Year of the Eucharist

Last year, Pope John Paul ll declared for one year that we would celebrate the Year of the Eucharist - one full year commemorating the greatest of all the Sacraments - Christ's own body, blood, soul, and divinity which we receive in Holy Communion. For those you that have known about this special year, which ends in October, what have you done for it? Have you gone to Eucharistic Adoration or Benediction more often than normal? Have you truly contemplated the greatest and holiest of all miracles which happens at every Mass when bread and wine actually become our Lord and God?

There is still time to spend time with Our Lord. We remember that as He sat alone in the Garden of Gethsamane, when all of His friends left Him, He called out: "Will you not spend one hour with me?" And we still can do just that. You still can spend time in Adoration near you.

Recently on August 5, 2005, Francis Cardinal George of the Archdiocese of Chicago led a Eucharistic procession and Benediction in Grant Park, Illinois with thousands of people (see photos). Cardinal George said: "What needs transformation in individual lives... is anything that keeps people from being free to love God: addictions to alcohol and drugs, to sexual sin, to anger, to racism or other prejudices. These are habits of sin... Christ will change us, Christ will transform us, Christ will free us.'" (Read the whole article)

For more information on the Eucharist see my post on the Eucharist.

Image Source: Image of Archbishop Fulton J Sheen, believed to be in the Public Domain

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Comment Policy

Comments are strongly encouraged on this blog.

It doesn't matter if you are a Catholic or not - I would love to hear your positions as long as they are done in a respectable manner. Your comment will however be deleted if you deliberately attack or mock Jesus Christ, other posters, or if you use inappropriate language. For example, you can discuss priests without insulting them for the actions of a few bad ones in our contemporary world. Such insults will not be tolerated.

Final decision rests with me, the author of this blog, concerning the deletion of a comment.

Unacceptable comments include but are not limited to:

1. Posting Insulting, Derogatory, or Attacks against me or another commentor
2. Posting heretical or blasphemous comments
3. Posting obscene comments
4. Advertising or Self-Promotion (email such comments to me directly)
5. Writing a comment about something completely unrelated to the post you are commenting on
6. Linking to a video, article, webpage, etc. that I deem anti-Catholic or inappropriate
7. Posting a non-English Language comment.  Use of Latin within is fine, but a message entirely in another language is not acceptable.

Note: This policy is subject to change without notice.

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Make God the center of Our Lives

With World Youth Day approaching, Pope Benedict XVI prepares and is calling for God to be the most important part of our daily lives. We can live this through prayer and love of God and our neighbor.

Adoring God means recognizing his presence as creator and lord of the universe and ensuring that God is the most important part of one's life, Pope Benedict XVI said. With about 2,000 people packed into the courtyard of his summer villa south of Rome and several thousand more people gathered in the square outside the villa Aug. 7, the pope focused his address on the upcoming celebration of World Youth Day. The theme of the Aug. 16-21 celebration in Cologne, Germany, is: "We Have Come to Worship Him." Pope Benedict said an attitude of worship and adoration is the attitude that has marked the lives of saints throughout Christian history. It involves recognizing the greatness of God and the gift of salvation in Jesus with gratitude that "arises from the depths of one's heart and marks one's whole being," he said.

Source: CNS

A plenary indulgence has even been granted to those who participate at World Youth Day. A very large crowd is planned.

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Women in the Priesthood

This is a contemporary topic that has grown into a whole debate nowadays. Women cannot be priests because Jesus only ordained men - His disciples at the Last Supper. God is all power and knows the future, so if He knew this would clear up debate I'm sure He would have chosen a woman if women could be priests. But, since He did not, it is clear the Church holds no power to ordain women. Men and women are created differently and are not physically equal. In the same way, men and women have equally important roles in the spiritual life, but they are different roles.

However, women are in no way regarded lowly in the Catholic Church. Mother Mary is considered the highest of all saints and honored because she is the Mother of God. The Catholic Church also honors other saints that are women such as St. Joan of Arc, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Therese of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, and many others. The last one is even considered the most popular saint of modern times, so women are considered very important in the Catholic Church.

Women cannot be priests because it is a difference of roles in the gender. A man certainly can't be a mother, and a man can't be a nun either. Men and women have different roles as parents and also in other parts of society including religion. I don't mean to be sounding as if I think lowly of different people because of gender because that isn't true; however, I do believe men and women have different roles and the Catholic Church would love to see more nuns and religious sisters anyway.

More Information:

Read Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by Pope John Paul ll (The best thing that was written by him)

Image Source: Photograph believed to be in the Public Domain

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Morning Prayer

I would like to take a minute and explain the great importance of a morning offering (Lauds). In a morning offering we offer up to God our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of the day for His glory and for His intentions.

"All that we do without offering it to God is wasted" (St. John Vianney)

I strongly recommend learning a morning offering and reciting it everday when you wake. This is not only showing that we wish to serve God that day but also that we love Him enough to put Him first at the beginning of a new day.

