Barque of Peter: Back to Business

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Back to Business

So I've had something of a lengthy hiatus from active blogging. Been working and busy and blahblahblah no one cares. I've also been regularly contributing to the blog over at Catholic Chapter House. Apparently, when someone is foisting a deadline on me, I can be rather punctual (mostly). Check it out sometime!

I recently broke my ankle, and have been busy recovering from that, and not working, and having otherwise no real excuse to not be blogging. My job was already coming to an end on December 13, because the factory was relocating to the States. So prayer, discernment, and the love and advice of my wife have led me to pursue a career in art and preaching under the Doubting Thomist: Art & Faith banner. So that site will eventually morph into a real and professional website, and this blog will *probably* be subsumed under that. Haven't figured that all out yet.

My goal for this blog from very near to the beginning (once it ceased being simply a debate-outlet) was to write at least one article under every heading and sub-heading in the margin Index, and then just let it be. So I'm planning to really tackle that, in order that Barque of Peter can be an apologetic resource page rather than an actively updated site. It may then revert to a debate-outlet if I ever start engaging anyone in debates again...

Anyway, to kick off the finalisation process, I'm going to be posting a series of articles that I wrote this past summer for Catholic Chapter House explaining and defending St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Proofs for God's Existence (the Five Ways). And we'll go from there!

God bless,
Gregory

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Almighty and eternal God,

who created us in Thy image

and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful,

especially in the divine person of Thy Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we beseech Thee,

that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor,

during our journeys through the internet

we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee

and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Image courtesy of Owen Swain at DrawnToCatholicism.com. Prayer composed by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” -G.K. Chesterton

"To pray 'Jesus' is to invoke him and to call him within us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God who loved him and who gave himself up for him. -Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2666

"It is not those that commit the least faults who are most holy, but those who have the greatest courage, the greatest generosity, the greatest love." -St. Francis de Sales

"Your Cross:

The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from all eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart.

This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with His loving arms and weighed with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you.

He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God." -St. Francis de Sales

"I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: that whether I or anyone else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they arise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways: first, by the authority of the divine law [Scripture], and then by the tradition of the Catholic Church. But here some one perhaps will ask, ‘Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation?’ For this reason: Because, owing to the depth of holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another, so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are men. . . . Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various errors, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and catholic interpretation" -St. Vincent of Lerins

"Let everyone who loves you, oh most holy Mary, listen to this and drink it in:

Whenever I say
Hail Mary
The court of heaven rejoices
And the earth
Is lost in wonderment.
And I despise the world
And my heart is brim-full
Of the love of God
When I say
Hail Mary;
All my fears
Wilt and die
And my passions are quelled
If I say
Hail Mary;
Devotion grows
Within me
And sorrow for sin
Awakens
When I say
Hail Mary.
Hope is made strong
In my breast
And the dew of consolation
Falls on my soul
More and more--
Because I say
Hail Mary.
And my spirit
Rejoices
And sorrow fades away
When I say
Hail Mary...

For the sweetness of this blessed salutation is so great that there are no words to explain it adequately, and even when its wonders have been sung, we still find it so full of mystery and so profound that its depths can never be plumbed. It has but few words but it is exceeding rich in mystery; it is sweeter than honey and more precious than gold. We should often meditate upon it in our hearts and have it ever upon our lips so as to say it devoutly again and again." -Blessed Alan de la Roche