The Holy Family’s first Christmas was both stressful and joyful.- Jesus the Bread of Life was born in Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread.”
- Jesus was born and laid to rest in caves. His body was wrapped, in birth and death.
- Joseph taught carpentry to Him through whom all things were made.
- Mary taught prayers to God.
- St. Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, is now universal patron of the Church.
- St. Mary, the bearer of one child, is now mother of all Christians.
Archive for the ‘Saintly People’ Category
Mysteries of the Holy Family
December 26, 2014
The Biggest Catholic News Stories of 2014
December 17, 2014January:
Tens of thousands of pro-lifers, mostly young people, ‘March for Life’ in Washington, D.C.
February:
A report by a U.N. committee on children criticizes the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, contraception, and abortion.
March:
Nearly 200 associated Catholic groups file a class-action lawsuit against the HHS contraceptive-abortifacient-sterilization insurance coverage mandate.
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April:
Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul the Great are canonized by Pope Francis, with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in attendance.
May:
A planned satanic ‘Black Mass’ at Harvard University is canceled following a strong public outcry.
June:
Vatican theologians approve a miracle for the beatification of Bishop Fulton Sheen (however, the process is indefinitely suspended in September due to an inter-diocesan impasse.)
July:
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 6 to 3 in favor of Hobby Lobby’s religious liberty (boding well for Catholic religious conscience cases.)
August:
After atrocities against Christians and Muslims, the U.S. begins airstrikes on ISIS.
September:
Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, WA is named the new archbishop of Chicago, replacing the ailing Cardinal Francis George.
October:
The Extraordinary Synod on the Family meets at the Vatican and reaffirms Catholic teachings.
November:
Cardinal Raymond Burke is appointed the new patron of the Knights of Malta.
December:
Pope Francis announces a consistory to name new cardinals in February of 2015.
“Long Live Christ the King!”
November 22, 2014We tend to think of Mexico as one of the most Catholic countries around, but for a time in 1920’s it was illegal to celebrate the Mass there. That did not stop priests like Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. from ministering to people clandestinely. After many close calls, Fr. Pro was captured by the police and sentenced to death on false charges that he was somehow connected to a bombing assassination plot.
Blessed Miguel Pro before the firing squad, November 23, 1927.
When he was led out for his execution by firing squad, Fr. Pro blessed the soldiers, knelt and quietly prayed for a time. He declined a blindfold and faced his executioners with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other. He held out his arms in imitation of the crucified Christ and shouted, “May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, you know that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!” Just before the firing squad was ordered to shoot, he proclaimed, “Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”) When the initial shots failed to kill him, a soldier shot him point-blank. The anti-Catholic government had a photographer on hand to capture these moments for propaganda purposes, but soon after the images were published their possession was made illegal; seeing the Catholic priest, dying bravely and faithfully, was an inspiration to the oppressed people.
The Dying Words of Jesus & His Saints
November 14, 2014Each November, when the dark nights lengthen and trees become bare skeletons, we especially pray for the souls of those who have gone before us in death. This is also a fitting time of year to remember and consider the certainty of our own mortality. How did Jesus and his holy ones face the end of their lives? Their dying words can both instruct and inspire us:
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
—Our Lord Jesus Christ, c. 33 AD
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
—St. Stephen, martyr, c. 34 AD
“Glory to God for all things!”
—St. John Chrysostom, 407 AD
“Your will be done. Come, Lord Jesus!”
—St. Augustine, 430 AD
“May God forgive you, brother.”
—St. Wenceslaus, martyr, 935 AD
“I have loved justice and hated iniquity. Therefore I die in exile.”
—Pope St. Gregory VII, 1085 AD
“If all the swords in England were pointed against my head, your threats would not move me. I am ready to die for my Lord, that in my blood the Church may obtain liberty and peace.”
—St. Thomas Becket, martyr, 1170 AD
“When you see that I am brought to my last moments, place me naked upon the ground just as you saw me the day before yesterday; and let me lie there after I am dead for the length of time it takes one to walk a mile unhurriedly.”
—St. Francis of Assisi, 1226 AD
“Be assured that he who shall always walk faithfully in God’s presence, always ready to give him an account of all his actions, shall never be separated from him by consenting to sin.”
—St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274 AD
“Leave the doors open, so that everyone may enter and see how a pope dies.”
