And I might add, don't be afraid to teach your kids that either - Our Lady wasn't.But permit just a few summary bullet points:
- The biblical teaching, that there is a Hell, and that many go there is in no way ambiguous. When asked directly whether many would be saved Jesus answers soberly, and I would suppose with great sadness, that “many” were on the wide road that led to perdition, and that the road that led to salvation, was narrow, and difficult and that “few” found it.
- Jesus the main source – No one loves us more than Jesus Christ, and no one has worked more to save us than Jesus Christ. Yet no one spoke of Hell more than Jesus Christ, or warned of judgment with greater sobriety.
- Words mean things – However one may wish to interpret the biblical data, “many” does not mean few, and “few” does not mean many.
- Hell is, in a sense, necessary if human freedom is to have any meaning. All while Hell has mysterious aspects, understanding its existence must be rooted in the fact that God respects the freedom he has given us, even if he may regret the choices we make. But we are summoned to love, and love requires freedom, and freedom requires that our choices be about real things.
- That hell is an eternal reality is also mysterious, but is caught up in the mystery of the eternity itself. It would seem that as we move from this temporal world toward eternity, our decisions become forever fixed and final.
- Devastating – It does not require an advanced degree in sociology to understand that, to remove the unambiguous biblical teaching on the very real and possible outcome of Hell, is to remove strong motivation to seek a Savior and salvation. It is therefore no surprise that as the teaching on Hell has been largely set aside by the modern world, that recourse to the sacraments, prayer, Church attendance and any number of spiritual remedies have suffered significant declines during the same period.
- More can be read, if you wish, in the articles I have written elsewhere, referenced above. - Monsignor Pope
After showing the children the vision of Hell, Our Lady said: "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart." - OL of FatimaWhich is why this prayer Our Lady taught is so necessary as a work of charity, mercy, and justice:
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, help those especially in need of thy mercy. - OL of Fatima
An off-duty Harris County sheriff's deputy said Friday that he was afraid for his life when he fatally shot a suspected shoplifter in a Walmart parking lot.Sounds like over-kill to me.
Deputy Louis Campbell was working an extra security job at the store in the 10400 block of the North Freeway about 9:45 p.m. Thursday when he fired the shot that killed 27-year-old Shelly Frey. - Finish reading the story here.
Man throws paint at icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa
AFP - Polish police detained a 58-year-old man Sunday after he threw vials of black paint at the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, an ancient Catholic icon of the Virgin Mary believed to work miracles.
A protective pane of glass over the painted protected it from any damage, local police spokeswoman Joanna Lazar told reporters.
Guards at the monastery in the southern city of Czestochowa had quickly overpowered the man responsible and handed him over to police, she added.
The detained man had been questioned and was expected to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, Lazar said. His name has not been released. - Finish reading here.
**"Sacrifice yourselves for sinners and say often whenever you make a sacrifice: 'O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.' " (Our Lady of Fatima, July 13, 1917) - Rosary Center
"I am not the slightest interested in geography or exploration. Neither am I interested in evangelization as such. Of this I am neither worthy or capable; and the time for it has not yet come. My work should be the preliminaries for evangelization, the cultivation of trust & friendship, for gentling, you might say, for fraternization... " - The Sands of TamanrassetI knew that, but I had forgotten it. Rather, I lost track of that call.
First theholidayChristmas trees go up, and now the creche? It's still the first week of Advent.
