tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24166495894541623402024-03-05T23:37:02.910-06:00Inadequate DiscipleCWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-54325807466473657242015-07-18T17:46:00.005-05:002015-07-19T07:38:08.059-05:00Discord Among Brothers Standing for the Life of the Unborn<sup class="ii" style="color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">16</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> There are six things that the </span><span class="sc" style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: small-caps; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Lord</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> hates,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> seven that are detestable to him: </span><br />
<sup class="ii" style="color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">17</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> haughty eyes, a lying tongue,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> and hands that shed innocent blood, </span><br />
<sup class="ii" style="color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">18</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> a heart that devises wicked plans,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> feet that hurry to run to evil, </span><br />
<sup class="ii" style="color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">19</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> a false witness who pours out lies,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">and </span><span style="background-color: #d0e0e3; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">one who spreads strife among brothers</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">. (Proverbs 6:16-19)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I was out at the Planned Parenthood in Aurora, Illinois this morning. We regularly go out there each month. Also there today, as usual for the third Saturday, were the Knights of Columbus praying the rosary, begging Mary's intercession to end abortion.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">While they were praying someone from Abolish Human Abortion (AHA) was razzing them on his battery powered, loud megaphone. He explained later to the person replacing him, also from AHA, that he had to yell things into his megaphone to keep him from throwing up as they were praying to a false god, etc. etc.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Two of the Knights came over to him after they finished praying the rosary, and explained that they understood he didn't agree with how they prayed, but could he please either move away or otherwise ignore them so they could pray in peace. He said it was his right to say whatever he wanted. Things escalated a bit--verbally, and a squad car drove up and honked loudly to get them to separate. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I was standing on the clinic side, with information on the nearby pregnancy center and was pretty much staying out of it. I didn't like what the AHA megaphone guy was saying about the Catholics or Mary, but I just ignored it because I wasn't there to argue.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">The Knights and the others that prayed with them left. The AHA guy did not, and continued to mouth-off citing scripture that doesn't exist to say how the Catholics were dark and he was salt and light.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Again I heard him, but ignored him.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Then he said, "God doesn't want them to pray the Hail Mary. Their Hail Mary prayers just fall to the ground. God doesn't hear their prayers. Their prayers are as worthless as the ground they were standing on."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">"No where in the Bible does it say Hail Mary."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">That is when my adrenaline fired off, and I yelled. "Yes it does! How can you say that? The angel Gabriel greeted Mary with 'Hail full of Grace.' The rest of the prayer is from her sister Elizabeth, 'Blessed are you among women.'"</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">At this point, in their eyes, I became a lost soul in need of saving. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Prior to this they assumed I was a Protestant since I am a chaperone for my kids' non-denominational Christian school's pro-life events.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I continued yelling, "You are ignorant saying these things. You keep telling everyone what God says but you are not quoting anything that is actually in Scripture. Most scary you are as bad as Naral or Planned Parenthood. These people are on the same side of us. Here praying to end abortion. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ and you are judging them. That is a terrible example for your children. Do you know the Parable of the Steward that was forgiven much but could not show mercy?"</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">The second AHA guy came over to me. I looked up and began reading beginning at Luke 1:26. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">He said, "That is an angel greeting her. Are you an angel? It doesn't say you should p</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">ray the Hail Mary in the Bible."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I said, "Where in the Bible does it say to not pray the Hail Mary? The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created Mary of all women to be the vessel to bring Jesus into the world. It says Jesus will be the Son of the Most High God. He is also the son of Mary. You are going to have to answer one day for not honoring his Mother. The Catholics are right to venerate her. He gave her to be our Mother too as he hung on the cross."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">He turned to John 3:3 and told me how I needed to be born again.</span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I yelled, "I am born again. That is what Baptism is."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Then he turned to some other verse--I couldn't hear because he was shouting over me, but it was something about preaching a doctrine other than Christ. Maybe 1 Timothy 6:3? </span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">"Catholics preach Christ. Christ is the only mediator between us and God. St. Therese taught her sisters to beg the Father to look at them through the holy face of Christ. Here tell me what doctrine of Christ the Catholics don't preach and I'll check the Catechism for you." </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Him, "Do you think Mary never sinned?"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Me, "No she didn't. She was preserved from sin from her conception. That is what full of grace means."</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">At this he walked back to the other side of the street.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Our group leader tried to get me to calm down, but the only thing that re-focused me was when a couple started walking into the Planned Parenthood and I wanted to try to get them the information on the free clinic.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I have a feeling I'll be counseled to not lose my cool again. I failed this time. I guess there is a way to gently disagree, but you have to admit, it is hard to do that with someone using a battery operated megaphone.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">The policeman came by and talked to me and said remember what Paul said in Philippians about fighting among each other. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I told him, "I don't like it either officer."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">And he said, "Peace be with you."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I speed read the whole book of Philippians afterwards and didn't find the verse he mentioned, but I did find this one in 1 Corinthians 1</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span class="vv" style="color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">10</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Corinthians 1:10)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">So I failed to be a peaceful, gentle, meek witness today. Did get to talk to one man whose wife was in for an abortion. I told him to plead with her to please come to the Waterleaf clinic for a free ultrasound. Not sure what happened with that. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">What do you think? Would you have held your tongue?</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Now if you use a version of the Bible other than the Douay Rheims it is true you are likely to just see Greetings, Favored One. But this doesn't mean that is the correct translation from the Greek.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Please see </span></span></span><a href="http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a116.htm">http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/a116.htm</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">You'll find the </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">the angel Gabriel's salutation to Mary: "</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">Chaire, Kecharitomene</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">" (translated in the Douay-Rheims and other Catholic versions as "</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">Hail, Full of Grace</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">" or "</span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">gratia plena</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">" in the Latin Vulgate) is valid.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Verdana, Arial; font-size: 18px;">
" 'Highly favoured' (<i>kecharitomene</i>). Perfect passive participle of <i>charitoo</i> and means endowed with grace (<i>charis</i>), enriched with grace as in Ephesians 1:6 . . . The Vulgate <i>gratiae plena</i> [full of grace] "is right, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast received'; wrong, if it means 'full of grace which thou hast to bestow' "<i> </i>(A.T. Robertson, <i>Word Pictures in the New Testament</i>, p. 14)<br />
"It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase <i>kecharitomene</i> as <b>completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace</b>."<i></i>(Blass and DeBrunner, <i>Greek Grammar of the New Testament</i>).</blockquote>
</blockquote>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-10862872853000199422014-08-17T18:39:00.002-05:002014-08-17T18:41:56.622-05:00Revelation -- ever ancient, ever new<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTZpnoGc3xZ6vMT6enXehwBZaRwspoac7BRIaX-Y9dzsc1ijm_P5ww2ytLCadrzH7CBVnbfJg2XAogPnhyJL-YXdK5ADy010r8r-HOr8pAkGV86G43zM89VGuYu6Ol0bo4ueWUMnhaVJFy/s1600/IMG_3860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTZpnoGc3xZ6vMT6enXehwBZaRwspoac7BRIaX-Y9dzsc1ijm_P5ww2ytLCadrzH7CBVnbfJg2XAogPnhyJL-YXdK5ADy010r8r-HOr8pAkGV86G43zM89VGuYu6Ol0bo4ueWUMnhaVJFy/s1600/IMG_3860.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">"For thus says the Lord, who made heaven--this is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it, and did not make it in vain, but formed it to be inhabited--'I AM, and there is no other. . . . I AM God, and there is no other </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">besides Me; there is no righteous God and Savior in addition to Me. Return to Me, and you shall be saved, you who are from the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there is no other. . . . Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning, nor did I speak in a dark place of the earth. When it took place, I was there, and now the Lord and His Spirit have sent Me. . . . I AM your God, who showed you how to find the way wherein you should walk. If only you had heeded My commandments, then your peace would be like a river, and your righteousness as a wave of the sea.'" (Isaiah 45:18, 21b-22, 48:16, 17b-18)</span>CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-68503747656681460452014-08-10T20:40:00.001-05:002014-08-10T20:41:35.435-05:00Meaning of Life?<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The entire book of Ecclesiastes poses the question: what is the meaning of life? Then in the last 2 verses, the author gives us:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, Whether good or evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)</span></blockquote>
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkE439aaSQ-MgUM3Js4-uDDJubY2fnpukxc7-3eO7Khw-BwS8OtfrqcmBl5Gl3NH59xE9TFVUfWXNsmyiqIG4MTjVRpNGBjeH0zW2UdBrYHVBoVRpe6WbOJ1T6OO-sCJAn9acMlf_mNGlH/s1600/Jesus_Christ_Pantocrator.jpg" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Quite similar to the words of the Glor</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">ified Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, in Revelation:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="color: #990000;">"Look, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay everyone as their deeds deserve. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who will have washed their robes clean</span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"> (see. Rev. 7:14 -- washed clean in the Precious blood of the Lamb of God, Our Lord and Savior), </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="color: #990000;">so that they will have the right to feed on the tree of life and can come through the gates into the city. Others must stay outside . . . . fortune-tellers, and the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and everyone of false speech and false life."</span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"> (Revelation 22:12-15)</span></blockquote>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-24697116870540861832014-07-05T12:08:00.001-05:002014-07-05T12:21:54.905-05:00Freedom and DependenceThe 4th of July is the time that fortunate Americans reflect, celebrate, and if they are honest, thank God for the peace and prosperity that they enjoy. It is pollyanna to think that that everyone is living free from grief, disease, tragedy, but relatively easy to think that we are the beneficiaries of God's Providence and the fruit of the sacrifice of men and women from revolutionary times forward, and left with one of the best foundations for beginning and governing a country. I haven't seen <a href="http://www.americathemovie.com/">America</a> the movie yet, so I imagine there is more I might say.<br />
<br />
As I was riding in on the train to work on Friday I thought about how little I've been thanking and intimately talking to God lately. I prayed, visualizing the Presence of God, and realized my ingratitude and negligence. I made the trek over to St. Peter's in the Loop (a.k.a. Chicago's downtown) for Confession and Mass. St. Peter's has two Confessionals staffed most of the time. I picked the one staffed by a Franciscan with an Italian last name. I don't know why, I just did.<br />
<br />
While I was waiting, the door shut on my side, I prayed for the priest, that he would truly be in persona Christi, "in the person of Christ" and that he would truly speak the words Christ, through the Holy Spirit, would give him for me. <br />
<br />
How wonderful the Sacrament of Confession is. Here we are receiving an individual audience with our Savior to receive His Forgiveness, to receive the healing and teaching from the Holy Spirit audible to our ears, as some of us, including me, lack the gift of hearing God speak audibly.<br />
<br />
This isn't the first time I wrote the advice I heard in a confessional in a blog post, but when you are touched by love, healing, and light that helps with re-establishing an intimate relationship with our Lord and God, who is the great lover of our souls, it seems that advice should be shared.<br />
<br />
"Spend some time dwelling on God's presence. Think about the <b><i>fact</i> </b>that any goodness or holiness in you comes from God's presence. Any goodness, or holiness that you sense in others comes from God's presence."<br />
<br />
Earlier on the train ride in I had read, "Since our Lord dwells in our soul, His prayer is ours." by St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)<br />
<br />
John--chapter 8, have you read that recently? Several verses have been coming up for me lately, usually from KLOVE's Encouraging Word email that I receive everyday. As I peacefully alternated between reading John chapter 8 and napping at the pool yesterday (yes a lovely way to spend the 4th, and the first summer in many years that I could do this, as even the youngest child is a good swimmer now) these verses stood out. <br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="color: #990000;">"I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."</span></b></i> (John 8:12)<br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="color: #990000;">"I have told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he (the Son of God)."</span></i></b> (John 8:24)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><i>"If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."</i></b></span> (John 8:31b-32)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><i><b>"Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.'"</b></i></span> (John 8:34-36)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><i><b>"Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and father of lies."</b></i></span> (John 8:44)<br />
<br />
That last one seemed to help me make sense of the incredible, orchestrated deceptions of those who did not view the Hobby Lobby decision as a victory for religious freedom . . . and defeating the rising tyranny of a government imposing its beliefs on others. If someone in good conscience believes that destroying a fertilized egg before or after implantation in the womb is immoral, they should not be forced to contribute to it. Those vociferous and deceitful talking heads claiming otherwise are really angry that they have been given a hurdle to imposing their views. Ironically this is their main argument . . . that Hobby Lobby and other corporations can now impose their views on their workers. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/p235x350/10418204_516353438466004_1672659206964905863_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Photo: As our country celebrates Independence Day, we invite all believers to join us in saying the following prayer from the Priests for Life:
PRAYER OF THANKS FOR OUR NATION'S INDEPENDENCE
God our Father, your Son Jesus spoke to us a message of peace and taught us to live as brothers and sisters. His message took form in the vision of our Founding Fathers, as they fashioned a nation where all people might live as one. This message lives on in our midst as a task for us today and a promise for tomorrow.
We thank you, Father, for your blessings in the past, and for all that, with your help, we must yet achieve. Bless our nation and bless each of us. As we thank you for our independence, may we extend its blessings to our youngest brothers and sisters, the children in the womb. Hasten the day when our nation will be a nation with liberty and justice, not just for some, but for all, through Christ our Lord.
Amen." border="0" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/p235x350/10418204_516353438466004_1672659206964905863_n.jpg" /></a>Their second argument is that the "Science" as confirmed by the FDA says these are not abortion causing drugs. They up the anecdotal claim that fertilized eggs fall through without implanting not 60%, not 75% but 80% of the time. That is really hard to believe without a cross-reference to a medical study (and I have looked for them), but they keep increasing it so anyone that disagrees is cast as an uneducated, uninformed, religious bigot. It's also hard to believe from my own experience. Armed with the science behind Natural Family Planning's sympto-thermal method, my husband and I were pregnant with our first the second month of trying, and I had one period between my 1st and 2nd pregnancy, and no period between my 2nd and 3rd pregnancy. My sincere apologies to those who suffer from infertility and do not know this ease of conception.<br />
<br />
Their third argument is the classic, if you don't believe in an abortion causing drug, don't take one. In similar reasoning, in WWII Germany the SS commanders of the concentration camps and even Hitler himself had no responsibility for the millions that were gased, because only those that turned the knobs or the switch (whatever the mechanism) were the ones that were guilty of those terminated by the toxic gas. What a feeble argument. Our country permitted slavery, legalizing all of African origin as less than a human being. All that approved of that line in the constitution and fought on the side to maintain that practice have some moral responsibility for the injustice done to those who were enslaved.<br />
<br />
If you read the book of Jeremiah, you find that God didn't just punish the parents that sacrificed their children to Moloch, the entire nation was punished by famine, disease, sword, and exile.<br />
<br />
Further, If we don't stand up against injustice and evil we do bear some responsibility when it is perpetrated.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.17599868774414px;"><b><i><span style="color: #990000; font-family: inherit;">"Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more."</span></i></b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.17599868774414px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.17599868774414px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luke 12:48b</span></span><br />
<br />
If we have the gift of faith, and conscience we are required to speak and stand against the lies and murder that comes from the devil,<b><i><span style="color: #990000;"> "a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him."</span></i></b> (John 8:44)<br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="color: #990000;">"He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."</span></i></b> (John 8:47)<br />
<br />
Therefore we should not be surprised when we hear lies, and we have an explanation for how some are able to justify killing of infants within the womb, and declare those opposed to this as "religious bigots who love the 'non-sentient' fetus more than the mother." That too is a lie. Those of us that do go out to the clinics are not just there because we grieve the killing of the babies, but because we are viscerally aware of the long-lasting heartbreak, guilt, and regret that follow the woman as she exits the facility. We also know that 75% - maybe 80%, who knows really (similar to the claims of fertilized eggs falling through without implantation) are coerced or otherwise arrive at the facility thinking that it is the only option for them. The prayer and presence of the prolife people outside of the clinics is that the woman would talk to them and learn there are other options, not only to save the life of the unborn child, but to spare the woman of the deep and lasting pain that is germinated from the termination.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><b><i>"Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."</i></b></span> (John 8:58)<br />
<br />
Finally these words of Fr. John Bartunek from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Part-Christ-Centered-Resource/dp/1933271108/ref=tmm_pap_title_0">The Better Part</a> on John 8:12-20:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jesus himself, his person and his teachings, is the pillar of saving fire that shines throughout the entire world, leading whoever believes in him to the fullness of life itself. . . . Thoreau (wrote) . . . most men lead lives of quiet desperation, knowing that there is more to life, but unable to find it. We walk in darkness, groping tentatively and anxiously - unless we have Jesus. His example, his teaching, <b style="font-style: italic;">and his presence</b> are a "lamp to our feet and a light to our path" (Psalm 119:105). With Jesus, we know where we are going and how to get there. Who are the people in history who have lived the most fulfilling, fulfilled, and fruitful lives if not the saints . . . ? Only the saints (by walking the path of Christ's light) learn the secret of rejoicing in the midst of suffering; only <b><i>they conquer the conundrum of how to be happy in a fallen world.</i></b></blockquote>
I am reading<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Light-Novel-Thomas-Aquinas/dp/0898705959/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404579409&sr=1-1&keywords=the+quiet+light"> <u>The Quiet Light</u></a>, a novel about St. Thomas Aquinas. I would like to add what St. Thomas wrote about that last highlighted part--the conundrum of how to be happy, believe and love God, seeking after him, in a fallen world, but this post is already longer than planned and longer than any but 1 or 2 will read!CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-74439671821463167052014-05-01T10:59:00.001-05:002014-05-01T11:44:10.985-05:00Can't Steal Our JoyIn his teaching at the 21 April 2014 Regina Coeli, Pope Francis mentioned:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The dominant sentiment that shines forth from the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection is joy full of wonder, but a great wonder! <span style="background-color: cyan;">Joy that comes from within</span>! And in the Liturgy we relive the state of mind of the disciples over the news which the women had brought: Jesus is Risen! We have seen him!<br />
Let us allow this experience which is inscribed in the Gospel also to be imprinted in our hearts and shine forth from our lives. Let us allow the joyous wonder of Easter Sunday to shine forth in our thoughts, glances, behaviour, gestures and words.... If only we were so luminous! But this is not just cosmetic! It comes from within, from a heart immersed in the source of this joy.</blockquote>
Jesus too talks, with joy, about what comes from within:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">37</span></sup>On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “<span style="background-color: cyan;">Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">38</sup>and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’</span>” <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">39</sup>Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)</blockquote>
<img height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwkZHmC8eTO1fN0c5XUNEUsgAGTwfrOs-M6ygBjFH7Iqdzs_g6ne8GVafLTjmPDdgSyC_X79L_avn5hiu81OwyANDgD7lwBUOdIxDgGBEnvoYds1MonpCQi4Tby7Pe5baFXlcoFkIHnZH/s640/Image-131-.jpg" width="640" /><br />I was curious where the scripture said this and I found it in Isaiah:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O <span class="sc">Lord</span>, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me. <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">2</sup>Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the <span class="sc">Lord</span> <span class="sc">God</span> is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">3</sup><span style="background-color: cyan;">With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.</span> <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">4</sup>And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted. <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">5</sup>Sing praises to the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">6</sup>Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, <span style="background-color: cyan;">for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel</span>. (Isaiah 12:1-6) </blockquote>
Truly Our Lord Jesus Christ left the glory of heaven and entered our world as a naked baby like the rest of us. He suffered, died, and was buried. He released the prisoners from their holding area in the underworld and rose from the dead. He rose from the dead! Then he sent us the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptized and confirmed in the Holy Spirit have in our midst the Holy One of Israel. Jesus is alive in our hearts. There too are the Father and the Holy Spirit.<br />
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Do you feel like me, that you might be on rocky ground, that there is trouble, persecution trying to steal our Easter joy? <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">20</span></sup>As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">21</sup>yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. (Matthew 12:20-21)</blockquote>
Like a little seedling, I am struggling to get my roots down. Struggling against forces seen and unseen. The challenge to my endurance, my potential to let the impact of Jesus's love, his great sacrifice that gives me the hope of heaven shine in my life is clear to me. At the same time there in the Word of God, in Scripture, I find the path back to the Word that is Jesus, that is the Holy One of Israel. Here in my heart, the Holy Spirit can bring forth rivers of living water.<br />
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No one, no situation, no evil spirit can steal our joy! We can keep returning to Scripture, so we increase the confidence and intensity of our prayer time. We will find goodness (and all good comes from God--James 1:17) in people and in events, and look to see the hand of God, his will in everything. We can do this because He loves us and has given us the Holy Spirit, teaches us in his Word and in the Sacraments, and helps us help each other along right paths.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-32995505997739560602014-04-06T23:43:00.001-05:002014-04-06T23:43:54.942-05:00Treasure Found as result of Giving up FB for Lent!Last year I gave it a little more thought - the need to give up FaceBook (FB) for Lent. This year I just saw a friend saying she was giving it up and decided it was an excellent idea and I should too.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
