Mother's Day and Father's Day

A message from Mother Angelica can be found here

A message from Father Corapi can be found here

Please keep them and all our priests and religious in your daily prayers.

Fine Art Friday - Pietro Perugino

Self Portrait
The Keys to St. Peter
St. Jerome Supporting Two Men at the Gallows
The Crucifixion

Madonna and Child

Pieta
St. Sebastian
Baptism at the Jordan

Pietro Perugino (1446–1524) was the leading painter of the Umbrian school, who developed some of the qualities that found classic expression in the High Renaissance.

He was born Pietro Vannucci in Città della Pieve, Umbria, the son of Cristoforo Vannucci; his nickname characterizes him as from Perugia, the chief city of Umbria.

Pietro painted at Arezzo, thence moved to Florence. The date of this first Florentine sojourn is by no means settled; some make it as early as 1470, others push the date to 1479. According to Vasari, he apprenticed in the atelier of Andrea del Verrocchio alongside Leonardo da Vinci. He may have learned perspective from Piero della Francesca. In 1472 he must have completed his apprenticeship, for he was enrolled as a painter in the confraternity of St Luke.

Perugino was one of the earliest Italian practitioners of oil painting. Some of his early works were extensive frescoes for the convent of the Ingesati fathers, destroyed during the siege of Florence, 1537; he produced for them also many cartoons, which they executed with brilliant effect in stained glass. A good specimen of his early style in tempera is the tondo (circular picture) in the Musée du Louvre of the Virgin and Child Enthroned between Saints.

Source Wikipedia

Feast Day of St. Anthony of Padua

St. Anthony of Padua with the Child Jesus by Murillo

My Grandma Juanita would have turned 95 today. Instead, she celebrates her birthday in Heaven.

Battling for America’s Soul - The Danger of Homosexual "Marriage"

H/T to my mom.

The Christian moral system is no minor part of Christianity, any more than the heart or lungs are minor parts of the human body. Overthrow the Christian moral system and you will have overthrown Christianity itself. Therefore, those who are pushing for the institution of same-sex marriage are ipso facto pushing for the elimination of the Christian religion... Prof. David R. Carlin

How Homosexual “Marriage” Threatens Our Nation and Faith—TFP Urges Lawful and Conscientious Resistance

Can a Catholic Vote for Obama?

Picture source here. Be sure to visit their site to see other prolife T-shirts, etc.

I found the following article at the Roman Catholic Blog

Catholics for Obama?

May I remind you the 5 non-negotiable issues a Catholic must consider when voting:

FIVE NON-NEGOTIABLES

These five current issues concern actions that are intrinsically evil and must never be promoted by the law. Intrinsically evil actions are those that fundamentally conflict with the moral law and can never be deliberately performed under any circumstances. It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to the non-negotiable principles involved in these issues.

1. Abortion

The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is "never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it" (EV 73). Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.

The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.

2. Euthanasia

Often disguised by the name "mercy killing," euthanasia is also a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.

In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person (cf. EV 73).

3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Human embryos are human beings. "Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo" (CRF 4b).

Recent scientific advances show that often medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can be developed by using adult stem cells instead. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.

4. Human Cloning

"Attempts . . . for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission,’ cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union" (RHL I:6).

Human cloning also involves abortion because the "rejected" or "unsuccessful" embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.

5. Homosexual "Marriage"

True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as "marriage" undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.

"When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral" (UHP 10).

Above is from Catholic Answers' A Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics

Gospel - 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Calling of St. Matthew by Caravaggio

Lady in Blue

The following reflection is by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on the Wedding Feast at Cana.

Picture the marriage feast of Cana.

There our blessed Lord is beyond the Jordan, gathering up His first disciples. Mary is already at the feast. The Lord comes with His new disciples, and Mary who always knows our wants before we know them, says, "They have no wine."

They had water, the water of the Old Testament, but they had no wine.

And Jesus replies, "Woman"- not mother- "Woman, what to me is to thee?" That is the way it is in the original. "My hour has not yet come." The hour refers to His passion and death, His combat with evil.

Now He is equivalently saying to His mother, "My dear mother, you want me to begin my public life,
to declare myself the Messiah and the Son of God.
Do you realize that the moment I do that, your relationship to me changes?
You will then no longer be my mother.
You will then be the mother of everyone whom I will redeem.
You will be the universal mother of all mankind.
You will be the woman of Genesis.
You will be the mother of the living."

