Please pray the fourth day of this novena for greater vocations to the priesthood. It's posted at K's Blog.Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Please pray the fourth day of this novena for greater vocations to the priesthood. It's posted at K's Blog.Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain
Zenit recently published a very enlightening article on the growth of the Catholic Church in Russia following the re-establishment of the Church there, which began on April 13, 1991.
Here is part of the article:
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Here is part of the article:
Q: How has the Catholic Church in Russia transformed itself after the re-establishment of its structure 15 years ago?
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz: Here I think it's necessary that I speak of statistics. At the end of the '30s of the last century, only two Catholic churches remained in Russia, along with two priests.
We grew a bit in 1991 as 10 parishes were registered "officially." To register, means to present oneself at the Russian Ministry of Justice to be able to have juridical status and status of a physical person.
Also working were seven priests, two of whom were older than 80; there were four chapels and two churches. That was all! There wasn't anything else!
At present, after 15 years, we now have an episcopal conference, not very large because there are only three bishops, four archdioceses, close to 225 parishes and around 25 organizations, such as the seminary; Caritas, which has developed very strongly in the different archdioceses; Radio Maria in St. Petersburg and Radio Don in Moscow, among others.
We also have more or less 270 priests and 250 nuns; in both cases the majority are foreigners, from 22 different countries.
Little by little we are forming priests and, for example, 10% of them are now of Russian origin.
As to the number of Catholics, there are about 600,000 in the territory of the Russian Federation, though some studies point out that they comprise 1% of the population, that is, just under 1.5 million Catholics. However, many are in diasporas or are still afraid to declare their faith, and they must be sought and gathered.
Continuing with the statistics, of the 225 parishes, close to 25% of them do not have their own church. They do not have a place to pray, so they must find an alternative site.
We also have a seminary in St. Petersburg, "Mary, Queen of the Apostles," where about 50 seminarians are studying. The first priest was ordained in 1999, eighty years after any Catholic priest had been ordained in Russia!
In the archdiocese of Moscow there are seven publishing houses that, over these 15 years, have published close to 600 different publications in Russian. So imagine, if every parish priest had at least one copy of each of them, he would have a library!
© Innovative Media, Inc.
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Our Lord died for us; He died for a reason not to be put on our wall or in a textbook but to be placed in our hearts to make us remember we are to be Eucharistic tabernacles to let the light of Christ to shine through us.
Source: Me
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Source: Me
~ St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389)
Friday, April 28, 2006
Please remember to say the third day of the Novena for Vocations which is available at K's blog.Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain
Questions on Novenas:
Also, a commentor of this blog asked if Novenas can be said anytime in the year. I answer is yes. Some novenas have more preferred times for their usage like the nine-days leading up to a certain feast, but they can be prayed anytime of the year. For example, I can start a novena to St. Thomas Aquinas any day in the year, but it would be more popular to pray it for the nine-days before St. Thomas's feastday.
Also, some novenas involve chaplets, which are said on Rosary beads, but most do not require a rosary to say the prayers. Many novenas have different prayers for each of the nine-days, so you would need to use the Internet, get a prayerbook, or just print out to Novena to pray it later on.
I hope this helps for the person that asked. Let me know if you'd like to know more about Novenas.
Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain, Image of Fr. James Coyle, who was murdered in the Southern USA
It is children and young people who are often the first to experience the consequences of this eclipse of love and hope. Often, instead of feeling loved and cherished, they appear to be merely tolerated. In "an age of turbulence" they frequently lack adequate moral guidance from the adult world, to the serious detriment of their intellectual and spiritual development. Many children now grow up in a society which is forgetful of God and of the innate dignity of the human person made in God's image. In a world shaped by the accelerating processes of globalization, they are often exposed solely to materialistic visions of the universe, of life and human fulfillment.I pray that our society might value children and see to it that all children may have adequate education, health care, and food along with loving parents.
Yet children and young people are by nature receptive, generous, idealistic and open to transcendence. They need above all else to be exposed to love and to develop in a healthy human ecology, where they can come to realize that they have not been cast into the world by chance, but through a gift that is part of God's loving plan. Parents, educators and community leaders, if they are to be faithful to their own calling, can never renounce their duty to set before children and young people the task of choosing a life project directed towards authentic happiness, one capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, good and evil, justice and injustice, the real world and the world of "virtual reality."
Far too many people believe in lies about the Catholic Church and never fully understand the beauty of God's Church. If you are one of those people, I sincerely ask you to please read What Catholics Don't Believe by Rev. Joseph Di Bruno, D.D.
"There are not one hundred people in this world who dislike Catholicism, but there are millions who dislike what they mistakenly believe Catholicism to be." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
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"There are not one hundred people in this world who dislike Catholicism, but there are millions who dislike what they mistakenly believe Catholicism to be." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
"If we don't want to be fools and blind the intellect there's no reason for doubt. Receiving Communion is not like picturing with the imagination, as when we reflect upon the Lord on the cross or in other episodes of the Passion, when we picture within ourselves how things happened to Him in the past. In Communion the event is happening now, and it is entirely true. There's no reason to go looking for Him in some other place far away"Image Source: Believed to be in the Public Domain
I received this email:
Eternal rest grant unto Megan, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace!
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Please pray to and for the soul of Megan L. Boever. I did not know her, but my sister-in-law did. She was 30 years old, and like St Gianna died a martyr's death for love of her unborn child. Megan had cancer while pregnant with her 4th child and gave up treatment so the baby could live. She's a powerful example that not everyone in the US is a participant or a passive onlooker in the "culture of death."
Eternal rest grant unto Megan, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace!
Thursday, April 27, 2006
"Nothing seems tiresome or painful when you are working for a Master who pays well; who rewards even a cup of cold water given for love of Him."
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