Christianity

Texas Christian University offered a course titled 'The Queer Art of Drag' that required students to read articles purporting the 'gender binary is a tool of white supremacy'

After South Carolina high school graduate Lydia Owens went viral for her commencement speech, in which she shared her faith in Christ, she spoke to Fox News Digital about the experience.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/109985

https://infogalactic.com/info/Feast_of_the_Sacred_Heart

The Feast of the Sacred Heart (properly the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Latin: Sollemnitas Sacratissimi Cordis Iesu) is a solemnity in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. It falls 19 days after Pentecost, on a Friday. ... The devotion to the Sacred Heart is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Roman Catholic devotions, taking Jesus Christ's physical heart as the representation of his divine love for humanity.

Traditional litany of the Sacred Heart prayer: http://www.catholictradition.org/Litanies/litany8.htm

Pride flags were spotted on set. Big donors started asking questions. Rightfully so. Pride flags have proven to be just 2 steps away from child rape.

The reactions from the actors so far have been, "Go away bigots!" I don't think that Johnathan Ruemy has said anything.

This is going to filter into their depiction of the Gospel. It just is.

So no more Chosen for me. It was a good show, but it's time to go.

They are in Hollywood. I think demanding they never work with anyone who has same sex attraction is highly unrealistic. If you're flying a pride flag on the set of a Christian show - you aren't a gay person trying to hold down a job, you're actively trying to subvert.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/92050

That any person esteem his own good or excellence to be worthy of praise is not in itself sinful; nor, in like manner, is it sinful that we should desire to see our good works approved of men. "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works" (Matthew 5:16). Hence the desire of glory is not essentially vicious.

But a vain, or perverse desire for renown, which is called vainglory, is wrong; desire of glory becomes perverse,

when one seeks renown because of something not really worthy;

when one seeks the esteem of those whose judgment is undiscriminating;

when one desires glory before men without subordinating it to righteousness.

Vainglory may become a deadly sin, if one seek the esteem of men for something that is incompatible with the reverence due to God; or when the thing for which one desires to be esteemed is preferred in one's affections before God; or again, when the judgment of men is sought in preference to the judgment of God, as was the case with the Pharisees, who "loved the glory of men more than the glory of God" (John 12:43).

The term "vainglory" denotes not alone the sinful act, but also the vicious habit or tendency engendered by a repetition of such acts. This habit is ranked among the capital sins, or, more properly vices, because it is prolific of other sins, viz., disobedience, boastfulness, hypocrisy, contentiousness, discord, and a presumptuous love of pernicious novelties in moral and religious doctrine.

via Catholic Encyclopedia on "Glory": https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06585a.htm

Aquinas On The Topic: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3132.htm

The Apostles' Fast, also called the Fast of the Holy Apostles, the Fast of Peter and Paul, or sometimes St. Peter's Fast, or sometimes, The Fast of Rafik,[1] is a fast observed by Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians. The fast begins on the second Monday after Pentecost (the day after All Saints' Sunday) and continues until the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, according to the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/91054

About the work (music): https://infogalactic.com/info/Messe_de_la_Pentecôte

Possible recording: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=DoouENffQCs

The difference is palpable. We have enough blessed objects, I don't see how anything unclean could stand to be here. I guess they were though.

St. Gregory Nazianzen: "We must overcome our enemies ... by gentleness; win them over by forbearance. Let them be punished by their own conscience, not by our wrath." -Butler's Lives of Saints

I got tired of sorting through piles of woke garbage for entertainment. I bit the preverbal bullet and signed up for Pure Flix.... (tech issues so I had to pirate anyway)

ANYWAY, this movie was good. Not the best thing ever, but a good movie full of subtlety and context.

As far as their other offerings go, I saw a lot of girls and horses so I was picking up a heavy Lifetime vibe. Time will tell, but I do recommend 'Interview with God'. It had standard main line Christian theology. They did it well.

That should get some attention.

In the Catholic Church celibacy is a huge topic and often talked about because the guy giving you the Eucharist is supposed to be celibate.

The Nofap movement is gaining steam and people are waking up from porn induced comas to realize that it isn't good for them. I just wanted to give a little insight and encouragement.

The standard belief is that if you don't have sex every so often that the hormones build and build and build until you become ravenously horny and are prone to rape defenseless midgets or something. My experience has been different.

I quit masturbating when I joined the Catholic Church about 3 years ago. Before that I was a once a day kind of guy. I could go a month or more without porn or masturbation, but I would always find my way back to it eventually.

