Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 39

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday: ‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean BY WILLIAM BLAKE Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean, The children walking two & two in red & blue & green. Grey-headed beadles walk’d before with wands as white as snow, Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames […]

A Medieval English Poem Translated for Spy Wednesday…

… a Clerk of Oxford It was upon a Sheer Thursday* that our Lord arose, Full mild were the words he spake to Judas: “Judas, thou must to Jerusalem our meat for to bugge*; Thirty plate of silver thou bear upon thy rugge*. When thou comest far in the broad street, far in the broad […]

Talking with a Friend Who Fears Francis

Please forgive me if the capitalization in this post is hinky. My keyboard is on the fritz and awaiting repair. Regarding the CRISIS piece on Francis’ alleged socialist agenda, I find it hard to buy for a couple of reasons. First of all, it assumes as a matter of course that anything socialist is, ipso […]

Palm Sunday and Jesus’ Claim to be the Christ

Jesus’ other “name” is not a name at all but a title. “Christ” means “Anointed One” and is the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Mashiach” or “Messiah.” In the Old Testament, anointing was done to kings (1 Samuel 16:13), priests (Exodus 28:41), and prophets (1 Chronicles 16:22) to signify that the power and authority of […]

Two Articles on Faith and Science

One of the things that Native American cultures have done for postmoderns is make a return to Catholic ways of seeing the integral nature of creation. For five hundred years, that project of the postmodern West has been to divorce the spiritual from the material and desacramentalize creation with the notion that it is ‘just’ […]

Fasting Friday 5

On this last Friday in Lent before Good Friday, here are the last of the fasting and penitential ideas from Deacon Nick Senger along with the commentary of an ordinary lay slobovian penitent known as Yr Obdt. Svt. Become a lector. This would require schedule adjustments that would wind up being a penance for my […]

A reader has a question about Mary and Eve

He writes: I have a few questions and thought you might be able to point me in the right direction.  I teach a PSR class for 7th grade.  We were discussing Mary as the new Eve and it stirred up some thoughts/question on the subject.  In pondering Mary as the new Eve, it seemed like […]

Prayer Wednesday – Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your merciful love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done that which […]

The Woman Taken in Adultery and the Judgment of God

Here’s a little piece I wrote a while back for Saint Anthony Messenger. Given that this was the Sunday reading, I thought it appropriate to reprint it here. The story of the woman taken in adultery stands out in Scripture for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it stands out because it is reckoned […]

Almsgiving Monday 5 – Fr. Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries offers a moving speech

You can go here to support the work of Homeboy Industries being as how this is Almsgiving Monday.