—Bl. Pope Urban V, 1370 AD
“Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”
—St. Bridget of Sweden, 1373 AD
“Blood! Blood! Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
—St. Catherine of Siena, 1380 AD
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!”
—St. Joan of Arc, martyr, 1431 AD
“I die the king’s good servant, but God’s first.”
—St. Thomas More, martyr, 1535 AD
“O, my God!”
—St. Ignatius of Loyola, 1556 AD
“After all I die as a child of the Church. My Lord, it is time to move on. Well then, may your will be done. O my Lord and my spouse, the hour that I have longed for has come. It is time for us to meet one another.”
—St. Teresa of Avila, 1582 AD
“Jesus, I love you.”
—St. Kateri Tekakwitha, 1680 AD
“In all things I adore the will of God in my regard.”
—St. Jean Baptiste de la Salle, 1719 AD
“Be children of the Church.”
—St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, 1821 AD
“My immortal life is on the point of beginning. Become Christians if you wish to be happy after death, because God has eternal chastisements in store for those who have refused to know Him.”
—St. Andrew Kim Taegon, martyr, 1846 AD
“Holy Mary, pray for me, a poor sinner.”
—St. Bernadette Soubirous, 1879 AD
“I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me. My God, I love you.”
—St. Therese of Lisieux, 1897 AD
“To restore all things in Christ.”
—Pope St. Pius X, 1914 AD
“Long live Christ the King!”
—Bl. Miguel Pro, S.J., martyr, 1927 AD
“Jesus. Maria.”
—St. Pio of Pietrelcina, 1968 AD
“Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you.”
—Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 1997 AD
“Let me go to the house of the Father.”
—St. John Paul the Great, 2005 AD
What do you want to be your dying words?
Ghost Stories From Sts. Augustine & Gregory
October 31, 2014In 398 AD, St. Augustine shared the following story about a probable visitor from beyond the veil in a letter to his friend, Evodius:
“Our brother, Gennadius … told us that he doubted once … whether there was any life after death. As God would not abandon a man of his disposition and works of mercy, there appeared to him in sleep a handsome youth of dignified appearance, who said to him: ‘Follow me.’ He followed and came to a certain city, where he began to hear, on his right, singing of such exquisite sweetness that it surpassed all known and ordinary sweetness. Then, as he listened, he asked what it was and his guide said it was the hymns of the blessed and the saints. I do not clearly remember what he said he saw on his left. When he awoke, the dream vanished and he thought of it only as one does of a dream.
But, on another night, behold, the same youth appeared to him again and asked whether he recognized him; he answered that he did so fully and perfectly. Then the youth asked where he had known him. He remembered what to reply to that, too, and described the whole vision and the hymns of the saints which the other had led him there to hear, recalling them with ease as a recent experience. Thereupon, the youth asked whether he had been asleep or awake when he saw what he had described. He answered: ‘It was in a dream.’ The other said: ‘You remember well, it is true, that you saw all that in a dream, but you must know that even now you see, although you are asleep.’ When he heard that, he believed it was so and expressed it by his answer.
Then the one who was teaching him continued and said: ‘Where is your body now?’ He answered: ‘In my bedroom.’ ‘And do you know,’ said the other, ‘that in that same helpless body, your eyes are fast shut and useless, and that you see nothing with those eyes?’ Gennadius answered: ‘I know it.’ His guide went on: ‘Then, with what kind of eyes do you see me?’ He fell silent at this, finding no reply, and, as he remained in doubt, the youth made known what he was trying to teach by these questions.
He went on: ‘As those eyes of flesh are now inactive and perform no function while your body lies asleep in bed, yet you have eyes with which you behold me and a sight of which you make use, so, when you die and the eyes of your flesh see nothing, there will be in you another life by which you will live and sense by which you will perceive. See to it that henceforth you do not doubt of the life which remains after death.’ Thus this faithful man says that his doubt on this matter was removed, and what was his teacher but the providence and mercy of God?”
In 593 AD, Pope St. Gregory the Great related this story in his Dialogues:
“Bishop Felix…said that he had been told of such a case by a saintly priest who was still living two years ago in the [Italian] diocese of Centum Cellae as pastor of the Church of St. John in Tauriana [on the toe of Italy.] This priest used to bathe in the hot springs of Tauriana whenever his health required. One day, as he entered the baths, he found a stranger there who showed himself most helpful in every way possible, by unlatching his shoes, taking care of his clothes, and furnishing him towels after the hot bath.
