SubscribeKilling the TV
There are times when I dream of watching my television swing to and fro, as seen in this wonderful picture at left. The frequency of this disenchantment with television seems to be on the rise. I have cancelled my television service in the past, and I just may do it again — much to the dismay of my children.
Generally speaking, I don’t have much time for television. Ironically, it is during the busy times of my life that I really enjoy having a fairly substantial television package. When my schedule is very hectic, it’s nice to have a lot of choices during the one or two hours per week that I can afford the luxury of a little couch time.
Lately however, I have had a little more time than usual to watch television. I always seem to make time for it this time of year because I am such a huge football fan. It’s times like these — when I’ve been watching a fair amount of television — that I seriously think about chucking it out the window. This might sound a little extreme, but I truly have reached my limit of smut intake.
I intentionally avoid prime time television. I don’t watch sitcoms because I don’t find crude humor as funny as I did when I was 13. I don’t watch crime dramas because there is plenty of violence already in the news. I don’t watch medical or hospital dramas because I don’t want to see doctors and nurses getting frisky in the broom closet. And I don’t watch reality television because for me television is all about avoiding reality. Basically, I watch educational television, a little news, and sports.
Even though I am fairly diligent in my attempts to monitor the purity of the content that I watch, I still feel inundated with horrible commercials. There is just no avoiding them. Television networks insist on advertising the next episode of their morally bankrupt series during football games. The pharmaceutical companies need to show me some guy who needs to take a pill so that he can have lots of fun with his girlfriend — and the only thing that anyone is worried about is that his “condition” may last for more than four hours.
The worst offense, which I have just recently noticed, is so surreal that I nearly can’t believe it. Last night, while watching the more “conservative” news channel, I had to watch a commercial (multiple times) about a service that helps you find someone with whom to cheat on your significant other. I’m not going to dignify the service’s name by typing it, but if you’ve seen it you surely know to what I am referring.
I have decided that this is probably all that I can take. I don’t want to completely unplug from reality and avoid the world entirely, but this filth is doing nothing positive for me. While I would certainly miss things like EWTN, I can watch online. I can catch up on the news online, and I can listen to sports via the Internet or traditional radio. I do believe that I’ll unplug all my satellite paraphenalia, and reserve my television for viewing movies — movies that I have pre-screened via sites such as the USCCB movie review site.
Life is difficult enough for a 30-something man. Temptations abound. Television is just one source, but it’s the one most quickly elimintated. In this economy, surely there are better things on which I can spend my money. I think it’s time to find out.
Pray for this Man
This is one very sick man, a completely unrepentant abortion doctor.
Live Action Films
A group called Live Action Films is using new media to, among other things, help to expose the truth about Planned Parenthood. The following video speaks for itself. Watch below, or visit their web site.
Patrick Madrid
There are quite a few big names among modern day Catholic apologists, and Patrick Madrid is one of them. You may know Patrick from his regular Thrusday appearances on the EWTN radio program, Open Line. He is also a frequent guest on other Catholic radio programs such as Catholic Answers Live. Alternatively, you may be familiar with Patrick’s books; he has written many of them.
I have been listening to Patrick Madrid regularly on Open Line for the past couple of months, and have come to really appreciate his approach to apologetics. He has a competent confidence as well a non-judgmental and even-tempered nature that allow him to come across as very kind and humble. His warm tone when speaking to callers is very engaging, and he always makes sure to treat every question (no matter how ridiculous) as important. I find his entire approach to be very inspirational. His work has certainly saved many souls, and if more of us embraced his demeanor we would surely save a few souls ourselves.
If you do not have access to EWTN radio, you can download the episodes each week as an mp3 file from EWTN. You can even subscribe to EWTN Open Line as a podcast from iTunes.
I have yet to read any of Patrick Madrid’s books, but I plan on doing so soon. In the mean time, if you are looking to feed your hunger for apologetics, listen to Patrick each week on EWTN Open Line, or check out his new blog. Links for all of these sites are listed below.
Patrick Madrid’s Web Site
Patrick Madrid’s Blog
EWTN Radio Programs
Books by Patrick Madrid
Bible Christian Society
Recently, I stumbled into an organization known as the Bible Christian Society. The name is quite deceiving, sounding a little bit non-Catholic in nature, but I found the site while searching for resources on Catholic apologetics. In case you’re not familiar with the term, apologetics, it’s essentially about defense of the faith. We Catholics are accused of believing all sorts of horrific things. The truth is, if we believed what the Protestants say we do, I’d have a problem with Catholics too!
In any case, the Bible Christian Society offers a large selection of audio presentations in mp3 format, which are freely available for download. The majority of these talks are given by one gentleman, John Martignoni, who has a knack for making complex theological ideas seem very simple. These audio talks are about one hour in length, and each covers a specific topic such as the pope, Mary, Purgatory, etc. Mr. Martignoni makes his case almost exclusively with the Bible, which is perfect for defending your faith against the attacking Protestant.
We are all called to learn apologetics to some degree in order to evangelize. We could learn a thing or two about evangelization from our Protestant brothers and sisters. If you’re not into reading some of the great works of Catholic theology by the Church fathers, then these one-hour presentations are perfect for becoming better informed about where our Catholic beliefs originate.
Check out the Bible Christian Society!
The Journey Home
The Journey Home is a cable television show on EWTN that is exclusively about Catholic conversion. However, since my family has kicked cable television to the curb, we no longer have access to EWTN programming — or so I thought.
I’ll be honest, when we had cable, I rarely watched The Journey Home. It’s not exactly exciting television. It’s a few people sitting in a dark room talking about their conversion. No special effects. No money is given away. Nobody gets voted off.
Recently however, I stumbled into The Journey Home podcast. If you search through the iTunes store for The Journey Home, you should find it fairly easily. Essentially, the podcast is an audio production of the current week’s television show. If you don’t have iTunes, you can download the podcast in mp3 format (along with other EWTN programming) here.
The shows are hit and miss. Sometimes the guests are exciting, and other times they’re a little dry. In any case, this show seems better suited to an audio only format because it’s basically a talk show. Your mileage may vary, but I think it’s definitely worth trying.
On Raising Children
Today on my jog I was listening to a recent episode of the Catholic Family Podcast. They did an interview with a remarkable young man by the name of Tarek Saab. This was the second time that I had heard an interview with Tarek. The previous time was on an episode of the iPadre podcast several months ago. I won’t go into much more detail about Tarek now. If you’re interested, visit his site.
One of the things that Tarek said, which should have been obvious to me before, was this. “Become the man that you want your son to be.”
Think about that. I did. I think of how I desperately want my son to be patient, loving, and kind. I want him to value family and true friends, and to be selfless. So I have to be honest with myself. How patient am I? How well do I display a selfless attitude?
I definitely want to teach my kids about life, but what I need to better realize is that school is always in session. I need to become the man that I want my son to be — and the man that I want my daughter to marry.
New Media
No longer are we confined to books, magazines, newspapers, radio, and television. There is a huge movement today of Catholics in new media. The newest and most exciting type of new media is in the form of podcasting, in which information and entertainment are combined for download onto your computer and mp3 player.
Podcasting gives everyone a voice, which is very exciting. A word of caution though, one needs to be careful about which information is trusted from the huge volume that is available.
