New Essay on "Window Dressing" Up on Catholic Stand and Catholic365

My latest essay for Catholic Stand is now live, which focuses on the differences between Catholic and non-Catholic Christians, and why both sides contradict each other on the so-called "essentials". The Catholic Stand article was shortened for space issues, but the full, unedited version can be found on Catholic365. Here's a snippet from the article. Please follow the links above for more:

King David Playing the Harp- Peter Paul Rubens

Many of our separated Christian brethren hold that there is more we have in common than we might think. I agree. Catholics and non-denominational Christians share in a common baptism and common profession of Jesus as God and savior. However, it’s pretty obvious that there are also some glaring differences between these two faiths, and I would argue (as would many Catholic and Orthodox Christians) that these differences are in essential areas, i.e., salvation. 

The first point to make in response to this view of indifferentism regarding Jesus’ Church is to simply ask, how can this be that the doctrines and Traditions of Christian religions are merely window dressing? Who has decided which teachings and doctrines are window dressing and which are actually the structure of the building itself, that is, essential? The “essentials” seem elementary to any Evangelical. 

But on the flip side, the “essentials” seem pretty clear to Catholics, too. The problem here is that these essentials are defined differently between these two faiths, and often, the “essentials” even contradict each other. But what if everything revealed to us by Jesus and the New Testament writers are essential? 

More here.

New Catholic365 Articles on Byzantine rite

I apologize for the lack of content lately. I have been working overtime again, and it's anyone's guess how long this will last. I may be posting infrequently still for the next few weeks. In the meantime, I finally finished up my series on the eastern Catholic Churches over at Catholic365.com. I had to end up separating the long essay into three parts, and they are linked below, with a preview of the first part after the jump:

Intro to the Eastern Catholic Churches Part VI: The Byzantine Rite and Its History

Intro to the Eastern Catholic Churches Part VI: The Byzantine Churches Today and Its Liturgical Traditions

Intro to the Eastern Catholic Churches Part VI: Great Byzantine Saints

New Article on "Following Your Heart" At Catholic365

So I've forgotten to post this here for quite some time, but I have an expanded version of this essay on "following our hearts" up on Catholics365.com. Below is a short snippet from the updated essay, with the link posted once again at the bottom of the selection.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus being adored by the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Margret Mary Alacoque

New Article on the Mass Said Ad Oriemtem on Catholic365

Forgot to post this, but I recently turned one of my dialogue blog posts into an essay format, which is now posted at Catholic365.com. Be sure to check it out, and you can find a snippet of the article below:

Intro to the Eastern Catholic Churches Part V: The Antiochene Rite

Just got my latest essay up on the Eastern Catholic Churches. This time we're looking at the ancient Antiochene Rite, which houses the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church and the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, and you can check out the full article over on Catholic365.com. Hopefully, my next essay on the Byzantine Rite will be up in the next week or so, but there's a lot more detail going into that one, and I have some other things being worked on, so please bear with me if that next part is delayed a bit. Same goes for a lack of posts lately; things may be more sporadic in the coming weeks, but I plan on still getting on here at least once or twice a week. Here's a preview of the current essay:

St. John's Syro-Malankara Catholic Cathedral, Kerala, India

Intro to the Eastern Catholic Churches Part IV: The Chaldean Rite

The 4th installment of my series on the Eastern Catholic Churches is up, this time on the Chaldean Rite, which includes the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. I was able to visit the St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Cathedral a year or so ago. It was a beautiful church with a beautiful liturgy. You can check out the full article over on Catholic365, but here's a preview of it below.

St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church in Troy, MI

Introduction to the Alexandrian Rite is Posted

For those that have been keeping up on my essays on the Eastern Catholic Churches, my next essay is up on Catholic365.com, and this time I'll be covering the Alexandrian Rite. Hopefully I'll have the next up in the series on the Chaldean Rite of the Church live pretty soon.

The Armenian Catholic Church: A Preview

Recently I posted an essay I had written on the Eastern Catholic Churches that was to serve as a sort of introduction for those not very familiar with Eastern traditions. This was to be the first in a series with subsequent articles going more in depth in regards to each different liturgical rite of the Church. Unfortunately, my time has been limited as I've been working overtime, have a new addition at home to look after, and other things coming up as well. There's a lot to research with these essays, so my posting will be pretty sporadic here for the next few weeks as I get these essays done in my spare time.

My next essay on the Armenian Rite will hit Catholic365 on Monday night, with the next in the series on the Alexandrian Rite coming out the following Monday. Here's a preview of the next essay to hold things over, and I'll post a link here to the full essay once it's live.

