Blog - Page 188 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Alice: A Modern Monk?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00June 26th, 2009|Categories: Spirituality|

Today's blog is written by my friend Ed Holm from Newport, North Carolina. For 33 years Ed taught school, first in the Baltimore County Schools in Maryland and then at Gramercy Christian School in Newport, North Carolina. He left teaching to become a parish administrator at his local church. Recently he returned to teaching by working at a home for troubled youth sponsored by the Methodist Home for Children. Ed is a graduate of St. Mary's Seminary & University (Baltimore) and holds a Masters in Theology degree. Ed is also a Third Order Franciscan monk in a group called The Company of Jesus. This article "Alice" is about a woman Ed worked with over 10 years ago. I found it so appropriate, following my own posts over the last four days, that I couldn't pass on letting others read it.

I have stumbled upon a rather wonderful little book called Lessons From the Monastery That […]

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John, Part Four

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:12-05:00June 25th, 2009|Categories: Spirituality|

My friend, Fr. Didier Marie, who I have written about in the previous three blogs, stressed time and again during my time with him that we must always move from the existence of a friend to the existence of THE Friend, Jesus. And when we know Jesus as THE Friend we can then move toward one another in His Spirit. The joy of God is found here, in the other. Joy is not primarily found in me seeking my own joy but rather in my seeking the joy of another. This truth is not understood by many Christians in our time, especially in popular evangelical teaching about self-esteem or in seeking to complete or maximize my own joy as the goal of my spiritual life, sometimes called Christian hedonism.

The Apostle John tells us that Jesus calls us His friends. Fr. Didier warned those who were priests that their role was never to entertain people in the Mass. The real priest must learn to […]

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John, Part Three

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 24th, 2009|Categories: Spirituality|

The rule followed by the Community of St. John says, “Like the Apostles, praying with Mary in the Upper Room, the brothers will not cease to beg Jesus to send the Paraclete upon the Church, so that His promises might be fully accomplished.” Prayer, according to the Community of St. John, is common to all men. We all long to know the same Father, who “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt. 5:45). When people begin to know God they adore Him and entrust their cares to him. This is prayer. Jesus desires unceasing prayer from our hearts for everything that concerns us. He wants us to experience the reality that “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Prayer envelopes and accompanies our Christian life if we are to remain in the presence of Jesus. This is the central goal of contemplation in the Community of St. John.

Fr. Philippe believed, like so many in this tradition, that silent […]

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John, Part Two

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 23rd, 2009|Categories: Spirituality|

My friendship with Fr. Didier Marie, and the Community of St. John, has become a spiritual treasure to me. One of the reasons for this is deeply rooted in the nature of this order. The Community of St. John began in 1975 when several students of Fr. Marie-Dominic Philippe, who had been their professor at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), asked him to be their spiritual director. Five of these students began to meet regularly with a priest from the diocese of Versailles (France) in the summer of 1975. This priest had been a student of Fr. Philippe and had been authorized by the bishop to undertake studies toward a doctorate in theology at Fribourg, where Philippe still lived. Communal life was begun when these five students, and the priest who was there to study theology, met at 5:30 a.m. each day to pray silently and then celebrate the Mass.

Initially Fr. Philippe was not directly involved with these brothers since he did not […]

Friendship and Ecumenism in the Community of St. John

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 22nd, 2009|Categories: Spirituality|

The Community of St. John is one of a number of newer monastic communities within the Roman Catholic Church. These communities of brothers, living a simple, contemplative life in an apostolic (or mission) context, grew significantly during the pontificate of John Paul II. The Community of St. John was founded by a French Dominican, Fr. Marie-Dominique Philippe, in 1975.

I have visited the Community of St. John on three different occasions over the past four years Through these visits I have made some meaningful friendships with several of these brothers. My original visit was my first retreat taken in a monastic community. It opened my eyes to the way these men witness to the love of Christ through a simple, uncluttered life of prayer and service. The brothers, and sisters (located on the same grounds), have chosen to consecrate their lives to God through silent prayer in a common, constant search for the truth and fraternal charity. When I say this is an […]

The Sad Legacy of Sammy Sosa

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 21st, 2009|Categories: Baseball|

The breaking Chicago news, on Tuesday evening, was: “Sammy Sosa took performance enhancing drugs to become a superstar slugger.” Surprise, surprise! And this is the same guy who told the U.S. Senate committee that he never took drugs. But the June 16 New York Times report on baseball players who tested positive included Sammy's name. Now we know.

