Sunday Snippets - A Catholic Carnival (Solemnity of St.s Peter and Paul 2014)

     Today is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (either the fourth, or the fifth in many dioceses, Sunday solemnity in a row).  In asking us to celebrate these two great founding saints together, the Church invites us to contemplate (among other things) that our faith is a faith of particulars; God is not  an impersonal abstraction, but a God who loves each of us as individuals, who became man, a certain man named Jesus in a particular time and place under a Roman governor whose name has been carefully preserved.  We can see that same concern with particulars in the case of these two very different men, Peter and Paul.  Peter, the rough fisherman, Paul the scholarly and zealous Pharisee; the one the Apostle to the Jews, the other the Apostle to the Gentiles; Paul, whose dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus turned him around in a blinding instant, and Peter whose inner conversion was a much more gradual process, with misunderstandings (“Get behind me Satan!”, Mathew 16:23) and even the triple denial of his Lord along the way. Both served the same Jesus Christ, each in his own way, each was martyred at Rome, and the Bishops of Rome, the Popes, are the successors to both. I expect to return to the theme of Catholicism’s focus on concrete particulars in the coming week.

     You can get a small taste of Catholic unity in diversity from “Sunday Snippets – A Catholic Carnival” [here], a weekly gathering of diverse Catholic bloggers who share their posts for the week at This That and the Other Thing, home of our gracious host RAnn.

     I found myself discussing a number of things over the past week at Principium et Finis, but the topics of family and marriage seemed to predominate.  Here’s the weekly wrap-up:

Tuesday – Guess what? We Catholics support marriage not because we hate homosexuals (and in fact we don’t hate homosexuals) but because we love people (including homosexuals), and strong marriages are and healthy families are good for everyone. Really. “Love And Marriage” [here]

and - If God loves us, then however vast the universe, we can feel safe “What is Man That Thou Art Mindful Of Him?” [here] (added bonus: cool picture of my feet in the ocean)

Wednesday - It was about time for more Bach, wasn’t it?  This one’s a beauty “Motet, Hallelujah! J.S. Bach” [here]

Thursday - As long as you’re “personally opposed”, I suppose you can support anything at all, can’t you? “Abortion Myth #8 (Throwback Thursday Edition)” [here]

Saturday - His feast day was not formally celebrated this year, but the message of his life and death is too important, and too relevant, to miss. “St. John Fisher And The Contraception Mandate” [here]