As we approach the end of the first year of The Original Church Community, and our 1 year anniversary, I want to thank all of our supporters, old and new! Now here's what I have planned for YEAR TWO:
Daily (ish) - The Cafe: Morning Insights
Weekly - The Journey: In-depth chronological Bible study
Bi-weekly - NEW! Meet the Parents: Podcast on the fathers & mothers
Monthly - The Piazza: Live Q&A; OR The Pub: face to face on zoom
Quarterly - The Forum: Panel Discussions with my colleagues
Semi-annually: The Auditorium: something with music, not sure yet
Annually (or bi-annually): Rome Pilgrimage
Now, full disclosure, with regard to supporting the community. When I first started this, I did not want to have "tiers" with some people having more access than others - I wanted it to be all equal. So to that end, there is only one level of supporter - just $10 per month. But what I didn't know at the time was that there is a way to be a "member" without being a supporter at all, and so we do have some "members" here in addition to our supporters. My way of dealing with that is to say that all are welcome here in the community, and when Saturday rolls around, I will not lock anyone out of the livestream Bible study, so anyone who wants to join us live for The Journey will be welcome. But it will always be the case (outside of my control) that access to the videos after any livestream is limited to supporters. Regular posts, like the Cafe, will be for everyone, but most things, like The Pub, and the Forum, and the other things, will only be accessible for supporters. So I encourage everyone to become a supporter, but if that's not right for you at this time, please feel free to remain a member and stick with us. I do expect that, once I take over the Way of the Fathers podcast from Mike Aquilina, we will get more folks joining us as well. Needless to say, I hope to increase the supporter base here, because I am not on social media - my "people" are here! Thanks for being here!
Here's a short (about a minute) video I took going around the Holy Column in the church of Santa Prassede. This is the column that Jesus was tied to when he was scourged by Pontius Pilate. They don't always have the barrier down, so you usually don't get to see it from all the way around. I wanted to get video of the whole thing all the way around because I ran across a note in an ancient document that said that those who made a pilgrimage (at that time to the Holy Land, since it was still in Jerusalem) could visit the Holy Column, and could see marks left from the hands of Jesus where he gripped it as he was being whipped. I assume that this is pious legend, but I figured since the column has that dark & light marble, maybe there's a place where the dark parts look like hands. I did not see it, but if you do, let me know!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
My voice was still recovering from a bad cold, so not sounding my best, but this was a great conversation about pilgrimage, for the Jubilee year - more of this coming in other interviews! (FYI, I think I was the third of three guests that day, so you will have to fast forward to find me)
It seems that one way or another we need to talk about different kinds, or different levels of heresy. What I have been calling heresy vs. heterodoxy, others call heresy on fundamental doctrines vs. heresy on less fundamental doctrines. In other words, Heresy with a capital H (over fundamental doctrines like the Trinity and christology) are the kinds of heresies that move one outside the boundaries of what Christianity is, and that's because the very definition of Christianity is defined according to these fundamental doctrines. To refuse to sign the Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325, or the Council of Constantinople in 381 - and indeed to reject any of the contents of the Creed today - means that a person is NOT a Christian.
So are the non-chalcedonians, such as the miaphysites (including St. Gregory of Narek, and today's Coptic Christians) - are they heretics? Well, like it is with a lot of things, that depends on your definition of heresy. If you include in your definition of ...
As promised, I thought that this would be a good discussion starter here in the community - this is from a conversation I had with my producer at Catholic Culture, around the podcast episodes on St. Gregory of Narek. If you've listened to the first episode on St. Gregory, you know that he is the first and only Doctor of the Church who was not Catholic! What are we to make of this? How do we explain it? Well, it was within the context of me trying to explain it that two really fundamental questions came up, and had to be hashed out between me and my producer. The first question - and this was surprising, given that we had a whole series on The Heresies - the first question is: What is a heresy? And how you answer that has serious implications for the second question, which is: What is the Universal Church? And that has serious implications for ecumenical dialogue, not to mention how we think about our fellow Christians who are not Catholic. So let's take the first question first (and here's ...