A Morning Offering:

O, My Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary I offer thee my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world. I offer them for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart: the salvation of souls, reparation of sin, and the reunion of all Christians. I offer them for the intentions of our bishops and all the apostles of prayer, and in particular those recommended by our Holy Father this month.

For those that are interested, the Liturgy of the Hours is a great way to pray each day. It is the prayer of the Church, which is prayed a specific times each day by the pope, priests, bishops, nuns, monks, and many lay people. Ebrievary offers some of the daily prayers online, but I would suggest purchasing a book instead.

"Now, throughout the day, offer up your harships and sacrifices to Jesus, uniting them with His sufferings and merits so that our works gain the merit they can never have apart from Him. It is especially beneficial to offer them to Mary to give to Jesus so that her intercession as Queen Mother of Israel renders them more pleasing.

The Morning Offering can be renewed throughout the day with simple short prayers (called "ejaculations" or "aspirations"), for ex., 'All for Thee, Jesus!'" (Source Read More Here)

Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain, Title Unknown

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Feast of the Transfiguration

Transfiguration by Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo, 16th century

Feast (1969 Calendar): August 6
Double of the II Class (1955 Calendar): August 6

Today is the celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration, when we recall Christ's divinity showing forth on Mount Tabor. This event foreshadowed the glorious Resurrection and Ascension of Christ that would occur after His death on the Cross. This is the beginning of a 40-day before until the Feast of the Holy Cross.

Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother John, and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus.Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them. As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant. Mark 9:2-10

Yet, the greatest mystery in this was not that Christ shone forth in glory. The true mystery is in that Christ kept that light and divinity hidden all during his earthly ministry to save our souls. The 4th Reading at Matins is from a sermon by St. Leo the Great who wrote:

The Lord taketh chosen witnesses, and in their presence, revealeth His glory. That form of body which He had in common with other men, He so transfigured with light, that His Face did shine as the sun, and His raiment became exceeding white as snow. Of this metamorphosis the chief work was to remove from the hearts of the disciples the stumbling at the Cross. Before their eyes was unveiled the splendour of His hidden majesty, that the lowliness of His freely-chosen suffering might not confound their faith. But none the less was there here laid by the Providence of God a solid foundation for the hope of the Holy Church, whereby the whole body of Christ should know with what a change it is yet to be honoured. The members of that body whose Head hath already been transfigured in light may promise themselves a share in His glory.

Before the changes to the Roman Missal in 1955, the Preface for the Nativity was used in Masses today. This changed to the common preface and was included as the preface in the 1962 Missal. The Preface for the Nativity though indicates the hidden reality we contemplate today:

It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to Thee, holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: for through the Mystery of the Word made flesh, new radiance from Thy glory hath so shone on the eye of the soul that the recognition of our God made visible draweth us to love what is invisible. And therefore with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominations, and with all the host of the heavenly army we sing a hymn to Thy glory, evermore saying: Sanctus... 

The Transfiguration only became a feast of general observance in the mid-15th century. When it did, the Feast of Ss. Sixtus II and Companions, which was kept on August 6th, was reduced to a Commemoration. Dom Gueranger has more of the history of how this feastday became universal in the Roman Catholic Church:

The origin of today's feast in the West is not so easy to determine. But the authors who place its introduction into our countries as late as 1457, when Callixtus III promulgated by precept a new Office enriched with indulgences, overlook the fact that the pontiff speaks of the feast as already widespread and ‘commonly called of the Saviour.’ It is true that in Rome especially the celebrity of the more ancient feast of St. Sixtus II, with its double Station at the two cemeteries which received respectively the relics of the pontiff-martyr and those of his companions, was for a long time an obstacle to the acceptance of another feast on the same day. Some churches, to avoid the difficulty, chose another day in the year to honor the mystery. As the feast of our Lady of the Snow, so that of the Transfiguration had to spread more or less privately, with various offices and masses, until the supreme authority should intervene to sanction and bring to unity the expressions of the devotion of different Churches. Callixtus III considered that the hour had come to consecrate the work of centuries; he made the solemn and definitive insertion of this feast of triumph on the universal Calendar the memorial of the victory which arrested, under the walls of Belgrade in 1456, the onward march of Mahomet II, conqueror of Byzantium, against Christendom.

Already in the ninth century, if not even earlier, martyrologies and other liturgical documents furnish proofs that the mystery was celebrated with more or less solemnity, or at least with some sort of commemoration, in divers places. In the twelfth century Peter the Venerable, under whose government Cluny took possession of Thabor, ordained that ‘in all the monasteries or churches belonging to his order, the Transfiguration should be celebrated with the same degree of solemnity as the Purification of our Lady'; and he gave for his reason, besides the dignity of the mystery, the 'custom, ancient or recent, of many churches throughout the world, which celebrate the memory of the said Transfiguration with no less honour than the Epiphany and the Ascension of our Lord.’

