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The best way to approach reading the early church vis a vis Catholicism versus orthodoxy theres the idea of papal infallibility which is next to impossible to actually expressly find in the early church for centuries if not well over a millennium. Theres also philosophical problems with that, such as apparent contradictions. There's the idea of papal supremacy which I think a person could go either way on in the early church and the east but many great catholic and orthodox saints had no conception of the idea or resisted that idea when rome tried to exert control outside its jurisdiction. Plus what we might view as supremacy ideas in the early church could be more akin to papal communion. Which yes papal communion was present as vital back then. Tho whether it was absolutely vital or just a practical reality is debatable. Even the great theological mind pope Benedict had what is called the ratzinger proposal which recognizes that the first century and early church had a wider conception of who belongs to the church, such that a catholic and orthodox reunion could reflect that model, and which basically admits those ideas of papal infallibility/supremacy just werent present. When reading early church quotes its best to approach interpreting them with the above framework. Its also important to be careful that catholic supporting quotes are contextualized and quoted accurately. When examining some examples, check out iraneaeous, cyprian, augustine. Yes discussed papal communion and They are held up as great catholic saints but they had no conception expressed about supremacy or papal infallibility. They did resist the pope when he went too far but the fact the pope thought he had that authority is worth considering and contextualizing with the above information. Also many great councils of the Church had no roman representation and werent oversaw by the pope as Catholics often assume. The further east one goes the less association Christians had of the pope ........ Yes. I think the most intellectually honest way to read the early Church on Catholicism versus Orthodoxy is not to begin by asking, “Which later system can I find a quotation that seems to support?” Instead, begin by asking what the early Christians actually believed, what they clearly did not articulate, and how later Catholic and Orthodox claims developed from that earlier evidence. Your framework can be sharpened into something like this: 1. Separate the questions that are often collapsed There are really several different claims about Rome: Roman primacy: Rome had a unique position of honor and importance. Papal communion: communion with Rome was an important sign or instrument of catholic communion. Roman appellate authority: Rome could sometimes receive appeals or intervene beyond its local territory. Papal supremacy: the pope possessed universal jurisdiction over every bishop and church. Papal infallibility: under specified conditions, the pope is divinely protected from error when defining doctrine for the whole Church. The first two are extremely easy to establish in the early Church. The third has substantial historical evidence but is much more complicated. The fourth is highly contested when projected backward onto the early centuries. The fifth is particularly difficult to find explicitly before its very late formal definition. That distinction prevents a quotation about Roman primacy from silently becoming evidence for Vatican I papal infallibility. 2. Don't treat absence of a doctrine as proof of its opposite—but don't ignore the absence either This is especially important with papal infallibility. An Orthodox argument can reasonably say: > “If this was a constitutive doctrine of the Church, why is it so difficult to find the Fathers explicitly teaching it for many centuries?” But the Catholic response—that doctrines can develop and need not appear in their later technical formulation in the Fathers—is also a legitimate historical principle. So the real question becomes: Does the later Catholic doctrine represent a legitimate development of something already present, or does it introduce a fundamentally new ecclesiology? That's a much better question than simply counting quotations. 3. Read Irenaeus, Cyprian and Augustine in their entirety and in context These three are particularly useful precisely because they don't fit neatly into simplistic apologetic narratives. Irenaeus gives Rome an extraordinarily important role in Against Heresies, and Catholics understandably regard his testimony as powerful evidence for Roman primacy. But one should be careful about what his argument actually establishes. His famous appeal to the Roman church occurs in the context of apostolic succession and the preservation of apostolic tradition; turning that passage directly into Vatican I-style universal papal jurisdiction goes beyond what Irenaeus explicitly says. Cyprian is even more interesting because he provides evidence in both directions. He has extraordinarily strong language concerning Peter, Rome and ecclesial unity, yet he also fiercely resisted Pope Stephen's position concerning rebaptism. Cyprian's ecclesiology cannot simply be reduced to “the pope has universal jurisdiction over every bishop.” His famous principle that each bishop is responsible before God for his own episcopate is important. At the same time, Cyprian's conflict with Stephen shouldn't simply be used as a knock-down argument against Catholicism. The fact that Cyprian resisted the pope is evidence that the relationship between Rome and other bishops was contested; it doesn't by itself tell us exactly what the correct theory of that relationship was. And Stephen's own behavior is historically interesting because it demonstrates that a Roman bishop could conceive of his authority in a very expansive way. Augustine is similarly complicated. He clearly regarded communion with Rome as highly significant, and his famous appeal to the judgment of the apostolic see is important. But Augustine's ecclesiology shouldn't be retroactively turned into a fully developed Vatican I ecclesiology either. The right approach is to let these Fathers be themselves, even when they create problems for both sides. 