Today is the ninth and final day of the Novena for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, called the Original Novena because the apostles prayed for the Holy Spirit for 9 days. Today we focus on the fruits of the Holy Spirit as we prepare for tomorrow's glorious celebration on Pentecost Sunday. We remember not only the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary but also the foundation of the Church. For it was the Descent of the Holy Spirit that founded the Church and set the disciples out as apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole world.
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Saturday, June 3, 2006
Blessed Mother Teresa:
"We are all capable of good and evil. We are not born bad: everybody has something good inside. Some hide it, some neglect it, but it is there. God created us to love and to be loved, so it is our test from God to choose one path or another."
Padre Pio:
"Jesus you already come into my soul. With what food must I feed You? With love! But my love is false, Jesus I love You very much, make up for my love" (AD,36).
St. Madeleine Sophie Barat:
"Ah! If we had faith! If we were penetrated by the thought that at this moment Our Lord is on the altar! We would be motionless, we would forget that we have bodies
. . . . We have so much to ask for the Church, for sinners, for the Society, for our families, for the children entrusted to us, for ourselves."
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"We are all capable of good and evil. We are not born bad: everybody has something good inside. Some hide it, some neglect it, but it is there. God created us to love and to be loved, so it is our test from God to choose one path or another."
Padre Pio:
"Jesus you already come into my soul. With what food must I feed You? With love! But my love is false, Jesus I love You very much, make up for my love" (AD,36).
St. Madeleine Sophie Barat:
"Ah! If we had faith! If we were penetrated by the thought that at this moment Our Lord is on the altar! We would be motionless, we would forget that we have bodies
. . . . We have so much to ask for the Church, for sinners, for the Society, for our families, for the children entrusted to us, for ourselves."
Canonization of St. Charles Lwanga:
"The African martyrs add another page to the Church's roll of honor - an occasion both of mourning and of joy. These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only the mind of man might be directed not toward persecutions and religious conflicts but toward a rebirth of Christianity and civilization! Africa has been washed by the blood of these latest martyrs, and first of this new age (and, God willing, let them be the last, although such a holocaust is precious indeed). Africa is reborn free and independent."
From the homily at the canonization of Saint Charles Lwanga and companions by Pope Paul VI
Friday, June 2, 2006
I would just like to ask everyone visiting my blog to continue praying for the soul of Fr. Todd Reitmeyer. As a blogger and a newly ordained priest, it is very sad to hear of his passing. The eulogy for the funeral is online, so if you click on the title of this post you can hear the it.Image Source: Older Photo, Believed to be in the Public Domain, Not of Fr. Todd's Requiem
I am still continuing the 54-Day Rosary Novena, but I also wanted to let others know of another Rosary Novena going on right now. This is from Catholic Fire's Blog:38 days of Petition May 31st to July 7th
39 days of Thanksgiving July 8th to August 15th
1. Daily Pray Seven Sorrows of Mary on Regular Rosary Beads.
Meditate on each mystery, as you pray 10 Hail Mary's on each decade.
First Sorrow: Simeon's Prophesy "Thy own soul shall pierce thy heart." Second: Mary and Joseph fled into Eygpt with Jesus.
Third: Jesus lost in the temple - Mary and Joseph suffered the loss of Jesus.
Fourth: Mary meets Jesus on the way of the Cross.
Fifth: Mary stood beneath the Cross and watched her Son suffer and die.
Sixth Sorrow: Mary cradles Her dead Son in Her arms.
Seventh Sorrow: Mary watched Her dead Son placed in the tomb.
Finish the 7 Sorrows Rosary as normal with the Hail Holy Queen, etc.
2. Daily Consecrate Tiller's Abortion Mill to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Use these or similar words: "I consecrate Tiller's abortion mill to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus."
3. Daily Accept Sufferings during the Novena to Close Tiller's abortion mill. "O Lord, I accept all sufferings during this novena, to close Tiller's abortion mill."
Promise: If during the Novena, Tiller's abortion mill is closed, I will do the best I can to create a memorial to the unborn on the sight, and help establish a procession to Our Lady of Guadalupe every year on the date of its closure.
This novena has already closed one abortion mill in Wichita, KS, but let's not stop there. Please join in to close the internationally famous Tiller's late-term abortion mill -- the place where people from all over the world come to slaughter the innocent -- the place where both women and children are murdered.