On the other hand at Bologna, in 1233, in the juridical instruction preliminary to the canonization of St. Dominic, the death of the saint is declared to have taken place on the feast of St. Sixtus, without mention of any other. It is true, and we believe this detail is not void of meaning, that a few years earlier, Sicardus of Cremona thus expressed himself in his Mitrale: 'We celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord on the day of St. Sixtus.’ Is not this sufficient indication that while the feast of the latter continued to give its traditional name to the eighth of the Ides of August, it did not prevent a new and greater solemnity from taking its place beside it, preparatory to absorbing it altogether? For he adds: ‘Therefore on this same day, as the Transfiguration refers to the state in which the faithful will be after the resurrection, we consecrate the Blood of our Lord from new wine, if it is possible to obtain it, in order to signify what is said in the Gospel: I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father. But if it cannot be procured, then at least a few ripe grapes are pressed over the chalice, or else grapes are blessed and distributed to the people.’

The author of the Mitrale died in 1215; yet he was only repeating the explanation already given in the second half of the preceding century by John Beleth, Rector of the Paris University. We must admit that the very ancient benedictiouvœ found in the Sacramentaries on the day of St. Sixtus has nothing corresponding to it in the life of the great pope which could justify our referring to him. The Greeks, who have also this blessing of grapes fixed for August 6, celebrate on this day the Transfiguration alone, without any commemoration of Sixtus II. Be it as it may, the words of the Bishop of Cremona and of the Rector of Paris prove that Durandus of Mende, giving at the end of the thirteenth century the same symbolical interpretation, did but echo a tradition more ancient than his own time.

St. Pius V did not alter the ancient office of the feast, except the lessons of the first and second Nocturns, which were taken from Origen, and the three hymns for Vespers, Matins, and Lauds, which resembled somewhat in structure the corresponding hymns of the Blessed Sacrament. The hymn now used for Vespers and Matins, which we here give, is borrowed from the beautiful canticle of Prudentius on the Epiphany in his Cathemerinon.

Collect:

O God, Who in the glorious Transfiguration of Thine only-begotten Son didst confirm the mysteries of the faith by the witness of the fathers, and in the voice which came down from the shining cloud, didst wondrously foreshow the perfect adoption of sons: vouchsafe in Thy loving kindness, to make us coheirs with this King of glory, and to grant that we may be made partakers of that same glory. Through the same our Lord.

Prayer Source: 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal

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Minnesota Abortion-Fetal Pain Law

Minnesota is the second state in America to have the Unborn Child Pain Prevention Act, second to Arkansas. This bill also appears to have greatly helped cut down on abortions:

"The Minnesota Department of Health says there were 13,788 abortions reported in 2004, compared to 14,174 in 2003 -- a decrease of nearly three percent.

The abortion report covers 2004, the first full year the Woman's Right to Know law was in place. The law requires abortion centers to inform women of abortion risks, complications and alternatives. It also provides women with facts on fetal development throughout gestation, the facts of fetal pain and other vital information.
In 2004, a total of 15,859 pregnant women sought out information about abortion services, but more than 2,100 decided against having an abortion." (Bold emphasis mine)

Source

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Contaception Bill

I just learned that Gov. Pataki of New York, an abortion supporter, plans on vetoing a bill that would make emergency contraception available over the counter. Although he is a Catholic, he plans to veto it because the bill does not have age restrictions for minors. This is definitely a good step in spreading a pro-life agenda, but I only wish that he would stop supporting abortion rights.

I have also learned that Gov. Romney of Massachusetts has vetoed the same bill. Does anyone know of the faith of this bill in any other states?

More Information:

Why is Contraception Wrong?

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Brain-dead woman gives birth to child

After several months of waiting and praying, I just learned that Susan Torres, a brain-dead woman, has just sucessfully given birth to a healthy baby girl. This is a great moment when we know that her child has survived against many great odds. Due to Susan's melanoma, she suffered a stroke on May 7, 2005, and has been on life support. Her husband also has had to quit his job, but I'm very happy to see that the child is safe.

Yesterday on August 2, 2005, the child was born. Unfortunately, Susan Torres (the mother) died today (August 3, 2005) after her life support machines were disconnected. Please say a prayer for her soul. She was raised a protestant but converted to Catholicism in college.

September 11, 2005 Update: The baby has died.

Any donations should be sent to the following address:

The Susan M. Torres Fund
c/o Faith and Action
P.O. Box 34105
Washington, D.C. 20043-0105

Visit the Susan M. Torres Fund.

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Stem Cell Research Update

Update. Try this link and click on "send message". Let me know if this works for those of you that couldn't get it to send before.

Original Post: We, as Catholics, believe embryonic stem cell research is intrinsically evil and never acceptable because it requires the killing of a human embryo, a life (read more). We do, however, eagerly support adult stem cell research and umbilical cord stem cell research. Besides the morality, these forms of research have already helped people; no one has ever been helped by embryonic stem cell research.

As of today, July 29th, 2005, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has voiced his change of position on the matter and now supports embryonic stem cell research. I urge everyone to write to their Senators and urge them not to support S. 471, which funds embryonic stem cell research. Also, ask them to support S. 658 (ban on human cloning) and S. 1373 (ban the creation of human/animal chimeras).

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