After several experiences of this kind, the priest said the himself: ‘It would not do for me to appear ungrateful to this man who is so devoted in his kind services to me. I must reward him in some way.’ So one day he took along two crown-shaped loaves of bread to give him.
When he arrived at the place, the man was already waiting for him and rendered the same services he had before. After the bath, when the priest was again fully dressed and ready to leave, he offered the man the present of bread, asking him kindly to accept it as a blessing, for it was offered a token of charity.
But the man sighed mournfully and said, ‘Why do you give it to me, Father? That bread is holy and I cannot eat it. I who stand before you was once the owner of this place. It is because of my sins that I was sent back here as a servant. If you wish to do something for me, then offer this bread to almighty God, and so make intercession for me, a sinner. When you come back and do not find me here, you will know that your prayers have been heard.’
With these words he disappeared, thus showing that he was a spirit disguised as a man. The priest spent the entire week in prayer and tearful supplications, offering Mass for him daily. When he returned to the bath, the man was no longer to be found. This incident points out the great benefits souls derive from the Sacrifice of the Mass. Because of these benefits the dead ask us, the living, to have Masses offered for them, and even show us by signs that it was through the Mass that they were pardoned.”
Popes Are Not Perfect — Wednesday, 27th Week of Ordinary Time—Year II
October 8, 2014Readings: Galatians 2:1-2,7-14; Luke 11:1-4
[W]hen Cephas came to Antioch, I [Paul] opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong. For, until some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to draw back and separated himself, because he was afraid of the circumcised. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not on the right road in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas [Peter] in front of all, “If you, though a Jew, are living like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, …forgive us our sins….”
The Church on earth is both human and divine — it is holy, yet made up of and led by sinners. When the apostles asked Jesus how they should pray he told those men who were to become the Church’s first leaders to always ask that God the Father would forgive their sins.
Some bulk at the doctrine of papal infallibility asking, “How can a pope, a sinful man, be infallible?” (One could likewise ask how sinful men could write the Sacred Scriptures.) A pope is infallible when he proclaims a doctrine by a definitive act as supreme pastor and teacher of all the faithful regarding faith or morals, but nothing guarantees that he and the Church’s other leaders will never make sincere yet unwise decisions, or that they will never commit serious sins. Infallibility is not the same as impeccability. Imagine the Church as car on the interstate. The Holy Spirit provides guard rails to prevent us from crashing, but we do not always drive as straightly and speedily as we could.
In today’s reading from Galatians, St. Paul recalls the time he gave some fraternal correction to the first pope. St. Peter had not been teaching error regarding the Gentiles and the Mosaic Law, but his personal example (withdrawing from their company so as not to offend the circumcised) was sending a mixed and wrong signal. Even St. Peter could make a mess of things sometimes. Popes, bishops, and priests need the help of our prayers. Like St. Augustine observed: for you, they are leaders; but with you, they are Christians. They are disciples of Jesus Christ who, like yourself, must strive and follow after Him daily.
Our Lady’s Wisconsin Message: The Meaning of the Two Trees
September 25, 2014In the Garden of Eden, there were many fruit-bearing trees, but Genesis mentions only two by name: the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. By partaking of the Tree of Life the human race could keep living forever, but the Lord warned that to eat from the other tree would mean our certain death. On October 9th, 1859, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared near Green Bay to a 28 year-old Belgian immigrant named Adele Brise while she was walking eleven miles home from Sunday Mass. Interestingly, Our Lady chose to appear to Adele not in a church, or a thousand other places, but between two trees: a Maple and a Hemlock.
You’re familiar with the beauty and goodness of the Maple. In the fall, its leaves turn the most striking colors, and in the spring its sap yields sweet syrup. But do you know about the Hemlock tree? The poison that the Greek philosopher Socrates was condemned to drink came from this plant. Ingesting just six or eight fresh Hemlock leaves can kill a healthy adult. [Post-Script: The Hemlock Tree found in Wisconsin is not poisonous, but merely shares the name.] The Maple is a tree of life while the Hemlock is a tree of death. Mary, the New Eve, stood between the two.
Mary told Adele, “I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same. You received Holy Communion this morning, and that is well. But you must do more. Make a general confession, and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners. If they do not convert and do penance, my Son will be obliged to punish them.” Our Lady’s message between the two trees is akin the words of Moses, who told the Israelites: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land….”
