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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Truths of Church

Christ continues His work today through the Church (His Body).  Priests continue His Sacramental work, nuns express His marriage to mankind, His Body feeds us through the Eucharist, His beauty is expressed through art and His Resurrection through the saints.

5 Videos that make the point

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Faith is an Act

God has given us free will.  We should all take personal responsibility for our actions.  When our actions have negative consequences we suffer.  It isn't enough therefore, to expect God to fix it for us.  We must act in collaboration with His will to straighten things out in our lives.

This is what the Holy Father meant the other day when he said that faith is an act.

"Faith is not simply a matter of man’s intellectual assent to truths about God; it is an act whereby I freely entrust myself to a God who is a Father and who loves me; it means clinging to a “Thou” who gives me hope and confidence. To be sure, this adherence to God is not devoid of content: it enables us to know that God himself revealed himself to us in Christ."

We must act like Christians to stay in God's grace and receive His benefits.  Simply saying , "we are Christian" or that "we love the Lord" will not do.
 
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Friday, October 26, 2012

The Devil is Tricky

Satan uses our pride against us.  It is better to be humble.  We must always stay on guard against the devil's influences through prayer, the Sacraments of the Churchfasting and self-surrender for the sake of others.  Much suffering can come from evil while true peace comes through the Holy Spirit.

Be careful of Satan's deception. Even the most well-intentioned can be deceived -- in matters of the world or spirit. In the realm of mystical, this can even happen with "gifts of the Spirit" -- such as healing. It's one reason the Church is so careful.   

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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Holy Mass

One of the best things a Christian can do during times of personal suffering is to participate in the Holy Mass.  Align your sufferings with Christ and offer them to God as a redemptive act. 

The Power of the Mass if for you! It is the sacrifice of sacrifices, because it is the sacrifice of God for US. There is NO better activity that anyone in the entire world can do than attend a Mass in the state of grace, and receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, we become living tabernacles of God after Communion! Through time and space, we connect with the original Last Supper (the Church does not re-sacrifice Jesus at each mass; rather, each Mass is a re-creation of the original Mass).

St. John Vianney said,
 
All Good Works together are not of equal value with the sacrifice of the Mass, because they are the works of men, and the holy Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is nothing in comparison; it is the sacrifice that man makes of his life to God; the Mass is the sacrifice that God makes to man of His Body and of His Blood. Oh, how great is a priest! if he understood himself he would die. . . . God obeys him; he speaks two words, and Our Lord comes down from Heaven at his voice, and shuts Himself up in a little Host. God looks upon the altar. "That is My well-beloved Son, " He says, "in whom I am well-pleased. " He can refuse nothing to the merits of the offering of this Victim. If we had faith, we should see God hidden in the priest like a light behind a glass, like wine mingled with water.

A Guide to the Holy Mass

Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Humble Servant

Suffering humbles us while humility strengthens our faith.  Suffering therefore, serves a purpose in the spiritual life. Recently the Holy Father said:

The New Evangelization calls for new humility. The Gospel cannot thrive in pride. When pride seeps into the heart of the Church, the Gospel proclamation is harmed. The task of new evangelization must begin with a deep sense of awe and reverence for humanity and her culture. Evangelization has been hurt and continues to be impeded by the arrogance of its messengers. The heirarchy must shun arrogance, hypocrisy and bigotry. We must punish the errant among us instead of covering up our own mistakes. We are humans among our human flock. All our beauty and holiness we owe to God. This humility will make us more credible New Evangelizers. Our mission is to propose humbly not to impose proudly.

When you look to rid your own pride you are free to love because you then can see the layers of imperfection around others as something not to criticize but to pray to cast off (in His Name, cast it out!) so you can love the essence of a person. This is the "true" you: the one who is "prideless."

As Catholics, our Spiritual Leaders can be effective models of humility for us.  Perhaps no greater characteristic can a priest possess than that of a humble  servant. 

 Fr. Andrew Apostoli C.F.R.  is an example of a humble priest.  As a founding member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Father Apostoli has an acute awareness of the "deep sense and awe of humanity" and he always strives to "love the essence" of every person, especially the poor

His order is dedicated to the humble service  of others.  Father Apostoli brings a great wealth of spiritual and practical wisdom gained from personal experience.  His classical book on the Works of Mercy is just one of many examples.  He states, "The works of mercy provide us with the opportunity to let every person know he is a child of God and a brother in Christ. From the works of mercy will emerge a community of love and peace centered on Christ."  

