Keep
your eyes open!...
January 30, 2019
(2Co 1:3-5)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
mercies and the God of all comfort: Who comforteth us in all our
tribulation, that we also may be able to comfort them who are in all
distress, by the exhortation wherewith we also are exhorted by God. For
as the sufferings of Christ abound in us: so also by Christ doth our
comfort abound.
AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED:
“We do not know if every family will return to the Nineveh Plains, but
we do believe that all Christians have a duty to shape the identity of
the region. We want to live on our land, and we ask that our people
stand with us. We must preserve our identity and history for the sake
of children of the diaspora—our enduring presence here must not be
compromised.”
FIDES.ORG: Patriarch Sako calls for a vital "new birth" for Mosul
UPDATE: In Iraq, there’s life for Christians after Islamic fundamentalism
AINA.ORG: Assyrian Priest Who Saved Christian Heritage Ordained Mosul Archbishop
An Iraqi priest
who saved a trove of religious manuscripts from the Islamic State group
was ordained on Friday as the new Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul.
Najeeb Michaeel, 63, was inaugurated in a ceremony in Mosul's St. Paul
Church attended by Catholic leaders from the region and the US, as well
as local officials and residents.
"Our message to the whole world,
and to Mosul's people, is one of coexistence, love, and peace among all
of Mosul's different communities and the end of the ideology that Daesh
(IS) brought here," Michaeel told AFP.
Michaeel entered religious life at 24 and spent years serving at Al-Saa Church (Our Lady of the Hour) in Mosul.
There, he managed the preservation
of nearly 850 ancient manuscripts in Aramaic, Arabic and other
languages, as well as 300-year-old letters and some 50,000 books.
In 2007, he transferred the
archives to Qaraqosh, once Iraq's largest Christian city, to protect
them during an Islamist insurgency which saw thousands of Christians
flee Mosul.
And when IS -- who was notorious
for defacing churches and destroying any artefacts deemed contrary to
its neoconservative interpretation of Islam -- swept across Iraq in
2014, Michaeel again took action.
As the jihadists charged towards
Qaraqosh, the Dominican friar filled his car with rare manuscripts,
16th century books and irreplaceable records and fled east to the
relative safety of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
With two other friars from his
Dominican order, Michaeel also moved the Oriental Manuscript
Digitisation Centre (OMDC), which scans damaged manuscripts recovered
from churches and villages across northern Iraq.
From the Kurdish capital Arbil, he
and a team of Christian and Muslim experts digitally copied thousands
of Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian and Nestorian manuscripts.
Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from
IS in the summer of 2017, and Michaeel returned to the city months
later to attend the first post-IS Christmas Mass.
He found his church in ruins, with
rooms transformed into workshops for bombs and explosive belts and
gallows had replaced the church altar.
But he insisted there was reason for hope.
"I'm optimistic. The last word will be one of peace, not the sword," Michaeel told AFP last year.
On Friday, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church called for more international support to Iraq's Christians.
"Bishops from outside Iraq are
participating in this occasion to support the Christians of Mosul,"
said Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako.
"They are encouraging them to
return to their city, rebuild it alongside the other communities and
turn a new page based on trust and peaceful coexistence."
MORE: UK Priest Who Found His Calling in the Plight of Iraq's Assyrians
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
49. All the contrary virtues are born of parents
contrary to these. But without enlarging on the subject, I will merely
say that for all the passions mentioned above, the remedy is humility.
Those who have obtained that virtue have overcome all.
January 28, 2019
(Pro 6:16-19)
Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul
detesteth: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent
blood, A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run
into mischief, A deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that
soweth discord among brethren.
POPE FRANCIS: “You are not the tomorrow, you are not the ‘meantime’, you are the Now of God”.
VICTIMSOFABORTION.COM.AU: Broken Branches Newsletter Issue 129 – Feb /Mar. 2019
PRIESTSFORLIFE: The Bible's Teaching Against Abortion
CATHOLIC PHILLY: Massgoers pray for conversion of hearts as New York expands abortion
NATIONAL REVIEW: The Indefensible Morality of Andrew Cuomo
FAITHWIRE: Texas Bishop Posts Fiery Condemnation of Politicians Who Cheered New York’s Abortion Law
Bishop J. Strickland:
The video of the “celebration” of New York legislators as they
condemned even full term unborn children to Death by Choice is a scene
from Hell. Woe to those who ignore the sanctity of life, they reap the
whirlwind of Hell. Stand against this holocaust in every way you can.
NY BISHOPS STATEMENT:
Words are insufficient to describe the profound sadness we feel at the
contemplated passage of New York State’s new proposed abortion policy.
We mourn the unborn infants who will lose their lives, and the many
mothers and fathers who will suffer remorse and heartbreak as a result.