The big, big question remains: Were there poodles at the Nativity.*Following a beautiful and firmly-rooted tradition, many families set up their Crib immediately after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, as if to relive with Mary those days full of trepidation that preceded the birth of Jesus. Putting up the Crib at home can be a simple but effective way of presenting faith, to pass it on to one's children.The Crib helps us contemplate the mystery of God's love that was revealed in the poverty and simplicity of the Bethlehem Grotto. St Francis of Assisi was so taken by the mystery of the Incarnation that he wanted to present it anew at Greccio in the living Nativity scene, thus beginning an old, popular tradition that still retains its value for evangelization today.Indeed, the Crib can help us understand the secret of the true Christmas because it speaks of the humility and merciful goodness of Christ, who "though he was rich he made himself poor" for us (II Cor 8: 9).His poverty enriches those who embrace it and Christmas brings joy and peace to those who, like the shepherds in Bethlehem, accept the Angel's words: "Let this be a sign to you: in a manger you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes" (Lk 2: 12). This is still the sign for us too, men and women of the third millennium. There is no other Christmas. - Source
A popular new trend
According to the website http://www.religioustraveldirectory.com: “religious-oriented cruises” are gaining in popularity and run the gamut from small groups participating in faith-related activities on board to Christian-themed half-ship or full-ship charters or religious-pilgrimage cruises.
“Increasingly, Christians are gathering aboard cruises for social and spiritual bonding,” the site added, also noting that some cruise lines give back a percentage of the cruise cost as a donation to the church group.
But, even for those who are simply on a cruise for a vacation can benefit from a priest’s presence on board.
Catholics traveling on a major cruise ship can benefit from priests ministering on board under the Cruise Ship Priest Program.
Overseen in the United States by the Apostleship of the Sea, the program ensures that priests on cruise ships are in good standing and helps place them on cruise liners.
Celebrity Cruises is one of seven cruise lines that use the services of the Apostleship of the Sea’s U.S. offices.
As on-board chaplains, priests celebrate Mass and provide pastoral care and counseling to passengers, as well as crew members and the ship’s entertainers. - Read more here.
I think it might be important to remember here that most of the early Saints who are honoured as "virgin martyrs" probably suffered rape in prison beforehand almost as a legal requirement. The Romans were afraid of divine retribution if they put a virgin to death. . . We do have later accounts of some individual holy women being protected miraculously from violation. The fact that such accounts exist tells us that such interventions were not the norm. . .
In honouring them as virgin martyrs, the Church does not look to the physical integrity of their bodies as the proof of holiness, but to the spiritual integrity of their will and soul.
In the case of Maria Goretti, we have an extraordinary instance of purity radiating forgiveness -- that is why she was canonized in the 20th century, that was the true nature of her victory.
With regards to Saint Aloysius: it is now conjectured in recent biographies that he himself was probably the victim of sexual abuse on the part of women courtiers when he served as a page while still a little boy at the Spanish Court. This would account for his extreme physical shyness, modesty and almost pathological inability to raise his head when speaking to people.* [During his novitiate, his superiors made him wear a large papier-mâché collar to force him to keep his face up]. - Colombiere, comment on Dawn Eden's New Project
Increasingly in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, many people, especially the more Godly, came to frown upon this celebration of Christmas, for two reasons. Firstly, they disliked all the waste, extravagance, disorder, sin and immorality of the Christmas celebrations. Secondly, they saw Christmas (that is, Christ’s mass) as an unwelcome survival of the Roman Catholic faith, as a ceremony particularly encouraged by the Catholic church and by the recusant community in England and Wales, a popish festival with no biblical justification – nowhere had God called upon mankind to celebrate Christ’s nativity in this way, they said. What this group wanted was a much stricter observance of the Lord’s day (Sundays), but the abolition of the popish and often sinful celebration of Christmas, as well as of Easter, Whitsun and assorted other festivals and saints’ days. - The History of Christmas in England.
Signed,
Jimmy Olsen*, Cub Investigative Reporter
"A spirit of watchfulness, vigilance and patient endurance. But in order to have this patient endurance regarding end-time events, whether social or political or personal, the exercise of patience is extremely necessary....
The work of the Church is to liberate people, to redeem people. When people lean towards interpreting the signs of the times and the future, this mania about the things to come is often alienating people from the essence of spirituality - from their personal struggle, the purification of the heart, our personal trauma, and our need to become well, to cure our passions. This is the heart of the problem." - Metropolitan Neophytos on prophecies.
