SS: In a discussion about advocacy for traditional marriage, one Princeton graduate student told me that she was uncomfortable with the idea of trying to convince others to oppose same-sex marriage by appealing to social science or the kind of arguments you have articulated in What Is Marriage. Although she herself is Catholic, to this student, such an approach felt deceptive—like smuggling in religious precepts under the guise of neutrality and disinterested intellectual inquiry.

How would you respond to her? Is it intellectually honest to make arguments based on natural law or social science for positions you only hold because of your own religious faith?

RG: From your description of her, it sounds like the graduate student you were talking to doesn’t understand the teachings of her own Catholic faith when it comes to the nature of morality, moral questions, and moral judgments, including those concerning marriage. Catholicism self-consciously embraces and proposes a certain understanding of marriage and the norms shaping and protecting it for reasons—reasons that are in principle accessible to anyone, Catholic or not. The point of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense was to articulate, explain, and defend those reasons.

Catholicism is not a fideistic religion. Quite the opposite. Its basic view of marriage as conjugal union (and not a mere form of sexual-romantic companionship or domestic partnership), for example, is not a matter of “religious precepts” that we (or the pope, or the Church) know because God has communicated them to us only by special revelation. Your friend may happen to believe what she believes about marriage because that is what the Church believes and teaches; but the Church herself believes and teaches what she believes and teaches on the subject for reasons that by the Church’s own lights—and her teachings—are available to be understood by “disinterested intellectual inquiry.” These reasons are matters of natural law.

Read it all.

Can we still reason together? A conversaion between @McCormickProf and @SerenaSigillito
https://t.co/gs8Oy4mrdJ

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) March 21, 2021

There are echoes of course of the feeding of the five thousand in John 6, of the last supper, of the Eucharist. The risen Christ is gathering his tired disciples to nourish them with his own presence, to be with them, to build them up, to bring healing and faith and hope again. This simple invitation, this sacramental action, comes before the more challenging dialogue which follows between Jesus and Simon Peter. The order is important.

And this is the invitation we need to hear for ourselves and to give as a church in this present time. This will be a season to set a tempo of gentleness and grace. That may not be easy. We have lost the habit of meeting together. There are any number of things we can argue about. Local finances will be stretched. There may not be enough resources or enough people to do the work. Congregations will probably not return all at once: there will be a need to listen, to love, to visit, to shepherd, to woo. It will be tempting to hector or scold or complain, but we should, I think, resist.

This needs to be a season of grace, of regathering. In our worship we will need to emphasise what the Lord has done for us, the everyday miracles of God’s provision. We will need to support one another as we enjoy again, gradually, the fuller opening of our beautiful church buildings; the privilege of Christian fellowship; the joy of singing together, and most of all, the ability to share together once again in the Eucharist, the meal which Jesus gives to us.

This will be a season of remembering and resetting the truth that we are a Church of word and sacrament. We have been sustained over the past year, largely, by the ministries of the word and thank God for that. But there will need to be a rebalancing again, a recentring of our common life on Jesus’ gift to us: to take bread and, in due course, wine, to give thanks, to break the bread and to share it together; ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’

Read it all.

“You must sit down” says Love and taste my meat”.
So I did sit and eat”

An address to ⁦@oxforddiocese⁩ Synod on resetting our sacramental life https://t.co/3FDrxTxhLK

— Steven Croft (@Steven_Croft) March 24, 2021

More and more cities are embracing a doughnut-shaped economic model to help recover from the coronavirus crisis and reduce exposure to future shocks.

British economist and author of “Doughnut Economics” Kate Raworth believes it is simply a matter of time before the concept is adopted at a national level.

The Dutch capital of Amsterdam became the first city worldwide to formally implement doughnut economics in early April last year, choosing to launch the initiative at a time when the country had one of the world’s highest mortality rates from the coronavirus pandemic.

Amsterdam’s city government said at the time that it hoped to recover from the crisis and avoid future crises by embracing a city portrait of the doughnut theory.

As outlined in Raworth’s 2017 book, doughnut economics aims to “act as a compass for human progress,” turning last century’s degenerative economy into this century’s regenerative one.

“The compass is a doughnut, the kind with a hole in the middle. Ridiculous though that sounds, it is the only doughnut that actually turns out to be good for us,” Raworth told CNBC via telephone.

Read it all.

🍩 More & more cities are embracing a doughnut-shaped economic model to help recover from the Covid crisis and avoid future shocks.

➡️ @KateRaworth believes it is a matter of time before the concept is adopted at a national level.

👇 Here's the story:https://t.co/r6zCqBQxnh

— Sam Meredith (@smeredith19) March 25, 2021

….as social gathering places (at least ones where people can meet without paying) get put on the endangered species list and remote work opportunities cocoon more and more people, as anchoring institutions of society move their activities online and plenty of us shift our purchasing, learning, and even medical care to the internet, the gathered church becomes an ever more precious entity.

Thirst will increase for authentic community where moral formation and relationships of meaning can prosper. In social isolation, we have learned the truth of Frederick Buechner’s words: “You can survive on your own; you can grow strong on your own; you can prevail on your own; but you cannot become human on your own.” Congregations will play a heightened role in providing thick human community.

Second, worship during the pandemic has taught us that churches can be liberated from a fixation on counting. Church leaders have worked feverishly over the last year to try to calculate their church rolls and virtual attendance figures. But faith at its center is a transcendent mystery that refuses to be measured. Numbers depersonalize. If denominations and congregations can catch the spirit, there’s refreshing new freedom to be found in leaving religious bean counting behind.

Third, the ability to conduct worthwhile ministry online throughout the pandemic has upended some of our obsessiveness over our church buildings. We’ve learned to live rich lives of faith independent of them. By the same token, we’ve also seen scores of people moved to tears just reentering sacred spaces that have shaped their spiritual and emotional being. Our extended experience with virtual church may allow us to appreciate our buildings as hubs for mission without idolizing them—a healthy reset.

Read it all.

It starts about 28 minutes in, and includes a short video clip near the start on a recent Virginia teacher of the year.

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that we who have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Annunciation of the Lord
Jn1: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
(Art: El Greco) pic.twitter.com/sitVhlar7S

— Amigo de Frodo (@bpdflores) April 4, 2016

Listen to it all and the composer’s website is there [I first learned of this through Preston Trombly].

Thanks be to thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which thou hast given us, for all the pains and insults which thou hast borne for us. O most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly, now and for evermore.

St Richard of Chichester, bishop, Chancellor of Oxford University, & patron of Sussex, died #OTD in 1253. This was the site of his shrine: pic.twitter.com/xIvbgg0NF7

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 3, 2017

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131 (my favourite Psalm)

“To hope is not only to believe in God, but to believe and be certain that He loves us and means well to us; and therefore is a great Christian grace.” pic.twitter.com/ZQowBve6gg

— FrDavid AbernethyCO (@pghoratory) October 9, 2019