With FB removed from my commuting routine (I spend a couple hours on the Metra train each day), one of the books I've read is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004GKLSOC/ref=oh_d__o01_details_o01__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1">The Heroic Face of Innocence: Three Stories, by Georges Bernanos</a>. The first story is about St. Joan of Arc. It pulls from the transcripts of her trial. The middle story wasn't as good. The third is a masterpiece, The Dialogues of the Carmelites, based <u>on the true story</u> of the 16 Carmelite nuns of Compiegne<span style="color: maroon; font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b> </b></span></span>that were executed on one day during the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution. The sisters first sang the Salve Regina and then the Veni Creator Spirtus, with the sound of their chorus having less voices as each sister in turn was beheaded. That led me to find the opera of the same name by Poulenc. While the play written by Georges Bernanos is fiction, it is a masterpiece of the reality of heartfelt faith testifying to not only the faith of the Carmelite sisters, but also the faith of Bernanos. The opera also testifies to the faith of Poulenc. </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<img alt="martyrs of Compiegne 2" src="http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/SODimages3/136_ToGuillotine3.jpg" /></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<img alt="martyrs of Compiegne 1" src="http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/SODimages3/136_CarmelitesCompeigne1.jpg" /></blockquote>
Poulenc's opera is also acclaimed as a masterpiece. It was a little unfortunate the streaming video of the opera on Amazon did not have the sisters in their habits, and also that it had no subtitles, and it was sung completely in French, but the story was fresh in my mind. <br />
<br />
Well, besides the French there are were several hymns in Latin that we don't often hear, but I am going to download to listen to more often:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_Maria" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Ave Maria">Ave Maria</a></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ave_verum_corpus" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Ave verum corpus">Ave verum corpus</a></i></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salve_Regina" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;" title="Salve Regina">Salve Regina</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veni_Creator_Spiritus" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;" title="Veni Creator Spiritus">Veni Creator Spiritus</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
That isn't correct. We hear Ave Maria on the Marian Feasts of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. The Salve Regina we are familiar with as it is the Latin version of the "Hail Heavenly Queen" that we pray after the 5th decade of the rosary. The Ave verum corpus though, how many of you know that one? <br />
<br />
<dl style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>Ave verum corpus, natum</i>
<dl style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>de Maria Virgine,</i></dd></dl>
</dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>vere passum, immolatum</i>
<dl style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>in cruce pro homine,</i></dd></dl>
</dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>cuius latus perforatum</i>
<dl style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>fluxit aqua et sanguine:</i></dd></dl>
</dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>esto nobis praegustatum</i>
<dl style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>in mortis examine.</i></dd></dl>
</dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>O Iesu dulcis, O Iesu pie, O Iesu, fili Mariae.</i>
<dl style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><i>Miserere mei. Amen.</i></dd></dl>
</dd></dl>
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A translation into English is:</div>
<dl style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.2em;"><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>Hail, true Body, born</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>of the Virgin Mary,</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>who having truly suffered, was sacrificed</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>on the cross for mankind,</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>whose pierced side</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>flowed with water and blood:</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>May it be for us a foretaste [of the Heavenly banquet]</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>in the trial of death.</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>O sweet Jesus, O pious Jesus, O Jesus, son of Mary,</i></span></dd><dd style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>have mercy on me. Amen.</i></span></dd></dl>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This was sung at the elevation of the host during the consecration. It was also used frequently during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. <br /><br />From Wikipedia, "The hymn's title means "Hail, true body", and is based on a poem deriving from a 14th-century manuscript from the Abbey of Reichenau, Lake Constance. The poem is a meditation on the Catholic belief in Jesus's Real Presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist. . . ."</span><div>
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Well, I want to start praying it again, and maybe singing it too. </div>
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<div>
It is sad how few "Catholics" believe and reverence Jesus's Real Presence in the Sacrament of the the Holy Eucharist. I could go on my soap box about all the little things that happened over the years - losing the communion rails, receiving communion standing up, receiving communion from lay ministers, receiving communion in the hand, mass consecrations of the Eucharist, etc. I don't like it. It is not this way in the Byzantine church nor in churches that celebrate Latin Masses with communion rails. But I won't go on my soap box. I will pray for reform, and I will continue to be one of those nuisance people who insist on kneeling during the consecration, even when the priest says to stand, and to navigate to the priest's communion aisle away from the lay woman handing out communion in the fashionable top and the well practiced "Receive the Body of Christ". Pretty sure it is simply, "The Body of Christ", but she felt led to embellish . . . arghh! Even she wasn't as bad as the 7th grader from my local parish that was practically giggling as she was handing out the Body of Christ. More and more things are making me appreciate the Roman Catholic Church but this really needs reform.</div>
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<div>
We recently did a college visit to Franciscan University of Steubenville. There are Eucharistic Ministers there, but only for the cups. The Body of Christ is only given by the priests. Sadly I heard an upsetting story from a girl there that attended a Catholic High School in our area. First she said she thinks only 50% of the students believed in God, let alone were Catholic. Secondly, she told about a football player receiving Communion in the hand and then going to the back of the church and throwing the Consecrated Host in the garbage can. Very upsetting, but also, that doesn't happen when you receive communion in the mouth at the Communion Rail, or in the mouth by the spoon in the Byzantine rite.</div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-81455380127232462992014-03-11T10:29:00.001-05:002014-04-06T22:35:44.061-05:00Holy, Holy, Holy<a data-ved="0CAYQjRw" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=QXVVttXivPZ81M&tbnid=sj-bxvC6G5zD3M:&ved=0CAYQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthefreshaspect.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F05%2Fanother-day-another-sunrise.html&ei=VysfU6y8C8_wqgGaxoAg&psig=AFQjCNGm2RzdcaYTFrarCw_mtzYHzFfxUw&ust=1394637906686157" id="irc_mil" style="border: 0px currentColor;"><img class="irc_mut" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ4h_kYA5NV3LBxieXk90Rz6B3D-m5cUGtZKvaPJQZvpCiXMFPtHuAV0mAWHlDaoLawAsNUvSFYtuNK1Q6zpCs8hECFGfYhbXPuSyDuc7F8pHxvLYRKfzFb64j52zKAglawa9jMLhe1ZGL/s1600/2010_05_19_giantatsunrise.jpg" height="393" id="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="590" /></a><br />
Two prophets--one from the Old Testament, and one from the New; <br />
both chosen while alive to see that which most of us will only see after death<br />
<br />
Both the great prophet, Isaiah, and the Apostle John, capture the <strong><em>reality</em></strong> in the same words.<br />
<h2 class="passageref" style="width: 300px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Isaiah 6:3</span></span></h2>
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<div style="width: 300px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><sup class="ww">3</sup>And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the <span class="sc" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”</span></span></div>
<h2 class="passageref" style="width: 300px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Revelation 4:8</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><sup class="ww">8</sup>And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Jesus had this to say about Isaiah's testimony:</span></span></div>
<h2 class="passageref" style="width: 300px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">John 12:41</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><sup class="ww">41</sup>Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></span></div>
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Good to keep in mind as we contemplate for the 99.999999% of us still living who do not get whisked into the the holiness of the reality of God's holiness and glory, charged to give an account to foster the faith, love, trust, and hope of the rest of us!</div>
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Let us pray the prayer taught by the angel to the children at Fatima:</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">PARDON PRAYER<a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="PARDON"></a></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">MY GOD, I believe, I adore, I trust, and I love Thee! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I ask pardon for for those who do not believe, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">do not adore, do not trust and do not love Thee.</span></div>
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Let us take encouragement from these words of our beloved Lord, Jesus the Son of God:</div>
<h2 class="passageref" style="width: 300px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">John 20:29</span></span></h2>
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<div style="width: 300px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><sup class="ww">29</sup></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’</span></div>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-47357083040739719452014-03-09T14:52:00.003-05:002014-03-09T14:52:46.001-05:00Thank You, Mom"Thank you, Mom, for giving birth to me.<br />
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Thank you, Mom, for feeding me every night.<br />
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Thank you, Mom, for telling me about Jesus."<br />
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This is what my son told me after eating his fill of Ukrainian pierogies, and two slices of honey bun cake. I've noticed the males in this family are happiest and most loving after eating well.<br />
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Still, had to post this because these three thank you's need the platform of the world wide web.<br />
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A good Sunday to you all!<br />
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God Bless You!</div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-79039622605402862882014-02-28T14:21:00.000-06:002014-04-06T23:50:19.710-05:00Can't Always Get What You WantBut if you believe in God, trust in him, and wait upon him and his will to be accomplished, you will!<br />
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<h2 class="passageref" style="color: #880000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; width: 600px;">
Revelation 21</h2>
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<span class="cc" style="color: #666666; float: left; font-size: 2em; line-height: 1em; margin-right: 0.2em; vertical-align: top;">21</span>Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.<sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;">2</sup>And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. <sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;">3</sup>And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,<br />
‘See, the home<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a> of God is among mortals.<br />
He will dwell<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a> with them;<br />
they will be his peoples,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a><br />
and God himself will be with them;<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a><br />
<sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">4</sup> he will wipe every tear from their eyes.<br />
Death will be no more;<br />
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,<br />
for the first things have passed away.’</div>
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<span class="vv" style="color: #777777;">5</span> And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ <sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;">6</sup>Then he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This has to be one of the most wonderful, hopeful passages in the whole Bible. I guess this is a "Sunday" reading for a "Friday" when we should remember the price Jesus paid, the gift the Father made to give us this blessed hope. A few times in recent days I've hoped for something that would have at best given us a little temporal, fleeting happiness. I still prayed that God's will be done, and the fact that the Holy Spirit stuck that little prayer in my head helped me to accept the disappointment even when it was at its sharpest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just as I tell the girls I coach in basketball, and as Larry Bird once said, "You learn more from a defeat than a victory." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I do trust the God who left this little jewel for us:</span></div>
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Romans 8:28</h2>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">We know that all things work together for good</span></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"> for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br />Not the good now, in the timing that my little brain desires, but the good that is the building of Christ-like virtue in us and those around us.<br /><br />Thank you for the reminder and the gift of faith that comes from reading the opening of Revelation 21. You are the Alpha and the Omega. You are making all things new. You are bringing us into your kingdom where you will wipe away all tears.<br />I believe the disappointment was for the good of those involved. Thank you God for the peace and hope you give me in presenting that little phrase in the Lord's Prayer - "Your will be done," and the next, "Your Kingdom Come."</span></blockquote>
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<h2 class="passageref" style="color: #880000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; width: 600px;">
Revelation 22</h2>
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<span class="vv" style="background-color: white; color: #777777;">22</span><span style="background-color: white;"> I saw no temple in the city, </span><span style="background-color: #f6b26b;">for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb</span><span style="background-color: white;">. </span><sup class="ww" style="background-color: white; color: #777777;">23</sup><span style="background-color: white;">And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, </span><span style="background-color: #f6b26b;">for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.</span></div>
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<sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;"><br /></sup></div>
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<sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;"></sup></div>
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Revelation 23</h2>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;">3</sup>Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, </span><span style="background-color: #f6b26b;">and his servants<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a> will worship him; <sup class="ww" style="color: #777777;">4</sup>they will see his face, </span><span style="background-color: white;">and his name will be on their foreheads. </span><sup class="ww" style="background-color: white; color: #777777;">5</sup><span style="background-color: white;">And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, </span><span style="background-color: #f6b26b;">for the Lord God will be their light</span><span style="background-color: white;">, and they will reign for ever and ever.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="vv" style="color: #777777;">6</span> And he said to me,</span><span style="background-color: #f6b26b;"> ‘These words are trustworthy and true</span><span style="background-color: white;">, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="background-color: white; color: #0000bb;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a><span style="background-color: white;"> what must soon take place.’</span></div>
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<span class="vv" style="color: #777777;">7</span> ‘See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’ </div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Blessed are we to have this hope. Blessed are we to put trust in the Lord. We will get what we want - to worship him, bathed in the light of his glory, seeing his face, forever!</span></i></div>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-1092517980868808922014-02-11T01:00:00.000-06:002014-02-11T01:00:01.421-06:00De Profundis<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-top: 1.5em; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit;">
<img src="http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/07/f4/0e/07f40e104c8968f956a6bfac7c073db6.jpg" height="400" style="background-color: transparent;" width="317" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The <i>De Profundis</i> takes its name from the first two words of the psalm in Latin. It is a penitential psalm that is sung as part of vespers (evening prayer) and in commemorations of the dead. It is also a good psalm to express our sorrow as we prepare for the <a href="http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/p/Why_Confession.htm" style="color: #3366cc; cursor: pointer; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sacrament of Confession</a>.</span></div>
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<img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4948/611/1600/dp-sample.jpg" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Every time you recite the <i>De Profundis</i>, you can receive a partial indulgence (the remission of a portion of punishment for sin). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Let Your ears be attentive to my voice in supplication. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">If You, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">But with You is forgiveness, that You may be revered.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in His word. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">More than sentinels wait for the dawn, let Israel wait for the Lord. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">For with the Lord is kindness and with Him is plenteous redemption; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From the source:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><nn>A Song of Ascents.</nn><br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">1</sup> Out of the depths I cry to you, O <span class="sc" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>. <br class="oo" /><sup class="oo" style="color: #777777;">2</sup> Lord, hear my voice!<br class="kk" style="background-color: #ffaaaa; margin-top: 0em; padding-top: 0em; text-indent: 3em;" />Let your ears be attentive<br /> to the voice of my supplications! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">3</sup> If you, O <span class="sc" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>, should mark iniquities,<br /> Lord, who could stand? <br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">4</sup> But there is forgiveness with you,<br /> so that you may be revered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">5</sup> I wait for the <span class="sc" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>, my soul waits,<br /> and in his word I hope; <br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">6</sup> my soul waits for the Lord<br /> more than those who watch for the morning,<br /> more than those who watch for the morning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">7</sup> O Israel, hope in the <span class="sc" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>!<br /> For with the <span class="sc" style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> there is steadfast love,<br /> and with him is great power to redeem. <br class="ii" /><sup class="ii" style="color: #777777;">8</sup> It is he who will redeem Israel<br /> from all its iniquities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mary of Egypt left a life of sin and lived a life of repentance. Here is synopsis of her life from a book I am enjoying, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Cloister-Walk-Kathleen-Norris/dp/1573225843">The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris</a> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Mary of Egypt lived in the fifth century, but her story is all too familiar in the twentieth. Running away from home at the age of twelve, she became a </span><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">prostitute in Alexandria. At the age of twenty-nine, she grew curious about Jerusalem and joined a boatload of pilgrims by offering the crew her sexual services for the duration of the journey. She continued to work as a prostitute in Jerusalem. On hearing that a relic of the true cross was to be displayed at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, her curiosity was aroused again, and she joined the feast-day crowds. But at the threshold of the church <i>some invisible force held her back</i>. Suddenly ashamed of the life she’d led, she began to weep. <u>Kneeling before an icon of the Virgin Mary, she begged forgiveness and asked for help. </u>A voice said to her, “If you cross over the Jordan, you will find rest.” Mary spent the rest of her life, <i>forty-seven years</i>, as a hermit in the desert. Late in her life, Mary encounters a monk who had come to the desert for a period of fasting, and she tells him her story. . . . The monk is amazed to discover that Mary knows many Bible verses by heart, for in the desert she has had no one but God to teach her. She asks him to bring communion to her, when next he comes to the desert, and this he does. On his third visit, however, he finds that Mary has died. . . .</span> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Monks have always told the story of Mary of Egypt to remind themselves not </span><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">to grow complacent in their monastic observances, mistaking them for the salvation that comes from God alone. And in the Eastern Orthodox churches, Mary’s life is read on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, presented, as the scholar Benedicta Ward tells us, “as an icon in words of the theological truths about repentance.” . . . . Repentance is not a popular word these days, but I believe that any of us recognize it when it strikes us in the gut. Repentance is coming to our senses, seeing, suddenly, what we’ve done that we might not have done, or recognizing, as Oscar Wilde says in his great religious meditation De Profundis, that the problem is not in what we do but in what we become. Repentance is valuable because it opens in us the idea of change. I’ve known several young women who’ve worked in the sex trade, and <u>one of the worst problems they encounter is the sense that change isn’t possible</u>. They’re in a business that will discard them as useless once they’re past thirty, but they come to feel that this work is all they can do. Many, in fact, do not like what they become. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">The story of Mary of Egypt opens the floodgates of change. It comes from a tradition of desert stories suggesting that if monks and whores can’t talk to each other, who can? The monk who encounters Mary still has a lot to learn; his understanding of the spiritual life is facile in comparison to hers, and he knows it. Mary, for all her trials, is like one of those fortunate souls in the gospels to whom Jesus says , “Your faith has made you whole.” Benedicta Ward has said that these stories are about deliverance from “despair of the soul, from the risk of the tragedy of refusing life, of calling death life,” which may be one function of the slang term for prostitution: it is called “the life.” But the story of Mary of Egypt is one any of us might turn to when we’re frozen up inside, when we’re in need of remorse, in need of the tears that will melt what Ward terms “the ultimate block within [us]; that deep and cold conviction that [we] cannot love or be loved.” In this tradition, Ward says, virginity, defined as being whole, at one in oneself, and with God, can be restored by tears.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Norris, Kathleen (1997-04-01). The Cloister Walk (pp. 164-166). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-66322039900873539522014-02-09T14:18:00.003-06:002014-02-09T20:10:56.178-06:00Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee<br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Prepared this for my 1st and 2nd graders' religion school class at my Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic parish (full communion with the Roman Pontiff). Not sure it was at their grade level, so thought I should share it here too! Have a great week!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span><b>2 Timothy 3:10-15</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">10</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,</span><sup style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">11</span></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.</span><sup style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">12</span></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.</span><sup style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">13</span></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived.</span><sup style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">14</span></sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it,</span><sup style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: yellow; color: #777777; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">15</span></sup><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: yellow;">and </span></span><u style="background-color: yellow;">how from childhood </u><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: yellow;">you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.</span></span><span style="background-color: yellow;"><br /></span></span><b style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16.8pt;">The above scripture teaches how valuable it is to learn the sacred writings (Scripture=the Bible=Sacred Writings) from your childhood that instruct you for your salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.</b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 16.8pt;"><span style="color: #880000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.5pt;"><br />Luke 18:10-14 - Today's Gospel in the Eastern Rite</span></b></div>
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<sup><span style="color: #a50021; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">10</span></sup><span style="color: #a50021; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector.<sup>11</sup>The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.<sup>12</sup>I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”<sup>13</sup>But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”<sup>14</sup>I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Found this on the back of our church bulletin (not what I included in the teaching to the 1st and 2nd graders) St. Basil the Great wrote:</div>
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The stern Pharisee, who in his self pride not only boasted of himself but also discredited the tax collector in the presence of God, made his justice void by being guilty of pride. Instead of the Pharisee, the tax collector went down justified, because he had given glory to God, the Holy One. He did not dare lift his eyes but sought only to plead for mercy. He accused himself by his posture, by striking his breast, and by entertaining no other motive except propitiation. Be on your guard, therefore, and bear in mind this example of severe loss sustained through arrogance. The one guilty of insolent behavior suffered the loss of his justice and forfeited his reward by his bold self-reliance. He was judged inferior to a humble man and a sinner because in his self-exaltation he did not wait the judgment of God but pronounced it himself. Never place yourself above anyone, not even great sinners. Humility often saves a sinner who has committed many terrible transgressions.</blockquote>