Anyone who watched Sosa’s career as I did, living here in the Windy City, knew Sammy was not built the way he became in the late 1990s because of simple hard work. He went from a slender young ballplayer to a huge slugger within about two years. Following the 1997 season, when Sammy saw Mark McGwire getting all those accolades for hitting big home runs, things changed for Sammy big time. Sammy drank up what he saw in the Cardinal star and Sammy needed the same attention. Says Barry Rosner, a great Chicago baseball writer, “Sosa craved attention and drank it up […]

President Obama Leads America into the New Global Context

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 20th, 2009|Categories: America and Americanism|

While Iran is rocked by the biggest public protests since the revolution of 1979, President Obama is pursuing a policy called “wait and see.” His priority, as with most concerned world leaders, is to prevent the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear bomb. His method of choice is to negotiate directly with Iran’s leaders. Until he knows who these leaders will be he is biding his time.

While Senator McCain, and leading Republicans are calling the Iranian election a sham, President Obama displays his characteristically cool personality. He seemed to measure his words when he said this week that he was “deeply troubled” by the violence he had seen on television. He added that he could “not state definitively” what had happened in Iran since there were no international observers there to give him real information. And the president stressed that “it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be.” It is safe to say that this is a […]

The New Medicine Meets the New Physics, Part Two

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 19th, 2009|Categories: Science|

I come from a family of physicians and dentists. I believe in the great advances of modern medicine. Heart surgery alone should convince everyone that modern Western medicine has made incredible progress and advanced human health in many ways. Furthermore, I do not reject the role that medication and drugs can have in the healing process. But I do question our almost total reliance upon these accepted patterns of treatment without being open to new science.

Anyone who reads the history of science in general, and the history of medicine in particular, knows that a great deal has been advanced, accepted and then changed over the years. This is the nature of real science and thus a major part of what makes it so exciting for earnest researchers and practitioners.

To site just one example, there was a time when electrotherapy was used extensively in treating various illnesses. Toward the end of the nineteenth […]

The New Medicine Meets the New Physics, Part One

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 18th, 2009|Categories: Science|

Let me be totally honest at the outset. Science is not my special interest, nor is it a field that I have a great deal of competence in professionally. When I listen to scientists talk I often feel like the amateur I am. If I do serious reading about scientific theory I am an outsider who needs a handy lexicon. But this hasn’t stopped me from seeking to gain a better grasp of the amazing developments in modern science, especially in the new physics, or what was called quantum physics.

Quantum theory, if you wonder, is the idea that energy is not absorbed or radiated continuously but discontinuously, and only in multiples of definite, indivisible units. Physics, of course, is the science that deals with properties, changes, and interactions in matter and energy. In classical physics energy is considered to be continuous while in quantum physics subjects like atomic, nuclear and solid-state physics have challenged some of these older assumptions about continuity. […]

The Taking of Pelham 123: Denzel vs. John

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:20:13-05:00June 17th, 2009|Categories: Film|

The Taking of Pelham 123, so named because of a subway train in New York city, is a summer action film that stars two of the biggest names in the business: Denzel Washington and John Travolta. Many reviewers, besides not liking the plot all that much, have made a great deal out of Denzel and John starring in the same film.

The plot is basic. It revolves around the taking of a New York subway train, with hostages, in an elaborate scheme in which the hostage taker (Travolta) meets a subway supervisor (Washington). The hostage taker negotiates with the supervisor and then they end up meeting him face-to-face in the last half hour or so of the film. (I will not spoil the plot entirely but it is predictable, very predictable!)

Every single hostage movie cliché seems to have made its way into this script. (There was an earlier version of this film in 1974, which I admit I have not […]