Apparently, Our Lady’s warnings were not sufficiently heeded. In October of 1871, exactly twelve years later, disaster came. Both in terms of size and number of lives lost, the Peshtigo Fire remains the worst recorded forest fire in U.S. history. Between 1,200 and 2,400 lives ended in that firestorm which saw, according to an eyewitness, “large wooden houses torn from their foundations and caught up like straws by two opposing currents of air which raised them till they came in contact with the stream of fire.” This seems to be the punishment due to sin that Mary spoke of, yet this does not mean that everyone who perished in that fire was condemned. We should remember that at harvest time, the wheat and the weeds are pulled up together in a moment, but their future fates are not the same. Once uprooted, the good are gathered and kept in the barn, while the bad are thrown away forever.
The firestorm came and surrounded the shrine of Our Lady, where hundreds had come for refuge with their families and herds, beseeching her intercession before God. As many as fled to her there were saved. The shrine’s consecrated earth was an emerald-green island in an ocean of smoldering ashes as far as eyes could see.
Mary, the Queen of Heaven, prays for the conversion of sinners and she wishes you to do the same. You receive Holy Communion, and that is well. But you must do more. Begin by receiving the sacrament of reconciliation regularly, because it is powerful for growing in holiness. The sinner whose conversion you are most responsible for is your own.
Parallelism & Padre Pio — Monday, 25th Week of Ordinary Time—Year II
September 23, 2014Readings: Proverbs 21:1-6, 10-13; Psalm 119:1, 27, 30, 34-35, 44
We see within today’s readings a literary structure often found in the Bible: parallelism. A verse states an idea and is immediately followed by a line reexpressing that same truth (or contrasting it.) For example, in our psalm we read:
The way of truth I have chosen;
I have set your ordinances before me.
And in Proverbs:
The soul of the wicked man desires evil;
his neighbor finds no pity in his eyes.When the arrogant man is punished, the simple are the wiser; when the wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.
Parallelism is a providential gift to translators and readers of the Bible because it helps them to understand Scripture’s meaning better than they would through a singular statement alone.
St. Padre Pio (or Pius of Pietrelcina) is among the most famous saints of the past century. Like Jesus, large crowds were drawn to him and religious authorities were cautiously wary of him, but he always remained obedient. Like Jesus, Padre Pio possessed the mystical ability to read peoples’ souls — to know strangers’ stories, sins, and struggles. He spent long hours in the confessional, being firm with the hardened and gentle with the weak, just like Jesus was with the Pharisees and the woman at the well. Also, by God’s gift, Padre Pio bore the stigma, the wounds of Christ, in his hands, feet, and side.
God uses parallelism to help us to fathom His Word better. In both Sacred Scripture and in the saints of Jesus Christ, parallelism helps us to understand the Lord better.
Our Lady’s Message in Wisconsin: Conversion & Catechesis
September 18, 2014On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 2010, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help located about sixteen miles northeast of Green Bay, Bishop David Ricken endorsed our country’s first Church-approved Marian apparition:
“I declare with moral certainty and in accord with the norms of the Church that the events, apparitions and locutions given to Adele Brise in October of 1859 do exhibit the substance of supernatural character, and I do hereby approve these apparitions as worthy of belief (although not obligatory) by the Christian faithful.”
155 years ago, a lovely blond-haired lady clothed in dazzling white, with a yellow sash around her waist and a crown of stars around her head, appeared to a 28-year-old lay woman named Adele Brise. Adele asked the lady who she was and what she wanted. She answered, “I am the Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same. You received Holy Communion this morning and that is well. But you must do more. Make a general confession and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners… Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation…”
This was the core of Mary’s message: for sinners to be converted and for children to be catechised. Yet Adele hesitated and asked how she was to teach the young when she knew so little herself. Mary replied, “Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing, I will help you.” After Adele’s encounter, her father built a small chapel on the site and Adele went about fulfilling her entrusted mission for the rest of her life. Exactly twelve years after Mary’s message came the terrible Peshtigo Fire which still ranks as the worst fire disaster in U.S. history. By a miracle, all who fled to Mary’s shrine for refuge were saved.