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This reminds me of a quote from St. John Climacus:</div>
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<span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Pride is a denial of God, an invention of the devil, contempt for men. It is the mother of condemnation, the offspring of praise, a sign of barrenness. It is a flight from God’s help, the harbinger of madness, the author of downfall. It is the cause of diabolical possession, the source of anger, the gateway of hypocrisy. It is the fortress of demons, the custodian of sins, the source of hardheartedness. It is the denial of compassion, a bitter pharisee, a cruel judge. It is the foe of God. It is the root of blasphemy.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #29303b;">The Jesus Prayer is modeled after the prayer of the Publican.</span></h3>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><b>Lord Jesus Christ, </b></span><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 15.6pt;">(3 words)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Son of God, </b><span style="font-size: x-small;">(3 words)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>Have mercy on</b> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(3 words)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>me, a sinner.</b> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(3 words)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;">(12 words total)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #20124d; line-height: 15.6pt;">"I am convinced that our kids and teens need to hear this prayer more than any other. It's called the </span><b style="color: #20124d; line-height: 15.6pt;">Jesus Prayer</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #20124d; line-height: 15.6pt;"> and whenever we use it, we call upon Christ as the Holy Scripture says, keeping Him on our minds, in our hearts, and on our lips with every minute of the day. </span><i style="color: #20124d; line-height: 15.6pt;">This short but powerful prayer sanctifies whatever task we are doing!</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #20124d;"><span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Fold the laundry ... and say this prayer</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Drive to school ... and say this prayer</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Say it in any language, say it in short or long form...</span></div>
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<b style="line-height: 15.6pt;">When else can you say this prayer?</b></div>
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<b style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Pray for others using the Jesus prayer:</b><span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Take turns offering the first name of someone you'd like to sing the Jesus Prayer for, then complete the song on their behalf.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">We say, '</span><b style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><i>Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on ______</i></b><i style="line-height: 15.6pt;">, your servant (or a sinner).'</i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Sometimes we include all the poor, the hungry, the orphaned, the priests, all monks and nuns, those with a handicap, etc.</span></div>
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<b style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><i>Indeed, our true task is always the same and is always accomplished in the same way: to call upon our Lord Jesus Christ with a burning heart so that His holy name intercedes for us."</i></b></div>
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<span style="color: #29303b;"><i>-Hesychios the Priest: On Personal Holiness</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #29303b; line-height: 15.6pt;">The Scripture of the Publican and the Pharisee also reminds us that the Lord our God looks at our hearts and not the outward appearance in physical traits, or the appearance of good works done to impress others or to help us feel good about ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #29303b;">But the Lord said to Samuel, </span><span style="color: #a50021;">“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him<b>; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart</b>.” </span><span style="color: #29303b;">(1 Samuel 16:7, but read within context of 1 Samuel 16:1-13)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #29303b;"> The Lord wants to be merciful to us and to bless us, but we need to get our hearts right. We need to realize our place before God, we are fully needing his loving mercy and forgiveness, and we fully need the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to remain in Jesus to accomplish anything good for him. Hear the words of Jesus: </span><br />
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<sup style="line-height: 15.6pt;"><span style="color: #a50021;">43</span></sup><span style="color: #a50021; line-height: 15.6pt;"> ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; <sup>44</sup>for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. <sup>45</sup>The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. </span><span style="color: #29303b; line-height: 15.6pt;">(Luke 6:43-45)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #29303b;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="color: #a50021;">“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” </span><span style="color: #29303b;">(John 15:5)<o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #29303b;">The gift of the Holy Spirit comes to us in Baptism and Chrismation (Confirmation). The gifts of the Holy Spirit come from asking! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span style="color: #a50021;">9</span></sup><span style="color: #a50021;"> ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. <sup>10</sup>For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. <sup>11</sup>Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? <sup>12</sup>Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? <sup>13</sup>If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ </span><span style="color: #29303b;">(Luke 11:9-13)<o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #29303b;">Here’s an example of someone asking:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup><span style="color: #29303b;">9</span></sup><span style="color: #29303b;">Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?’<br /><o:p></o:p></span><sup><span style="color: #29303b;">10</span></sup><span style="color: #29303b;"> It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. <sup>11</sup>God said to him, </span><span style="color: #a50021;">‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, <sup>12</sup>I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. <sup>13</sup>I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honour all your life; no other king shall compare with you. <sup>14</sup>If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.’</span><span style="color: #29303b;">(1 Kings 3:9-14)<o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #29303b;">God is happy to give the gifts of the Holy Spirit to those who ask. He said this to Jeremiah, a great prophet in the Old Testament times to the people of Israel who had forsaken God to worship false gods, breaking the 1<sup>st</sup> Commandment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<sup><span style="color: #29303b;"></span></sup><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup><span style="color: #29303b;">23 </span></sup><span style="color: #29303b;">Thus says the Lord: </span><span style="color: #a50021;">Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; <sup>24</sup>but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord. </span><span style="color: #29303b;">(Jeremiah 9:23-24)<o:p></o:p></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<b><span style="color: #29303b; font-size: 14pt;"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #29303b; font-size: 14pt;">This is why it is so important for your parents to teach you the faith, and to bring you to Divine Liturgy (Mass) and Religion School and for them to study their Bibles as well. God <u>delights</u> that you learn about him, that you know him, and understand that he acts with steadfast love.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #29303b;">If you want to remain in Jesus, you need to learn to pray – unceasingly. </span><br />
<span style="color: #29303b;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #29303b;">St. Paul told us this: </span><i><span style="color: #1b0a0d;">“P</span><span style="color: #4b4343;">r</span>ay <span style="color: #1b0a0d;">co</span>ns<span style="color: #1b0a0d;">t</span>an<span style="color: #1b0a0d;">tl</span>y<span style="color: #1b0a0d;">.” </span></i><span style="color: #1b0a0d; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 12.266667366027832px;">1 </span><span style="color: #1b0a0d; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 12.266667366027832px;">T</span><span style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 12.266667366027832px;">HE<span style="color: #1b0a0d;">S</span>S<span style="color: #4b4343;">A</span>L<span style="color: #1b0a0d;">O</span>NIANS </span><span style="color: #1b0a0d; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 12.266667366027832px;">5</span><span style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 12.266667366027832px;">: <span style="color: #1b0a0d;">1</span>7</span></blockquote>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #29303b; line-height: 15.6pt;">The Jesus prayer is the most common way of doing this in our Eastern tradition.</span><span style="color: #29303b;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #29303b;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #29303b;">Another way of praying unceasingly is to memorize scriptures and to pray them when you need to have your heart and mind refocused on the God who is always with you, always loving you, and who is all powerful to defend you in times of temptation and hardship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6pt;">
<span style="color: #29303b;">Here is an example of such a scripture: </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Come to my h<span style="color: #4b4343;">e</span>lp, O God. Lord, hurry to my rescue" (s<span style="color: #4b4343;">e</span>e Ps 70<span style="color: #0c0000;">:1</span>).</blockquote>
<span style="line-height: 15.6pt;">Last week Sunday of Zaccheaus: Next week Sunday of the Prodigal Son:</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 15.6pt;"> </span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpBjwsHSsWxl-UAwX0GNKcTDwpaACuqybKKuogkrIthvbjW0nOEW2_f5QzVPYJ9YdOb0H6gz8ij96UjbMrn-TsN53XZSBf8TcpZcLZFQRNqwuOd26sGfvyfZd8rb68kpM5P0M3DV5dJMLw/s1600/Zacchaeus.jpg" /><img src="http://lent.goarch.org/prodigalson/learn/images/prodigalson.jpg" style="line-height: 16.8pt;" /></div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-54282900973313402742014-02-06T13:20:00.000-06:002014-02-09T14:34:01.184-06:00An Everlasting Love<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I have loved you with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3b)</span></span></i><br />
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">Saw this quote Sunday night, and it stopped me in my mental tracts. It was in fine print, in italics on the back of a little business card stuck in a book given and written by a priest friend of mine. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I've been dwelling on it ever since, and at the same time noticed that I've been especially happy the past few days. Living in Chicago we have had snow and cold and I find myself delighting in the snow, and even finding the cold, clear days beautiful. When I go to work in the morning it is now right around sunrise and I find that I do love sunrises. When I leave after work I am grateful that it is still light at 5 PM when not just a few weeks ago it was dark. Even when I am walking through the slush in the non-snowremoved streets and sidewalks I am thankful for my new waterproof boots with Vibram soles and new wool socks. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">I know it is not a permanent state, this happiness, easily thrilled state of being where moments and the beauty of nature and the gifts of my family, children and friends are cherished. I had been reading <u>Discernment of Spirits</u> and learned more about the states of consolation and desolation and the working of the good and evil spirits on one's thoughts and feelings during each. But for now all I can do is enjoy being happy, and offer my love, thanks and praise to God for where he has me right now.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: inherit; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">That brings me to a great mini-meditation that can be done at any time of the day. I got it from a "Daily Disconnect" from Carmelites.net It goes like this:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Visualize yourself in God's presence . . . in other words recollect yourself . . . become tuned in to God's presence in and around you, and his love for you.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Using these words of praise, pray slowly</span></span></li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><i>My God, I love you with all my heart, I praise and thank you . . .</i></span></span></blockquote>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Repeat several times</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just be with God</span></li>
</ul>
There is also a song that I found while listening to iTunes Radio "Best Christian Music of 2013". It is great to have my headphones on while walking in sub-zero windchill, walking in my new boots and magic coat (light, but very warm, and makes me look "young"). Hope you enjoy it too! Chris Tomlin covered it and his version is also very good.<br />
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><br /></span></span>CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-75334183497829665852014-01-30T02:00:00.000-06:002014-01-30T02:00:00.885-06:00Why "Inadequate Disciple"?<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Why did I choose "Inadequate Disciple" as a blog title
when I started this few years ago? Because I am. When Jesus says
things like, you will know them by their fruits, and remain in me that you
might bear fruit, and I don't know of any fruits following from this here
branch, that speaks to my inadequacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">What is this fruit? Some write that
the fruit could be virtue - in oneself - things like self-control, gentleness,
temperance, prudence, integrity, fortitude. Some write that it is good
works, like the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Some others,
especially when you read and reflect on The Parable of the Sower, would think
that fruit is conversions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">It is true we don't always know about
these fruits. St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face (a.k.a.
The Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux) lived a quiet life in a cloistered
monastery yet she has born the fruit of many conversions - both initial
conversions to the Lord, and then deeper commitments to the Lord when people
read and are inspired by her life, her words, her prayers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">One of my favorite meditations by my
priest and friend was that one of the joys we will have when we get to heaven
is meeting people who will be waiting to thank us that they are there because of
the suffering we offered in union with Christ’s and because of the prayers and
sacrifices we offered on their behalf, whether we prayed for them by name, or
whether we offered them for the intentions of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and
the Sacred Heart of Jesus or simply for the conversion of sinners, and the poor
souls in purgatory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">What incredible joy I had in this life when one person I worked
with did take the steps to be reconciled – went to Mass, went to Confession,
went to Communion, even began speaking about her faith in a community that
likes to refer to God as “the universe”, and atheism, agnosticism, or only
theism are the norm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">That only happened once, and at the time I started this blog, and
still now, it bothers me. Remember the
question you get asked by the priest at least once a year in a homily, “if it
were a crime to be a Christian, to be a Catholic, would there be enough
evidence to convict you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Well if part of the evidence is that I love being Catholic and
that the joy, the love I feel and express through my Catholic faith are a
treasure, and if I care at all about the people around me, the people God has
orchestrated into my life that I might help with them finding salvation, finding
the joy of the friendship with Jesus, communion with the Holy Spirit, then why
weren’t there others who also converted?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXLqLxa0NgDgSXSJRYT_aFQvyC2QiSphcBGgqc3Ngs9SygAyd3Ytm58HsfSWV5Izr8rTh38eQkmh_df2bbfBqobpNSemzcYB1QyKgG3_uL49OW9g4Id4bumFPRsPgRwYluN-t9OKhTDCY/s1600/Treasure+in+Earthen+Vessels.jpg" /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="color: #010000;">It is not ourselves that we are proclaiming, but Christ Jesus as the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus's sake. It is God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' that has shone into our hearts to enlighten them with the knowledge of God's glory, the glory on the face of Christ. But we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of the power is God's and not our own. </span>(<o:p></o:p>2 Corinthians 4:5-7)</i></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.8pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I looked up Inadequate Disciple in an internet search. One of the better posts I found on it was
how the apostles were wholly inadequate to feed the 5000 men that gathered and
did not have food to eat.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Yet the power
of Jesus Christ manifested itself through their obedience to his mysterious
orders.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Take these pieces (of couple fish and loaves of bread) and distribute it to
the multitude, after you divide them up into 12 groups.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">They were astounded.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">They got to see the fruits of their trust and
obedience that day.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">They learned without
a doubt that they could do nothing apart from the Power of Jesus the Messiah,
but with him, 5000 men, plus women and children were fed, and there were enough
leftovers collected in the 12 baskets (12 apostles) for each of them to more than eat their fill.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.8pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 16.8pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">They had to put their human doubts and confusion aside and get out of the way in order for Christ's miracle to be accomplished through their efforts. I don't think I do that well. See all the I's? That is part of the problem.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">-------------------------</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Recently I had another moment to cooperate with the work of grace to draw
someone into a more meaningful, loving, fulfilling relationship with Jesus, and
felt myself to have been a miserable coward and totally living up to the title
of this blog-- inadequate disciple. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">A woman I work with, who was raised Catholic, attended Catholic
school through high school, was confirmed, but was not going to church
anymore. Wasn’t even planning on going
for Christmas. When she first began
sharing an office with me she rather frequently used the Lord Jesus’s name as a
swear. I said the Divine Praises a few
times after Mass in reparation. Because I love Jesus, and because the Holy Spirit has taught me how holy is the name of God, it hurts
when someone does that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I let it slip that I was going to daily Mass at a nearby church
couple times a week, and then the use of Jesus’s name as a stress release
seemed to stop, completely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I took this lady out for a beer her last day at this client of
ours. I kind of sensed it was the last time
I had to try to help her with her faith, possibly the last time we would talk
in person, although she kept saying we would get together again. She raised her objections. I heard them before, but I don’t personally
share them. I wanted to keep the
conversation going, and used examples of others that shared her objections to
do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">A day later I realized what a wimp I had been. This was a pivotal opportunity. I have already noticed a pattern with people
I work with. Usually when either they
are leaving the place or I am there is the lifting of the “don’t talk religion
and faith at work” rule and some free-flowing faith talk ensues. It might come up before then, and I have been less veiled in recent years. But it is at the end of our time working together that the faith conversation flows and we find out we share a common
faith, a common love. This time </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I knew
it was not what we had in common that was important. Still, I did not appeal to the Holy Spirit for inspiration, for the words to speak, the heart to hear. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Another day or two passed and I wrote her an email with the subject “Colleen is a wimp”. Here it is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I<span style="font-family: inherit;"> was thinking back on our conversation at Durkin’s
(whatever the name). I think I was a wimp when we were talking about
faith. I get slightly uncomfortable struggling to keep relational
connection and then failing to witness to the Christ, instead of
overcompensating to your point of view. Thank you for noticing my
faith. I am grateful for the gifts of grace that are my faith and the joy,
strength, and more compassionate heart that comes from it. There are
plenty of reasons to reject Catholicism or Catholics, but none of them had much
sway for me personally. When we were talking I mentioned “my husband
this”, and “a friend from work that”, to try to maintain the relational
connection. But for me personally, Jesus has grasped me from an early
age, and through his grace, abundantly given to me through the Catholic Church,
no reasons would keep me from receiving
his grace in his Word, in his Sacraments (especially Confession and the Holy
Eucharist), and through his priests and saints, and his Holy Mother, whose
intercession is entirely the reason my husband and I are still married!
So, I very much hope you find your way back. If not to the Church or a
church in the near future, then why not just take the direct route highlighted
by the pope in the following. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Here it is from the original source from Papa
Francesco: <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#The_joy_of_the_gospel" target="_blank">http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#The_joy_of_the_gospel</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">1. <a href="" name="The_joy_of_the_gospel">The joy of the gospel</a> fills the hearts
and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are
set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is
constantly born anew. In this Exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian
faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy,
while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">I. A joy ever
new, a joy which is shared</span></b><a href="" name="I._A_joy_ever_new,_a_joy_which_is_shared"></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">2. The great
danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation
and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of
frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life
becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room
for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet
joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a
very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful,
angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it
is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source
in the heart of the risen Christ.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">3. I invite
all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal
encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter
them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think
that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded
from the joy brought by the Lord”.<a href="" name="_ftnref1"></a><a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#_ftn1" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #0070c0;">[1]</span></a> The
Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step
towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with
open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be
deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more,
to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me
once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him
whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving
us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to
forgive one another “seventy times seven” (<i>Mt </i>18:22) has given us
his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he
bears us on his shoulders. No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us
by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints,
but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift
up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus,
let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life,
which impels us onwards!</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">4. The books of
the Old Testament predicted that the joy of salvation would abound in messianic
times. The prophet Isaiah exultantly salutes the awaited Messiah: “You have
multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy” (9:3). He exhorts those who
dwell on Zion to go forth to meet him with song: “Shout aloud and sing for
joy!” (12:6). The prophet tells those who have already seen him from afar to
bring the message to others: “Get you up to a high mountain, O herald of good
tidings to Zion; lift up your voice with strength, O herald of good tidings to
Jerusalem” (40:9). All creation shares in the joy of salvation: “Sing for joy,
O heavens, and exult, O earth! Break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the
Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones”
(49:13).</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Zechariah,
looking to the day of the Lord, invites the people to acclaim the king who
comes “humble and riding on a donkey”: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout
aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and
victorious is he” (9:9).</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Perhaps the
most exciting invitation is that of the prophet Zephaniah, who presents God
with his people in the midst of a celebration overflowing with the joy of
salvation. I find it thrilling to reread this text: “The Lord, your God is in
your midst, a warrior who gives you the victory; he will rejoice over you with
gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud
singing, as on a day of festival” (3:17).</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">This is the
joy which we experience daily, amid the little things of life, as a response to
the loving invitation of God our Father: “My child, treat yourself well,
according to your means… Do not deprive yourself of the day’s enjoyment” (<i>Sir</i> 14:11,
14). What tender paternal love echoes in these words! </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">(You:
“Why can’t we enjoy life?”)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">5. The Gospel,
radiant with the glory of Christ’s cross, constantly invites us to rejoice. A
few examples will suffice. “Rejoice!” is the angel’s greeting to Mary (<i>Lk </i>1:28).
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth makes John leap for joy in his mother’s womb
(cf. <i>Lk </i>1:41). In her song of praise, Mary proclaims: “My
spirit rejoices in God my Saviour” (<i>Lk</i> 1:47). When Jesus begins his
ministry, John cries out: “For this reason, my joy has been fulfilled” (<i>Jn </i>3:29).
Jesus himself “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” (<i>Lk</i> 10:21). His message
brings us joy: “I have said these things to you, so that my joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be complete” (<i>Jn </i>15:11). Our Christian joy
drinks of the wellspring of his brimming heart. He promises his disciples: “You
will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (<i>Jn </i>16:20).
He then goes on to say: “But I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy from you” (<i>Jn </i>16:22). The disciples
“rejoiced” (<i>Jn </i>20:20) at the sight of the risen Christ. In the Acts
of the Apostles we read that the first Christians “ate their food with glad and
generous hearts” (2:46). Wherever the disciples went, “there was great joy”
(8:8); even amid persecution they continued to be “filled with joy” (13:52).
