#catholicism /

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

[crazycatsiren]

Sure, when Jesus Christ raises the dead, he's the Lord and Savior. Me, I get told to stop doing necromancy because it's freaking people out.

[saint-augustines-pears]

One of the interesting ideas I've picked up on as a woman reading through political history is the difference in what being a leader in medieval history means versus enlightenment. In medieval poetry (Gawain, Roland, Beowulf), a leader rules out of love for his people. He does not rule because he wants power, he rules because he knows he is able to serve them well. He is to be the humblest among his people, not proud and tyrannic. He is one of them. In essence, the ideal good in medieval history is to provide a place in which virtue can flourish. These ideas are explicitly taught by Gregory the Great, in the Pastoral rule, which is worth a read.

Versus Enlightenment, where the good shifts ever so slightly from virtue to stability. The people are no longer people, but another environmental factor to the ruler's rule to be controlled. A good leader does not serve his people on their journey to heaven, he focuses on his own stability in power regardless of what it is he rules.

I'm not about to say that medieval history was filled with good rulers, or even that there were very many. But the philosophic ideas around leadership during that time were very different from the ones that Machiavelli taught. And I wonder how this effect plays out when we consider the relationship of men and women.

[clementianos-blog]

This is a sad lot of mental gymnastics to try to connect traditionalism with sexism. I have known just as many (or probably many more) non-traditional sexists as I have traditional ones. At least use the right titles for people and don't conflate the idea of traditionalism with sexism.

Yanno I really wanna ask the misogynistic "traditional Catholic" larpers what they think their Mama Mary thinks of their beliefs about women, but I get the feeling they don't actually think about Mary all that much

[justjudethoughts]

I think people (especially, but not limited to, Christians) often get social media all wrong. All I ever hear is the constant negative loop about how "all it is is a currated highlight reel of other people's lives made to make you feel bad" or "all it does is sow division" and while both of those things can be very true (and often are very true), making those claims works only to excuse us from taking our own role in social media culture seriously.

Do you realize that every single time you hit post, you have the opportunity to choose to help someone or hinder them? Even for silly little posts. You can choose to make someone laugh. Encourage someone. Share something beautiful. YOUR post might be the one that brightens someone's day. And yeah, you aren't always going to know who. Sometimes, you might never learn. And sometimes, you will. But every time you have a beautiful opportunity. The same algorithm that divides people can unite people.

And yeah, no matter how kind and good you are, you'll have the disagreeable folks in your comments sometimes. But you don't have to listen to them, and you don't have to fight back. Because for every dumb response, there is probably a beautiful one.

To write something so culturally significant off as "unsalvagable" is essentially to abandon our posts as missionaries of beauty and hope.

Maybe the rest of the world is frozen in sub-zero temperatures, but you can hand at least one person a blanket. It's up to you if you want to.

[momentsbeforemass]

Admitting we need help

Asking for help is hard. Because it means admitting we need help.

Needing help is complicated. Because it’s really two things going on at the same moment.

There’s the actual thing that needs fixing. And then there’s our connection to the thing that needs fixing.

It’s the second one – our connection to the thing that needs fixing – that determines whether we ever ask for help.

If the thing that needs fixing is something that we don’t have any real connection to, then asking for help is no problem.

Like asking someone to take out the trash for us. We don’t have any connection to the trash. So asking for help is effortless.

But what if I’m struggling physically? Maybe I’m recovering from an accident or an illness. And I’m worried about what asking for help taking out the trash means – both to me and to the person I’m asking.

Does it mean that I’m not getting better? I don’t want to think about that.

If I ask for help, will they think I can’t do it anymore? Will they think less of me because I need help?

That’s a very different connection to the thing that needs fixing. Loaded with fear, it makes asking for help a lot harder.

We want to avoid all of that. So we don’t ask.

Which means we don’t get the help we need.

And the thing that needs fixing? Never gets fixed.

It’s a problem that seeps into every corner of our lives.

It’s why today’s Gospel – where the man with leprosy asks Jesus to heal him – is so important. Because it gets past all of the fears, to show us how God actually responds when we ask for help.

In the first century, leprosy was a disease with a lot of social and religious baggage. Leprosy didn’t just happen.

Leprosy was a sign to others that you were unclean. You were physically, spiritually unclean –that’s why got leprosy. Leprosy was God’s judgment. On you.

But the man is desperate. It’s killing him, slowly and painfully.

So he musters up the courage and humility to ask Jesus for help. And when he does?

None of his fears come true. Jesus doesn’t reject him because he’s unclean. Jesus doesn’t go off on him, about what he must have done to get leprosy.

Jesus sees the man – not as a disease, but as His child.

Jesus receives him gently and lovingly. And quietly fixes the thing that needs fixing.

As Jesus always does. Whenever one of His children, whenever you, have the courage and humility to ask for help.