I am married so I am not celibate, but I share my sexuality with my wife only. There have been changes in me and her over these years, she is more giving and open now that I am fully devoted to her. Over all our sex life has improved.

I find that I don't want porn, it really is repulsive to me. I certainly don't miss it. I was also thinking about masturbation the other night and I was surprised to find that was repulsive as well. Something I had done for 40+ years in new and inventive ways was now repulsive to me.

My thought then is what happens if my wife were to pass or become ill?

I think the same thing would happen. It would be rough at first, but sex would become something that I used to do, and now I didn't. The thought of it would also become repulsive to me and I wouldn't want it anymore.

So there is hope. Young men facing this dating world are in a rough spot. On one hand the Church demands purity, while the culture demands debauchery. It used to be that a young man could get married and have those needs taken care of while living a relatively pure life. Now women have taken marriage off of the table for men and men only have porn and masturbation to turn to.

The Church still demands purity, and you are better off for it. Being a man is about self control. A man in control of his appetites cannot be so easily controlled in marriage and will be better respected by potential partners.

So, you can do it. It isn't easy, but men do the hard things.

Theology is one of those funny things. There is nothing more important at all than Theology, but at the same time it really doesn't matter. At the end you either love God or you don't and no amount of theology can change that. Maybe it changes how you love God, good theology lets you love God more fully - but it doesn't save you.

Once saved always saved is the only bone I have to pick with the protestant church. Most protestant churches have the sense to moderate this somewhat. They sell it as a 100% absolute, but then chip away at the doctrine around the edges inferring things like, "look at the life so and so is living, they were never really saved!!"

Lutherans however double down on this particular doctrine. It is really more akin to saved against your will and held hostage. I had a Lutheran pastor actually explain salvation and grace as force feeding. It makes no logical sense how they talk about it and they can never give you a clear definition only that Jesus does everything for you and you do absolutely nothing.

Here is why that is bad. If you have no agency and are compelled to heaven, then there is no reason to be mindful of how you live and what you do.

We shouldn't live in fear of hell every time we cuss someone out for cutting us off in traffic or see an inappropriate image, but we should care about these things. If you are cussing all of the time, that should worry you as a Christian. We are trying to be like Jesus, not sort of kind of like Jesus. We are to be an imitation of him as one would see in a mirror, lot like something that was ordered off of wish.com.

It's not ALL taken care of for you magically and the spiritual life is not automatic save for those rare moments when God gives you grace to overcome certain sins.

Don't live in fear of Hell. You MUST live in fear of not loving God as much as you could have during your brief time on earth. Once saved always saved can get in the way of that.

I just want to leave these here. Draw your own conclusions

We all should be motivated to move against this.

This is why people don't like the Catholic Church. The 'Don't fight / can't lose' crowd out in force.

Church Militant calls them the church of nice.

Satan is the enemy, Satan needs opposed. If they are there in person worshipping Satan, we need to be there in person opposing Satan.

By protesting, we aren't drawing attention to them, we are drawing attention to Christ. Christ always wins.

This man is a Bishop, he should act like a Bishop.

First off, praying to angels is weird for protestants but is encouraged for Catholics as long as you know who you are praying to. Any angel explicitly named in the Bible is good. Your guardian angel, as long as you are addressing him as your 'guardian angel', well that is encouraged. You should ask your guardian angel for help and assistance.

After Mass, at the Novus Ordo I attend we say the St Michaels prayer. Praying to angels may still not sit well with you, but St Michael at least deserves your thanks. He kicked Satan out of Heaven. Michael means, 'Who can be like God.'

I was a protestant for almost 30 years. So this is still new to me. ANYWAY - on to the freaky part.

I happened to be praying to my Angels and I was tired of the 'give me' and 'bless me' prayers. I was feeling curious, so I asked what they did for fun. How do Angels relax in Heaven?

I got an answer. I always hold the answers to my prayers as suspect until I can contemplate them and make sure they seem sound. The answer I got was, 'We do the will of God.'

NO, I replied. In your down time, days off, what do you do for FUN.

"We do the will of God." Then I was reminded of the scripture where Jesus tells the disciples that he has food and drink that they do not know of. That food and drink was doing the will of God. And THEN I realized that we are the outliers. The fracturing that we have in our lives is unique to this world.

I have to stop working to be a father. I have to stop fathering to pray, I have to stop praying to work - and the cycle repeats. Angels don't have this problem. For them it is all the same. Work, purpose, prayer, being is all one all of the time. So their assigned task, their purpose is their ultimate joy.

SO, know that your Guardian Angel loves you more than you love yourself. Your Guardian Angel is besides you always and constantly doing the will of God.