The newly baptized eunuch “went on his way rejoicing” (8:39), while Paul’s
jailer “and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God”
(16:34). </span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">Why should we not also enter into this
great stream of joy?</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">6. There are
Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that
joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments
of great difficulty. </span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">Joy adapts and changes, but it
always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that,
when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">I understand the grief of people who have to endure great
suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly
revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress: </span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">“My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is…
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the
Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every
morning. Great is your faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord” (<i>Lam </i>3:17, 21-23, 26).</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">7. </span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">Sometimes we are tempted to find excuses and complain, acting as
if we could only be happy if a thousand conditions were met. To some extent
this is because our “technological society has succeeded in multiplying
occasions of pleasure, yet has found it very difficult to engender joy”.<a href="" name="_ftnref2"></a><a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#_ftn2" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #0070c0;">[2]</span></a>I can say
that the most beautiful and natural expressions of joy which I have seen in my
life were in poor people who had little to hold on to. I also think of the real
joy shown by others who, even amid pressing professional obligations, were able
to preserve, in detachment and simplicity, a heart full of faith. In their own
way, all these instances of joy flow from the infinite love of God, who has revealed
himself to us in Jesus Christ. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">I never tire of repeating
those words of <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/index.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #663300;">Benedict XVI</span></a> which take us to the very
heart of the Gospel: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice
or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a
new horizon and a decisive direction”.<a href="" name="_ftnref3"></a><a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#_ftn3" target="_blank" title=""><span style="color: #663300;">[3]</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">8. </span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">Thanks solely to this encounter – or renewed encounter – with
God’s love, which blossoms into an enriching friendship, we are liberated from
our narrowness and self-absorption. We become fully human when we become more
than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the
fullest truth of our being.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Here we find the source
and inspiration of all our efforts at evangelization. For if we have received
the love which restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that
love with others? </span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">(</span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">ß</span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">and here is where I failed, and hopefully Papa Francisco can
fill in the gap I left unfilled!)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Happy New
Year! If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother to send this note. And if
I care at all it is because Jesus loves me, and he wants you to know that and
that this upcoming day, this upcoming year will be the year that your
friendship with him grows. It is a bit overwhelming isn’t it, that he
wants to be your friend. I think the unrequited love that you no
doubt experienced in some of your friendships taught me the most about how much
he loves each of us at a personal level, and how great a debt I owe him. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">As Jesus told
St. Margaret Mary when she was seeing a vision of him with his Sacred Heart
showing:</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F6F6F6;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="color: #c00000; line-height: 115%;">"Look at this Heart which has loved men so much, and yet
men do not want to love Me in return."</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">You are obviously striving to be a good and
helpful person, and it seemed to me like you would like to have a stronger
connection to God, but you don’t right now. Sorry I was too wimpy to tell
you this in person, but now you have a nice long email to read and
consider. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Heck if the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons
can go door-to-door, at least I can send an email. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">If you would like to try a morning or
evening meditation time each day, I highly recommend </span><u><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051J3XYU/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1/183-2089686-2235510?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=0XJVQKDJKA7FN7VQRPB7&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_i=1933271108" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0070c0;">The Better Par</span></a>t </span></u><span style="line-height: 115%;">by Fr. John Bartunek. It contains the full text of the
Gospels and meditation on 4 different levels for each day’s short
passage. The four levels are: 1) Christ the Lord, 2) Christ the
Teacher, 3) Christ the Friend, and 4) Christ in My Life. Here is an example
from last Sunday’s Gospel: </span><u><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2013/12/25/5-the-suffering-begins-mt-2-13-23" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0070c0;">http://rcspiritualdirection.com/blog/2013/12/25/5-the-suffering-begins-mt-2-13-23</span></a></span></u><span style="line-height: 115%;">. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Another great book is </span><u><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://thedivinemercy.org/chj/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0070c0;">Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Fr. Michael Gaitley</span></a>.</span></u><span style="line-height: 115%;"> This is a do-it-yourself retreat that I found very helpful
over the past couple of years. My priest friend that was battling stage 3
colon cancer recommended it to me. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">God Bless You, including providing your next job – </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Colleen</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-50885745191365638742014-01-29T02:00:00.000-06:002014-01-29T02:04:28.547-06:00The 200 Word Post<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Is it possible? It is for some. They don't post unless
it fits their blog theme, and they make every word count. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I usually think to write after the Lord
teaches me something. He has been teaching me from the book of Wisdom
lately. I think it is the Holy Spirit that is drawing me back to that
book so often over the last year. This is one content rich book.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been reading and re-reading it in three
translations:</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Douay-Rheims, RSV-2CE, New
Jerusalem.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<img src="http://i789.photobucket.com/albums/yy172/babsinva66/non-canonical-bible-books/book-of-wisdom.jpg" /><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Inspirational quotes from just the first 5 chapters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000;">Seek him
with sincerity of heart</span> (from Wis. 1:1)</span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;">He </span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;">manifests
himself to those who have faith in him (from Wis. 1:2)<br /><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The just
shall shine (from Wis. 3:7)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Their Lord
shall reign forever (from Wis. 3:8)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the
precious gift of faith shall be given to him (from Wis. 3:14)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were
some who pleased God and were loved by him (from Wis. 4:10)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">His soul
being pleasing to the Lord (from Wis. 4:14)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Behold, how
they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the
saints. (Wis: 5:5)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For the
fruit of honest labours is glorious. (Wis.3:15)</span></span></i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here’s a comforting and encouraging teaching that appears twice:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those who
trust in him will understand the truth, those who are faithful will live with
him in love;</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;">For grace and mercy await his holy ones, and he
intervenes on behalf of his chosen.</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"> (Wis. 3:9 NJB)<br /><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They that
trust in him shall understand the truth; and they that are faithful in love,
shall rest in him; for grace and peace are to his elect. (Wis. 3:9 (DRB)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></o:p></span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;">That grace and mercy await his chosen ones and that
he intervenes on behalf of his holy ones.</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"> (Wis. 4:15)<br /><o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></o:p></span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the
upright live forever,<br /> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Their recompense
is with the Lord, and the Most High will take care of them.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For he will shelter
them with his right hand and with his arm will shield him. (Wis. 5:15, 16b)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></span></i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t even think I can keep this under 500 words, let alone 200.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What these words stir up in me is holy desire. Do you desire, like me, to seek God with
sincerity of heart? I don’t seek God
because of the promises of rewards. I am
not attracted to those verses in the Bible.
Sincerity of heart . . . the heart he created. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
I remember the nuns, well, Sr. Angela in particular, telling us that we can repent of our sins because of either fear of punishment or because we are sorry because we offended God and we love Him, and that the second one was better. Of course it is better to love God than to just fear the punishment of God. It seems just as shallow to me to get fired up for God because of the promise of reward, even though he offers it. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
The blessing of having a sincere heart is seeking after God, wanting to read the Scriptures as his love letter, wanting to spend time in Adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament, wanting to receive Jesus in Holy Communion because He has loved me, and I love him. Holy Desire, holy affection. But what of dryness when the Lord tests our will when we persist in our acts of Love even when we don't feel holy affection. Wisdom has a verse for that too:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>God was putting them to the test<br />and has proved them worthy to be with him;<br />he has tested them like gold in a furnace,<br />and accepted them as a perfect burnt offering.<br />At their time of visitation, they will shine out. (Wisdom 3:5b-6) </i></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He revealed himself to me, and he revealed himself to me not just
in knowledge in the Catechism about his attributes, but to my spirit, my heart,
he reveals himself as Love, as Goodness, as Mercy. His Son
reveals the gentleness and kindness of God, and the completeness of his total
self-giving in order to make this whole experience of communing with Him in my
spirit possible. It is my holy desire
that the gift of faith given to me would be cultivated in me by the sanctifying
work of the Holy Spirit, that my soul would be pleasing to the Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I know I trust in Him ultimately, and I know I need to
trust in him more in the moment, no matter how ordinary or no matter how
unexpected or pivotal. I know truth,
because I know Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I put my trust in him and I delight that our Lord will live
forever, that the Most High takes care
of us, that - Praise be to God - Grace and mercy await us and He intervenes for us!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I believe the Most High doesn’t just intervene for us at the
moment of our personal judgment when he grants our salvation because of our
belief and trust in Jesus the beloved Son of God who sacrificed his life to
save us, but also that he intervenes in the here and now. Even now God shelters and shields us. What you have pain, and suffering, and
disappointment, and sorrow? If he
permits it, it is for your good, and if you unite the suffering with that of His Son, for the good of others that they might come to know Jesus, and walk
eternally with Him. That they might know grace, mercy, peace, and God's intervention on their behalf too!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Word Count 907; 200 Word Post is not possible for this inadequate disciple!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, it is going to continue now because I lament that t<span style="line-height: 20.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">he
Protestant Canon excludes this book. It isn’t part of their 66 book Bible. It is a shame. It is such a great book. It also seems to teach against the Calvinist
doctrines of : </span></span><br />
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</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
total depravity of man</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
sovereign unconditional election of God</span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
irresistible grace of God</span></span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<!--[if !supportLists]--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9F9F9; line-height: 20.4pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333;">When I read </span><i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000; font-family: inherit, serif;">They that trust in him shall
understand the truth; and they that are faithful in love, shall rest in him;
for grace and peace are to his elect. (Wis. 3:9 (DRB) </span></i><span style="line-height: 20.4pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000;">It says to me that it takes the response of man
to trust in God in order to understand the truth. Then those that are faithful to the truth,
the Law of Love, the commandments of the Most High, they find rest in God –
because grace and peace are to his elect.
They are elect, because they trust, because they understand truth, and
because they are then faithful in love.<i> </i></span></span><i style="line-height: 20.4pt;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #010000; font-family: inherit, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F9F9F9; line-height: 20.4pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They are not elect, simply because they are
elect. They do not come to understanding
of the truth or become faithful because of irresistible grace. They do not come to understand or be faithful
apart from grace, but they do have free will, and they must respond with trust
in order to receive the gifts of salvation:
grace and peace. This thought coincided with statement by Marcus Grodi with a Presbyterian minister on Journey Home. Those who believe in pre-destination do not put value on the Fiat of Mary. One of the reasons they do not understand the veneration of Mary is they do not put value on free will response. Mary could have said no, instead of "I am the Handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.". So could all of us. Even St. Paul, knocked on his behind by the brilliant, glory of Christ the King, could have said no, although that particular conversion is as close as one might experience to the "irresistible grace of God"! </span></span></div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-67937376460161461162013-12-14T10:52:00.000-06:002013-12-14T10:56:05.657-06:00The Lord Teaches You!<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup class="ii" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">17</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> Thus says the </span><span class="sc" style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: small-caps; line-height: 22.39px;">Lord</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">I am the </span><span class="sc" style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: small-caps; line-height: 22.39px;">Lord</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> your God,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> who teaches you for your own good,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> who leads you in the way you should go. </span><sup class="ii" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">18</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> O that you had paid attention to my commandments!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> Then your prosperity would have been like a river,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> and your success like the waves of the sea; (Isaiah 47:17-18)</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">This is from the first reading at Mass yesterday. Don't you love that the Lord teaches us for our own good and leads us in the way we should go?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">I was very surprised last week while talking to a sidewalk counselor outside of a Chicago abortion facility. This woman is extremely faithful to her calling to be there before and after women visit the facility. Our own group goes to this clinic one Saturday a month, and to another in the suburbs one Saturday a month. This woman goes to this clinic every single Saturday morning. Not just for an hour and a half, as our group does, but from 6:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m or later. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">Last Saturday was really super cold. I could not feel my feet past the arch. My toes were still there, but I could no longer feel them. This woman dressed more intelligently than me. She knew about "smart wool" socks that kept your toes from going numb.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq6zvopWVYd_aBIMqjVqKCFxEHHm_5w0AKKlf5GY-_Gkf78DvT7RGnj2Z2thzfs16-XzJ3hYEOZqabeXxXOR3CrL8mReWTb4InYbBNDu3TBkBdh4nI1d1FgprimAb707e2h3N1BRTQLe2l/s1600/1479429_611005222269133_453875490_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq6zvopWVYd_aBIMqjVqKCFxEHHm_5w0AKKlf5GY-_Gkf78DvT7RGnj2Z2thzfs16-XzJ3hYEOZqabeXxXOR3CrL8mReWTb4InYbBNDu3TBkBdh4nI1d1FgprimAb707e2h3N1BRTQLe2l/s320/1479429_611005222269133_453875490_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St. John Cantius Church, Chicago</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">What surprised me was this faithful woman, who is putting the Psalms to music, was very scared of her personal judgment. I told her about going to the Latin High Mass at St. John Cantius Church in Chicago. The priest didn't make jokes, he actually gave a pretty scary homily covering the last things, death, personal judgment, the last judgment, heaven, hell, purgatory--with its cleansing fire.</span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">He had said, "It isn't a teaching of the Church, but a doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, said the suffering of purgatory is greater than any suffering that can be endured on this earth."</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">That isn't actually a correct quote by the way. I'll have that in a moment for you. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">But geez, that is scary isn't it? I had come to think of purgatory along the lines of what St. Catherine of Genoa spoke of, that the real knowledge of the love of God and his holiness purified her with moans and groans and led her to do penances, but I no longer thought of it as "fire" after reading her account. Still there is passage from <u>The Way of Love</u> by Sr. Josefa Menendez, a personal revelation--again not a teaching of the church that describe it more of a place.</span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">I am not scared of my personal judgment. Are you? I know I am a sinner, I know that I do not resemble Jesus, meek and humble of heart, rich in compassion. But for some reason, I trust that he has me, that he has grasped me, and he has made me his own. (see Philippians 3:12)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">Do you pray when you read the Bible? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to "teach you for your own good"?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">One of the objectives I feel is impressed on me most, by the Holy Spirit, while preparing and teaching my 1st and 2nd grade Religion School class, is to teach them that reading the Bible can be like reading a love letter from God to us. I really try to get the kids hooked on reading the Bible, that they will learn things about God's Glory and Power and Love and Mercy in its words that are actually purposely hidden from them in the things they will hear in the world. I teach them that there is a difference between a person that goes to church or tries to be a good person, and a person that faithfully turns to the Bible to be taught and loved by God in its words. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">There are people that go to church but don't understand the commandments to love and to forgive and to pray for our enemies.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">There are people that go to church but don't understand that we are forbidden to indulge in horoscopes or fortune telling.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">There are people that go to church and don't understand the clear warnings of St. Paul on drunkenness and fornication. (see Ephesians 5:3) Of course it doesn't help when we get this reading at church and the priest squirms while it is proclaimed and then doesn't touch it with a 100 foot pole during the homily.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">There are people that have been brought up Catholic or Protestant or Jewish and then personally use the Lord's name in vain, including the Lord Jesus Christ's name in vain <i>repeatedly</i> during the day. You know what? I've never heard a priest mention why this is sinful, shameful and sad in a homily at Mass? I've heard a priest speak powerfully on how powerful the name of Jesus is, but not to mention how horrific it is that someone </span></span><a href="http://inadequatedisciple.blogspot.com/2011/11/to-whom-much-is-given-much-is-required.html">"who has been given much"</a> (see <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22px;">Luke 12:47-49) </span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">i.e. the gift of faith and knowledge of Christ's sacrifice, could then routinely use the name of Jesus Christ in place of a curse word when they are angry. How many parents model this behavior for their children?</span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">One of the first things that I think is impressed on someone that reads Scripture is that the holiness of God and his name are connected. When I hear people say "Jesus Christ" like other people use the f-bomb, it hurts. I pray for them. I pray the Divine Praises after Communion in reparation for their blasphemy. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">There seems to be quite a bit of this at my current job. During the third week we were doing a production conversion and a Chinese woman that probably knows very little about Jesus Christ, kept saying his name as a swear with a very think Chinese accent. Then another project manager consultant was put in a room with me. She seems to have gone to Catholic high school and she too was regularly saying Jesus Christ in anger throughout the day. This seems to have dropped off since I let her know I get over to the Daily Mass at Old St. Patrick's a couple times a week. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">Sorry for the rant there. Back to my point . . . the Lord does teach us and guide us on our path. Is he doing this for you? He has undeniably been doing this for me in abundance since as long as I can remember. Truly the cup of my understanding, my faith, my love for Him has been growing as a result of what he began teaching me through Holy Scripture, through the saints, through people pursuing holiness and greater love of God and neighbor, and through prayer throughout my life. (see Psalm 23:5)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">When you read passages like the following, you know he is telling you, "come closer. I want to hold you close to my heart. I love you more than you can understand. Trust in me! It hurts me when you don't trust in me!"</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">The </span><span class="sc" style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: small-caps; line-height: 22.39px;">Lord</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> called me before I was born,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. (Isaiah 49:1)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span><sup class="ii" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">14</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> But Zion said, ‘The </span><span class="sc" style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: small-caps; line-height: 22.39px;">Lord</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> has forsaken me,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> my Lord has forgotten me.’ </span><sup class="ii" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">15</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> Can a woman forget her nursing-child,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> or show no compassion for the child of her womb?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">Even these may forget,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> yet I will not forget you. </span><sup class="ii" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">16</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;">(Isaiah 49:14-16)</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;">Besides scripture, two saints in particular teach us what it means to trust God and to trust him wholeheartedly for our salvation because his mercy, his Divine Mercy, which gushed from his pierced side in the form of his Precious blood and water. He is our mediator before the justice of God. These two saints are St. Faustina and St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. </span></span><br />
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<a href="http://thedivinemercy.org/chj/prayers/thereselong.php">St. Therese's Offering to Merciful Love (long version)</a><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.39px;"> focuses on the fact that there is nothing we can do to merit heaven, instead we rely on the love of God who spared not his only beloved Son (John 3:16), and on the merits of Jesus, on his heart burning with Love.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.39px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.79px;">Since You loved me so much as to give me Your only Son as my Savior and my Spouse, the infinite treasures of His merits are mine. I offer them to You with gladness, begging You to look upon me only in the Face of Jesus and in His heart burning with </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.79px;">Love</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16.79px;">. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">We should all realize that God's condescension to save us, his Mercy is greater than we can imagine.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">How quickly we in our humanity are to overlook a coldness or slight from a friend we love. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">How quickly I grab my own child in my arms when he looks at me with pleading eyes, and is yelling through tears, "Mom, I am sorry," looking for forgiveness and a hug. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">God is Pure Love. God is Kindness. God is Compassion. God is Mercy. Why would I fear him when he has already led me in the path I should go. And what is that path? It is to follow the Good Shepherd by reading, knowing, and following his teaching and example. By asking him to hold us close to his heart that we might be transformed by his love and mercy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">I told this woman that I don't think it will be as fearful as she imagines. I think she will experience different emotions than fear. We have the hope and assurance that we will see Jesus Christ face to face when we die. He will be shining in glory, brighter than the sun, his clothes brighter than the snow as was described in the Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">His eyes will be full of love and mercy toward us. We may be filled with deep regret, that we may even experience viscerally like St. Catherine of Genoa writes, that we were anything less than adoring, loving and seeking after his will and following his commandments faithfully in life.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">But how will we not be ecstatically happy, filled with joy beyond this life's comprehension, as one priest said, "take the happiest you've been in your life and multiply it by infinity", to have the privilege of being in front of him, and knowing that he has given us the gift of eternal life with him?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16.79px;">This is what St. Thomas Aquinas actually said about purgatory:</span></span><br />