Thursday, June 1, 2006
Sola-Scriptura (latin for "by Scripture alone") is a false doctrine that claims Scripture is the sole basis of Divine Revelation. It is believed by many Protestants. We, as Catholics, know that Scripture and the unwritten teachings of Jesus Christ as taught through His established Church are on the same level as the means of His Revelation among men. As the book “My Catholic Faith” succinctly summarizes: “Divine Revelation comes down to us by two means: through Holy Scripture, written down under divine inspiration, and through Tradition, handed down orally from Apostolic times.”
Look to 2 Thessalonians 2:15 if you have doubts:
Reflection by Father Franz Schmidberger entitled "The Errors of Luther and the Spirit of Today"
1. Sola scriptura (Scripture alone)
A whole string of powerful objections can be brought against this tenet of Luther and the Protestants; above all, Holy Scripture itself can be called to witness.
a) In John 20.30-1, we read: "Many other signs did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book." And a little further on (John 21.25): "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
Thus it is clearly stated that Holy Scripture presents only a portion of the world and deeds of Jesus; and it is not at all clear by what criterion the choice was made. It is therefore a wholly unjustified assumption that Holy Scripture alone contains the saving teachings of Christ and that what is left out consists only of unimportant details.
b) Actually the Lord instructed His disciples to go forth and teach. He gave them no commission to write a book. It is therefore the living teaching under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, which stands at the beginning of the life of the Church. This fact corresponds to an immediately obvious point: God the Creator of nature as well as of grace makes use of men as His tools, whereby a very special meaning comes to the spoken word in its transmission from person to person.
c) Only in later years was Holy Scripture first written down, after the Church had already existed for many years and had developed her life fully in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, the administration of the Sacraments and in the proclamation of the wonderful works of God. If Scripture had been the only definitive foundation of the Church, the Church would not have existed for the first few decades at all.
d) Whose authority is it to decide what belongs to Scripture? Or, to put it another way, what does the canon of Holy Writ contain? The criterion for this cannot be in the Bible itself, as the question can be asked only afterwards. There must therefore be a criterion outside Scripture which discerns and separates the authentically inspired writings from the apocryphal: this is the authority of Christ Himself, which carries a protection of faith under the guidance of the Holy Ghost intact through the storms of the ages.
e) Who interprets in doubtful cases and in disputes as they occur? The Holy Ghost Himself, say Luther and the Protestants. This opinion the Catholic can accept, provided he makes the restriction that the Holy Ghost must be expressed in an objective way by human standards, namely through the Magisterium of the Church, and that the guardianship of the treasury of the faith in every case of doubt be removed from all subjective association. The very number of self-contradictory Protestant sects shows clearly that God has entrusted the treasury of faith neither to private persons, nor to any and all rival groups for final decision.
Here as always, the Protestants have nothing positive with which to replace Catholic teaching. They live entirely and exclusively on criticism of our positions, and they claim that we Catholics are in principle no better than they, the Protestants; that they have Scripture as definitive source of faith, while we on our side have added yet another system of dogmas.
The answer to this argument is simple: the Catholic Church is neither a set of dogmas, nor a system of morality, but is above all, in its sacrifice in our midst, the powerfully living and powerfully working Emmanuel (Christ-with-us). The Church does not have a tradition; rather, the Church essentially is Tradition, more precisely, a prolongation of the Word-made-Flesh. Hence it is not the Church which offers sacrifice, it is not the Church which baptizes, and it is not the Church which teaches, but rather, properly and in the last analysis, it is Christ Who offers sacrifice, baptizes and teaches, and uses human priests and the Pope as Supreme Pontiff as His instruments in the mystery of mediating grace.
The Church is therefore the living Christ, established with a living authority, which is capable at any time of redefining truths (but not of inventing them!) to meet contemporary problems, to discern and sort out, to argue, to judge and to reject. "Whoever hears you, hears Me; whoever rejects you, rejects Me and rejects Him, Who sent Me," said the Lord to His apostles.
The Protestant position, in its one-sided emphasis on the Word, is nothing but cold rationalism. It does not want to acknowledge that the Word became Flesh and sacrificed Himself, that the Redemption is the great work of God in history. It pushes the altar aside and puts in its place the pulpit; the sermon and hymns stand in the center of things, no longer the tenting of God among men. So much the more painful must the reminders of the Reformation within the Church strike the Catholic of our day in light of the above: the rejection of Tradition, the pushing aside of mystery and the march to cold rationalism. As Stuttgart went over to Protestantism in the sixteenth century, the priests celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the last time on a prearranged day in the court chapel. Afterwards the prior took the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle; the eternal flame was put out; the building has remained standing to the present day; but He, Emmanuel, is gone.
