Friday was my day to talk theology with Protestants it seems. A friend of mine who is starting an online ministry teaching people the Biblical secrets to success is married to a former Greek Orthodox woman who is now a born again like him. Though they did have their marriage blessed in her GO parish. Not sure how that happened, but I didn't pry. Anyway, he has taken to watching EWTN because there isn't a great selection of Protestant channels for him. He has really gotten into Father Corapi and loves to listen to the man preach.

I was telling him about a story Fr. Corapi tells about speaking in Peru and the reaction of a Protestant minister in the crowd when he called the Blessed Mother the most perfect of God's creation. Cute story and Fr. C. tells it way better than me. But the point is that this friend of mine was it TOTAL agreement with the Church on this one. Apparently he has believed for some time, maybe always, that Mary must have been pure to be able to bear God to the world.

He apparently talked about it with a priest friend once who gave him a great quote:

"An impure womb, could not carry a perfect God."

That does a great job of summing up the Immaculate conception I think. He even calls Mary the Blessed Mother too. I love that. I jokingly referred one day to being a statue-worshipping papist and he about fell out of his chair laughing. He said something that was approaching the Catholic position and I told him to be careful or he might be accused of being one. Since then he jokes about being a closet one or working on being one. I told him I am going to bring him a statue to worship when I go to Michigan to work a conference in April.

All in all, an excellent discussion with him. Friday was good.

Had an interesting conversation with a friend at work. He asked me about Purgatory. His wife's family is Catholic and his mother in law made a statement about believing she is going to Purgatory when she dies. He of course doesn't believe in Purgatory and needed some clarification about what it's about and what it means. That lead to a long discussion on that and other topics.

Again it came back to some different uses of same and similar words in different contexts. I don't think I was able to convey that Purgatory is not about payment for sins we commit. Christ did that for us. In his view of things, God doesn't let us die before we are made righteous as he put it. Meaning he believes that Christians die only after they lose all attachment to sin, which is what Purgatory is all about... The purging of our residual attachment to sin.

He agreed that nothing unclean can enter Heaven. He also agreed that there are ramifications to our sins. But he also believes in a Calvinist approach to predestination I think. From comments that he has made, I think he believes that we are predestined to go to Heaven or Hell according to God's will. That would explain the belief that Purgatory is not necessary. If we are predestined, God doesn't need to purge us.

I explained the concept that God knows our decisions before we do, therefore he has crafted His plans according to what He knows we will do. Thereby preserving our free will and moving His plans forward at the same time. Our yes and our no are all part of the plan, but not caused or pre-determined by the plan. I think that gave him something to think about.

We also had a great time trying to wrap our brains around the concept of eternity vs. time, etc. How to envision it, how to describe it and how to understand it.

Our attempts were... limited in their success. :) What else?

Also gave him a great quote that he hadn't heard before about the Scriptures...

"The Old Testament is revealed in the New and the New is concealed in the Old."

He really liked that one.

Oh yeah... We also talked about talking to spirits, etc. and the the nature of the Levitical sacrifices compared to Calvary and why they were instituted. Excellent discussion all around.

The beginning of Lent. The season we all dread the most...

No meat on Friday.

What to give up?

What counts as meat?

I hate fish.

What exactly does fasting and abstinence mean anyway?

Jimmy Akin did a great blog entry on the basics over at his site.

Personally I am mixed about it this year. I really want to use the time for some serious spiritual introspection and examination. I'd like to do some serious denial by giving up something difficult, but can't decide what. Probably going to do something food related. Something like sweets and snacks. Need to get the weight back down anyway. Still, it doesn't shout back at me, "Do this!"

Ah well. Offer it up. :)