<a href="http://www.jesus-passion.com/PURGATION.htm">St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, Two Notes on Purgatory</a><br />
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It seems that the pains of purgatory are greater than all pains of this life. The pain of loss (that is, the pain of delay in coming to the beatific vision) is the greater of the two types of pain in purgatory. The lesser is the pain of sense.</blockquote>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-71467379265256226492013-11-08T01:48:00.002-06:002013-11-08T01:48:26.754-06:00Trust<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span class="userContent">Often quoted but every time I read it I think, "You mean right now? Even about this?"</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">I apologize I haven't been blogging much of late. I might be able to work toward a once a week posting schedule in the future. My new job has given me the excitement of taking the commuter train daily in and out of Chicago, but also means a 60-90 minute commute each way, each day--the longest of my adult life, and not much has changed with the usual load of cooking, homework support, sports, pro-life, and Sunday school teaching time commitments.</span></div>
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<span class="userContent"><span class="userContent">This post will be short as it is really a means of procrastinating updating a presentation due for tomorrow, and I don't want to work all night like I did last week. I needed to get this job and to do well as our bank account was in the red for several reasons. Now I am very focused on simply providing for our family. This has given me a new found discipline of arriving before 8 a.m. each day. For some people that is the norm, but it never has been for me.</span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent"></span>I don't find much time to exercise now as I did during my extended summer hiatus from work. I think I need to find a way to do that though as I notice I feel a persistent, anxious tension in my throat and chest the past few days. I think it comes from the stress of the commute and needing to do well at this job. Hard workouts help me keep a better handle on these types of stress reactions. I think my body needs to be exerted so as to not over-react to what are daily stresses. However, it is really hard to exercise at 5:30 a.m., or to exercise after 9:30 p.m. at night when you have been up since 5:30 a.m. I have tried to drink more decaf and less regular coffee to see if that helps, but pretty sure I need to pray and find a way of exercising 3 times a week.</div>
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<span class="userContent">Scripture continues to be so important for me to hear God and sense his active love and care for me in the moment, no matter how removed from God that moment seems to be. Have been praying the Scriptural Rosary some mornings on the train, and attending Daily Mass at 12:10 in downtown church on a couple workdays each week. Also there are books I am reading and random Facebook posts from pages I've liked, that provide steady flow of scripture verses for me to consider, and if they strike me, share with my FB friends. It helps fill the void of actually blogging!</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">I was surprised by an instant message on MS Office Communicator on Tuesday. Someone newly assigned to my project team asked me if he had seen me in St. Patrick's church the previous day. So now we can encourage each other to attend. I think he is getting there more often than me, and as I want to attend more, knowing him will help. Sometimes I think I really need that extra 30 minutes to finish something, but Mass is so much more than 30 minutes more toward a task! Adoring God! Being fed by the Word and the Body of Christ, and being lifted up seeing others that also left the office to worship! I can't attend Mass on the train ride, but I can easily make up that 30 minutes on my laptop while riding home.</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">Interestingly he is an India Indian and he doesn't have a first name like a saint. I hope to hear his story sometime. He is obviously in love with Jesus. I told him how blessed I was to be so close to a window that has non-blocked view of Old St. Patrick's. His response? "You are fortunate to sit there and be so often reminded of Jesus." This was from our first instant message exchange. How can you not feel that joy well inside of you when you unexpectedly encounter someone else that loves Jesus and is not so careful to keep that hidden?</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">Last week I had a similar chance encounter. My train stopped suddenly at a stop about midway between Chicago and my suburb. The train immediately ahead of us had struck a pedestrian, which means delays of 2-3 hours for the coroner and police investigation. My daughter was playing in what might have been her final high school volleyball match, so when they opened the doors I exited immediately and had Siri find me a taxi service. I called right away, but there was a cab from that company waiting already. Some other stranded commuters tried to get him to take them, but he said he was waiting for someone else. They were also pretty demanding with him. I stood there quietly waiting as I saw him make a call. When he got off I edged over to the cab and told him I had ordered a cab . . . he asked where I was going and then told me to get in. His other fare hadn't shown up, and I guess I struck him as less rude than the others that were asking him.</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">It turned out this was another chance encounter with a devout Catholic. He is 74 and he told me his and his wife's date night each week is an Adoration hour at his church in Park Ridge. We talked about EWTN, St. Faustina, St. Augustine, and St. Monica. He, like another couple I met at Mundelein Seminary when Father Barron was offering Mass, was frustrated that his adult children were no longer attending Mass. I tried to encourage him as I did earlier with the other couple with the story of my friend, who had been away for many years, and did not return to regular Mass attendance until after she turned 40.</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">I'm not sure if I'll ever see the cab driver again, nor if a good friendship will grow between me and my co-worker, but I have a sense that we'll be seeing each other on the other side some day. Thank God, Our Father, for having drawn all of us to him through Jesus, the beloved Son he did not spare so as to save us.</span></div>
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<span class="userContent">Yes this post seems to lack a theme with random updates. I am trusting God. I still long for when I am in more constant awareness and communication with God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In the meantime I love and trust God, and seek his will when I remember, and he beckons to me through scripture, through friends, including through unexpected new friends that share my faith.</span></div>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-36540053951776421742013-10-07T06:35:00.000-05:002013-10-07T07:40:49.393-05:00BlessingsFr. Michael Gaitley teaches an Ignatian form of the Daily Examination of Conscience in the book <u><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Consoling-Heart-Jesus-Do-It-Yourself-Spiritual/dp/1596142227">Consoling the Heart of Jesus</a></u>, that follows the acronym BAKER. Where B is Blessings . . . and blessings can be positive or they can also be trials. When I heard him discuss this on Catholic Bookmark he mentioned how important it is to not skip over this part of the Daily Examen. To spend some time here. Fr. Gaitley describes in the book how St. Ignatius became so attune to the blessings of God throughout his day that many times during the day he would realize God's loving action and be brought to tears. This presumably developed through his practice of recalling blessings and thanking God for them.<br />
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It is so easy for me to get caught up in the negative sometimes. I could write a post three-times a day, that understandably no one would want to read, because it would just be me ranting, probably self-righteously and with rash judgment on whatever I was dissatisfied about and wanted to end or change. This would probably be self-destructive as well as nothing destroys peace more than indulging in the negative and critical and then what happens when I am a little too descriptive and those from my real life find my little posts? Unemployment and social shunning I suppose . . . <br />
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This post is simply to thank God for some recent blessings.<br />
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<li>Friends that prayed for me to find a job</li>
<li>Friends that sent me emails with possible leads to jobs</li>
<li>Friends that offered suffering for my intentions</li>
<li>Getting a job after a long time off, due to wanting to be home with the children this summer, but then an extended search period versus any time earlier in my 9 years as an independent consultant. I interviewed Friday morning, 9/30/13 at 8:15 a.m., then began work the following Monday, 10/2/13 at 8:15 a.m. Believe me after being off all summer, really most of last Spring too, and then having medical bills from three of the six of us over the summer, our checking account was in the red, for the first time since early after graduating college. </li>
<li>Attending a Mass offered by a priest and friend at a nursing home with my 4 children, and having them not want to leave as they loved visiting with the patients and playing piano for them afterward; one wants to volunteer there now, my oldest, and the two girls want to take up piano again so they can play better next time. They had quit over a year ago.</li>
<li>Finding a job within 2 blocks of a beautiful church, Old St. Patrick's on the west side of the Chicago Loop, and having a view of it, unblocked by any skyscrapers in downtown Chicago; this means that at any point in my day I can look out and be reminded of Christ's gift to us of the Blessed Sacrament; prior to this I was happy to be within 5-7 minute ride of a church. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Q0bHSVm2Y0oGBU-JZdj-LNEVdDpsxbf1C3XMJn6MA1yrHfAG1XJfAAsZ2OcrJ_JCzeqx0cBVjCEDqc4AdBks2QEwwaDjj2BKxkRq6QCGDNPsxaQzgzUk4wId3yAW9lzRRbvIlf2shpKN/s1600/IMG_2101%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Q0bHSVm2Y0oGBU-JZdj-LNEVdDpsxbf1C3XMJn6MA1yrHfAG1XJfAAsZ2OcrJ_JCzeqx0cBVjCEDqc4AdBks2QEwwaDjj2BKxkRq6QCGDNPsxaQzgzUk4wId3yAW9lzRRbvIlf2shpKN/s320/IMG_2101%5B1%5D.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside Old St. Patrick's looking toward the Choir Loft</td></tr>
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<li>My youngest son making me lunch: ham and shredded cheese roll-ups with a sprinkling of dill. No bread, just cheese, dill rolled in sliced ham. He emphasized that they were made with love. This is just too precious!</li>
<li>Scripture reading, even the single verses I receive in daily email from <a href="http://www.klove.com/ministry/encouraging-word/">KLove's "Encouraging Word"</a> or the verses provided for meditation in the <a href="http://scripturalrosary.blogspot.com/p/scriptural-rosary.html">Scriptural Rosary</a> are also a source of blessing to me. I have time riding the Metra train into the Chicago Loop each morning to pray the Scriptural Rosary using those provided at the this <a href="http://scripturalrosary.blogspot.com/p/scriptural-rosary.html">link</a> that I have bookmarked on my phone.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLRxRF8D0s9dJAhTsN_EmZHGRJky__Et906Te4P05LlbjGj0sXO7KHoK571eU6xunXGzpDHJUfPm7vRyHd2Wmq0y5NdclO8I5h6Nr8h6RN7LVyNkOqwv7hbkFx7Tg_lSgCEMgdHv6nDY7s/s1600/IMG_2105%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLRxRF8D0s9dJAhTsN_EmZHGRJky__Et906Te4P05LlbjGj0sXO7KHoK571eU6xunXGzpDHJUfPm7vRyHd2Wmq0y5NdclO8I5h6Nr8h6RN7LVyNkOqwv7hbkFx7Tg_lSgCEMgdHv6nDY7s/s320/IMG_2105%5B1%5D.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rainbow over Chicago taken through Metra Train window on evening commute</td></tr>
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<li>Finding out a friend, who battled against diagnosed infertility, is pregnant</li>
<li>Attending Mass today at Mundelein Seminary celebrated by Fr. Barron, and concelebrated by the priest that married my husband and I in the log chapel at Notre Dame 23 years ago. Visiting with this priest and friend for an hour or so after Mass, and having him meet my youngest son.</li>
<li>My daughter doing well on the ACT and seeming to be qualified for 1/2 off tuition at many schools because of this and with option of attending local community/junior college for free as well.</li>
<li>Finding out that after our last month's witness for life visit at an abortuary in the Chicago Loop, that after we left a woman, to whom one of our girls had given a gift bag, came out in tears and told the sidewalk counselor that she was going to keep her baby.</li>
<li>My husband taking a subset of our children to Mass for two weeks in a row. I am keeping quiet, and will delete this bullet from my blog after 3 days as I don't want this to end!</li>
<li>Getting a new laptop for work . . . I had to because my 7 year old one was costing me serious sleep and efficiency at my new job. Still minor geek that I am, it is a blessing.</li>
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Yes, some of the blessings are huge, and some are just God smiling at me and answering my prayer to help me to grow in recollection - attention to the presence of God in my soul. I really believe that I cannot be holy, cannot be transformed into the handmaiden of the Lord I want to be if I don't first learn to dwell in the Holy Trinity's love for me. Great that St. Ignatius left us with a method to cultivate that . . . making a daily habit of recalling to mind the blessings of God. I am not consistent in doing this nightly, but I do start any scripture meditation time with the BAKER method that Fr. Gaitley taught me in his book. If you aren't doing this, I recommend it, as I do his book.CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-54489272455519655002013-09-10T11:44:00.000-05:002013-09-10T12:06:04.564-05:00How is a Mother-in-Law like the Holy Spirit?<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Every moment of our lives is permeated with the Presence that loves and bestows. To live in faith, means to be able to see this loving and constantly bestowing Presence. . . . Every moment of our lives brings us His presence. Every moment of your life is a moment of meeting with the Presence, that is loving you. . . . . God links grace to each moment, be it an easy or a difficult one. . . . everything that happens in your life, is linked with some kind of grace. . . . It is <b>extremely important </b>for you to believe in this constant Presence which manifests itself in various ways. . . . If you would believe that you are always immersed in the merciful love of God, who never abandons you, then it is certain that you would never fall.</span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Everything that you experience is linked to the love of God who loves you, and to His desire for your good.</span> </i>(See <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=228501967">Romans 8:28</a>) <span style="color: #7f6000;">-- Father Tadeusz Dajczer in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Faith-Third-Tadeusz-Dajczer/dp/1933314133">The Gift of Faith</a></i> under "To Perceive the Loving Presence" in chapter 1.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">Tout est grace. </span> <i>Translated: </i><i style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: #20124d;">Everything is grace.</span> <span style="color: #7f6000;">-- </span></i><span style="color: #7f6000;">St. Therese of the Child Jesus.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">There is not a moment in which God does not present Himself under the cover of some pain to be endured, of some consolation to be enjoyed, or of some duty to be performed. All that takes place within us, around us, or through us, contains and conceals His divine action. . . . The books the Holy Spirit is writing are living, and every soul a volume in which the divine author makes a true revelation of his word, explaining it to every heart, unfolding it in every moment.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">― </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/44083.Jean_Pierre_de_Caussade" style="background-color: white; color: #666600; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;">Jean-Pierre de Caussade</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacrament-Present-Moment-Jean-Pierre-Caussade/dp/1451534418/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378826130&sr=1-2&keywords=sacrament+of+the+present+moment">The Sacrament of the Present Moment</a><span id="goog_1825928148"></span><span id="goog_1825928149"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a></i> </blockquote>
Some moments are easier to perceive God's presence, in us and in those we love. Moments like holding your newborn, or just <i>a</i> newborn, especially a newly baptized newborn. Moments when we feel our hearts stirring within us (see <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=228501967">Luke 24:32</a>) while reading Scripture, or hearing the preaching of someone filled and in prayer and communion with the Holy Spirit. Moments when we are blessed to <a href="http://communityofcatholicbloggers.blogspot.com/2011/07/temporal-suffering-punishment-or-gift.html">experience the holy death of someone passing from this world into eternal life</a> to behold forever the beautiful and glorious presence and to feel the embrace of our awesome and loving God.<br />
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Then there are the moments when those in our own homes or in our workplaces or in our churches or our childrens' schools or <i>on the road</i> to those places, do things or say things that evoke frustration, anger, even wrath. Then do we sense God's presence? Then do we perceive the loving, dwelling presence of the Holy Spirit within our souls through the grace of the Sacrament of Baptism and confirmed in us by the grace of Confirmation or, in the case of non-Sacrament-receiving believers -- through the repentance and forgiveness of sins received through the "Sinner's Prayer", which may be equivalent to the Baptism of Desire (<a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1259.htm">CCC #1259</a>), or through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (see <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=228501967">Acts 1:5</a>)?<br />
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I don't. I want to. I am praying I will, but I don't.<br />
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This past Saturday night I had a little battle with my younger daughter. There was a preceding battle, this past Friday morning, the second day of their private Christian school, when she was defiantly wearing something non-compliant with her school's dress code. Actually both her shirt and her pants were against the rules. The little battle lasted probably 20 minutes. I'd tell her to change. She would not. I would <i>express</i> that she had to change, had to obey, had to follow the rules, and she would not. I dressed her. She got undressed and back into what she had been wearing. I took away the shirt and hid it, she said she was just going to stay home from school. Finally she did end up wearing a dress that was officially too short, but I let it go because at least it wasn't skin tight like the "jeggings" she had on.<br />
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Now on Saturday evening she was breaking her bedtime rule. She is supposed to be in bed by 10 p.m. She was not and because she was also late going to bed the night before and was up early, she was overtired. She was fighting with her sister and was refusing to sleep either in her bunk bed or in my bed, since she shares the room with her sister. I would not have it again. Defiance. Rebellion. Disobedience. Disregard for my parental authority in favor of her autonomy. I was filled with anger and yes it was in the vicinity of rage. <br />
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She claimed her strained arm, injury of 1.5 months ago, was hurting, so I left the room and the confrontation with her to get her an ice pack, wrist brace, and ibuprofen. My mother-in-law had been sleeping in the upstairs bedroom, but sometime during my elevated vocalization, and my daughter's crying, she woke up. <br />
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She came out of her darkened room into the hallway and grabbed my arms <i>lovingly, gently, </i>and said, "Colleen, can I help you?"<br />
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I brushed past her, shaking free of her hands, and said, "No. I have to find her wrist brace. Her wrist is hurting."<br />
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She said, "Fine," and left me alone.<br />
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So how is a Mother-in-Law or at least how was my mother-in-law in that moment like the Holy Spirit?<br />
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It is obvious to me after my morning meditation, that dovetails so nicely with my second read of the <i style="color: #7f6000;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Faith-Third-Tadeusz-Dajczer/dp/1933314133">The Gift of Faith</a> </i>and the quote from St. Therese that was in a email from my parish priest this morning, as well as being included in the "To Perceive the Loving Presence" section of the <i>The Gift of Faith. </i>The Holy Spirit has these little repetitions, and complementary sources of his teaching for me, and for many of us, because it takes this orchestration to make an impact on us.<br />
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My meditation today was on <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=228501967">John 14:22-31</a> inclusive of the verses<br />
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<sup class="ww" style="color: #777777; display: inline;">23</sup>Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. </div>
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<span class="vv" style="color: #777777; display: inline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">25</span></span> ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. <sup class="ww" style="color: #777777; display: inline;">26</sup>But the Advocate,<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2416649589454162340" style="color: #0000bb;"></a> the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.<sup class="ww" style="color: #777777; display: inline;">27</sup>Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. </div>
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Father Bartunek, in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Part-Christ-Centered-Resource/dp/1933271108">The Better Part</a> </i>provides food for meditation on these verses, of which I bolded the parts that were physically played out by mother-in-law last Saturday night:</div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">The Holy Spirit is like our own personal trainer, but instead of honing our physique, he polishes our love, our holiness, our very hearts. Unfortunately, we often forget about him. He<b> is polite, he knows he is only a guest</b>, because even though he created us,<b> he completely respects our freedom. And so he waits for us to listen to him, to ask him for guidance and strength</b>. And if we listen, he will teach us, just as Christ taught his disciples during those years when they walked together through the hills of Galilee and Judah.</span></blockquote>
Then he provides a prayer for us to offer to our indwelling guest, the Holy Spirit of God:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;">Wherever I go, you are with me. Whatever I do or say, you are with me. Whatever I look at or think about, you are there within me. I believe in you. Yet I have to ask: Why am I not more aware of you? Grant me that grace, Lord --teach me never to walk alone.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #20124d;">I believe in you, Lord, but help me to believe more fully. Help me to believe so completely that my life and yours become one. In all my activities, conversations, and relationships, I want to live and communicate the joy and peace that only you can give.</span></blockquote>
My personal prayer:<br />
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<i>Father God, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit --- I trust in you! I know that you have given me the gift of faith, the gift of loving you, and the holy desire to know, and love you with a purer heart, and to have the grace of unceasing recollection - attention to your indwelling Holy, and Loving presence in my soul.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Thank you, Holy Spirit, for my mother-in-law! Thank you for teaching me that in that moment she physically showed me, in a way my senses and memory could not dispute, a gentle, loving presence that wanted to help me. And what did I do? I pushed past her and refused the help. I certainly didn't ask her for it.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>In my anger, on the brink of rage, I did not in any moment come against the spirit of anger and disobedience that were active in the confrontation between me and my daughter . . . . anger on me, and disobedience on her. Not to mention the selfishness involved in both of us wanting our way. I am too immature and too lacking in the virtues of gentleness and self-control to succeed in moments like this, and yet I have the loving, gentle presence of God within me and I don't turn to you for help. Thank you for the teaching, please help me to do better next time! Please forgive me, and please do help me!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>In Jesus's Most Holy Name, and in your name Yahweh Sabaoth, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, I ask these intentions, Amen.</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #20124d;">If you would believe that you are always immersed in the merciful love of God, who never abandons you, then it is certain that you would never fall. </span><span style="color: #7f6000;">-- Father Tadeusz Dajczer in </span><i style="color: #7f6000;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Faith-Third-Tadeusz-Dajczer/dp/1933314133">The Gift of Faith</a></i><span style="color: #7f6000;"> under "To Perceive the Loving Presence" in chapter 1.</span></blockquote>
If you have repented, and have experienced God's presence, and you are in a "state of grace" then you should be confident that the Holy Spirit is with you, and that you are immersed in the merciful love of God who <i>never abandons you, </i>even when you are sinning, and even when you have sinned. What is affected if you are not in the state of grace, is your ability to perceive his holy, loving, life-giving, and wise presence. What should you do if you don't think you are in the state of grace? The <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Didache-ebook/dp/B00315684S/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1378829587&sr=1-1&keywords=didache">Didache</a>, </i>an early Christian document written about 70 A.D. (70 years after Jesus was born, in the 1st Century) states regarding Holy Communion:<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Whosoever is holy [i.e., in a state of sanctifying grace], let him approach. Whosoever is not, let him repent (<i>Didache </i>10). . . But first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one" (<em>Didache</em> 14). </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The <i>Didache </i>is only 99 cents on Kindle and takes less than an hour to read. It is quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you are Catholic and you want to grow into a state of unceasing recollection as I do, it helps to frequently receive the Sacrament of Confession. For any Christian, Catholics and non-Sacramental believers, it helps to have frequent examinations of conscience and acts of repentance, rather than to walk our Christian life recipient of the cheap grace that includes only forgiveness of sins, but not the repentance that St. John the Baptist and Jesus preached.</span></div>
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“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”<span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">― </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/29333.Dietrich_Bonhoeffer" style="color: #666600; text-decoration: none;">Dietrich Bonhoeffer</a><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">, </span><i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2723088" style="color: #666600; text-decoration: none;">The Cost Of Discipleship</a></i></h1>
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May we all be brought by the Holy Spirit, and by our docility to his teaching and internal transformation to unceasing attention to the fact that we are, at every moment--the good ones, the tense ones, every moment immersed in the merciful love of God, and sustained by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! May this help us grow in the gift of peace that Jesus gave us, that we would trust in him and not let our hearts be troubled. (See<i> and meditate</i> on <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2014&version=NKJV;DRA">John 14</a>!)</div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-71453241924106696132013-08-28T10:31:00.004-05:002013-09-10T12:33:11.525-05:00Guilt No More!A few weeks ago I was assisting with video taping the testimony of a woman that aborted her second child. I'll have the link to this video below. She had been raised Catholic, actually in a Catholic orphanage, so she knew that abortion was the killing of a baby, and she had not been deceived that what was being aborted was pregnancy tissue, so she knew even as she drove there, waited in the waiting room and laid on the steel table as the procedure was done, that she was having her unborn baby killed. She just thought there wasn't any other way. She was divorced from her husband and she could barely support the first child they had together.<br />