Fr. Andrew is one of the 100 individuals highlited on Brandon Vogt's blog in an effort to promote Catholic Speakers. 

The following is a link to more of Fr. Andrew's books and tapes.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Doubt

Doubting God can cause undo suffering.  We must never doubt the love of God.

No one is immune to doubt. It can and does happen to us all. You've just got to know how to handle it when it comes. Even the greatest men and women of God recorded in the Bible had to deal with doubt. Jesus said of John the Baptist,
"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist" (Matt. 11:11).

That means John was greater in the sight of Jesus than Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, or any Old Testament character you can name. Yet John doubted the most important thing of all by questioning whether Jesus was really the Christ.

John the Baptist had been cast into prison for criticizing Herod about marrying his brother’s wife, an incestuous relationship. He had been there sometime between six months and two years and became so discouraged that he asked two of his disciples to go to Jesus and ask Him if He really was the Christ. It's easy to read that and not think much about it, but the truth is, it was nothing but unbelief on the part of John the Baptist.

Overcome Doubt

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Sacrifice of the Mass

Where in the New Testament do we find the "Sacrifice of the Mass"?

Those who witnessed Jesus on Calvary were mostly Jewish people who understood a "sacrifice" as something taking place with a priest at the temple during Passover.  What they saw on Calvary was an execution.

How does a Roman execution therefore, get transformed into a sacrifice?  St. Paul himself gives an early explanation.  Jesus' sacrifice is correlated with the Passover. 

Catholics continue to celebrate the New Passover during Mass as Christ consecrates the bread and wine into His Body and Blood through the person of the ordained priest.

This means Christians offer their suffering with Jesus at Mass who redeems it through His blood.

Hear Scott Hahn

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Humility

Suffering humbles us while humility strengthens our faith.  Therefore suffering has a purpose in our spiritual life.  Recently the Holy Father said:

The new evangelization calls for new humility. The Gospel cannot thrive in pride. When pride seeps into the heart of the Church, the Gospel proclamation is harmed. The task of new evangelization must begin with a deep sense of awe and reverence for humanity and her culture. Evangelization has been hurt and continues to be impeded by the arrogance of its messengers. The hierarchy must shun arrogance, hypocrisy and bigotry. We must punish the errant among us instead of covering up our own mistakes. We are humans among our human flock. All our beauty and holiness we owe to God. This humility will make us more credible new evangelizers. Our mission is to propose humbly not to impose proudly.
 
When you look to rid your own pride you are free to love because you then can see the layers of imperfection around others as something not to criticize but to pray to cast off (in His Name, cast it out!) so you can love the essence of the person. This is the "true" you: the one who is "prideless."

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Friday, October 5, 2012

The Mass Saves Us

We need to go to Mass to overcome suffering.  Mass is the re-presentation of the Paschal Mystery (Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ).  Therefore, Christians need to be incorporated into this in order to achieve salvation. Recently the Holy Father elaborated on this point. 

The Church, as Christ’s Mystical Body and united with him, offers worship to the Father. By identifying ourselves with Christ in his prayer to the Father, we rediscover our deepest identity as Christians, as children of “Our Father who art in heaven”. The liturgy is also an encounter of the whole Christ, that is, with Christ and his body the Church. Thus, the liturgy is a sharing in the prayer of the living, universal community of believers in Christ. Prayer becomes the habitual realization of the presence of God, as we make the words of the Church our own, and learn to speak in her and through her. The Church is most truly itself in the liturgy, as it is the place where God comes to us and enters our lives. Let us remember that the liturgy is celebrated for God, not for us; it is his work; he is its subject. For our part, in the liturgy we must leave ourselves open to be guided by him and by his Body, the Church.

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Monday, October 1, 2012

How Many will be Saved

Most today simply presume that the vast majority of people on the planet will be saved, ultimately, no matter what. This position is not only only non-biblical, but it also offends against human freedom by rendering our decisions ultimately meaningless, in terms of our destiny. The dismissal of the biblical teaching of judgment and Hell as simply untenable to modern thought. “How could an all-loving God send anyone to Hell?” goes the modern thinking. Never mind that no one spoke of hell more than Jesus Christ, and no one warned of judgement more vividly than He, who is love itself. The fact is, most Catholics feel very comfortable, and very confident, in simply dismissing Hell is a plausible reality for the vast majority of the human family.

The fact is God wants all to go to heaven. Unfortunately not all choose to do so. Jesus warned us about hell out of love. We have free will because God doesn't force. We should ask God for the grace to choose wisely and try to live a Sacramental Life.

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