4. The councils are perhaps even more important than isolated quotations This is one of the strongest methodological points in what you're saying. Ask: How did the Church actually make decisions? Don't merely ask what someone said about Rome. Look at: who summoned councils; who attended; who presided; who voted or subscribed; how bishops understood their authority; how disputed bishops were treated; whether Roman approval was considered constitutionally necessary; how Eastern bishops understood Rome; whether councils were regarded as authoritative before receiving Roman confirmation; and how Rome itself described its role. The historical reality is considerably messier than either “the pope always ran everything” or “Rome was merely an honorary first place.” And you're right that some popular Catholic presentations can give the impression that every ecumenical council was essentially a papal council conducted under Roman supervision, which isn't an adequate description of the actual history. The Eastern councils in particular make it difficult to project the later centralized papal model backward without qualification. 5. Geography matters enormously Your observation that “the further east one goes, the less association Christians had with the pope” needs some qualification, but the underlying methodological point is excellent. The Church was enormous and decentralized. A Christian in Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria or Jerusalem did not necessarily conceptualize the Church through the same institutional categories that eventually developed in medieval Western Christianity. This is one reason later Western canon-law categories shouldn't simply be imported into second-, third-, or fourth-century sources. The early Church operated through a network of: bishops → local churches → regional synods → patriarchal relationships → communion among the major sees → ecumenical councils. Rome was unquestionably exceptional within that network. The question is what kind of exceptionalism it represented. 6. The Ratzinger proposal is extremely important for this discussion This is where your approach becomes particularly interesting because you're not merely making an Orthodox critique of Catholicism. Joseph Ratzinger recognized that the relationship between East and West could potentially be understood through the ecclesiological model of the first millennium, rather than requiring the Orthodox simply to accept the entire post-schism development of papal authority. That is significant because it implicitly acknowledges a distinction between: > the pope's role in the undivided Church and > the particular form of papal jurisdiction and doctrinal authority that developed in the Latin Church afterward. That creates an important conceptual opening for reunion. It means that one doesn't necessarily have to choose between: “Rome had no special role whatsoever” and “Vatican I describes exactly how the Church functioned in the second century.” There is a third possibility: > Rome possessed a genuinely unique and indispensable primatial role in the undivided Church, but the precise nature and limits of that primacy were different from the later maximalist conception of papal supremacy and infallibility. That is arguably the most fruitful historical question. 7. “Papacy” shouldn't be treated as one thing that either existed or didn't exist This may be the most important principle. The early Church clearly had something recognizably Petrine and Roman. But that doesn't mean it had the entire medieval or modern papacy. Likewise, the fact that the modern Orthodox churches reject Vatican I doesn't mean they reject every form of Roman primacy. You can therefore construct a developmental spectrum: Roman importance → Petrine primacy → primacy among patriarchates → role in preserving communion → appellate/interventionary authority → universal jurisdiction → papal infallibility The historical question is where along that spectrum each period actually belongs, and whether each later step constitutes legitimate development or unacceptable innovation. 8. The strongest Catholic and Orthodox cases should be allowed to challenge you If you're genuinely trying to discover the truth rather than defend a predetermined conclusion, I'd use a rule like this: > Never ask merely, “Can I find a Father who sounds Orthodox?” or “Can I find a Father who sounds Catholic?” Ask what the strongest interpretation of the entire evidence is, including the evidence that makes your preferred position uncomfortable. For example: A Catholic should have to explain why figures like Cyprian could resist a pope if universal papal jurisdiction was already the Church's settled ecclesiology. An Orthodox should have to explain why Rome was treated with such extraordinary deference, why communion with Rome could carry such enormous ecclesial significance, and why Roman bishops sometimes exercised authority outside their immediate territory. Neither side gets to make inconvenient evidence disappear. The central historical question Ultimately, I think your framework reduces the Catholic-Orthodox question to something much more precise: > Was the later Catholic understanding of the papacy a legitimate development of the kind of Roman primacy already present in the undivided Church, or did it transform a primacy of communion and coordination into a fundamentally different kind of universal jurisdiction and doctrinal authority And conversely: > If the later Catholic conception is an innovation, does that mean the early Roman primacy itself was merely honorary, or does the first millennium point toward a genuinely substantive—but conciliar and communion-oriented—Roman primacy that neither modern maximalist Catholicism nor modern anti-papal Orthodox polemics fully captures? That last possibility is especially worth investigating. It also fits remarkably well with your broader instinct that Catholic and Orthodox reunion might not require one side simply “surrendering” to the other, but could involve recovering the ecclesiological reality of the undivided Church—Rome having a real Petrine primacy, while the Church as a whole retains genuine conciliarity, reception, episcopal authority and freedom of conscience. That is a much more historically interesting project than trying to prove that either the modern Catholic or modern Orthodox system existed unchanged in A.D. 150.