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She mentioned there were no crisis pregnancy centers then, back in 1973. There were no sidewalk counselors. She wishes now that there were.<br />
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She says how her friends and even her ex-husband tried to cheer her up, from what followed: a very long lasting depression. She would go out with friends drinking and such but essentially every night finished the same way, <strong>for 20 years, </strong>with her crying herself to sleep.<br />
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Not everyone with guilt from sin cries themselves to sleep, but there are some who do know this prison of guilt, sadness, and sorrow.<br />
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Some of us let our minds be taken back to our failings, when we hurt others, or simply repeated the first sin in the garden, believing a lie that we could know good from evil, and think and do what was pleasing, or expedient for the god of self rather than surrendering to the will of God, and falling at his feet as Mary did (see John 11:32), but instead deliberately choosing to do or to enable sin to happen. Sin that caused pain for others, including <a href="http://inadequatedisciple.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-truth-jesus-is-son-of-god.html">the pain of the Savior during his passion</a>.<br />
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There was something I learned at some point and then was rather clearly written about by St. Ignatius in his teachings on the discernment of spirits. Dwelling in guilt is a state encouraged by evil spirits that want to keep us from the peace and joy, and abundant life that are Christ's gift to us. He has already won the victory, and already suffered the penalty of our sins. We can and should feel sorrow and regret for our sins and failings, but we should refuse to let them distract us from the goodness and love, the forgiveness and mercy, the healing that Christ wills for us. <br />
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<ul>
<li>If something keeps us from rejoicing in our salvation (see Psalm 51:12) due to Christ's obedience and love,</li>
<li>If something keeps us from knowing the freedom that comes from surrendering our hearts daily and throughout the day to the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit,</li>
<li>If something keeps us from the confident trust that no matter how badly we screwed up, how hurtful and damaging and far reaching the effects are from our sin, the <strong>truth is</strong> we are loved, and blessed, </li>
</ul>
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<strong><em>then that something is not from God!</em></strong> <br />
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That something is being orchestrated by those fallen spirits that followed Lucifer out of heaven and are at war with the children of God as described in Revelation 12. That something is keeping us from a fuller experience of the love of God so necessary for us to grow in faith and to bear fruit for our Lord and King.<br />
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Yes, we are weak, we are selfish, we are proud in our intellectual myopia and encouraged by the secular, moral relativism of our peers and society. Yes, we have been given much, the Gospel has been read to us and hopefully preached to us in words and by the example of those God puts into our lives, and yet we sinned and continue to sin.<br />
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But the thing I am trying to get those of you to know, those of you like Maria in the video to know, is <strong><em>how much Jesus truly loves you.</em></strong> He suffered not just out of obedience but to pay the price for my sin and yours, no matter how serious, how grave, how undoable, how awful that sin and its effects are. <br />
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Maria said at one point in filming the video that she still feels the guilt from the abortion. I asked her does she mean guilt or regret, because I think that is a key part of her testimony. She agreed it was regret now, not the guilt that imprisoned her for so many years. She went on to explain that when she responded to an altar call the counselor told her all her sins were forgiven. Her question was whether the sin of abortion had been forgiven. And the counselor told her, "All of your sins." This sin of her abortion had been confessed many times, but she still had that question if it had been forgiven.<br />
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Now, she believed God forgave her, but it was still many more years before she forgave herself. She still regrets the abortion as she thinks about how that baby is the missing sibling in her older daughter's and younger daughter's lives and the missing aunt or uncle to her grandchildren. They needed that person in their lives and they are missing out because she had the baby killed.<br />
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So, the regret lingers and surfaces. Still, she is free now. What does that mean? She describes it as finally accepting that Christ's sacrifice was to bear the guilt of her sin, and accepting and believing and trusting in his love meant forgiving herself too. She says the door to leave her prison was open the entire time, but it was years after responding to the altar call that she finally walked through that door and accepted the healing.<br />
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Only this past year did she begin speaking about her abortion. She told the leader of our Prolife club at school, and then was asked by him to tell her testimony in the high school chapel. She then began attending our Saturday "Witness for Life" visits to two abortion clinics in the Chicago area. Her granddaughter, that she is raising as her own child, comes with her. You'll see her in the video too.<br />
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<ul>
<li>Are you prone to experience guilt for your past sins and do you want to be free of it?</li>
<li>What is keeping you in that prison of guilt and shame? </li>
<li>Do you want to be free of it?</li>
</ul>
Recently I noticed a verse reference written in my daughter's yearbook by a friend. I wonder if her friend wrote it there because she knows we are Catholic, and she is taught that Catholics, just like Martin Luther, are paralyzed in their guilt. This is why they use the word "Liberty" in the naming of their schools and churches. The verse really provokes much thought:<br />
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<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">12</span></sup><em>as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.</em> (Psalm 103:12)<br />
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First thing that hits me is this is in the OT - the Old Testament. It isn't Ephesians or Romans or Galatians. This is back during the time of King David. Yet here is God saying he removes our transgressions from us. Now, in the light of Salvation History, we know he does this through God becoming incarnate of the Virgin after she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, and then as the Lamb of God, (prefigured by the sacrificing of unblemished lambs exemplified in the sacrifice of Abel, later the sacrifice of Abraham in place of Isaac, by all the Israelites the night of the Passover, and then established for the Israelites by Moses at the command of God) suffered torture, persecution, bore the punishment in his soul for our sins as he hung powerless on the cross, and died.<br />
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You know what? God wants us free. He loves us and wants us to walk out of the prison of guilt, and jump into his arms like St. Therese described so beautifully:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The depth of her spirituality, of which she said, "my way is all confidence and love," has inspired many believers. In the face of her littleness and nothingness, she trusted in God to be her sanctity. She wanted to go to heaven by an entirely new little way. "I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus." The elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her littleness. (<span class="reference-text">Guy Gaucher, <i>The Spiritual Journey of Therese of Lisieux</i>, p.2)</span></blockquote>
God taught me more about this through my youngest two children. My daughter will misbehave in some way, and it soon becomes a battle of wills. She stays entrenched in it, gets angry and pouty, and will not accept a hug or anything to try to bring it to a quicker and happier end. <em>Eventually, </em>usually after she gets a nap, or some other means of a longer timeout, she does accept the hug, and all is better.<br />
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My son, on the other hand, as soon as he does something he knows is wrong and he shouldn't have done -- could be hurting me, his sister, wrecking something in the house, he very soon, almost immediately, realizes what this has done to our relationship, and gets very sorrowful and wants a hug and kiss. <br />
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Now some of you may be saying my younger son has me wrapped around his finger, but let's get back to my point! He is very confident in my love for him, and my forgiveness when he comes running into my arms.<br />
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That is what I think Jesus meant about becoming like children, and is the core of St. Therese's spirituality, that she learned as a child jumping on her earthly father's lap, "Fortunately I could go home every evening and then I cheered up. I used to jump on Father's knee and tell him what marks I had had, and when he kissed me all my troubles were forgotten...I needed this sort of encouragement so much."<br />
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<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></sup>He called a child, whom he put among them, <sup class="ww" style="display: inline;">3</sup>and said, <span style="color: #660000;">"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."</span> (Matthew 18:2-3)<br />
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So if the devil, the evil spirits want to keep you from jumping into Jesus's arms, and thanking him for his victory over evil, over sin, and for bearing our guilt, do you want to do what they want, or do you want to walk out the door of the prison of guilt that has been open for you all this time?<br />
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Walk through, and experience the lightness and joy that are yours, because of the love of your God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!<br />
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My words are not as helpful as meditating on scripture. As Jesus so perfectly put it:<br />
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<span style="color: #660000;">"If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free."</span> (John 8:31-32)<br />
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So let's start now, and please join me in committing to read the Bible <strong>every day! </strong>This is what Billy Graham would say when looking into the TV camera during his crusades, right after leading people in the sinner's prayer. "Read your Bible every day!"<br />
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Please pray to the Holy Spirit, and slowly read and absorb the love and truth in Psalm 103 below.<br />
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Here's quick prayer to the Holy Spirit:<br />
Come Holy Spirit! Come at the most powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well-beloved spouse.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup class="ww">10</sup>He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">11</sup>For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">12</sup>as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">13</sup>As a father has compassion for his children, so the <span class="sc">Lord</span> has compassion for those who fear him. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">14</sup>For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">15</sup>As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field; </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">16</sup>for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">17</sup>But the steadfast love of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">18</sup>to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">19</sup>The <span class="sc">Lord</span> has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. </blockquote>
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<sup class="ww">20</sup>Bless the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his spoken word. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup class="ww">21</sup>Bless the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will. </blockquote>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<sup class="ww">22</sup>Bless the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, O my soul. (Psalm 103)</blockquote>
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Receive the unfathomable compassion, and mercy, and blessings of our God---Sovereign, Holy, and Loving! This means forgiving yourself too! Wouldn't it grieve our Lord whose compassion and sacrifice of the Lamb of God have made you free? Jump into his arms, just like the beloved child that you are. <br />
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When you-know-who encourages you to indulge in guilt, tell him, as Jesus did:<br />
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<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">23</span></sup><span style="color: #660000;">“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”</span> (Matthew 16:23)<br />
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I think <a href="http://openingthefloodgatesofmercy.blogspot.com/2013/08/humility-gods-anesthesia.html">Mary's recent post</a> at the Beautiful Gate also helps us learn the true humility, and peace that comes from trusting that the Holy Spirit is working on us according to God's will and timing. <br />
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Here is the video testimony:<br />
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If you can't see the video below, please try this link to view it on YouTube: <a href="http://youtu.be/Z7NS8KNelRI">http://youtu.be/Z7NS8KNelRI</a></div>
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<br />CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-34350396290182183002013-07-23T23:15:00.002-05:002013-07-23T23:15:36.536-05:00Recollection<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><sup class="ii">10</sup> Create in me a clean heart, O God,<br /> and put a new and right<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Psalm+51" style="text-decoration: none;"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a> spirit within me. <br class="ii" /><sup class="ii">11</sup> Do not cast me away from your presence,<br /> and do not take your holy spirit from me. (Psalm 51)</span></span>CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-34180777689245364962013-07-19T11:28:00.005-05:002013-09-10T09:51:49.490-05:00Seven Quick Takes: July is my Favorite Month<div align="center">
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July is the month the Church has designated to devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ. You can read more about this important and salvific devotion at <a href="http://communityofcatholicbloggers.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-devoted-to-most-precious-blood-of.html">this post on the Community of Catholic Bloggers</a>.</div>
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We had a brief family vacation to New Glarus, Wisconsin. Here are some scenes from that trip:</div>
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Enjoyed seeing my son make a tree swing from a branch: </div>
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(4)</div>
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The number of students participating in our twice a month Witness for Life events has dropped off a bit in the summer. Think part of it is the sleep-over parties and such that have them going to sleep between 2 and 4 in the morning. Still it is a continued blessing to be part of this as I wrote about earlier in the month in this <a href="http://inadequatedisciple.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-name-of-lord.html">post</a>. Well the majority of the post is about the Name of the Lord, but there is a story in the midst of it about a young woman that was driven to a Chicago Abortion clinic for a surgical abortion and she would not go in, to the anger of her mother who drove her there. The young woman was stuck without a ride home and I was blessed to talk with her for a while. She is hoping for a boy! It goes to a point I made in a <a href="http://inadequatedisciple.blogspot.com/2012/05/mom-forcing-daughter-to-have-abortion.html">post once</a> that while "choice" is the slogan, there are many brought into the clinic under pressure, coercion by parents, step-parents, grandparents, boyfriends. Some are in the midst of suicidal depression. That occurred at the Planned Parenthood in Aurora on June 22. A young woman texted her boyfriend, "I want this baby inside of me killed, and then I want to kill myself." You would think the Planned Parenthood "counselor" would find it unethical to allow this woman to sign and have a life ending "procedure" in this state of mind. Unfortunately, I don't know what happened next, but I think the woman was allowed to have that child inside of her killed despite her being of unsound mind.</div>
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(5)</div>
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Here are two videos put together for our school's pro-life club. They might not be viewable on iOS devices.</div>
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<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/ejofaurW_i8/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/ejofaurW_i8&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/ejofaurW_i8&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div>
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If you can't see the video, try this link:<span id="goog_1825928123"></span><span id="goog_1825928124"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a> <a href="http://youtu.be/ejofaurW_i8">http://youtu.be/ejofaurW_i8</a></div>
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If you can't see the video, try this link: <a href="http://youtu.be/wfb7FdStCH4">http://youtu.be/wfb7FdStCH4</a></div>
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In case anyone wants to make a small donation to help with gas and getting more signs, here is a link <a href="http://www.shopchristianliberty.com/donation-to-christian-liberty/">- please select the "Live Pro Life Group"</a>.</div>
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(6)</div>
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I was blessed to take part in the Pro-life Action League's Face the Truth Tour. Here is a video that explains what the tour's purpose and methods are about:</div>
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My husband encouraged me to assist with our school's Pro-life club, but he is not a fan of the graphic pictures campaign. The campaign occurs once a year, and I remember when I had young children and the pictures were on display in the Wisconsin Dells where we were vacationing. I looked but I told my children not to look. I was not going to take my two older children unless they wanted to go.</div>
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If you can't see the video, try this link: <a href="http://youtu.be/-UT5zSsHxA8">http://youtu.be/-UT5zSsHxA8</a></div>
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I participated in 5 of the sites during this year's tour. Personally I experienced feeling a bit nauseated during the first event I held a sign, to then arguing for their importance during an event in front of the Art Institute of Chicago three events later. Here's what I posted on Facebook after the Chicago events: </div>
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Great experience participating in the Face the Truth Tour today. I still am disgusted by these graphic pictures but you'd be surprised how many thank us...even buying cold water for us, for showing the truth of what happens to an unborn baby in an abortion. I had really mixed feelings about doing this but when you think most know about Hitler and the Holocaust because they sa<span class="text_exposed_show">w pictures of thousands of emaciated dead bodies stacked like wood, but few know that Stalin killed 10 times as many because they never saw pictures. Attending a Ukrainian Byzantine Church, and only learning after attending there of the 25-30 million Ukrainians, starved by Stalin, convinces me showing pictures of the truth is critical. How do folks vote for politicians who call crushed skulls and limbs torn from baby bodies without anesthetic women's health and a reproductive right? I hope they don't after they see the pictures. One black gentleman said our signs just turned him Pro-life. Another said seeing the signs 13 years ago (during the 1st Face the Truth events) saved his daughter from being aborted. He couldn't believe he and his girlfriend were planning to do that (what was portrayed on the signs) to their beloved daughter. Praise God for giving me the opportunity to participate. God bless all those who organize and participate and all that support us.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">This isn't for everyone, and personally, I still think it is most important to reach the women going into the clinics by being there praying and sidewalk counseling, and by contributing to the funds of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and those that provide residency and medical care to women in crisis pregnancies. As the woman who argued with me repeated (and to which I did not disagree), "You reach people through love." Those women walking in need to know that God loves them, and that we his children will provide evidence of his love and care so that the woman and her child can experience that love through our gifts.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">It is important though. It is just once a year too, and these pictures do stay with people to be a counter to the lies of the other side. </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">If you want to donate to provide water to those participating and gas for the trucks carrying the signs around, <a href="http://prolifeaction.org/give?c=ftt&ap=f13&m=e">they welcome even a donation of $5, here is the link</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show"><em>(Only read this next paragraph if you are able to stand graphic description of the most horrific of the pictures displayed)</em></span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">The most awful image displayed in the tour is that of a severed head of an infant. There were two of these images about 20 feet from each other on the opposite side of the street from me in front of the Art Institute of Chicago. In between there, three counter-protestors had a spray-painted sheet that said "Abortion On Demand Without Apology". They also chanted this. As shocking as the graphic images are, to see those words---"without apology" and hear the chant between two images of a baby's head, with hair on it (must have been 22+ weeks I think), with the brain stem there, but the lower jaw not - that awful image of the reality of late-term abortion, and then to hear "without apology" . . . well it is inhumane, and perhaps, if you are "in the light" (see 1 John 1:7) <a href="http://what%20unites%20the%20extreme%20gay%20rights%20and%20pro-abortion%20activists/?">evidence of the power of darkness</a> and what happens when a person's heart is hardened.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">(7)</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">My favorite Bible Verses this week, as I was preparing to go participate in the Face the Tour Events:</span></div>
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"Do not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)</div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. </span></div>
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"> Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing." </span><br />
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<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">(<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">1 Thessalonians 5:4-5, 8-11)</span></span></div>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-45284012148478686602013-07-11T15:44:00.003-05:002013-07-11T23:35:58.574-05:00The Name of the LordJesus taught, <span style="color: #660000;"><em>"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life . . . but seek first his (your heavenly Father's) kingdom and his righteousness . . . . Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you will get. . . . Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."</em></span> (Matthew 6:25a, 33, 7:1-2, 24-27)<br />
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This past Sunday the Lord impressed upon me the need to get to know him and his name more and to make that name of his known. The scripture he led me to seemed to indicate to me that talking, writing on this blog, in any way that causes hearers, readers to forget God's name is a way of leading people astray. The scriptures I was reading were from Jeremiah. It was God's word towards self-declared prophets, but still I found some food for thought in these.<br />
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How many times had I read something in the Bible about God's name, wondered: what is up with God's name?; what is God's name?; and then did nothing to seek for the answers. So first the convicting readings, and then the answers. Emphasis added by me.<br />
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<em>"I did not send these prophets, yet they ran! I did not speak to them, yet they prophesized! How long are there to be those among the prophets who prophesy lies and are in fact prophets of their own delusions. They are doing their best, by means of the dreams they keep telling each other, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">to make my people forget my name</span>, just as their ancestors forgot my name in favor of Baal. I have a quarrel with prophets who make prophecies out of lying dreams, Yahweh declares, who recount them, and <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">lead my people astray</span> by their lies and <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">their bragging</span>. I certainly never sent them, or commissioned them, and they serve no purpose for this people, Yahweh declares."</em> (Jeremiah 23:26-27, 21, 32)<br />
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<em>"And let him who receives a word from me, deliver my word accurately! Had they been present in my council, they could have proclaimed my words to my people, and turned them from their evil way and from the wickedness of their deeds!"</em> (Jeremiah 23:28b, 22)<br />
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Humility is something that we can learn from the Lord and only grow in by the grace of God. After all pride, which in essence is idolatry, was the cause of the original sin, and its residual is still strong part of our human nature now. I think the way the Holy Spirit preserved Mary as sinless was to teach her early about the primacy of being humble, and clothing her in grace to perfectly grow in this virtue! <br />
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Some of us, me for example, require more of God's grace to grow in the virtue of humility than others. Many saints have mentioned how humility is primary in order to grow in intimacy with God. I think humility is also necessary in order to hear and be led by God in whatever way he chooses to communicate with us. Studying and meditating on the name of the Lord gave me a peacefulness in my soul. I started a Bible study on the name of the Lord Sunday, and I'll probably be still in that study until the day when I can no longer read or listen to the Bible.<br />
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Just reading the passages on the name of God turned into praising God. Praising God and humbling oneself before God in praise is unfailing way of defeating anxiousness, and any efforts by the unseen evil spirits to distract me from my God-given purpose in this life and the next. Before I go to those verses, I want to relay what happened last Saturday at the Witness to Life at an abortion clinic in downtown Chicago.<br />
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I was blessed to actually get to talk with one of the young women that was brought to the abortion clinic for a surgical abortion. I've been going twice a month for over 1.5 years and this was the first time I've had such a conversation. I totally missed her, and was distracted by some other dramas that were occurring around the clinic. Another counselor noticed her standing alone under a tree and went up to talk with her. She needed a phone to call for her step mother, because her mother had brought her to the clinic demanding that she have an abortion. It was an iphone 5 that I particularly like, so I told her, "I am not going to listen to your conversation, but I need to stay close you know, because it is my phone."<br />
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I didn't try to listen, but I did hear a few things and in general was hearing the emotion in the call. The girl was upset and on brink of tears several times. She mentioned that her mom was calling her names as part of the pressure to have the surgery. She needed someone to get her out of there. After she was done she stepped over to return my phone. Neither of us moved.<br />