The Armenian Catholic Cathedral in Gherla, Romania

Primer on the Eastern Catholic Churches

Being part Ukrainian, and being Catholic, I've always had the best of both worlds: being able to take part in the great patrimony and traditions of the Latin and Byzantine Churches, that is, the Churches of the East and West. Many Roman Catholics, though, don't have this opportunity, and often are left scratching their heads asking, "what ARE the Eastern Catholic Churches?" In the first of a series of essays, I give an introduction to the various Eastern Catholic Churches, with each future essay going into each particular liturgical tradition, or rite, of the Catholic Church. I hope to have my next article on the Armenian Catholic Church up soon. You can check out the full article over on Catholic365.com, but here's a snippet from the article:

New Article on the Real Presence on Catholic365

About a week or so ago, I posted a conversation I had with a Protestant on the issue of the Real Presence and the authority of the Church. Since then, I've edited the dialogue into an essay that was just recently posted over on Catholic 365. Even if you have read the actual discussion, please check out the essay version where I try to clarify things a little bit more. So far I'm two for two in writing new essays stemming from comments from a previous essay. Let's see if we can make it three for three... although I don't how much clearer I can get on the subject unless we start going onto other tangents. In any case, be sure to take a look and peruse around a bit on the site for some other good articles by other Catholics.

Expanded Post on Apostles and Early Church Fathers on the Real Presence

I recently posted a discussion I had with a Fundamentalist on the belief in the Real Presence in the first 100 years or so of the Catholic Church. I took the relevant information from our discussion and modified it into an essay that was just recently posted over on Catholic 365. Plenty of Scriptural references from St. Paul and from the Didache are in this article, so check it out and be sure to peruse around the site for other articles on all sorts of relevant, Catholic topics.

Institution of the Eucharist- Fra Angelico

More on Transubstantiation Up at Catholic365

Wanted to alert everyone another one of my posts is live over at Catholic365.com, this one dealing with Matt Slick's critique of transubstantiation. Make sure you surf around to read many of the other various articles over there. As for the topic matter itself, I still have yet to get that 'theology on tap" thing going with my friend. I'm hoping it happens soon, because it'll be interesting to get different perspectives on the Eucharist from other non-Catholic Christians, and to openly dialogue about it in person instead of writing. Hopefully, when it does happen, the discussion will provide to be fruitful. I'll be sure to make some comments on it when it actually goes down.

Expanded Post on Our faith and Tradition

I have yet another article live on Catholic 365, which is an updated version of an essay I wrote earlier this year entitled "Reclaiming Our Faith and Tradition". In this expanded version of the essay, I've included more Scriptural references to the different traditions (small "t") that I talk about in this article, which should give the reader a much better idea of where these traditions actually stem from, and how our ancestors have been doing the things, or at least something similar, to what we do in our churches for millennia. Please check out this new post over on Catholic365.com, and browse around a bit to see more by many other Catholic bloggers.

I must note, that in the comments section on Facebook, many people were totally taking my article out of context. I'm starting to think some just read the blurb at the top of the page, saw the picture of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, and assumed it was fawning over the Tridentine Mass. People on both sides, "liberal" and "conservative" had some ridiculous comments. They ranged from claiming the Ordianry Form of the Mass was "heretical" to having "too many centuries" of the priest facing away from the people talking in a dead language. This proves there is only orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and heterodoxy can be either "conservative" or "lberal".  I replied, after posting the video and pitcures of the inauguration of the new Syro-Malankara Catholic eparchy,  "Notice the ornate vestments. Notice how the priests face East during the liturgy, with their "backs towards the people". Notice how they DON'T speak Latin, but speak English AND Malayalam during the liturgy. Should they stop living the traditions of their particular Church? Or should we be more like these Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters of ours, and embrace and remember our own traditions native to the Latin Church?"

Some food for thought. I may expand on these subjects later...

Posting on Catholic365... and a Welcome!

So first off, a hello to everyone who's found their way here from Catholic365.com! To those of you that don't know, I've been writing on Catholic365 for a little over a month now, with three articles up so far culled from this very blog, with revisions and tweaks here and there. if you're new to this blog, please feel free to look around, comment, share and discuss any of the topics I've posted about on here. And for those of you that haven't visited Catholic365 yet, check out my latest article there, On Being "Old School", and also look around the site. They feature stories from many different authors on a myriad of subjects.

Also, I've now added labels to each of my posts to make it easier to search for specific subjects and topics. Hopefully this will make things a bit more organized on here!