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Look to 2 Thessalonians 2:15 if you have doubts:
St. Paul writes: "Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours."Look also to 2 Timothy 3:14-17:
"But continue thou in those things which thou hast learned, and which have been committed to thee: knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And because from thy infancy thou hast known the holy scriptures, which can instruct thee to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice, That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work."Many Protestants will quote the above verses in 2 Timothy as if they support sola-scriptura. However, first and foremost, these verses never say that everything which must be believed is contained in the Scriptures. And most importantly, these verses do not refer to the Bible! When St. Paul wrote this, the Bible had not yet been put together. St. Paul was referring to the Old Testament being useful for teaching. This verse can not be used to support sola-scriptura.
1. Sola scriptura (Scripture alone)
A whole string of powerful objections can be brought against this tenet of Luther and the Protestants; above all, Holy Scripture itself can be called to witness.
a) In John 20.30-1, we read: "Many other signs did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book." And a little further on (John 21.25): "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
Thus it is clearly stated that Holy Scripture presents only a portion of the world and deeds of Jesus; and it is not at all clear by what criterion the choice was made. It is therefore a wholly unjustified assumption that Holy Scripture alone contains the saving teachings of Christ and that what is left out consists only of unimportant details.
b) Actually the Lord instructed His disciples to go forth and teach. He gave them no commission to write a book. It is therefore the living teaching under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, which stands at the beginning of the life of the Church. This fact corresponds to an immediately obvious point: God the Creator of nature as well as of grace makes use of men as His tools, whereby a very special meaning comes to the spoken word in its transmission from person to person.
c) Only in later years was Holy Scripture first written down, after the Church had already existed for many years and had developed her life fully in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice, the administration of the Sacraments and in the proclamation of the wonderful works of God. If Scripture had been the only definitive foundation of the Church, the Church would not have existed for the first few decades at all.
d) Whose authority is it to decide what belongs to Scripture? Or, to put it another way, what does the canon of Holy Writ contain? The criterion for this cannot be in the Bible itself, as the question can be asked only afterwards. There must therefore be a criterion outside Scripture which discerns and separates the authentically inspired writings from the apocryphal: this is the authority of Christ Himself, which carries a protection of faith under the guidance of the Holy Ghost intact through the storms of the ages.
e) Who interprets in doubtful cases and in disputes as they occur? The Holy Ghost Himself, say Luther and the Protestants. This opinion the Catholic can accept, provided he makes the restriction that the Holy Ghost must be expressed in an objective way by human standards, namely through the Magisterium of the Church, and that the guardianship of the treasury of the faith in every case of doubt be removed from all subjective association. The very number of self-contradictory Protestant sects shows clearly that God has entrusted the treasury of faith neither to private persons, nor to any and all rival groups for final decision.
Here as always, the Protestants have nothing positive with which to replace Catholic teaching. They live entirely and exclusively on criticism of our positions, and they claim that we Catholics are in principle no better than they, the Protestants; that they have Scripture as definitive source of faith, while we on our side have added yet another system of dogmas.
The answer to this argument is simple: the Catholic Church is neither a set of dogmas, nor a system of morality, but is above all, in its sacrifice in our midst, the powerfully living and powerfully working Emmanuel (Christ-with-us). The Church does not have a tradition; rather, the Church essentially is Tradition, more precisely, a prolongation of the Word-made-Flesh. Hence it is not the Church which offers sacrifice, it is not the Church which baptizes, and it is not the Church which teaches, but rather, properly and in the last analysis, it is Christ Who offers sacrifice, baptizes and teaches, and uses human priests and the Pope as Supreme Pontiff as His instruments in the mystery of mediating grace.
The Church is therefore the living Christ, established with a living authority, which is capable at any time of redefining truths (but not of inventing them!) to meet contemporary problems, to discern and sort out, to argue, to judge and to reject. "Whoever hears you, hears Me; whoever rejects you, rejects Me and rejects Him, Who sent Me," said the Lord to His apostles.
The Protestant position, in its one-sided emphasis on the Word, is nothing but cold rationalism. It does not want to acknowledge that the Word became Flesh and sacrificed Himself, that the Redemption is the great work of God in history. It pushes the altar aside and puts in its place the pulpit; the sermon and hymns stand in the center of things, no longer the tenting of God among men. So much the more painful must the reminders of the Reformation within the Church strike the Catholic of our day in light of the above: the rejection of Tradition, the pushing aside of mystery and the march to cold rationalism. As Stuttgart went over to Protestantism in the sixteenth century, the priests celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the last time on a prearranged day in the court chapel. Afterwards the prior took the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle; the eternal flame was put out; the building has remained standing to the present day; but He, Emmanuel, is gone.
