Wow!

I've started listening to a podcast called "Into the Deep" (found on iTunes or SQPN.com) and they have a series that I will be listening to soon where they cover the book "The Spiritual Combat" by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli. I've only started it, but its got some great stuff in it. Here's one of them...

The man who has a deep distrust of himself and places great confidence in God is not at all surprised if he commits a fault. He does not abandon himself to confused despair; he correctly attributes what has happened to his own weakness and lack of confidence in God. Thus he learns to distrust himself more, and he places all his hopes in the assistance of the Almighty.


It goes on, but this, to me, is a great quote. How many times do beat our selves up when we fail? Whether it is a diet, our prayer life, or staying away from a particular sin? But this book tells us to distrust ourselves and put our complete trust in God, asking earnestly for His divine help. When we fail, we are not to beat ourselves up, but instead see it as a lesson demonstrating why we are distrust ourselves and trust in God.

I've only started this book, but I recommend it! You can find linksw to free downloads or where to but it on the Into the Deep blog. I'll add the liink to this entry soon...

Why the Catholic Church?

On Catholic Answers Live (on EWTN radio) yesterday, someone called in with a problem that his Catholic teenage daughter had gone to an Evangelical Church and really liked it. It had great music, preaching and hospitality. Their Catholic church did not.

This brings up the question, why be Catholic and go to a Catholic church? Many Catholic churches are "boring", the music isn't good, and people may not be friendly. So why go? Why not go to another church?

I have done a lot of exploration of the Catholic church over the last year. I've been Catholic for a little more than 2 years, and until this past year, I certainly didn't understand either...

The Catholic Church has the physical presence of Jesus at Mass in the Eucharist. You can receive Jesus every week, every day even! When an Evangelical asks a Catholic "do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?", the answer should be "Absolutely! I receive Jesus into my body every week. It doesn't get any more personal than that!"

I always knew that communion was important, but never knew why. Growing up Methodist, we had communion on "special" occasions. But I attended a church (non-denominational) for a while with my girlfriend  that never had communion. I always thought "that's not right".  When thinking of becoming Catholic, I always thought I would never accept transubstantiation (the belief that the bead and wine are trnsformed into the body and blood of Christ). And initially I didn't. But after reading about it, the basis in scripture and why the church teaches it, I am amazed that I didn't believe!  The Eucharist is a beautiful gift to us! Its a weekly dose of grace for you!

If you don't believe in the Eucharist (as either a non-Catholic or a Catholic) then I can understand the allure of another church. But if you do believe, why (and how) could you go anywhere else?

And if you don't believe, don't you owe it to yourself to learn about the Eucharist and see if the Catholic Church jsut might be right?

First Mobile Post

I spend over an hour a day either on a ferry (I live on an island, remember) or a bus. This is prime blogging time using my Blackberry...

Let's see how it works!


Brian

Howdy

Hi, I'm Brian.

Just to start, this is my first personal blog. I tried to blog about technology (the programming language Perl) once, but quickly ran out of material. It didn't last long!

I don't know what I'll be talking about here. Probably about Catholic links and podcasts I have found, along with my thoughts about being Catholic (I'm a convert) and the Catholic Church.

You'll notice that my blog is "Island Catholic". I live on Whidbey Island and attend St. Hubert Catholic Church in Langley, Washington. It is pretty small parish in a small community.

I'm also a husband and a dad. I've got 2 boys, ages 4 and 6.

My wife (Patricia) and I are involved in our church with the High School Youth Group, Junior High Youth Group and Confirmation. Patricia will be leading the JHYG and Confirmation, if we have confirmation again this year.

I'm a programmer, so I love high tech. I'm looking at getting my wife hooked up with all of Google's tools for managing communications with the groups. We used Yahoo! Groups for Confirmation this year, with limited success. Google has more tools and seem to be better integrated. The only downside is that some of them are blocked for me at work.

That's it for now...


Brian