Holy Father's Homily - Final Mass WYD 2008 Sydney

Dear Friends,

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you" (Acts 1:8). We have seen this promise fulfilled! On the day of Pentecost, as we heard in the first reading, the Risen Lord, seated at the right hand of the Father, sent the Spirit upon the disciples gathered in the Upper Room. In the power of that Spirit, Peter and the Apostles went forth to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. In every age, and in every language, the Church throughout the world continues to proclaim the marvels of God and to call all nations and peoples to faith, hope and new life in Christ.

Zenit has the homily in its entirety

Saintly Quote - Priests

Take caution to see priests only as the dispensers of the Blood of the humble, Immaculate Lamb and overlook the faults you may see in them. A priest is a man and therefore fallible and capable of making mistakes, but this does not prevent him from being the Anointed of the Lord, marked forever with the indelible sign and having the power to consecrate the Body of Christ and administer the sacraments and to preach to the people in the name of God.

St. Catherine of Siena

Thanks to Sue for sharing via email.

Mother Angelica and Mikey

I always thought of Mother Angelica being a dog person...

EWTN Mother Angelica update

Thanks to my friend Betty who shared this with me.

A Brief Catechism for Catholic Voters

Send to me via email by Sue of Half the Kingdom

1. Isn’t conscience the same as my own opinions and feelings? And doesn’t everyone have the right to his or her own conscience?

Conscience is NOT the same as your opinions or feelings. Conscience cannot be identical with your feelings because conscience is the activity of your intellect in judging the rightness or wrongness of your actions or omissions, past, present, or future, while your feelings come from another part of your soul and should be governed by your intellect and will. Conscience is not identical with your opinions because your intellect bases its judgment upon the natural moral law, which is inherent in your human nature and is identical with the Ten Commandments. Unlike the civil laws made by legislators, or the opinions that you hold, the natural moral law is not anything that you invent, but rather discover within yourself and is the governing norm of your conscience. In short, Conscience is the voice of truth within you, and your opinions need to be in harmony with that truth. As a Catholic, you have the benefit of the Church’s teaching authority or Magisterium endowed upon her by Christ. The Magisterium assists you and all people of good will in understanding the natural moral law as it relates to specific issues. As a Catholic, you have the obligation to be correctly informed and normed by the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium. As for your feelings, they need to be educated by virtue so as to be in harmony with conscience’s voice of truth. In this way, you will have a sound conscience, according to which we you will feel guilty when you are guilty, and feel morally upright when you are morally upright. We should strive to avoid the two opposite extremes of a lax conscience and a scrupulous conscience. Meeting the obligation of continually attending to this formation of conscience will increase the likelihood that, in the actual operation or activity of conscience, you will act with a certain conscience, which clearly perceives that a given concrete action is a good action that was rightly done or should be done. Being correctly informed and certain in the actual operation of conscience is the goal of the continuing formation of conscience. Otherwise put, you should strive to avoid being incorrectly informed and doubtful in the actual judgment of conscience about a particular action or omission. You should never act on a doubtful conscience.

The rest can be found at A Brief Catechism for Catholic Voters by Fr. Stephen F. Torraco, PhD

20 Rules for Parents of Adolescents

H/T to my friend Melissa.

1. Follow Through. I’m a big believer in disciplining with consistency. If you create an expectation and consequences for not meeting the expectation with your kids, follow through on it! By not following through, you send the message that your word isn’t worth anything.

2. Watch Your Expectations. All parents want the best for their kids. The trick is to help them set and then achieve their goals for themselves, rather than to expect them to live up to our goals for them.

3. Accept Them Where They Are. Adolescence is a very turbulent time for kids. They can be a roller coaster of moods, emotions and hormones all wrapped up together. If your daughter is brokenhearted over a “crush” that hasn’t worked out the way she had hoped, don’t belittle her or tease her over “puppy love.” Remember, “puppy love” is very real to “puppies.” Affirm their feelings. They are what they are – and they are real.

You can read the other 17 tips at The Homeworld Site

Fine Art Friday - Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Self Portrait
The Adoration of the Magi
Icarus
The Tower of Babel
Harvesters
Peasant Dance
The Peasant Wedding

(c. 1525 – September 9, 1569) was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is nicknamed 'Peasant Bruegel' to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which "Bruegel" is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the 'h' from his name and started signing his paintings as Bruegel.

Source

"I Like Bein' a Catholic" Music Video

I LOVE being a Catholic. How about you?

Mahalo to Tom for sharing this with me.

Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

One of the important Marian Feast days commemorated by the Catholic Church is today's feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. This one is particularly important because we are called to wear our Lady's own garment...the Brown Scapular. She made a promise to St. Simon Stock that whoever wore the Brown Scapular would not suffer eternal fire.

The Blessed Virgin Mary gave the scapular to St. Simon Stock with the following words:
"Receive, my dear son, this scapular of thy Order, as the distinctive sign of my confraternity, and the mark of the privilege which I have obtained for thee and the children of Carmel. It is a sign of salvation, a safeguard in danger, and a special pledge of peace and protection till the end of time. Whosoever dies wearing this shall be preserved from eternal flames."

To learn more about our Lady's feast day and to learn how to become enrolled with the Brown Scapular, please visit St. Michael's Center for the BVM, Honolulu, Hawaii

Points to Remember on Election Day

From an email send to me by John.

During this political season let's be reminded of these wise words.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

--- Abraham Lincoln

Addressing Misinformation Regarding the Holy Eucharist

In the book I am currently reading In the Presence of Our Lord by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, the good father addresses erroneous teachings by anti-Catholics.

..."Without any credible evidence anti-Catholic writers often falsely maintain that belief in the reality of the Body and Blood of Christ and in the Eucharist as a sacrifice began in the Church in the fourth century, after Constantine declared Christianity to be the religion of the Roman Emipre. It is alleged, completely without any historical foundation, that large numbers of pagan priests, put out of their jobs by the formal end of the Greco-Roman cult, became Christians in name only and brought their pagan belief in sacrifice with them.

Ignatius of Antioch and several other key patristic writers long before Constantine's edict in 313 clearly demonstrate the fallacy of this claim. No one who knows the writings of the postapostolic Fathers could honestly maintain that the idea of the reality of the Eucharist and its sacramental character came from pagan priests. Since many of these anti-Catholic writers are misled and confused about the Catholic teaching on the reality of the Eucharist, we need to be aware of and ponder the message of the early Christian writers...

Father Groeschel goes on to show how early Church Fathers such as Saint Justin Martyr, very early in the Church's history referred to the Eucharist as a sacrifice. When referencing the prophet Malachi, the saint wrote "Already, then, did he prophesy about those sacrifices that are offered to him in every place by us Gentiles, speaking, that is, about the Bread of the Eucharist and the cup of the Eucharist."

Fr. Groeschel also referred to St. Irenaeus, who is referred to as an important link to the apostles. He wrote a book entitled Against the Heresies, wherein he condemned those who taught that the human body was not saved. He believed that the promise of Christ in the Eucharist must be real because the promise of eternal life it gives is true.