November 7, 2006: South Dakota Residents did not approve the law by a roughly 45-55%. It is a sad day. But the pro-life movement will move on!!
There have been some updates in recent days concerning the ban on virtually all abortions in South Dakota.
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There have been some updates in recent days concerning the ban on virtually all abortions in South Dakota.
- Sioux Tribe President Cecilia Fire Thunder previouly said that she would allow an abortion clinic on her Indian nation because it would be outside of the law. Well, it's not going to happen. The Oglala Sioux tribal council has voted, in an unanimous vote, to ban all abortion businesses on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The council has also suspended its president, Cecilia Fire Thunder, for accepting donations for the proposed abortion business without council approval. This is good news for the fight to end the murder of the unborn.
- Now the bad news...South Dakota pro-abortion groups have submitted enough signatures to put a motion on the ballot to allow abortions and thereby reverse the ban signed into law by Governor Rounds on March 6, 2006. They supposedly have 30,000 signatures but it will take weeks to verify them all. They need 16,728 signatures to put the motion on the ballot.
Please pray that the ban will be upheld by the voters in Novemeber. We desperately need your prayers.
Please remember to pray the 7th Day of the Novena for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit as we prepare for Pentecost this Sunday. Pray today's prayers.
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I've noticed that over the past few weeks several groups are claiming the Church will allow condoms. This is preposterous. As the Pontifical Council for Health Care has recently emphasized, the Church will never do such a thing. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, also said the Catholic Church would not back down from its long-standing teaching against condoms.
Why you ask are we against condoms?
Artificial contraception damages the gift of self. It destroys martial bonds because it prevents the transmission of life. For those who argue condoms should be supported because they will save lives in the fight against AIDS, condoms will not save lives. What is needed is education to change the lifestyles of these people. They must be taught that chastity is to be valued and sexual relations outside of marriage is wrong. This is a must and if we can teach this we can save more lives.
If condoms are allowed then many countries will begin to support sex outside of marriage and I guarantee that AIDS will skyrocket. People do not realize that the AIDS virus is so small that it can be transmitted through a condom.
From a comment in the article linked above:
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Why you ask are we against condoms?
Artificial contraception damages the gift of self. It destroys martial bonds because it prevents the transmission of life. For those who argue condoms should be supported because they will save lives in the fight against AIDS, condoms will not save lives. What is needed is education to change the lifestyles of these people. They must be taught that chastity is to be valued and sexual relations outside of marriage is wrong. This is a must and if we can teach this we can save more lives.
If condoms are allowed then many countries will begin to support sex outside of marriage and I guarantee that AIDS will skyrocket. People do not realize that the AIDS virus is so small that it can be transmitted through a condom.
From a comment in the article linked above:
We can see from results in Africa that the use of condoms spreads AIDS rather than stopping it. Tanzia went from 3 cases to over 2 million with condom use, while Uganda went from a 30% AIDS rate to only 6%, after it stopped condom use. Clearly condoms spread rather than stop AIDS transmission. The Church is right in rejecting them.And again it comes down to our faith. We are not to question God's Church. We should seek to understand everything and not just believing statements immediately, but we must never go against the Church's teachings on faith and morals. As Pope Paul VI proclaimed in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, artificial contraception is contrary to the will of God.
Memorial (1969 Calendar): June 1
Today we celebrate the feastday of St. Justin (c. 100 - 165), martyr, who gave up his life for Jesus Christ. St. Justin lived the first 30 years of his life as a pagan philosopher. As he began to read the Sacred Scriptures, he began to believe in Jesus Christ and the Church. However, what converted him more than anything else was the example of the Christians. Remember, at this time Christians were murdered because of their faith. And, they went off proudly to die for Jesus Christ. St. Justin was so moved by their example that he began to believe.
St. Justin remarked that Socrates was a brilliant man with many followers but not one of them died for Socrates. It was the example of others that lead to St. Justin's conversion. And more than that - it lead him to his own martyrdom. St. Justin was one of the first great apologetics (defenders of the faith).
Traditional Matins Reading:
Justin, the son of Priscus, was a Greek by race, and was born at Nablus in Palestine. He passed his youth in the study of letters. When he grew to manhood he was so taken with the love of philosophy and the desire of truth, that he became a student in the schools of all the philosophers, and examined the teaching of them all. He found in them only deceitful wisdom and error. He received the light of heaven from a venerable old man, who was a stranger to him, and embraced the philosophy of the true Christian faith. Henceforth he had the books of Holy Scripture in his hands by day and night, and his soul was filled with the divine fire enkindled by his meditations. Having thus acquired the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, he devoted his learning to the composition of many books explaining and propagating the Christian faith.
