Antonius

Life is really just beginning again and again, and beginning all over again. Three years ago I tried to do a challenge and then had to go through a terrible bout of depression, but I came through it alright. Now I need to focus on healthier living and losing weight, so I can enjoy going to the beach in the summer! My hobbit self has hibernated enough and now that Easter and the Spring have arrived, it's time to get back into shape and feel good! Big Goals: Go to bed earlier --> 10pm Wake up erlier --> 5am Work out early in the morning, Mon-Fri and later on Saturday Small Goals: Take time each day to pray and study Use weekends to work on papers Reach Goal: Find a set time for video games Let's do this, fellow Adventurers!

I learned a lot over the last two years (been playing since launch) reading articles on Liquid Hearth and Icy-Veins. When I play some of you new guys, I'll make a deck without epics and legendaries!

Antonius#1444, friend me and we'll play! It's a great game! Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

The keyword in my post is "can". It's hard enough for Christians to understand violence as a last resort and especialy so-called "Christian states." Nevertheless, you're very correct that it's impossible to expect a non-Christian or a non-Christian state to understand Christ's teaching on war and peace.

The "divine law" of praying for one's enemies and the "natural law" of protecting yourself, your family, and your people are not at odds. How can they be at odds since they are both from God? I love my neighbor as myself (Mk 12:31) but what about when one of my neighbors is attacking one of my children or any other kind of "little ones" of Mattew 18:6? What do I do then? My first moral obligation is to protect my own life that God gave me. If I can't love myself then how can I love my neighbor? Also, I must protect those who cannot defend themselves. Finally, rushing headlong into danger for either of us wouldn't be very protective, now would it? Starting with Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century AD, Christians have been thinking about both when it's OK to go to war and what is the right conduct in war. The below conditions are a decent summation of what's been thought about and discussed since Augustine's time: Full disclosure, this comes from a Catholic source, but these principles can be agreed by any state or any religion.

Sooo.... The next Six-Week-Challenge starts in a few days. Anyone going to use it to level-up their life? I will post later about my own plans, but I have to go to class at the moment.

Me too! The more I study the more I realize this.

Yes! Everything has a purpose within God's plan. God wants sex to be between a man and woman who have promised to love each other forever and who are ready to welcome each child that He wants to entrust to them to bring into the world and the Church. Sex has a twofold purpose. The union of the husband and wifeMutual self-giving sacrificial love, i.e., caring for each other's destiny. Love, all love, is a decision to do or not do something that is for the other's good."Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her." (Ephesians 5:25)In Marriage, you make a promise that persists until death. Jesus disallows divorce (see Matthew 19:3-8).​ProcreationCollaborating with God's plan to bring new persons into the world and into the Church, the Body of Christ."So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’" (Genesis 1:27-28)And one more thing that Jesus Himself said: "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28) OK, so how can I answer Bekah's question? Well, first, it's not "anything goes." A husband and a wife can look at each other with lust in his/her heart. If love is the decision to will another's good, lust is the decision to use another for my own sexual pleasure. So, anything that would reduce the sexual act from its two-fold purpose is a sin because it is a misuse of the good that God has ordained for it. Therefore, I would say all forms of "kink" are all about sexual gratification only and reduce the human person to an animal who only feels and does not love. Actually, even within the world of Catholic theology, there's a lot more that can be said and debated about what's allowed in marriage and I'm not an expert in those debates. I hope, however, that I provided a general outline and a way to think about how a husband and wife treat one another. Edit: I will add one thing. I've told my friends who have gotten married to be careful, that once they start treating their wife like a porn star the marriage will begin to fall apart. Edit #2: Lust is the most common sin! Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy (an epic poem, the masterpiece of the Middle Ages) makes it the level of hell (after Limbo, where righteous pagans go) where unrepentant sinners are punished the least! So, we all are falling into that one more than the others. Especially nowadays when we're all thinking about sex all the time (possibly more than in past centuries?) due to the influence of the media!

Politics and Christianity is a hell of a tricky issue... Ever since they asked Our Lord if it was lawful to pay taxes to the occupying Roman government! "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God's." After that, Christians have set up all sorts of governments and debated all sorts of political actions. The reason it's a hot topic is, well, like everything else in this religion, God became man. God became one of us, He got down in the trenches with us and pitched His tent among us. And He's still present today! Therefore, we have an obligation to work for a just social order. Will it be perfect? No. Do Christians of all stripes tend to focus on one issue possibly to the detriment of others? Yes, most of the time. Still, if the unthinkable thing has happened, i.e., the Infinite Lord of the Universe has become a finite creature, a man, then, well, everything changes. Everything I think I know about how we should related to one another gets turned upside down by what Jesus Christ started. For example, women's rights have never taken hold in a society until after Christianity has first permeated that society. I'd like you to show me a counter-example, but the way Jesus treated women changed the way women were viewed in Christian society (albeit slowly, if you compare 20th century changes, but they were still radical if you compare A.D to the previous millenia of B.C.).

