings. The attitude of the people who are standing against the Bishop have a real -me- centered attitude. One gentleman from St. H's parish said that he is willing to fight the bishop for 4 years and more to try to keep his parish from closing.

It makes me sad and gives me grief for a number of reason which I will not go into in this post. Maybe it is just me, but I know I would prefer to have a wound clean and covered for four years than to have it fester for four year and have it run the risk of infecting other parts of the body. Perhaps I am alone on that opinion, but I doubt. Still, something that bothers me more: as how can the church be one when its own members would prefer to squabble over the closing of a building than to ask, "What is the best way to build up the Church?" Everyone knows that building anything takes time and usually results in pain of some sort for those who are doing the building. Also, when considering building, one must have in mind the end product or else nothing comprehensible can be built. Yet, I suppose, part of being selfish results in the failure to see the larger picture. Than again, we can't all be saints:

“We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides” ~Saint Ignatius of Loyola

BREAKING NEWS!: Porn Isn't Real

Watch a plus size girl get turned into a pin-up through the means of Photoshop. In other words, you never really know what you are looking at in that magazine or on that TV: your eyes only see part of the story. [You might have to click this link if the video doesn't come up when you load the page.]


The Power Of Photoshop - Watch more free videos

Words Women Use: Advice to Men

This was on my pint glass the other night at a local pub on Magazine Street in uptown New Orleans.

Words Women Use!

1) FINE: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right, and you need to shut up.
2) FIVE MINUTES: If she is getting dressed this means half an hour. FIVE MINUTES is only FIVE MINUTES if you have been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
3) NOTHING: This is the calm before the storm. This means something and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with NOTHING usually end in FINE (see 1).
4) GO AHEAD: This is not a dare, not permission. Don't do it.
5) LOUD SIGH: This is not actually a word but a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A LOUD SIGH means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here arguing with you about NOTHING (refer back to #3 for the meaning of NOTHING.)
6) THAT'S OKAY: This is one of the most dangerous statements a womean can make to a man. "THAT'S OKAY" means she want to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
7) THANKS: A woman is thanking you -- do not question or faint. Just say you're welcome.
8) WHATEVER: Is a woman's was of saying "%@&* YOU!"
9) DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, I GOT IT: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a mean asking "what's wrong"! -- for the woman's response refer to #3.

Tolkien on How Previous Critics Treated Beowulf

Though this is written in references to how the previous critics treated Beowulf before Tolkien wrote the Essay "The Monsters and the Critics", I think it can be applied to biblical studies.

"A man inherited a field in which was an accumulation of old stone, part of an older hall. Of the old stone some had already been used in building the house in which he actually lived, not far from the old house of his fathers. Of the rest he took some and built a tower. But his friends coming perceived at once (without troubling to climb the steps) that these stones had formerly belonged to a more ancient building. So they pushed the tower over, with no little labor, in order to look for hidden carvings and inscriptions, or to discover whence the man's distant forefathers had obtained their building material. Some suspecting a deposit of coal under the soil began to dig for it, and forgot even the stones. They all said: 'This tower is most interesting.' But they also said (after pushing it over): 'What a muddle it is in!' And even the man's descendants, who might have been expected to consider what he had been about, were heard to murmur: 'He is such an odd fellow! Imagine his using these old stones just to build a nonsensical tower! Why did not he restore the old house? He had no sense of proportion.' But from the top of that tower the man had been able to look out upon the sea."

Not Said By Jesus Sunday

The Myth of Boy Hood

An interesting article:

Picture a world where your father walks with you down a starlit road, pausing to point out Orion. He recites Robert Frost, knows how a battery works—and all the rules about girls. "The Dangerous Book for Boys," by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, is peaking on Amazon's best-seller list (No. 5 last week) by recalling just that world. The compendium of trivia, history and advice is geared toward preteen boys, but it's found a surprising audience in men in their 30s and 40s, too. The book's marbled endpapers, archival illustrations and dry, humorous tone ("excitable bouts of windbreaking will not endear you to a girl") offers a portal back to a time of "Sunday afternoons and long summer days."

The New Liturgical Movement and Music

From the Article:

Part II of the Zenit interview with Fr. Weber is even more powerful than Part I. Here he speaks very plainly and frankly about the musical difficulties of Catholic parishes, the reasons for them, and the prospects for the future. He speaks in a way that is very clear and without any of the meandering around and over-qualification tendency of many people when speaking about these issues.

Questions answered in interview:

Q: Why did the Second Vatican Council state that Gregorian chant should be given "pride of place" in the Church's liturgy?

Q: Benedict XVI has given a number of speeches discussing the importance of preserving the Church's heritage of sacred music, and a number of documents have been issued by the Holy See calling the universal Church back to that grand tradition, yet little seems to have changed on the ground. Why is there resistance to what should be seen as a form of Vatican II's concept of "ressourcement," that is, return to the sources?

Q: The book "Why Catholics Can't Sing" highlighted the abysmal state of congregational singing present in most American parishes. Why do you think parishes will be able to handle Gregorian chant? Isn't that harder to sing?

[my opinion]

I helped at a catholic summer camp about a month ago. I watched a priest teach some simple Gregorian Chant to a group of 34 junior high and high school students. At the start of the camp the teens didn't know exactly what to do, but by the end of the first week the teens knew what they were singing and they sang (or chanted) it very well. I was impressed at how quickly these boys learned this ancient music. Also, it appeared that most of the teens enjoyed it! I actually heard some of the boys singing the first line of the Sanctus during the day when they would walk past the kitchen (I was the cook.). The criticisisms for keeping gregorgian chant out of the litugry don't hold weight in light of this experience.

Baby Laughing . . . In Slow Motion

If you like it when babies laugh (Who doesn't?) then you will love this baby laughing in slow motion. Remember, everything is better in slow motion.

Our Lady of Dinosauric Creatures . . .

Pray for us.


New Orleans Catholicism is always an interesting adventure.