Weekly Discussion Topic One!

I'm going to start a weekly discussion topic , which will provide a Catholic viewpoint some issue concerning the Church. This week, starting tomorrow, will be on contraception.

I along with Alex and Auron will post our opinions, and I would like anyone interested to come here and comment on those posts and others. I will begin tomorrow. See you there

Thanks.

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A Weekly Discussion Topic...

After thinking about how to interest people in the blog I decided to begin a weekly discussion topic. This discussion will center around issues concerning the Church as well as moral teachings on some controversial issues. I have yet to decided what the first topic will be, but it will begin on Monday.

I have recently added two members to this blog making the total three members. I feel this will provide discussion and debate, which is much better than just me telling my opinions. I also feel that three is a fair number, and I plan to keep the number of members at three at least for the immediate future.

Concerning the weekly topics, I along with my fellow two members will be posting our position on the topic with opinions, facts, and web links, and I encourage all readers to also contribute to the discussion. The discussion will provide everyone here, including myself, a deeper understanding of his or her faith while it will hopefully promote more traffic to this site.

I will start a new poll every Sunday so please vote in the poll each week by clicking on the voting button at the bottom of the right hand column.

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Miracles of the Rosary

"Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world." Pope Pius IX

The Rosary goes back to the very first centuries when the early Christians recited the 150 consecutive Hail Mary's to the Blessed Virgin, though it was done without the beads that we use today. This devotion was known in the early Church as the 150 psalms to Jesus and Mary, prefigured by the 150 Psalms of the Old Testament.

In 1214 the Blessed Virgin actually appeared to St. Dominic in his chapel and handed him the beads of the Rosary with the commission that he spread this age-old devotion throughout the world. Through the power of the Rosary he went about preaching and converting thousands everywhere, as he cast out devils, cured the sick, and even raised the dead to life on three occasions. And to think that we have these pearls of grace at our disposal today. With the Rosary we hold the power of God in our hands.

No Catholic should be ignorant of the Rosary. While not required under penalty of sin, all Catholics should nevertheless make it a part of their routine to offer at least five decades of the Holy Rosary every single day, as our Blessed Mother requested in 1917. This request was accompanied by miracles as further proof of their supernatural origin.

Some of the many Rosary miracles include:

1. The Miracle during the Battle of Lepanto
2. The Rosary Miracle at Hiroshima
3. The Miracle of the Sun
4. The Expelling of the Soviets from Austria

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Do You Have Faith?

Throughout our entire lives we will suffer through various crosses as well as joys, but we most focus growing in our relationship to God (Read more: Why is there evil).

I'm sure that we all will be burdened by sorrow and suffering and our faith will be challenged. In those moments of temptation and trial don't ask yourself if you have faith but rather if you would die for your faith. For Our Lord, Jesus Christ, heard the temptations of Satan in the desert as well as in the Garden of Gethsemane asking if the cup could pass from Him. But, He remained faithful and loved us to the end.

"Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Do you love the Lord enough to die for Him? If you say "yes" then you certainly have faith and thank the Lord for revealing Himself to you as you go forth in life nearing your inevitable crosses but realizing that without the Cross there is no Resurrection.

Jesus said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). May the Lord's peace be with all who read this. God Bless you all.

Note: Scripture references are all from the Douay-Rheims Bible.

Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain

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Spain Legalizes Homosexual Marriage

Today the country of Spain legalized gay marriage and now numbers among the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada, as of last Tuesday, which has legalized gay marriage. According to media reports, polls that 75% of the electorate supports the government's liberal policies.

That is extremely sad that people that consider themselves Catholic would go against Church teachings. Look clearly to St. Francis of Assisi and other saints; St. Francis was a man that greatly opposed the bureaucracy of the Vatican at the time, but he remained Catholic and loved the Catholic faith.

Spain is 94% Catholic, but Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has done a lot against the Church, and therefore against Christ, including legalizing homosexual marriage in Spain. Spain is a highly Catholic nation but is falling to the "dictatorship of relativism". Seeing the faith of the majority of Spanish citizens, I strongly disagree with the quotation above.

If you begin to doubt just one article of the faith or a moral teaching then you begin the lose the entire faith. This has been proved time and time again when people leave the Church because they believe in their own morals and ideas. But, in truth, only God's morals matter because, after all, it is the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.

The Bible, both directly and indirectly, condemns gay marriage.

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 19:1–24; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Mark 10:17–23; John 8:3–11; Romans 1:18–32; 3:23; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; Galatians 6:1–5; 1 Timothy 1:9–10; 2 Timothy 3:16–17; James 3:2; 5:17

One key example: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, because it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22, Douay-Rheims)

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Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Fridays?

Few non-Catholics understand this practice at all. And the sad truth is that many Catholics nowadays fail to properly observe these practices since abstinence from meat is actually required all year long - NOT just during Lent.

Our Lord endured a cruel and barbaric death on a Friday. Catholics observe Fridays as a required day of penance year round in honor of the Lord's death on Friday. The Code of Canon Law of the Church helps stipulate the requirements on Catholics for how this penance is to be observed. 

Catholics are required without exception to abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent. And Catholics are also required to abstain from meat on all Fridays of the year unless the Bishops Conference of that area allows an alternative penance to be performed. Many faithful Catholics however choose just to honor the tradition of fish on Fridays year-round instead of substituting an alternative. Note, in Lent, there is no substituting allowed. In fact, this required is binding on all Catholics except when Friday is a Holy Day of Obligation and thus the requirement for abstinence is abrogated.

Why Is Fish Allowed?