"Behold! You have heard all of my foolishness. Quiet down then and be occupied with God; and, ceasing from vain talk, pay attention to your passions, concerning which passions you will be required to give an account in the Day of Judgement. For concerning these things you will not be required: ‘Why did you not know these things or learn these others?'" - St. Barsanuphios
[Elder Porphyrios] did not like for us to occupy ourselves with dates and eschatology. He said that the best way to prepare ourselves for the hour of Christ is to remove the Antichrist from within ourselves and to occupy ourselves with Christ. Then, even if we are called to martyrdom, we will go.
If Constantinople will be freed or not, this is the concern of the politicians and of the military rulers, and not of the monks nor even the archpriests. If the Antichrist will come, this must be the concern of the archpriests and it is their duty to inform the people. And when that time comes, God will provide us with illumined archpriests who will in turn illumine the people. We the monks, if we are members of the priesthood, we need to liturgize for the salvation of the entire universe. And if we happen to be simple monks, we need to weep over our sins. - Elder Porphyrios
Financial and moral truth? Photo/story
"I wrote the book because I was concerned that there's such a false set of assumptions of what a market economy is and that it's completely disconnected from the moral life," he explained.
"I'm also using the book to give a sort of autobiography," said Fr. Sirico, who wrote the book using parables of his life to ''tell a moral.'' - Source
In an act of courage 43 year old Father Fadi Haddad set off by car to negotiate the release of one of his parishioners, who had been kidnapped. A week later, it became clear that the parish priest from Qatana, some 20 kilometers south-west of Damascus, had paid the highest price. On Oct. 25th, his lifeless and mutilated body was found on the side of a road. Qatana had been terrorized by radical fighters, locals told Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). “‘Extremists went through the streets shouting ‘Alawites to the grave, Christians to Beirut’. They want to kick us out”. A pastor who often provided Haddad with Bibles and who met him a few days before he was kidnapped told us ‘Father Fadi’s superiors had asked him why he kept traveling back and forth between Qatana and Damascus. He responded: ‘I cannot not serve Jesus, I need to help people, that is why I have to move around.’
Christians in Syria say the particularly gruesome death of Father Fadi - his eyes had been gouged out - marks a turning point for them. Before, Christians were caught up in the war in the same way as Kurds, Druze, and all other ethnic groups. Also, a part of the Christian community in Syria has been actively supporting President Assad, thus being an actor in the civil war. - Story
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI greeted thousands of clowns, acrobats, puppeteers and even a pair of lion cubs on Saturday as the circus came to town for an unusual papal performance.Kidding aside, and with all due respect, please note: The event was organized by the Vatican office that looks out for the welfare of migrants, refugees, seamen as well as prostitutes and street children — people who by force or choice live without stable homes.
Benedict clapped and watched amused as circus workers flipped, flopped, juggled and twisted before him in what the Vatican has called a historic audience to make street performers and other itinerant entertainers feel like they belong to the church.
Benedict, a known cat lover, paid particular attention to a pair of lion cubs that were brought up to him, stroking them and chatting with their trainers. At one point Benedict even bent down to caress one — not an easy feat given the 85-year-old pope has trouble with his knees and occasionally uses a cane.
Benedict acknowledged the sacrifices circus workers make to bring joy to young and old alike, traveling constantly and living on the margins of society. He noted they lack schools for their children or parish churches to call home. But he urged them to keep the faith. - Source
I [...] remember a little boy (about 6 or 7) asking our teacher, a French nun, if Joan of Arc was Noah's daughter. "No," answered the good sister, "Noah's ark was made of wood and St Joan of Arc was Maid of Orléans." - Michael PS
Thomas Peters of the National Organization for Marriage says there's no right to gay marriage in the constitution.Just think, he used to be just a Catholic blogger.
"The federal government and our elected officials through congress have a responsibility and right to protect marriage as a union of one man and one woman," Peters said. "So, we hope the supreme court will follow that precedent and respect the decisions of their representatives in Congress." - CBS News
