There is finally LIGHT in the secular media, and praise God – it’s focused on the Catholic priesthood! Check out this article on the new AMC show. It’s too bad I don’t have that channel. If you do, tell me what you think and enjoy!!
I will be on vacation in Dallas until Tuesday. Be sure to watch the Mass from St. Peter’s on EWTN tomorrow celebrating the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
Okay, so you’re gonna think I’m either crazy or hyped up on Holy Spirit after you see this…
Tonight, I spent a couple hours gathering videos relating to religious vocations. It wasn’t premeditated or planned. It just kinda happened!
Click that little “more” tab for the list. And if you have any to add…let me know. Note that there are also “Funny” videos and videos in other languages, including Italian, Spanish, and American Sign Language. I hope to send this to Phat Catholic for his Catholic videos compilation project. Maybe someday I’ll organize it. Right now it’s pretty late. (Read on …)
Happy sisters on a happy feast of the birth of the Forerunner!
Jesus makes me happy!
VATICAN CITY, JUN 21, 2007 (VIS) – The Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff today announced that at 5.30 p.m. on June 28, eve of the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, Benedict XVI will preside at the celebration of first Vespers in the basilica of St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls.
During the ceremony, the Pope will proclaim a year especially dedicated to St. Paul, to mark the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the “Apostle of the Gentiles.”
If that’s not a sign from God encouraging me in my journey towards the Daughters of St. Paul, then I don’t know what is. Lord, you are too good.
I hope that EWTN will cover this event. I want to make it a special day. St. Paul is becoming a real spiritual father to me.
Pray to the Holy Spirit for increased courage among today’s youth.
The task of the Church is to make it so that “faith ‘becomes culture,’ able to illuminate and profoundly inspire the ethos of peoples, giving them that spirit and those essential values without which every reality, every institution risks becoming inhuman, and therefore useless.” – Cardinal Poupard, found here.
The statement relates well to my last post. The Church is commissioned to not only integrate faith with culture, but as his Eminence says, to make faith become culture. It reminds me of something St. Francis reminded his brothers often: “It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.” Our living our faith out in a culture is of no use unless living our faith becomes culture. We are called to conversion and transformation – not only of ourselves, but of the whole world.
Aannd…because I’m so convicted of this, I am attracted to the Pauline mission.
Our culture tends to preach to us the gospel of glorified rebels. People who are supposedly “something special” get their 15 minutes of fame (and perhaps their own “reality show”). If you’re one of these gospel followers,
Prepare yourself. I’m about to burst your bubble.
Contemporary culture has everything quite backwards. They claim that the likes of 50 Cent, Rosie O’Donnell, and playboy models are stand-out individuals, pushing the limits and rocking the boat. But these people are far from rebellious! Today’s culture is permeated with pornography, profanity, and public scandal. Can you explain to me just how “racy” and “rebellious” it is to sin in a culture contaminated by it?
Think about salt for a second.
“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Mt. 5:13)
While all Christians today are called to be the salt of the earth, I believe that this calling especially applies to young Catholics. We are the ones who find ourselves not only surrounded by contemporary culture, but further possessing the power to change it. Salt changes the taste of food. As the salt of the earth, we must live out our faith to the fullest, and if we don’t – what good are we? My identity as a Catholic comes down to nothing if it remains a label. It means everything when I put it into practice.
But the obstacle remains: living out our faith is difficult. For our generation, it can be very easy to let ourselves drown in the tsunami of society’s sinful standards. Yet, despite the difficulty, today’s gospel tells us that we are nothing if we choose to let the world take control. Further, we have no choice as Catholics BUT to practice our faith every moment we live: “You are a light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house.” (Mt. 5:14-15)
God has gotten our attention and made us His children so that He can set us on a lampstand, on a mountain. He has called us, from the moment He first thought of us, to preach the Gospel through our lives. Who we are should be identical to who He is, so that those who witness our lives will also witness His. With our lives as a living testimony to the Truth, He Who is Truth will rekindle in souls darkened by sin.
“Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” (Mt. 5:16).
Let’s make our lives worth living. Let’s live who we are as Catholics. Let’s be salt and light. Amen.
Reflection on the sublime gift of the Eucharist
As a Cradle Catholic, I have grown up accustomed to this idea of Eucharist, hearing the words, “This is my body,” over and over again. In fact, I have heard those words of consecration said more than 1000 times in my lifetime. It’s no wonder, then, that God sometimes needs to throw a bucket of cold water in my face.
So many times have I been told that the Eucharist was THE body and THE blood of Jesus. But it never really made sense to me until this
Corpus Christi.
Nevermind religion for now: If I came up to you and told you that there was a man who loves you so much that he wanted to give you his body, what would your reaction be? If I told you further that he wanted you to eat his body and drink his blood, he wanted to be so intimately close to you, how would you react? Yeah – you’d probably either dismiss me as an escaped loony or absolutely flip out!