Today many people wonder why Catholics eat fish while not eating meat. This goes back to the era of Christ when fish was all too common and other forms of meat were much harder to come by. In the very early Church, not even fish was eaten on days of abstinence until around the 6th century. The bottom line is that we must have penance on certain days of the year, and the Church observes a common penance in the form of abstinence as a means of unity among its members. We are all in it together. 

We do not abstain from meat on Fridays for instance because the meat is unclean or evil. It is the act of disobedience which is evil since the Church has the authority to require us to abstain from meat at set times. As Fr. Michael Müller remarks in his Familiar Explanation of Christian Doctrine from 1874: "It is not the food, but the disobedience that defiles a man." To eat meat on a forbidden day unintentionally, for instance, is no sin. As the Scriptures affirm it is not what goes into one's mouth that defiles a man but that disobedience which comes from the soul (cf. Matthew 15:11).

Yet, even with such a distinction, the Church has historically been wise to change disciplines only very slowly and carefully. The custom of fasting and abstinence goes back to the very apostles themselves. As Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once remarked, "It is a long-established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public worship any ceremony, object or prayer which once occupied a place in that worship." The same may be said for matters concerning either Holy Days of Obligation or fast days. What our forefathers held sacred should remain sacred to us in an effort to preserve our catholicity not only with ourselves but with our ancestors who see God now in Heaven.

Read Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Fridays? for more information. And read the Rules for Fasting and Abstinence for much more information.

1822 Catholic Almanac New York

A Recap from the Baltimore Catechism:

Q. 1344. What do you mean by days of abstinence?

A. By days of abstinence I mean days on which no meat at all may be taken (complete abstinence) or on which meat may be taken only once a day (partial abstinence). This is explained in the regulations for Lent. All the Fridays of the year are days of abstinence except when a holy day of obligation falls on a Friday outside of Lent.

Q. 1346. Why does the Church command us to fast and abstain?

A. The Church commands us to fast and abstain, in order that we may mortify our passions and satisfy for our sins.

Q. 1347. What is meant by our passions and what by mortifying them?

A. By our passions are meant our sinful desires and inclinations. Mortifying them means restraining them and overcoming them so that they have less power to lead us into sin.

Q. 1348. Why does the Church command us to abstain from flesh-meat on Fridays?

A. The Church commands us to abstain from flesh-meat on Fridays in honor of the day on which our Savior died.

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If Roe v. Wade is Overturned

Then abortion would only be illegal in 7 states immediately. Legislation in other states would have to follow, but that is a goal that we should want to support. The elimination of abortion is one of the greatest goals of the pro-life movement, and it rightfully should be the case because abortion is the single greatest holocaust in human history. Millions of lives have died, and we can only hope for an end to abortion.

"The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between." (Mother Teresa)

But, the end must occur through great prayer and action. We should continue to trust into our Eternal Father to "deliver us from evil". I urge everyone to find a way into stopping this crime of abortion through prayer and peace because it has destroyed numerous lives of children, mothers, and destroyed families.

More Information: LifeSite News

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"The Lessons of St. Francis" by John Michael Talbot

 Well, I just finished “The Lessons of St. Francis” by John Michael Talbot. I had just written a very long and informative review, but my computer suddenly froze and I lost everything.

I don’t have the time to write the review in such detail again, but I will say how great the book was. It talked about St. Francis’ life in a way that separated it into a chapter on a certain aspect including one on humility, creativity, chastity, community, peace, prayer, et cetera. Each chapter offered examples of Francis’ life, quotation from other individuals, and good insight from the author, who is a Franciscan in Arkansas.

My favorite chapter was the chapter on creation, where Francis shows his love of all life because everything is a creation from the Divine and deserving of respect. Francis however wouldn’t agree with Pantheists, pagan nature worshipers, or Gaia theorists because God isn’t nature and nothing is greater than God. But, Francis did love everything that came as God’s gift and refused to eat certain animals such as lambs because Christ humbly identified himself with lambs. For this reason I have amended my life and will no longer eat the meat of lambs either. During the life of St. Francis, he even negotiated with a wolf attacking a town and found peace, while the greatest memory of Francis is probably his sermon to a group of birds that listened attentively.

The book was very straight-forward with good advice after every chapter on how to incorporate the highlight of that chapter in your life. For example, the end of the chapter on joy talked about being forgiving and thankful while not worrying about tomorrow. The chapter on creation urged recycling and a renewed commitment to respect all forms of living life as a gift from God.

The first page of the book began with a quotation by Francis: “Preach always, when necessary use words.” This is very true on how this man lived his life (after his conversion) by showing God’s mercy and love showing others the faith such as when he created the first nativity scene. We, as Catholics, believe we are saved only through grace, and we believe in faith and works. Look at James 2:26: “For just as a body without a spirit is dead so if faith without deeds.” (Read more)

For, what if Christ only had faith and no works? Would there have been the cross?

I recommend the book and give it a 8.5/10.

Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love;when there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;and where there is sadness, joy.Grant that I may not so much seekto be consoled as to console;to be understood, as to understand,to be loved as to love;for it is in giving that we receive,it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Read my post on St. Francis of Assisi

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Ten Commandments statue may be displayed on government land

"WASHINGTON - A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government land, but drew the line on displays inside courthouses, saying they violated the doctrine of separation of church and state..."

Source: Catholic.org

I firmly believe that God should be an active part of all of our decisions. He should be the ultimate center of our faith and life, and He should be available for all to see His glory and honor. After all, it is "Freedom of Religion" not "Freedom from religion".

What is your opinion on the Ten Commandments, or "under God" in the Pledge, or "In God we trust" on our currency? I'm for these active reminders of God's grace and love, and anyone can choose to ignore these reminders, but we shouldn't be forced to give them up.

Image Source: Moses Showing the Ten Commandments by Gustave Dore.

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