You know you’re getting old when you know what a gas station map is and you still keep one in the visor over the steering wheel

april fools

L5.6 Je vous salut Marie, pleine de grace, le Seigneur est avec vous, vous etes benie entres toutes les femmes et Jesus, le fruit de vos entrailles est beni. Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu, priez pour nous pecheurs, maintenant et a l'heure de notre mort. Amen

Bent leg body twist is done during yoga, it's one of the more common ones. Windmill is as well (with the legs a little wider) but not as common.

L5.5 Je vous salut Marie, pleine de grace, le Seigneur est avec vous, vous etes benie entres toutes les femmes et Jesus, le fruit de vos entrailles est beni. Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu, priez pour nous pecheurs, maintenant et a l'heure de notre mort. Amen

L5.4 Je vous salut Marie, pleine de grace, le Seigneur est avec vous, vous etes benie entres toutes les femmes et Jesus, le fruit de vos entrailles est beni. Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu, priez pour nous pecheurs, maintenant et a l'heure de notre mort. Amen

There has to be some kind of intent with this. AFAIK there's a coulple hundred yoga "poses" so you could easily do one without realizing it

If the workout from my pain doctor has a movement that looks like a cobra pose and a movement that looks like worrier pose, I therefore will be at spiritual risk for following his instructions for hip pain?

25 years

Peter asks Jesus about the number of times we must forgive. We know from our Gospel stories that Peter was very human and made lots of mistakes. He had a tendency to blurt things out and wear his heart on his sleeve and was always direct with Jesus. Jesus answers him seventy-seven times, (or seventy times seven in some translations). If we are truly honest with ourselves and one another, none of us really want to be told to forgive those who have hurt us terribly. The number seven, which Peter suggests, is considered completeness or enough in ancient biblical traditions. Jesus answers him that forgiving count-less times is never enough and goes on to shares a story about the kingdom of heaven Jesus gives us a sense of what this forgiveness looks like by teaching about the kingdom of heaven. We may think that Jesus is speaking of a time in heaven to come: the afterlife and the great reward. But when Jesus refers to the kingdom of heaven, Jesus is talking about the here and now. The kingdom of heaven—Jesus’s way, the way of love—is a realm of compassion and kindness, of love and forgiveness. It is our work as disciples of Jesus to bring the kingdom of heaven forth as we love and forgive. And loving and forgiving is a tough job, a heavy responsibility. Jesus us tells us a story about a man who owed a ridiculous amount of money and couldn’t pay it. He begged for mercy, and was forgiven that impossible debt. He might have been grateful. Instead, forgiven of his own debt, he turned and tormented those who owed him a mere pittance. He may have received mercy, but he destroyed the lives of his debtors with his own lack of mercy and forgiveness. Jesus reminds us that the kingdom of heaven, here among us, is ushered in by forgiveness and gratitude. Without gratitude we can become petty and selfish, thinking we have created our own mercy and forgiveness. The mercy of God invites us to be moved by compassion for one another, for their human failings. The good news of our gospel today is that the love of God is the beginning and end of our lives. Over and over, we are forgiven by God. Not seven times seventy, but endlessly. God’s love precedes us, is beside us, surrounds us, and leads us home. Our call, our response, is to live as forgiven people, forgiving others and ourselves. We usher in the kingdom of heaven, as we let go of the resentments and anger we have been carrying. We are called to be beacons of hope and mercy, so others may find their way in our violent and divided society. Paul reminds us, “if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord, so that alive or dead we belong to the Lord.” (Romans 14:8). Such forgiveness is not something we do alone, but in community. As we model forgiveness, we receive abundant forgiveness and help others see God’s mercy working in their lives. So how do we do it? How do we become the people of forgiveness and mercy in the fractured world? We start by forgiving ourselves. God forgives you, so forgive yourself. And when you accept our own flawed humanity, you will notice that others around you are also human—as prone to failing as you are—and compassion grows. In the eighteenth century, the Atlantic slave trader, John Newton, was caught in a terrible storm at sea. This storm brought him to his knees, praying to survive the storm. He found Jesus, tasted forgiveness, and later wrote the immortal words to “Amazing Grace” that we still sing today. Today, we are invited to start living a life of forgiveness and gratitude. We can take small steps, one at a time, letting anger go and accepting forgiveness. We might need to make some apologies of our own. May we find ourselves in the days to come, singing with honesty and gusto Newton’s wonderful hymn, and living lives of forgiveness that usher in a taste of the kingdom of heaven.