Same exact problem my friend faced. I don't know if they were given a proper church building for their own use by now, but they would use a cemetery chapel or the priest's own home chapel. It's definitely tight in the second space! Once again, though, they're a small group with only two young families and a smattering of old folks. My parents' parish merged with a nearby one that was in debt. They were lucky because they were able to sell the property of the indebted parish to the Maronites (Lebanese Catholics) so it's still being used as a Catholic church and not as condos or a mosque or something. Maybe there's a Catholic church that the local Catholic bishop needs to close? Usually those kinds of buildings are way too expensive to maintain in the first place, so it's still not a good option. The Maronites had been saving up money for many years to build on property that they bought, but they couldn't pass up this deal. But you never know what the local Catholic bishop would have in mind and what the Ordinariate would be able to arrange. I'll definitely pray for you. It's tough times these days and it's hard to find a place where we feel at home. When I first moved to a big city I bounced around different parishes for years never registering at one of them. Part of it was my own impatience and the other part was my friends were sort of doing the same thing and I wanted to be with them. It's not ideal... It's better to be anchored in a stable, local community. But, hey, contemporary life keeps undergoing changes. You sound like you're doing your best to hang in there and follow the Spirit. As I said above, I'll pray for you.

Great! Once you clear your mind, you need to put something inside of it, according to Jesus: I also made a post earlier in the thread about Christian meditation: http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/17179-are-there-any-christian-nerds-in-here/?p=1505106 Clear your mind, but then meditate on Christ in Scripture (start with a short Gospel passage) and allow the Holy Spirit to show you where He is present in your life. Shouldn't take longer than 10 mins when you're starting out I reckon. If you only clear your mind, as Our Lord says, you're still leaving it open for just about anything to come in. I should also say that Christian meditation takes a lot of practice (I'm no master!) and even mature souls struggle to make good meditations. I didn't read this: Just what exactly are those Hindu deities I wonder? I've never done yoga because I learned how to stretch when I was on the rowing team in high school. How different is yoga from simply stretching and breathing and listening to calming music?

The liturgy is probably much more beautiful where you are now and possibly even more "Catholic" than the RC place a block away! Then again, it was James Joyce who wrote about the Catholic Church, "Here comes everybody" so maybe the RC place with the whole mix of folks is closer to reality. If there were an Ordinariate parish near you I'm sure that you'd have more to consider. I know a guy who "Poped" (as you call it) but it was with together with his priest and some parishioners and then they started an Ordinariate parish. Problem is, they're very small and over an hour away from where he had to move for work. That's where he feels most at home and part of me feels more at home there (I visited once) than I do at many other RC parishes. The part of me that feels at home there is the part that loves beautiful liturgy and the part that is Anglophile. The part that doesn't is the part that's Italophile/Latinophile and wants the "here comes everybody" church because the sacraments are ex opere operato and all that. But anyway... I don't know what I would have done if I were an Italian-American in your town during that time!

Another Catholic! Yeah, I was thinking about saying something about yoga. I guess it's like martial arts, no? The deeper you get into it the more it takes you away from Christ. I knew a guy who got so deep that he saw some really evil techniques that invoked the spirit world and that's when he knew he had to get out. He still does some MMA type stuff, I think, to stay in fighting shape. If a Christian likes yoga, why not just stretch or do pilates or something? Why does it have to be tied up with another religion? Qi/Chi may or may not be a real thing in the human body, but there are plenty of ways to pray and stretch at the same time. The devil has subtle ways for us to open ourselves to his influence. It always starts with a small little flaw or sin, then our pride lets it grow into something monstrous if we don't ever acknowledge the error of our ways. The most disastrous way to open oneself to the influence of the Evil One is to open oneself to spirits other than the Holy Spirit. The only good spirit is the Holy Spirit.

I remember ol' Pompey (his real given name), God rest his soul, the "head usher" of the 9am Mass (or "liturgy" since we don't use "worship service" as a term). He was a WWII vet and always had a little piece of candy when he shook my hand in the morning. Anyway, he would choose two people to bring up the bread and wine. Those who had never done it before or were visiting that weekend were usually nervous and a few times I heard people say that, "Oh, I can't do it because I'm not dressed very well." He would respond, half-scolding/yelling (in his usual manner) at them, "God doesn't care how you're dressed!" And that's how he made people do it. We care how we're dressed. Different cultures have different tastes. Caribbeans usually show much more skin compared to North Americans, for example. Europeans are more well-dressed than North Americans, generally speaking. But you will find counter-examples in each culture. Sounds like you can still fit in without looking like an Amish woman, so kudos to you.

Great! And just know from this experience that if there's ever a desire in you for something more, then trust that the Lord will let you find what you seek.