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I found out that she was homeless, just graduated, played small forward in basketball, and was pregnant. Her mom was pressuring her to do this, and she didn't want to. I said many things to try to connect with her, and I was very nervous the entire time. Some things I said were probably unhelpful "Oh, I played guard because I was considerably shorter than you." Something I said that I think was helpful was, "You are God's Beloved child, and you do not need to dwell on anyone calling you a slut or saying mean things in order to get you do this. Your baby within you is God's Beloved child too. You are beautiful, and I am sure this baby is going to be beautiful too."<br />
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She said, "I hope it is going to be a boy."<br />
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Me, very encouraged, "Trust God to provide for you and this baby. God's providence is like a parachute. Until you pull the string you have no idea how well it works. I think you know God, and I encourage you to call this number (pointing to the center address and phone number on the sheet). They have residential care, and funds to provide for you during your pregnancy and for caring for the baby after. Also, please find a Bible read, and pray. Trust God." <br />
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I noticed I was nervous up until the time I mentioned the unseen, but most important reality, "You are <u>God's</u> Beloved child."<br />
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Now for the scriptures - <br />
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<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"God is both refuge and strength for us,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">a help always ready in trouble;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Yahweh Sabaoth is with us,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">our citadel, the God of Jacob.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Be still and acknowledge that I am God,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">supreme over nations,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">supreme over the world."</span></em> (Psalms 46:1, 7, 10)<br />
<br />
* citadel: fortress, stronghold; Sabaoth: of Hosts, as in angelic army inclusive of powers, principalities and all the other orders of angels.<br />
<br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"Blessed are you, Yahweh our God</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">from everlasting to everlasting,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">and blessed be your glorious name</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">surpassing all blessing and praise!</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">You, Yahweh, are the one, only Yahweh,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">you have created the heavens,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">the heaven of heavens and all their array,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">the earth and all it bears,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">the seas and all they hold.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">To all of them you give life,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">and the array of heaven worships you."</span></em> (Nehemiah 9:5b-6)<br />
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<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"Alleluia!</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Praise, servants of Yahweh,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">praise the name of Yahweh.</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Blessed be the name of Yahweh,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">henceforth and for ever.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">From the rising of the sun to its setting,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">praised be the name of Yahweh!</span></em><br />
<br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Supreme over all nations is Yahweh,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">supreme over the heavens his glory.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">Who is like Yahweh our God?</span></em><br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">His throne is set on high"</span></em> (Psalms 113:1-5)<br />
<br />
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"But from farthest east to farthest west my name is great among the nations, and everywhere incense and a pure gift are offered to my name, since my name is great among the nations, says Yahweh Sabaoth."</span></em> (Malachi 1:11) <br />
<br />
St. Irenaeus of Lyons (130?-200?) explains that this is the Eucharistic sacrifice foretold <u>(The New Jerusalem Bible, Saints Devotional Edition</u>, p. 1197). For indeed when the pure, immaculate and holy body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are offered from the farthest east, to the farthest west, incense and a pure gift are offered to God's name.<br />
<br />
What is God's name? <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/misc/name_god.cfm">The Blue Letter Bible</a> has a great page on the Old Testament names of God. Yahweh Sabaoth is used over 285 times in the Old Testament and especially in <a href="http://legacy.esvbible.org/resources/esvsb/introduction-to-malachi/">Malachi</a>. Over 43.6% of the verses in Malachi reference the name of God as Yahweh Sabaoth. Why?<br />
<br />
From the <u>English Standard Version Study Bible, p. 1775</u>:<br />
<em><strong>There is no greater comfort than the fact that the Lord has his invincible heavenly armies standing at the ready. It is like the comfort that Elisha prayed for his servant at Dothan when they were surrounded by the Syrian armies: </strong></em><br />
<em><strong></strong></em><br />
<em><strong>"'O Lord (Adonai), please open his eyes that he may see.' So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha" (2 Kings 6:17). Perhaps it is like the comfort felt by Jesus before the cross: "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matt. 26:53).</strong> </em><br />
<br />
Have you ever read 2 Maccabees? It is an exciting book of the Bible. In it Judas Maccabeus leads a rebellion against the Hellenists that were oppressing the Israelites, he said, "They may put their trust in their weapons and their exploits . . . but our confidence is in almighty God, who is able with a single nod to overthrow both those marching on us and the whole world with them." (2 Maccabees 8:18) Judas and his followers humbled themselves before God, prostrating themselves in the Temple, and begging for his mercy and kindness, "they and the populace with them begged the Lord with lamentation and tears to send a good angel to save Israel." (2 Maccabees 11:6) What happened? <br />
<br />
<em>"They were still near Jerusalem when a rider attired in white appeared at their head, brandishing golden weapons. With one accord they all blessed the God of mercy, and found themselves filled with such courage . . . "</em> (2 Maccabees 11:8-9a)<br />
<br />
I found <a href="http://www.opusangelorum.org/priest_association/documents2/2003_05_god_of_hosts_with_us.html">this beautiful explanation</a> of God's name of Yahweh Sabaoth:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<strong><span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;">The name of God is "the God of Hosts".</span></strong></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;">"Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of hosts" is one of the frequent titles or names of God in the Old Testament. It is cited 260 times according to one scholar, 285 times according to another (cf. <em>Theol. Dictionary of the OT [German edition]</em>, 6, 876-892). Though used less in the historical books, it is found very frequently in the prophets. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">"It is the most sublime and magnificent proper name of God" (ibid., 692).</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;"><br />Every day at Holy Mass we call upon God by this name, uniting ourselves with the holy angels when we sing: "Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth–Lord God of hosts", as it was formerly translated.</span> </div>
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<a data-ved="0CAUQjRw" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=yrXThrJTh74t3M&tbnid=3nNbp3gFBxb7xM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stmichaelschool.us%2Fbookstore.html&ei=mxXfUdWJI7CWyAHf44EQ&bvm=bv.48705608,d.aWc&psig=AFQjCNGAaWCQDN8MIq5h3FIdY7TPpuYUhg&ust=1373660936881621" id="irc_mil" style="border: 0px currentColor;"><img height="393" id="irc_mi" src="http://www.stmichaelschool.us/images/stmichael.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="505" /></a></div>
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I pray this mediation on God's name was a blessing to you as it was to me.</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Three more scriptures, for the road:</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em><span style="color: #660000;">"Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us."</span></em> John 17:11b</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"The name of Yahweh is a strong tower;</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">the upright runs to it and is secure."</span></em> Proverbs 18:10</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<em><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">"And now war broke out in heaven, when Michael (God's champion whose name means 'who is like God') with his angels attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels, but they were defeated and driven out of heaven. The great dragon, the primeval serpent, known as the devil or Satan, who had led all the world astray, was hurled down to the earth and his angles hurled down with him. Then I heard a voice shout from heaven, 'Salvation and power and empire for ever have been won by our God, and all authority for his Christ, now the accuser, who accused our brothers day and night before our God, has been brought down. They have triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word to which they bore witness, because even in the face of death they did not cling to life."</span></em> (Revelation 12: 7-11)</div>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-7456977481910548192013-07-06T07:21:00.000-05:002013-07-11T12:36:15.187-05:00What unites the extreme Gay Rights and Pro-abortion Activists?<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK1slJ2d-4ef4cCnk98F-bBq5jqBM7K3poQN81uEiWYrV5chbQ6BK4ZtELr86JBo7xW9lbXh5URSFYBBKEhGDPRko4dVRGH_fO848hafyeSy3dLYxambJbdV_6_bREDoPunrh_fOPt-i-x/s1600/mom+and+baby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK1slJ2d-4ef4cCnk98F-bBq5jqBM7K3poQN81uEiWYrV5chbQ6BK4ZtELr86JBo7xW9lbXh5URSFYBBKEhGDPRko4dVRGH_fO848hafyeSy3dLYxambJbdV_6_bREDoPunrh_fOPt-i-x/s320/mom+and+baby.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #660000;">LOVE THEM BOTH<br />ABORTION: KILLS ONE, HURTS ANOTHER</span></td></tr>
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We were having a graduation party for the graduating 8th graders and their families at a community church. It was a wonderful event inclusive of a praise and thanksgiving service in the church worship area itself. After the dinner and service we had fire pits going outside so the kids and parents could continue to talk with each other.<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
The church's pastor and I were two of the last adults around the fire pit. He asked me, "Do you know what unites the extreme Gay Rights and Pro-abortion Activists?"<br />
<br />
Do you? What do you think unites them?<br />
<br />
During the service part I put in a little pitch to get some more of the students active in our Prolife club at the school, of which I am a chaperone, adviser. The Pastor had been active in the prolife movement many years ago. I had heard many stories about being active in the eighties during the Clinton era. These were the days of Operation Rescue, when prolife activists tried to block access to the clinics and block the abortionists, whether their cars, or the abortionists themselves from entering the clinic.<br />
<br />
Some of these events ended in prolife and proaborts being in jail together. In one such jail experience, my friend's mother and her friend, whom he described as resembling the church lady from Saturday Night Live, were in with a goth looking woman with a super-short black haircut, and the numbers 666 tattooed on her forehead. This woman began using crude gestures and language toward the prolife women. They gave her a look that said the equivalent of today's expression, "Really?!" Then one said to the other, "We need to pray for her."<br />
<br />
So they did.<br />
<br />
And then, this 666 lady began to scream! My friend was in the male side of the jail and he could hear this screaming.<br />
<br />
"Get me out of here, NOW! I need out of here right NOW!"<br />
<br />
He yelled over to his mother, "Mom, are you OK?"<br />
<br />
She yelled back, "Yes, Son. We are just praying over here. Everything is fine."<br />
<br />
And the screaming continued.<br />
<br />
Reminds me of a verse from my reading on the back patio at sunset last night:<br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">Let us lay traps for the upright man, since he annoys us</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and opposes our way of life,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">reproaches us for our sins against the Law,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and accuses us of sins against our upbringing.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">He claims to have knowledge of God,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and calls himself a child of the Lord.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">We see him as a reproof to our way of thinking, </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">the very sight of him weighs our spirits down;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">for his kind of life is not like other people's,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and his ways are quite different.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">In his opinion we are counterfeit;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">he avoids our ways as he would filth;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">he proclaims the final end of the upright as blessed</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and boasts of having God for his father.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">Yet people look on, uncomprehending;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and it does not enter their heads</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">that grace and mercy await his chosen ones</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and that he intervenes on behalf of his holy ones.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;"></span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">When the count of their sins has been drawn up, in terror they will come</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">and their crimes, confronting them, will accuse them.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">Striken with remorse, they will say to one another</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">with groans and laboring breath,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">Clearly we have strayed from the way of truth;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">the light of justice has not shone for us,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">the sun has not risen for us.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">We have left no path of lawlessness or ruin unexplored,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">we have crossed deserts where there was no track,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">but the way of the Lord is one we have never known.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">What good has arrogance been to us?</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">What has been the purpose of our riches and boastfulness?</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">All those things have passed like a shadow,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #073763;">passed like a fleeting rumor.</span> --</em> Wisdom 2:12-16, 4:14b-15, 4:20, 5:3, 5-9<br />
<br />
You must of heard this week of how in Texas, after the blue-shirted prolife people finished singing "Amazing Grace", and remarkably after finishing the line, "I was blind but now I see" (IRONY!), an orange-shirted proabort for killing babies after 20 weeks gestation came into the camera and said "Hail Satan!" and stuck out her tongue. <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/02/watch-abortion-supporters-chant-hail-satan-while-pro-life-activists-sing-amazing-grace-outside-texas-capitol/">http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/02/watch-abortion-supporters-chant-hail-satan-while-pro-life-activists-sing-amazing-grace-outside-texas-capitol/</a><br />
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So let us not be blind! Let us see! And let us pray, and let us praise and thank our God who intervenes on our behalf, who if we are holy, or pray, or praise, or bear any fruit it is through his grace, his loving and powerful inviting presence among us.<br />
<br />
The answer to the pastor's question?<br />
<br />
"Do you know what unites the extreme Gay Rights and Pro-abortion Activists?"<br />
<br />
You know don't you? It is Satan and the evil spirits. If you think I am a loon, I would disagree and quote Billy Graham, "I've never seen the wind, but I've felt the effects of the wind." Satan and evil spirits are part of unseen reality. They can be denied, just like gravity. But when you jump off a building you come to realize the reality of both.<br />
<br />
When God's children, created in his image to know, love and serve him are murdered it is only Satan that is served. If you venture into comment land on some of the proabort blogs you'll soon notice some of the screen names like "BrazenQueer". Some of these folks are not gifted with amazing logic or rhetorical skills. Some compare getting a baby killed in a violent, dismembering, unaestheticized murder to getting treatment for cancer. Seriously! One woman, who said she is a lawyer, asked me why I didn't have our students picket outside of a cancer treatment facility.<br />
<br />
It is easy for me to be a prolife activist. I had a personal need to do something to bear fruit. I love praying, reading my Bible, attending Mass and making holy hours, but I thought I was on the very low yielding side as far as a disciple of Jesus Christ was concerned. <br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">"It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">and be my disciples."</span> -- John 15:8</em><br />
<em></em><br />
Prolife activism now is not like the Operation Rescue days. We go to be a prayerful presence to give the women entering the center pause. We go to be a prolife presence praying and holding signs that give the passer-bys pause. We pray that God will intervene in the hearts and minds of the women, the men who are the parents of the unborn babies, in the hearts and minds of the clinic workers and the NARAL affliliated volunteer escorts, several of whom are recruited from college campuses and are in their late teens or early twenties.<br />
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This "Hail Satan" moment is not isolated outlier event. It is just a moment when the veil is lifted, and some in the broader population have a chance to have an epiphany ah-ha moment.<br />
<br />
Please join us in the prolife cause. We are going to witness for life in downtown Chicago today, in approximately one hour. It is tense down there, and the spiritual warfare is actually palpable. <br />
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Please pray for all involved. <br />
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We trust in our Sovereign, All-Powerful, Merciful, and Loving God to intervene on behalf of his little ones and behalf of us, his praying and grateful children who place all our trust and all our efforts and our whole lives in his providential hands.<br />
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<em>"The retribution of God from heaven is being revealed against the ungodliness and injustice of human beings who in their injustice hold back the truth. For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them, since God has made it plain to them: <strong>ever since the creation of the world</strong>, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things. And so these people have no excuse: they knew God and yet they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and<strong> their uncomprehending minds were darkened</strong>. While they claimed to be wise, in fact they were growing so stupid that they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an imitation.</em><br />
<em>That is why God abandoned them in their inmost cravings to filthy practices of dishonoring their own bodies--<strong>because they exchanged God's truth for a lie and have worshipped and served the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.</strong></em><br />
<em>That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions: why their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices; and the men, in a similar fashion, too, giving up normal relations with women, are consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion.</em><br />
<em>In other words, since they would not consent to acknowledge God, God abandoned them to their unacceptable thoughts and indecent behavior. . . . <strong>They are well aware of God's ordinance: that those who behave like this deserve to die--yet they not only do it, but even applaud others who do the same.</strong>" --</em>Romans 1:18-28, 32<br />
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The quote "ever since the creation of the world" struck me, because there is also a correlation there, haven't seen the study, but have seen the slick Darwin fish with feet on the back of one of the male escort's cars parked at the abortion clinic. Those who are not blind are keen to the history that the half-baked theories of Darwin on the origin of the species were their ticket to help indoctrinate many that the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power are not to be seen clearly in the creation of the world. Surely there are adaptations, and mutations among plants and animals that result in classifying new species, but there is no amount of magical thinking that could lead me to accept lightning hitting organic soup to create life, etc., etc. But if it justifies living lawlessly and worshipping the creature (oneself, one's friend, one's lover) in place of the Creator, then better publicize, and defend and teach as many children as possible this theory as fact and declare anyone that believes God created the world as an uneducated fool.<br />
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<em>"So no matter who you are, if you pass judgment you have no excuse. It is yourself that you condemn when you judge others, since you behave in the same way as those you are condemning. We are well aware that people who behave like that are justly condemned by God. But you--when you judge those who behave like this while you are doing the same yourself--do you think you will escape God's condemnation?<strong> Or are you not disregarding his abundant goodness, tolerance and patience, failing to realize that this generosity of God is meant to bring you to repentance. Your stubborn refusal to repent is only storing up retribution for yourself on that Day of retribution, when God's just verdicts will be made known. He will repay everyone as their deeds deserve. </strong>For those who aimed for glory and honor and immortality by persevering in doing good, there will be eternal life; but for those who out of jealousy have taken for their guide not truth but injustice, there will be the fury of retribution."</em> -- Romans 2:1-8<br />
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That being a very useful reminder. If I seem in any way to be judging proaborts or homosexual activists, I am not. I do need to repent and make reparation and persevere especially in praying so that I can do good:<br />
<br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">"Remain in me, as I in you.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">unless it remains part of the vine,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">neither can you unless you remain in me.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">I am the vine,</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">you are the branches.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">Whoever remains in me, with me in him, </span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">bears fruit in plenty;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">for cut off from me you can do nothing.</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">Anyone who does not remain in me</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">is thrown away like a branch</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">--and withers;</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">these branches are collected and thrown on</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">the fire</span></em><br />
<em><span style="color: #660000;">and are burnt."</span> </em>--John 15:4-6<br />
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I am actually hopeful and will pray that if anyone happening to see this blog post at some point that they will come to repentance and prayer and for standing for the life of the unborn, and above all for lives conformed after Jesus Christ, following his teachings and the truth of God's commandments.<br />
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God's mercy is there for all of us! Praise be to God!<br />
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<em>"So, my dear brothers, keep firm and immovable, always abounding in energy for the Lord's work, being sure that in the Lord none of your labors is wasted."</em> -- 1 Corinthians 15:58</div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-21902701942937519682013-05-25T16:21:00.002-05:002013-07-11T12:40:40.630-05:00If you do not eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood . . . <span style="color: #660000;">. . . then you will not have life within you."</span> Jesus speaking in John 6:53<br />
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Continuing from the previous post, I do not understand how Biblical Christians can accept the teaching from their ancestral and current pastoral leaders that Jesus did not clearly, and literally teach and institute the Sacrament of himself hidden in the signs of the bread and wine.<br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null"><img class="mainImage" src="http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/wp-content/uploads/adoration_new-228x300.jpg" style="background-color: white; height: 300px; width: 228px;" /></a></div>
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Especially when you read this verse in context. <br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: small;"><b>John
6</b></span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<sup><span style="font-size: small;">51</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
<span style="color: #660000;">"I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of
this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give
for the life of the world is my flesh."</span> </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">52
</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">The Jews then disputed among themselves,
saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">53</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
So Jesus said to them, <span style="background-color: #f4cccc; color: #660000;">"Truly, truly, (or Solemnly) I say to you, unless you
eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life
in you; </span></span><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;"><sup><span style="font-size: small;">54</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> he who
eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise
him up at the last day. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">55</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">56</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
</span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">57</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me. </span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">58 </span></sup></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #660000;">This
is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate
and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever."</span> </span><br />
<br />
Jesus tells us that we need to eat his own flesh as food so that we might enter into that divine life shared between Him and the living Father. Without eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood we remain men and women without the life of God within us.<br />
<br />
<u>Question</u>: How many times during this teaching in John chapter 6 does Jesus mention that his flesh is to be eaten and his blood to be drunk by those who wish to have eternal life, and in verse 55, to have Jesus abide in him and Jesus in him?<br />
<br />
<u>Answer</u>: <em> Seven times</em><br />
<em></em><br />
None of his disciples thought he was speaking using poetic imagery. We find out in the verses that follow that some could not accept this. They did not forsee that Jesus would give us his very flesh to eat and blood to drink in an unbloody sacrifice instituted at the Last Supper, forever memorializing his precious blood being poured out for us from the cross.<br />
<br />
In verse 60 we learn what some of his followers thought of this teaching, "This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?"<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<sup><span style="font-size: small;">65 </span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">And
he (Jesus the Son of God) said, <span style="color: #660000;">"This is why I told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted him by the Father." </span></span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">66</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about
with him. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">67</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> Jesus
said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">68</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