L5.3 Je vous salut Marie, pleine de grace, le Seigneur est avec vous, vous etes benie entres toutes les femmes et Jesus, le fruit de vos entrailles est beni. Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu, priez pour nous pecheurs, maintenant et a l'heure de notre mort. Amen

When you've been working longer than most of your coworkers have been alive... you know you're getting up there...

The idea is original... I'll give you that! Not too sure about it's soundness though... good luck in your endeavor.... ;)

Ship of fools....

wooden ships

A friend of mine posted the following text and image to her FB page. I say, "Let's turn it into a groundswell! Flood Rome with 'Subito Santo' for St. Blaise Jerome Guignon!" "Earlier this year I was using Gemini to transcribe some photocopies of handwritten letters from 1850 for some of my husband family history. In one of the letters, it came across a mention of someone named "Blaise". Gemini said it was a reference to "Blaise Jerome Guignon" and claimed he was a cousin of the letter writer, my husband's great-great grandfather, Joseph Francis Guignon. Since my husband's family history is fairly well documented (but with a few holes), this was out of left field. I started researching but nothing turned up. Gemini provided additional information but still NOTHING. Finally, after repeated questioning, Gemini finally admitted that no person named Blaise Jerome Guignon existed anywhere in the US during that time period and it had been an hallucination. I'd invested so much time in Blaise Jerome that I couldn't let him go that easily, so I decided to fast-track him to sainthood. I'm not the Pope, but I have sixteen years of Catholic school, so that grants me emergency saint-making powers in exigent circumstances. So by the power of Gemini and Photoshop I present The Official Patron Saint of Artificial Intelligence, St Blaise Jerome Guignon. "Intelligentia Artificialis naturali stultitiae inclinatur"

The priest in the video made it clear that Yoga itself claims you cannot separate the poses from the spirituality, REGARDLESS of your personal intention. This is probably why Yoga calls them poses and NOT "stretches", and just because something is similar doesn't mean it's the same thing. A Yoga pose can have a lot of similarities to a stretch, but it's not a stretch. If you want a stretching routine that won't potentially channel the demonic, then all you need to do is look toward the army field manual for a safe stretching routine. https://www.bespokepost.com/field-guide/army-approved-stretches-for-any-workout

From St. Gregory's Abbey, Shawnee, Oklahoma, on their Facebook page "After a year of preparation as novices, Br. Sebastian (Timothy) Kilburn, OSB, and Br. Isaac (Fernando) Acosta, OSB, professed temporary vows as monks of St. Gregory’s Abbey on September 3, 2026, the Solemnity of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The Rite of Monastic Profession was celebrated during Mass in the Abbey Church. Their vows of obedience, stability and conversion of life are valid for three years." They had three men enter as novices last year. Two went on to profess their first vows just recently.

Is it possible that it's https://www.fmjc.community/ Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified (FMJC) I don't know if this is helpful. St Anthony, find this lost website for Tableone! Ora pro nobis.