It really hit me today when my pastor put it in a way I’d never heard before: The Eucharist is the real body and blood of the living Jesus. Of the same Jesus who was born in Bethlehem. The same Jesus who walked in Jerusalem. The same Jesus who died for you and me. It is the real body and blood of the same Jesus who rose from the dead and now lives and intercedes for us at the right hand of God. It’s JESUS! His body! His blood! He’s really living and alive, and we eat his flesh and drink his blood! How amazing is that?
What a beautiful gift. Father Jan brought it home with this story: Some time ago, a Spanish ship was found at the bottom of the ocean near an island. On this ship, divers discovered a man’s gold wedding ring. On the band were inscribed a hand holding a heart and these words, “I have nothing else to give.”
In the Eucharist, Jesus, who lives, gives us his Body, his Blood, his very soul, and his divinity. In short, He gives us everything he has. He has given us his life, his words, his actions, his presence, his Spirit, his joy and his grief, his life and his death, his trials and his triumphs. Jesus gives us all that he has, and he offers it to us every single day of our lives. That is how much he loves us.
And we would think he’d stop there, but no! He finds more to give when he tells us that if we remain in him, whatever we ask for in his name will be given to us!
Jesus is love personified. There is no other place to look if you wish to find love. Jesus Christ is the source and the summit of our lives; he gives us everything.
Ever heard of Shane Clairbourne? If you haven’t, WHERE have you been?
Shane founded a movement called The Simple Way. At first, I sort of dismissed the movement. After all, people pop up with all sorts of protests these days. But the way that these groups are living their faith, regardless of their so-called “disenchantment” with “the Church” is admirable.
Something Shane said that caught my attention:
I’m convinced that if the Christian church loses this generation, it will be not because we didn’t entertain them, but because we didn’t dare them, you know, with the truth of the world. And it won’t be because we’d made the Gospel too hard, but because we made it too easy, and we just played games with kids and didn’t actually challenge them to think about how they live.
As a young person of this generation, and as a high school catechist, I concur. He’s right on the money.
One of my beefs with catechizing youth these days is that very issue: babying young people who face tough issues and situations whether they want to or not. This is one of the reasons why I love it when my class of now-sophomores has questions that would make a forty-year-old cringe; they want the honest truth. Our generation does not need a lasershow. Anyone can give us a lasershow – or a circus, or a striptease, for that matter. No - our generation wants the truth. We understand that life has difficult questions; we want the answers. We are sick of the lollipop Sunday school teachers and cushioned homilies. WAKE UP, WORLD! Your youth are in desperate need of the truth! Will you have the guts to give it to them?
If you love someone, you do what is best for them. Tell me, what is best for your sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, godchildren, neighbors, students… – the Truth of the Gospel wrapped in a shiny box? or the Truth of the Gospel and a magnifying glass?
Love. That’s what it comes down to.
Intro to Catholic Music CM101 Section B
Catholicism is GLOBAL! So, too, are Catholic musicians.
May I introduce you to Outer Fringe? At first look, they’re the typical trio of hyperactive Austrian boys playing punk rock. But, as we all know, looks can be so deceiving! Outer Fringe has toured not only all over their home country, but all over Europe (including World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany)! Their music may not be your cup of tea, but they are a bold statement to the world: The Church is young, vibrant, talented, and devout – even in Europe.
Visit Outer Fringe online at their official site, MySpace, or YouTube.
Fun fact: I designed the album art for their debut release, alive., which sold out on their European tour.
I attend the Saturday night Vigil Mass at my parish. My pastor, Fr. Jan Klak, is well-known among philosophers for his genius. I believe he speaks six languages and has presented his work at the Vatican. Yesterday’s homily was most insightful, and I hope you can take from it just as much as I did. Here are my notes:
Fr. Jan’s homily notes – June 2, Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
How can we pray to the Most Holy Trinity?
We can learn from members of religious communities who have taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Each of these vows is a way of glorifying and following a person of the Trinity.
Poverty: trusting in God’s providence. Doing so is a challenge in the midst of a world that is constantly concerned with financial gain. Even if we are not vowed religious, we can also follow the spirit of this vow by heeding the words of Christ in Luke 12.
Chastity: following the example of Christ as closely as possible. All people can follow the spirit of this vow by loving others as Christ has loved us. (John 15:12)
Obedience: comes from the Latin word that means “to listen”. For religious, the vow of obedience means listening to the Holy Spirit especially through the rule of their order and their superiors. For all people, it means listening to the Holy Spirit, especially in frequent prayer. We can all follow the spirit of this vow by striving to find the will of God for our lives.
This homily is also a beautiful reminder that prayer is not just speaking with God through our words, but also through our actions. Fr. Jan ended it with the whole congregation joining in a reverent Sign of the Cross.