Mary's heart must have burned at not hearing herself called "mother." So our blessed Lord, it seems, anticipated His public life.

It is not often that mothers send their sons to the battlefield. Mary did. If the Father sent the Son, the mother would send the Son.

From Through the Year with Fulton Sheen: Inspirational Selections for Each Day of the Year. Compled by Henry Dieterich.

Immaculee to Lead Pilgrimage to Marian Sites

Mahalo to AJ who left the following comment on this blog entry:

this is great! I just found out when searching for information about the movie that Immaculee is taking people on a pilgrimage. take a look: International Peace Leader and Rwandan Genocide Survivor to Lead Historic Pilgrimage

Immaculée Ilibagiza, Rwandan Genocide survivor, recipient of Mahatma Ghandi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace 2007, and author of the New York Times bestseller Left to Tell, will lead a Catholic Pilgrimage for her first visit to the celebrated Marian Apparition sites from October 28th through November 5th. Immaculée will personally lead the nine-day mission to the Grotto of Lourdes, the Little Chapel of Apparitions, and the Cathedrals in Fatima, Burgos and Santiago de Compostela.

First Saturdays

On December 10, 1925 Sister Lucia had a vision wherein the Blessed Mother appeared to her. There was a Boy suspended on a luminous cloud. The Virgin mary hand rested on the cloud and in her other hand was a heart surrounded by thorns.

The Boy said to Sister Lucia

"Have pity on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother which is covered with thorns with which ingrate men pierce it at every moment with no one to make an act of reparation to pull them out."

The Virgin Mary said to Sister Lucia

"See, my daughter, my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ingrates pierce me at every moment with blasphemies and ingratitude. You, at least, make sure to console me and say that all those who for five months, on the first Saturday:
- go to confession,
- receive Communion,
- say five decades of the Rosary and
- keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to me, I promise to

- assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls."

Our Lady of Fatima's request is that on the First Saturday of five consecutive months,

- we go to Confession and confess our sins;
- we attend Mass and receive Holy Communion;
- pray 5 decades of the Holy Rosary
- meditate during 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary
- and we do so for the purpose of making reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the sins of men.

From Fatima: A Message More Urgent than Ever by Luiz Sergio Solimeo, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, Spring Grove, PA. 17362

First Friday

THE 12 PROMISES OF THE SACRED HEART:

1. I WILL GIVE THEM ALL THE GRACES NECESSARY FOR THEIR STATE OF LIFE.

2. I WILL GIVE PEACE IN THEIR FAMILIES.

3. I WILL CONSOLE THEM IN ALL THEIR TROUBLES.

4. THEY SHALL FIND IN MY HEART AN ASSURED REFUGE DURING LIFE AND ESPECIALLY AT THE HOUR OF DEATH.

5. I WILL POUR ABUNDANT BLESSINGS ON ALL THEIR UNDERTAKINGS.

6. SINNERS SHALL FIND IN MY HEART THE SOURCE AND INFINITE OCEAN OF MERCY.

7. TEPID SOULS SHALL BECOME FERVENT.

8. FERVENT SOULS SHALL SPEEDILY RISE TO GREAT PERFECTION.

9. I WILL BLESS THE HOMES IN WHICH THE IMAGE OF MY SACRED HEART SHALL BE EXPOSED AND HONORED.

10. I WILL GIVE TO PRIESTS THE POWER TO TOUCH THE MOST HARDENED HEARTS.

11. THOSE WHO PROPAGATE THIS DEVOTION SHALL HAVE THEIR NAME WRITTEN IN MY HEART, AND IT SHALL NEVER BE EFFACED.

12. I PROMISE THEE IN THE EXCESS OF THE MERCY OF MY HEART, THAT ITS ALL-POWERFUL LOVE WILL GRANT TO ALL THOSE WHO SHALL RECEIVE COMMUNION ON THE FIRST FRIDAY OF NINE CONSECUTIVE MONTHS THE GRACE OF FINAL REPENTANCE; THEY SHALL NOT DIE UNDER MY DISPLEASURE, NOR WITHOUT RECEIVING THE SACRAMENTS; MY HEART SHALL BE THEIR ASSURED REFUGE AT THAT LAST HOUR.

Source Catholic Tradition