Living and working in a community – be it large or small – is not always easy. We all know that. It is “par for the course” that tensions, disagreements, and challenges arise and need to be handled for the sake of community well-being. But it is not easy. The early church communities were no exception. In this week’s gospel we glimpse one of the challenges that arose in the community for whom Matthew writes his gospel. The challenging issue is what to do with members of the community who are at fault or in error, perhaps living or behaving in ways that are contrary to Jesus’ teaching, perhaps causing divisions or confusion in the community, leading other members astray in their faith and practice, even causing harm to “little ones.” Sin is a reality in our human condition and in our communities. What to do? How to deal with it? In the gospel reading, Jesus instructs his disciples on how to deal with sinful behaviour in the community. Jesus’s teachings on forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoring relationships never seem fair. He always asks us to do more than we know we should. In fact, it is in the very next verse that Jesus tells Peter to forgive, not 7 times but 7 times 70. Jesus doesn’t insist that we act this way because doing this will automatically make the other person either act better or feel guilty, he doesn’t say that the reason for acting this way is that it works all of the time or even most of the time. Instead, Jesus tells us to act this way because this is how God acts toward us, and we need to imitate God in our own lives. As faithful people, our behaviour needs to reveal to the world what God is like. Because we’re one way the world has to learn what God is like. So, the first value has to do with our taking the initiative, with our making the first move toward reconciliation, no matter whose fault it is, no matter what we think is the fair thing to do. As with some other things Jesus says, we don’t have to like it, but we do have to do it. The second value is like it. The next couple of steps in this process involve appeals within and to the church. So, if the problem remains after trying to work it out individually, others are supposed to become involved to help bring about reconciliation. There is a value at work here that we can have a hard time with these days. It’s a value that insists that the common good. Seeking such common good takes priority over our own satisfaction, our anger, or our sense of what we deserve. When somebody sins against you—when there is trouble and conflict—it’s not just the two (or more) people most directly involved whose welfare is at stake. So, if the problem remains after trying to work it out individually, it becomes a concern for the community. The point is very important. Trouble within the community is something that affects the whole community. We tend to have a problem with this way of thinking these days. Everything we see and hear in the culture around us seems to shout out that we individuals, are the primary focus, the primary reality, the primary source of meaning and of value. Jesus suggests otherwise. He suggests that “we” comes before “me.” What an odd thought. It’s worth pondering a bit. Those are just two of the values involved in this ancient bit of church discipline. First, we need take the initiative in reconciliation, no matter what seems fair; and second, the good of the whole community, is a central impetus for this. Now, there’s a lot more going on in this early process of church discipline, and it might be worth taking a minute this week to look for them. The last part of this process might sound grim to us. We read that if someone refuses to listen “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” This word can seem extreme—until we remember that the Church’s ministry of love, evangelism, reconciliation, and hope is for people outside of it, people like Gentiles and tax collectors. After all, Jesus had some important followers who were Gentiles, and there is an ancient tradition that Matthew was himself a tax collector. The welfare, healing, and salvation of all matter; the church serves those who are inside and those who are outside the faith. These principles, these values, which guided the Church of the first several centuries are worth knowing; they’re worth paying attention to; they’re worth working on—even if our details can be different from their details. These values—this broad vision of life and of living—can point us toward the way of Jesus and his immediate community. And that, we know, is the way of life.

theres the idea of papal infallibility which is next to impossible to actually expressly find in the early church for centuries if not well over a millennium. Theres also philosophical problems with that, such as apparent contradictions. There's the idea of papal supremacy which I think a person could go either way on in the early church and the east and many great catholic and orthodox saints had no conception of the idea or resisted that idea when rome tried to exert control outside its jurisdiction. Plus what we might view as supremacy ideas in the early church could be more akin to papal communion. Which yes papal communion was present as vital back then. Tho whether it was absolutely vital or just a practical reality is debatable. Even the great theological mind pope Benedict had what is called the ratzinger proposal which recognizes that the first century and early church had a wider conception of who belongs to the church, such that a catholic and orthodox reunion could reflect that model, and which basically admits those ideas of papal infallibility/communion just werent present. When reading early church quotes its best to approach interpreting them with the above framework. Its also important to be careful that catholic supporting quotes are contextualized and quoted accurately. When examining some examples, check out iraneaeous, cyprian, augustine. They are held up as great catholic saints but they had no conception expressed about supremacy or papal infallibility. They did resist the pope when he went too far but the fact the pope thought he had that authority is worth considering and contextualizing with the above information. Also many great councils of the Church had no roman representation and werent oversaw by the pope as Catholics often assume. The further east one goes the less association Christians had of the pope

Based answer.