Among the most famous of the works of Justin are his two Apologies or Defences of the Christian faith. These he offered in the Senate to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his sons, together with Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, who were cruelly persecuting the followers of Christ. By these Apologies and his vigorous disputations in defence of the faith he obtained a public edict from the government to stay the slaughter of the Christians. But Justin himself did not escape. He had blamed the wicked life led by Crescens the Cynic, who caused him to be accused and arrested. He was brought before Rusticus, the Prefect of Rome, and questioned concerning the doctrine of the Christians. Whereupon he made this good confession in the presence of many witnesses: ‘The right doctrine which we Christian men do keep with godliness is this: that we believe that there is one God, the maker and creator of all things, both those which are seen and those which bodily eyes do not see; and that we confess the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was of old foretold by the Prophets, and who is to come to judge all mankind.’
In his first Apology Justin had given, in order to rebut the slanders of the heathen, an open account of the Christian assemblies and of the holy Mysteries there celebrated. The prefect asked him in what place he and Christ’s other faithful servants in the city were accustomed to meet. But Justin, fearing to betray the holy mysteries and his brethren, mentioned only his own dwelling near the famous church in the house of Pudens, where he lived and taught his disciples. The prefect then bade him choose whether he would sacrifice to the gods or suffer a cruel scourging. The unconquered champion of the faith answered that he had always desired to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom he hoped to receive a great reward in heaven. The prefect thereupon sentenced him to death, and thus this excellent philosopher, giving praise to God, suffered the pain of scourging, and then shed his blood for Christ, and was crowned with martyrdom. Some of the faithful stole away his body and buried it in a fitting place. The Supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII, commanded that his office and Mass should be said throughout the Church.
The Account of His Martyrdom:
The saints were seized and brought before the prefect of Rome, whose name was Rusticus. As they stood before the judgment seat, Rusticus the prefect said to Justin, "Above all, have faith in the gods and obey the emperors."
Justin replied, "We cannot be accused or condemned for obeying the commands of our Savior, Jesus Christ."
Rusticus said, "What system of teaching do you profess?"
Justin said, "I have tried to learn about every system, but I have accepted the true doctrines of the Christians, though these are not approved by those who are held fast by error."
The prefect Rusticus said, "Are those doctrines approved by you, wretch that you are?"
Justin said, "Yes, for I follow them with their correct teaching."
The prefect Rusticus said, "What sort of teaching is that?"
Justin said, "Worship the God of the Christians. We hold him to be from the beginning the one creator and maker of the whole creation, of things seen and things unseen. We worship also the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
Rusticus said, "You are a Christian, then?"
Justin said, "Yes, I am a Christian."
The prefect said to Justin, "You are called a learned man and think you know what is true teaching. Listen: if you were scourged and beheaded, are you convinced that you would go up to heaven?"
Justin said, "I hope that I shall enter God's house if I suffer in that way. For I know that God's favor is stored up until the end of the whole world for all who have lived good lives."
The prefect Rusticus said, "Do you have an idea that you will go up to heaven to receive some suitable rewards?"
Justin said, "It is not an idea that I have; it is something I know well and hold to be most certain."
The prefect Rusticus said, "Now let us come to the point at issue, which is necessary and urgent. Gather round then and with one accord offer sacrifice to the gods."
Justin said, "No one who is right-thinking stoops from true worship to false worship."
The prefect Rusticus said, "If you do not do as you are commanded you will be tortured without mercy."
Justin said, "We hope to suffer torment for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so be saved."
In the same way the other martyrs also said, "Do what you will. We are Christians; we do not offer sacrifice to idols."
The prefect Rusticus pronounced sentence, saying, "Let those who have refused to sacrifice to the gods and to obey the command of the emperor be scourged and led away to suffer capital punishment according to the ruling of the laws." Glorifying God, the holy martyrs were beheaded, and so fulfilled their witness of martyrdom in confessing their faith in their Savior.
~from the Acts of the Martyrdom of Saint Justin and his Companions
Prayer:
O God, Who through the foolishness of the cross didst teach the blessed Martyr Justin the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ: enable us by his intercession to put away all deceits of error and obtain steadfastness of faith. Through the same our Lord.
Prayer Source: 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal
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