Our Mother, the Church, teaches that parents are the primary educators of their children in the Faith. This means that whether our kids go to CCD or Catholic school, family is the first and foremost teacher of life’s most important lessons. But how often do we talk to our children about Jesus and Mary, or teach them about what they should know for salvation? I suspect that many feel intimidated like Adele Brise was because they think they know too little. Yet Mary reassures us that anyone can begin teaching children the simple, precious lessons that will stay with them and bless them forever. As our children grow, we also must grow in the Faith, exploring the what’s and why’s of the Church’s teachings and living them out in our lives. Catechesis without conversion is in vain.
The Virgin Mary’s message to Adele Brise remains timely for us today: “Pray for the conversion of sinners… Offer Communion for the conversion of sinners… Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation… Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”
“Get Behind Me” — 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time—Year A
August 31, 2014Gospel: Matthew 16:21-27
Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
In Hebrew, “satan” means “adversary.” Peter is not the devil, but in opposing the Father’s true will for the Messiah, Peter is acting as an adversary and an obstacle to Jesus. Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, during the temptation in the desert, Jesus told the devil, “Get away, Satan!” Later, in describing the Last Judgment, Jesus tells the unrighteous goats on his left, “Depart from me, you accursed…” Yet to St. Peter, Jesus says, ‘You are my friend, so get behind me… Stay close to me, and follow my lead.”
“Late Have I Loved You…”
August 28, 2014
In “The Confessions,” the first autobiography in Western history, St. Augustine of Hippo tells of his sinful youth away from the Lord prior to his conversion. In perhaps its greatest passage, Augustine pens these words to God:
“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
Neat Things About “A Man For All Seasons”
August 21, 2014“A Man For All Seasons” was 1966’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and it is my all-time favorite movie. This YouTube video I made presents a number of interesting things you never knew about this wonderful film. I invite you to watch, “like,” and “share” it.
A Glorious Lady in Heaven
August 15, 2014Like Dante’s Divine Comedy, C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce takes a first-person tour of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Dante had a next-worldly guide in the Roman poet Virgil, while Lewis had the Scottish author George MacDonald. While on the Plains of Heaven, Lewis beholds the following (abridged) scene:
Some kind of procession was approaching us, and the light came from the persons who composed it. First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever again grow sick or old. Between them went musicians; and after these a lady in whose honor all this was being done. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face.
“Is it?… Is it?” I whispered to my guide.
“Not at all,” said he. “It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.”
“She seems to be… well, a person of particular importance?”
“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”
“And who are all these young men and women on each side?”
“They are her sons and daughters.”
“She must have had a very large family, Sir.”
“Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.”
“Isn’t that a bit hard on their own parents?”
“No. There are those that steal other people’s children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives. It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”
Ezekiel’s Consolation — Tuesday, 19th Week of Ordinary Time—Year II
August 12, 2014Readings: Ezekiel 2:8-3:4; Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14
The Lord GOD said to me: “As for you, son of man, obey me when I speak to you: be not rebellious like this house of rebellion, but open your mouth and eat what I shall give you.” It was then I saw a hand stretched out to me, in which was a written scroll which he unrolled before me. It was covered with writing front and back, and written on it was: “Lamentation and wailing and woe!”
He said to me: “Son of man, eat what is before you; eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat. “Son of man,” he then said to me, “feed your belly and fill your stomach with this scroll I am giving you.” I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. He said: “Son of man, go now to the house of Israel, and speak my words to them.”
How can a message of “lamentation and wailing and woe” taste sweet in the prophet’s mouth? Ezekiel found the message sweet because it meant God was neither blind nor indifferent to the evils in his midst and that these evils, one way or another, would not continue forever. Either sincere conversion or painful events would soon check his people’s wickedness. This was the prophet’s consolation. Jesus says:
If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?
In the parable of the Lost Sheep, we focus on the lost sheep’s consolation while forgetting the ninety-nine’s desolation. The flock may fare just fine, but they will find the experience quite unsettling. Jesus tells us:
Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.
It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.
For forty years, the people of our land have intentionally and legally ended the lives of roughly one million unborn children annually. What would the opposite of receiving Jesus look like, if not this? Jesus warns us:
See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.
This represents a warning, because God’s angels are fearsome and righteous creatures. Let us earnestly pray for our country’s conversion to a culture of life. Yet we too share Ezekiel’s consolation, for one way or another, this evil in our midst will not go on forever.
Pope Paul VI Has Died
August 6, 2014Thus begins my new blog presenting the day-to-day happenings in the papacy of His Holiness, Pope John Paul I.
Parishable Items 