Today’s Readings

[granolagaeilgeoir]

Another update! He has another scan today to see if his tumor has spread anywhere else in his abdomen. Please keep the prayers coming, especially some Hail Mary's!

Prayer request update! Please pray for my dad, as he got scan results back and while they didn't find a tumor in the spot they were looking for it, there was an abnormality they discovered that could either be nothing or bone marrow cancer. Please pray for the health and conversion of him and my whole family!

[thecatholicbozo]

The confessional - what a marvelous little room in which we die to self

[holygirlforjesus]

God didn’t bring you this far to leave you.

Philippians 1:6

[awfullybigwardrobe44]

My pastor loves to point out (and I love it too) that Jesus’s last words on the cross were “It is finished,” which in the original language was actually “Paid in full.”

I looked it up today, and the “Paid in full” word is actually an accounting term.

Jesus didn’t put a down payment on our salvation. He paid the entire price.

I have grace on my mind tonight. Specifically, how misunderstood it is, and how that misunderstanding muddies up conversation with others about Jesus.

Something I learned some years ago, as I got to know some excellent LDS friends, is that in the LDS belief system, grace is seen kind of like a ladder. Jesus died for us to give us that ladder, and we have to climb our way up it. Basically, your own works, your own goodness, is still required for you to be in right relation with God again.

And honestly, I know a lot of Christians believe something like this, too. That, sure, Jesus saved us by His grace, but you still have to be GOOD ENOUGH to "earn" it.

But the truth is that the actual Grace Jesus taught isn't like that at all. Grace isn't like a ladder extended down to you - grace is Jesus's own hand. He's reaching it down to us, offering it, asking us to grab hold. We have to choose to take it - we have to grasp that hand (accept His forgiveness, accept His Kingship, accept that he is not A god or A son of God but GOD HIMSELF, who paid the price of death that our sins deserve).

But when you grab His hand, You know what He does?

He grabs you back. He lifts you out of the muck and mire. HE does all the work. He holds you TIGHT. NOTHING can wrest you from His grip.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

If it were at all possible for a human to work their way to God, to earn salvation, Jesus would not have had to sacrifice Himself for us. He didn't humble himself by becoming a human, live a sinless life, and die a gruesome, unjust death so we would keep killing ourselves trying to reach perfection on our own. No good deed can cancel out a sin, just like giving money to charity can't undo a murder. Only when someone pays the price can the wrong be absolved - and the price for sin is death. By being fully man yet fully God, by living a sinless life that did not earn the death penalty, Jesus was able to pay the price FOR us.

We still need to repent - we need to turn away from our sin, admit we need help, admit we need forgiveness and mercy (the inverse of grace, where we DON'T recieve the consequences we DO deserve). And when we do accept Jesus, HE helps us change and become better versions of ourselves. The good works are an outcome of salvation, not the payment for it. We do have to put effort in because our bodies and mines still struggle with sinful habits, but He is helping us, and the intent is to grow closer to and more like Him - not to earn His love.

When it comes to salvation, Jesus did all the work already. Please grab His hand and hold on tight - it will likely be a bumpy ride through this life. But I promise you, He won't let go once you put your hand in His.

(If anyone would like prayer or to ask a question, I'm open. Praying you have a blessed night, wherever you are.)

[chillentertainer]

catholicism fucking fascinates me. i remember watching scorsese and coppola and thinking wow catholic people are Weird. but maybe it was just an italian mobster thing yk. it was not.

they’re all Like That. and what i mean by that is just really dramatic. fucking theatrical these people with their latin and costumes and special little rituals.

i think what catholics really crave is a local theatre program. imagine how much happier thomas lawrence would be running theatre productions instead of a conclave </3

[cath-lic]

i’m sure this has been posted about before, but the concept of religious folklore creatures is so so interesting to me. and since i’m catholic, of course, i can’t help but wonder what you can invent with this…

dwarves who build miles of complex catacombs underground. dragons who guard churches. ghosts of clergy long since departed, offering religious advice to visitors.

vampires who pray until their skin burns, who refuse to accept damnation. werewolves who reread the story of st. francis and the wolf of gubbio over and over again.

zombies who stumble back into church with the last memories they have. aliens who risk social ostracism to adopt a foreign religion. fauns and fairies who incorporate their own woodland culture into mass… the list goes on!

[anastpaul]

One Minute Reflection – 9 January – “The Month of the Most Holy Name of Jesus and of the Holy Family”– Within the Octave of The Epiphany –Isaias 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/ “Falling down they ad

(via One Minute Reflection – 9 January – ‘ … Mad? Yes, they have become so in order to be wise. …’ St Bernard – AnaStpaul)

[prokopetz]

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

[adolin]

ok but we're all missing the important question here... WHO in the vatican has taught the spanish-speaking pope how to say faggotry in italian. how on earth did it come up. was it a prank. was it political sabotage. is there homosexual tomfoolery afoot in santa marta. I need to know more