Simon Peter answered him, <span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life; </span></span><sup><span style="background-color: #f4cccc; font-size: small;">69</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">
and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy
One of God."</span> </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We know that the Jewish leaders at the time of Jesus's resurrection paid off those guards who were sleeping while charged with guarding Jesus's tomb. Then they began spreading the rumor that his disciples had stolen the body so as to suppress the eyewitness accounts of Jesus appearing to the women and the disciples after his resurrection.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
How is this not analagous to what has happened to the decendants of the Protestant Reformation? Martin Luther taught the real presence. But then someone in Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli, began teaching the presence was symbolic. John Calvin succeeded him and he taught that the presence was dynamic - when communion was received by "the elect" then the presence of Jesus was present <em>with </em>the bread and wine.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
None of this is Biblical. What an amazing irony. If you are Protestant, please pray and please seek to find if this veiling of the truth by the Reformers was not heretical, and depriving you of the great act of love of the Savior to be united with you in Holy Communion that you might dwell in Him, and he in you, and where he is, so too is the Father and the Holy Spirit. Please research the articles at <a href="http://chnetwork.org/">The Coming Home Network</a> and <a href="http://www.osv.com/OSV4MeNav/MyCatholicFaithOnlineResources/TheEucharist/BiblicalEvidence/tabid/499/Default.aspx">Patrick Madrid's article, "Where is that in the Bible?: The Eucharist".</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
What a tragedy so many Catholics who have received Jesus in Holy Communion leave the Church when they are taught errors by those who propagate these errors. What a tragedy that parents who prize the photographic moments of Holy Communion do not bother to carry out Jesus's command to the Apostles and also to us at the Last Supper . . . . "Do this in memory of me." Many children are not brought to receive Jesus on Sundays and Holy Days and they grow up adopting their parents example and attitude that it isn't necessarily Jesus's command. It is most certainly not optional but an affront to the Savior, in my discernment. Attending Holy Mass or Divine Liturgy is our response of love, obedience and gratitude to the Son of God. God forbid anyone would have their eyes so blinded by this world as to view the remembrance and worship of Jesus as an optional way of celebrating a beautiful holiday like Christmas, Easter, or a wedding or commemorating someone's funeral.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you are Catholic, please pray that the Father would draw you to his Son and increase you faith, devotion, and tender love and gratitude for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<em>Thank you Lord Jesus, for the gift of yourself in the Holy Sacrament of the altar (not the table). </em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<em>Father please continue to draw me and all those who you will to encounter and believe and offer love and gratitude to your Son for his great gift of his flesh for us to eat and his blood for us to drink that we might have the divine life of the Trinity present within us. In Jesus Name, your Beloved Son, our Savior, Amen.</em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<strong>The Gospel Accounts of the Last Supper</strong></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<sup><span style="font-size: small;">26</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it,
and gave it to the disciples and said, <span style="color: #660000;">"Take, eat; this is my
body."</span> </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">27</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> And
he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them,
saying,<span style="color: #660000;"> "Drink of it, all of you; </span></span><sup><span style="color: #660000; font-size: small;">28</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #660000;">
for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins." </span><span style="color: black;">(</span><span style="color: black;">Matthew 26:26-28)</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<sup><span style="font-size: small;">22</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it,
and gave it to them, and said, <span style="color: #660000;">"Take; this is my body."</span> </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">23</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them,
and they all drank of it. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">24</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
And he said to them, <span style="color: #660000;">"This is my blood of the covenant, which is
poured out for many.”</span> </span><span style="font-size: small;"> (Mark 14:22-24)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<sup><span style="font-size: small;">19
</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">And he took bread, and when he had given
thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, <span style="color: #660000;">"This is my body
which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."</span> </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">20</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
And likewise the cup after supper, saying, <span style="color: #660000;">"This cup which is
poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”</span> (Luke 22:19-20)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<sup>23 </sup>Jesus
answered him,<span style="color: #660000;"> "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my
Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with
him. <sup>24 </sup>He who does not love me does not keep my words;
and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
<sup>25</sup> "These things I have spoken to you, while I am
still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring
to your remembrance all that I have said to you. <sup><span style="font-size: small;">4</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself,
unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in
me. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">5 </span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">I am the
vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it
is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. And
for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated
in truth. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">20</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> "I
do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me
through their word, </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">21</span></sup></span><span style="color: #660000; font-size: small;">
that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in
thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me." <span style="color: black;">(</span></span>John 14:23-26,15:4-5,17:20-21)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
It was
interesting that John's Gospel, while having the most compelling
teaching of Jesus in chapter 6 does not parallel the synoptic Gospels
account of the institution of the Eucharist. Some Biblical scholars
explain that this is because the celebration of Holy Eucharist was
already well-established by the time John's Gospel was written.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<b>Words of
Consecration in the Roman Catholic Canon</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Institution
Narrative</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b> (recalling the words and
actions of Jesus at the Last Supper</b></i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><b>;
see Mark 14:22-24; Matt 26:26-28; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-25</b></i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>)</b></i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>:</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
</div>
<center>
<table bgcolor="#ffffff" border="2" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="width: 95%px;">
<colgroup><col width="256"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="TOP" width="100%"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">
On the day before he was to
suffer he took bread in his holy and venerable hands, and with
eyes raised to heaven to you, O God, his almighty Father, giving
you thanks he said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to
his disciples, saying:
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">
<span style="color: #990000;">TAKE THIS,
ALL OF YOU, AND EAT OF IT: FOR THIS IS MY BODY WHICH WILL BE
GIVEN UP FOR YOU.</span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.2in;">
In a similar way, when supper was
ended, he took this precious chalice in his holy and venerable
hands, and once more giving you thanks, he said the blessing and
gave the chalice to his disciples, saying:
</div>
<span style="color: #990000;">TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM
IT: FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND
ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY
FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody></colgroup></table>
</center>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<b>Words of Consecration in the Divine
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
"You so loved Your world as to give Your only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. After He had come and fulfilled the whole divine plan for our sake, on the night He was given over--or, rather, gave Himself for the life of the world--He took bread into His holy, most pure and immaculate hands, gave thanks, blessed, sanctified and broke it; He gave it to his holy disciples and apostles, saying:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<span style="color: #660000;">Take, eat: This is my body, which is broken for you for the forgiveness of sins.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
In like manner the cup after the supper, saying: </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<span style="color: #660000;">Drink of it, all of you. This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.</span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"></span><br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;">Notice the Congruence between John 6:55, Matthew 26:26-28, Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20, and the Words of Consecration.</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: black;">Jesus says <strong><em>this is</em></strong> my body and <strong><em>this is</em></strong> my blood. The priests also say <strong><em>this is</em></strong> my body and <strong><em>this is</em></strong> my blood.</span><br />
<br />
No mention of symbolism, or mystical presence, or being there with the bread and wine. <br />
<br />
The <u>Catechism of the Catholic Church:</u><br />
<strong>1376 </strong>The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring:
"Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was
offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the
Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the
consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole
substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of
the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the
holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."<br />
<br />
St. Paul summarized it similarly in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29<br />
<br />
<span class="vv">23</span> For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,<sup class="ww">24</sup>and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, <span style="color: #660000;">‘<strong><em>This is</em></strong> my body that is for</span><a href="javascript:void(0);"><sup class="fnote"><span style="color: #660000;">*</span></sup></a><span style="color: #660000;"> you. Do this in remembrance of me.</span>’<sup class="ww">25</sup>In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying,<span style="color: #660000;"> ‘<strong><em>This </em></strong>cup <strong><em>is</em></strong> the new covenant in my blood. <u>Do this</u>, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’</span><sup class="ww">26</sup>For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.<!-- <vn>27</VN> --><br />
<h2 class="plus-S" style="display: none;">
Partaking of the Supper Unworthily</h2>
<span class="vv">27</span> Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord <em><strong>in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.</strong></em><sup class="ww">28</sup>Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.<sup class="ww">29</sup>For all who eat and drink<a href="javascript:void(0);"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a> <strong><em>without discerning the body</em></strong>,<a href="javascript:void(0);"><sup class="fnote">*</sup></a> eat and drink judgement against themselves.</div>
CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2416649589454162340.post-6251541752823416822013-05-23T13:37:00.002-05:002013-05-23T17:14:07.109-05:00Protestants: How can you not believe Communion = Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?<span style="font-family: inherit;">Had a great conversation with a Baptist riding on the softball team's bus back from a game a few weeks ago. She is the assistant coach, and I am one of the team moms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I wasn't looking to argue doctrine with her, she was just telling me where she went to church, and about the miracles her father-in-law, the pastor, and her mother-in-law experienced as he left the world of business and began to follow the call to be a pastor. I would not rule out that she was looking to persuade me to come to her church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She started telling me how they believe that we are saved by grace, by believing in Jesus Christ. I don't disagree with that. I don't believe our Church teaches that we can be saved, other than by believing and being washed clean in the Precious Blood of our Lord.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then she told me about their belief that the celebration of Communion or "The Lord's Supper" is not the body and blood of Jesus, but just bread and wine. She asked me what I believed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was at this point that I thought she must have forgotten the conversation we had two years ago when I told her I was Catholic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I told her that it is only the body and blood of Jesus if the priest consecrating it was ordained as part of the Apostolic Succession. So if a church's minister is not ordained by those who were ordained by the the Apostles (Catholic, Orthodox Bishops) who were originally ordained by Christ, then that church only has bread and wine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am shaky, or rather ignorant on the specifics as to whether Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran can validly claim to have this same Apostolic Succession and real presence doctrine in their churches. I think some "sub-denominations" of each of these do claim and believe this and some are not as strong in the belief and allow for their members to believe in the real or optionally mystical or symbolic presence of Christ in Communion. That isn't the focus of this post though. I apologize if I offend any fellow Christians who do believe they are receiving the real presence of Christ at Communion due to my ignorance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her church is affiliated with the </span><a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Southern Baptist Convention</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and they believe, "The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church,
through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death
of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I would agree that all they can celebrate without having a priest is a symbolic act of obedience, but it is not a <em>real</em> act of obedience. That would actually be a bit of irony contained in this the VII. statement in their confession of beliefs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What puzzles me would be how they can reconcile <em>sola scripture </em>and non-belief in the validity of the Sacrament as practiced in the Roman Catholic, Byzantine Catholic, Orthodox and other churches with priests ordained according to Apostolic Succession. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">While I could not at the time quote the chapter and verse, I asked her, "In Corinthians, St. Paul says not to receive the body and blood of the Lord unworthily. How would we unworthily receive the body and blood if it were not the body and blood of Jesus Christ and instead just bread and wine?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She said her pastor/father-in-law says that has to do with unworthy living, not following Christ, living as we should.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In other words, he preaches on this passage of scripture using a figurative interpretation. He doesn't interpret the words of St. Paul literally, but instead when he says Body and Blood of the Lord he associates that not with the substance of the bread and wine but with those receiving the bread and wine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1 Corinthians 11:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
<sup><span style="font-size: small;">23</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">24</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my
body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">25</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is
the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of me." </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">26</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">27</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in
an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of
the Lord. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">28</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> Let a
man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">29</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and
drinks judgment upon himself. </span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img height="463" src="http://www.acfp2000.com/Miracles/holder.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="248" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.acfp2000.com/Miracles/eucharistic.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, Italy - the flesh was determined to be of the myocardium (wall of the heart) </span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So the focus in that Pastor's coverage of this passage is verse 11:28 an unworthy manner and in 11:29 the discernment would be to not discern that one is part of the body of Christ?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">How do you get past the literal meaning in 11:24, "This is my body". How can you profane the body and blood of the Lord (11:27) if it is just bread and wine or grape juice symbolically remembering Jesus's last supper? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
After we got off the bus, my daughter said I was a little loud and repetitive with the, "How could we unworthily receive bread and grape juice? It has to be unworthily receiving the body and blood of the Lord." She asked if I could have said it lower and less repeatedly, but of course that is not possible after the fact.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Similarly, and we didn't get this far, how do you interpret John 6:51 - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Jesus said) <span style="color: #660000;">"<span style="font-size: small;">I
am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of
this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give
for the life of the world is my flesh."</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">This would have to be symbolically interpretted I guess as well, right? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That is what I heard on the last Journey Home episode I watched. That for John 6 many of the Protestant sects switch from a literal interpretation of scripture to a figurative interpretation. Some of the same preachers who tell their congregations how critical it is to believe God created the world in six 24 hour days (see Gen. 1) and rested on the seventh tell their congregations that John 6:51 and 1 Corinthians 11:27 are to be interpretted figuratively, or discern the body and blood is really talking about the body of Christ, the Church, that St. Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 12:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><sup><span style="font-size: small;">12</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members
of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. </span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">13</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;">
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or
Greeks, slaves or free -- and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
</span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">14</span></sup><span style="font-size: small;"> For the body
does not consist of one member but of many. </span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But that isn't what St. Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 11 and that isn't what Jesus is talking about in John 6:51 or the preceding verses in John 6.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As Flannery O'Connor said, <span class="userContent">"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."</span></span></div>
<span class="userContent"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flannery's quote could be applied to many things that have become tolerable and accepted in our culture, but for the purposes of this post, I am including it because it is a nagging thing isn't it to get good spiritual food in studying the Bible, hearing well-prepared sermons ("messages"), praising God in beautiful, heart-lifting music or traditional hymns and then to be hit in the face with not being in real obedience to Christ who told us to receive his body and his blood of the New Covenant in rememberance of him. Then what an outrage to realize only those priests, and not all priestly people (see 1 Pet. 2:9), are ordained by Christ to consecrate bread and wine, and through the power of the Holy Spirit have those elements transubstantiated into the Real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We as Catholics are sometimes left undernourished by the watered down reverence of our liturgies, ill-prepared homilies, or music gone awry that accompanies the Mass. We do want it all though. We want the fullness of the truth, and we want to be filled to overflowing by worshipping in Spirit and in Truth (see John 4:24).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here are some quick points to remember, paraphrased from Fr. John Bartunek in </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Better-Part-Christ-Centered-Resource-Personal/dp/1933271108/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369328963&sr=1-1&keywords=the+better+part"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Better Part</span></a>'s</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">commentary on John 6:36-51:</span></div>
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<em><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Real Devotion to the Eucharist:</span></strong></em></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Active and prayerful involvement in the Mass (or Divine Liturgy for eastern rite Catholics)</span></li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our recollection in receiving Communion (recollection = attention to the presence of God in the soul)</span></div>
</li>
<li><div style="margin-bottom: 0.07in; margin-top: 0.07in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The frequency and sincerity of our visits to the Tabernacle</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">These things follow when we remember:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jesus is the bread of eternal life, its source and sustenance and Jesus's presence in the bread and wine of the Eucharist is the source and sustenance of our life of intimate communion with God. In my own life I find that if I do not visit the Tabernacle, do not receive Jesus frequently in Holy Communion then my efforts toward recollection are more strained and less frequent as well. I still find God and the presence of God in Scripture, as do my Protestant friends, but there is an emptiness and a more hollow recollection for me personally without basking in the Eucharistic presence of Christ in the Tabernacle, Monstrance, and receiving Jesus, my Lord, in Holy Communion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For my fellow Catholics, you might want to check out this site: </span><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/this-is-my-body-are-you-a-believer-or-non-believer"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.examiner.com/article/this-is-my-body-are-you-a-believer-or-non-believer</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Also, keep in mind there are </span><a href="http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/engl_mir.htm"><span style="font-family: inherit;">many documented Eucharistic miracles</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> through the centuries. Unfortunately few Catholics in this country were told about them!<br /><br />On Monday mornings, I pray with the Moms-in-Prayer group at my kids' school. We pray in the "sanctuary" which is the entire church for the Reformed Church and not just the holiest area of the space where the altar and tabernacle reside. Many times I notice, palpably, the emptiness of the worship space without the Eucharistic presence of Christ. Once we begin praying I am aware that there he is in the midst of 2 or more gathered in his name (see Matt. 18:20) and we also pray using Scripture which helps. For awhile I stopped attending this prayer group opting instead for Mass. Now I am attending the group again, but stopping in for prayer in front of the Tabernacle at my Church afterward. I can attend daily Mass on the other days of the week. Praying for my children, the other moms' children, and the school together, in a focused and intense way is very worthwhile. When I came back and rejoined them, the Lord seemed to confirm this for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was led to the Church I attend now and it took care of the negative feelings I had when the three Scriptures for Mass were not used for the homily or only nominally used, and when the homilies were essentially as superficial as to find that set of words that would be least likely to cause anyone in attendance discomfort, and the music leader was given full rein to dress and orchestrate the music according to her whims. In addition the Church I am in now is super reverant. The priests are preachers in the tradition of the early Church fathers, and the homilies should cause us some discomfort and spur us to action, especially the action to repent of our sins and plead for the Lord's mercy. Our priests regularly emphasize our personal relationship with all three persons in the Holy Trinity, the need for daily prayer, and the need for <u>daily</u> reading of Scripture. As I told my Baptist friend on the bus, "You would be surprised that our priests preach many of the same things your Pastor or other Protestant preachers do." <br /><br />With the exception of course that the bread and wine we receive are not mere symbols of Christ's body and blood sacrificed on the cross, but his real body and blood to give us divine, eternal life in our souls.<br /><br />Christ's gift of himself in the Eucharist is to me the way that he fulfills his promise:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: inherit;">"</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #660000;">Lo,
I am with you always, to the close of the age."</span> - Matthew 28:20<br /><br />Is it just me or does the refrain from the </span><a href="http://www.catholic.org/prayers/station.php?id=1"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stations of the Cross</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> echo in your mind when you enter a church where Christ is present in the Tabernacle or Monstrance?<br /><br /><strong>Leader:</strong> We adore Thee, O Christ, and bless Thee.<br /><strong>All:</strong> Because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>GREAT NEWS</strong>: If you are attending a Protestant Church and want to learn more about Jesus's real presence in the Holy Sacrament of Communion and want to take steps to get your questions answered and, God willing, take the steps necessary to receive Jesus's body, blood, soul, and divinity, you can. Please access this link to the </span><a href="http://chnetwork.org/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Coming Home Network</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. There are links from that home page for pastors, and non-pastor lay people. Marcus Grodi is less "tongue-in-cheek" than I am. He is more mature that way! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I apologize if I offended any of my Protestant brothers and sisters in this post in any way. It wasn't my intention, but I probably could have edited it more thoroughly to ensure it. Please forgive me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My prayer is the same as Jesus's prayer to Our Father, <span style="color: #660000;">"</span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="color: #b84700;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #660000;">Holy
Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they
may be one, even as we are one." - John 17:11b</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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CWriteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06654242399318374459noreply@blogger.com1