Are they still doing that? I thought the student loan forgiveness was struck down by the courts.
TIL my local Catholic diocese accepts cryptocurrency donations 👀.
The website uses The Giving Block to power donations.
Does anyone happen to know more about this? It looks quite promising.
"Enchantment" has less to do with magic and more to do with receiving a thing as it truly is. If you are enchanted by an experience, or even a person, it's because you are experiencing something so true, good, and beautiful that it is utterly captivating.
Enchantment with the world, the way I'm using the word, is seeing the same tree you walk by every day as if it were newly-created, and recognizing God's creating and sustaining hand in it, and returning thanks to Him.
Yes. The Mass is where spiritual reality is most visible and accessible, literally in the person of Christ in the Eucharist.
Man I love being Catholic.
Harassed, yes, but they have less power because so many in the West have already been claimed for Christ through baptism.
However, Satan is the "prince of this world," and so he has greater power over the unbaptized by default.
We believe in that too. The Holy Spirit is always at work in the Church.
Sacraments such as Baptism are specific moments where God allows the use of a sign to enact a spiritual reality through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Most of the West is baptized, even if most of the baptized don't practice the Faith any more.
Baptism puts Christ's mark on the soul and frees us from the powers of the devil. The reason we don't see more possessions and such in the West is because of that latent grace of Baptism.
Out in Africa, which is starting out much more pagan, it makes perfect sense to me that the demonic is more visible.
I think this is what religion does, it reveals to us an intertwined spiritual reality.
Specifically, I think that's precisely what the Catholic sacraments do. So to me, it's both possible to see this "enchanted" spiritual reality, and it is something we must do.
Christmas to Epiphany is the Twelve Days of Christmas
For the record, this is why the date is December 25th. Hope this makes the "I'm akschually" folks settle down.
Yes! I love the thought from Tolkien about Christianity as the true myth. The only question is how to live in response to that truth.
So I don't know enough about historical shepherding practices to speak to that, but here's what I do know:
In the early days of Christianity, there was a tradition that a person died on the same day of the year they were conceived. The date of Jesus' crucifixion and death was attributed to March 25th, in correspondence with the Jewish Passover in that year. Thus, early Christians figured that Christ was conceived on March 25th, which is still celebrated as the Feast of the Annunciation.
Go forward nine months, and it stands to reason that Jesus was born on December 25th. Thus, the date for Christmas was set to December 25th.
Every major Christian holiday is treated that way. All Saints' Day (via Halloween), Christmas, and Easter
Annoyingly incorrect?
Do you think the higher and the lower are intertwined with what we daily experience, or are they more separate?
Just never run a credit card balance and it's not a problem.
I avoided them for a long time, started using one to help build credit, but I can't abide the idea of running a balance. I pay it off at the end of every month. It irks me that that good habit doesn't really benefit my credit score though.