The so-called “Reproductive Health
Act” will expand our state’s already radically permissive law, by
empowering more health practitioners to provide abortion and removing
all state restrictions on late-term procedures. With an abortion rate
that is already double the national average, New York law is moving in
the wrong direction.
We renew our pledge to offer the
resources and services of our charitable agencies and health services
to any woman experiencing an unplanned pregnancy, to support her in
bearing her infant, raising her family or placing her child for
adoption. There are life-affirming choices available, and we aim to
make them more widely known and accessible.
Our Governor and legislative
leaders hail this new abortion law as progress. This is not progress.
Progress will be achieved when our laws and our culture once again
value and respect each unrepeatable gift of human life, from the first
moment of creation to natural death. Would that not make us truly the
most enlightened and progressive state in the nation?
CATHOLIC CONFERENCE:
“Many of the state Senators and Assembly members who voted for this
abortion expansion are mothers themselves, who felt their child toss,
turn and kick in their womb, and delighted in the progress of their
pregnancy. Many others, as well as our governor, are fathers, who held
their partner’s hand as they viewed the ultrasound videos, watched
their child squirm and rejoiced at the first sound of a heartbeat,” the
Catholic conference stated. “Many of these same officials were
themselves born into less-than-perfect conditions — poverty, health
problems, disabilities, broken families. All overcame these issues to
rise to leadership in our state, because their parents chose life for
them.
Let us all pray for the conversion
of heart for those who celebrate this tragic moment in the history of
our state. And we pray in a special way for the lives that will be
lost, and for the women of our state who are made less safe under this
law.”
RELATED NEWS
Albany Catholic Diocese loses in court on 'abortion mandate' argument
Iowa heartbeat abortion law struck down by state judge
Irish bishops urge Catholics to 'resist' country's new abortion law
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
48. Hypocrisy comes from self-satisfaction and
wilfulness.
January 24, 2019
(Mat 5:11-12) Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute
you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be
glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they
persecuted the prophets that were before you.
ROSS DOUTHAT EDITORIAL: The Covington Scissor
TUCKER CARLSON: There's no sympathy for Covington Catholic teens in America's newsrooms
NATIONAL REVIEW: Anti-Christian Ideology Is an Emerging Aspect of White Progressive Populism
EXCERPT CRISIS MAGAZINE: Infamous Scribblers: Virtue Signalers on the Warpath by Fr.George W. Rutler
There is no need to recount the
details of the latest incident in our nation’s capital, when the high
school boys were defamed by journalists with the accusation that they
mocked an elderly Native American who was trying to calm a
confrontation with a radical group of anti-white, anti-Semitic racists.
Videos proved that there was no truth to this, but a flurry of
demagogic “virtue signaling” berated the boys without giving them a
chance to testify. In the eyes of the secular media, the lads were at a
portentous disadvantage, being white Catholic males, some of whom were
wearing MAGA hats. The “Native American” was described as an elderly
Vietnam War veteran. But few 64 year olds today would qualify as
geriatric. And in the last year that any U.S. combat units were
stationed in Vietnam, 1973, he would have been 18 years old. Mr.
Phillips, a professional “activist” for the Indigenous Peoples March,
also claims to be a marine veteran which may be the case, but to have
been a Marine veteran in Vietnam when the last Marine combat divisions
left in 1971, he would have been 16. This information has been ignored
in some quarters. Journalists were supposed to expose hoaxes pretending
to be facts, but now they prefer to call facts hoaxes. I speak without
prejudice, since, having been born in New Jersey, I can also claim to
be an Indigenous Person. Besides that, as a teenager, I was schooled in
a college originally established for the education of what used to be
called Indians.
That brings up a contiguous
complaint. As soon as this incident was reported, The Washington Post,
in its role as the intemperate sibling of The New York Times, ran an
essay decrying “the shameful exploitation of Native Americans by the
Catholic Church.” For secularists, any missionary adventure must be
exploitative and destructive of native culture, even though Christian
evangelists have thwarted infanticide, human sacrifice, cremation of
widows, polygamy, caste systems and, yes, slavery. That article in the
Post made no mention of the Jesuit Martyrs who endured torture and
death to bring the Gospel to dejected tribes and peace to internecine
tribal slaughterers. Absent was mention of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha who
was exiled by her own Mohawks for her love of Christ, and Saint
Junipero Serra who transformed the fortunes of the indigenous
“gatherer” culture, or Saint Katherine Drexel who donated her vast
inheritance to establish fifty missions among the native peoples, and
heroic Bishop Martin Marty who brought science and literacy to the
Dakota territory, and Father Pierre De Smart who fashioned the Fort
Laramie Treaty of 1868, and so befriended Chief Tatanta Iytake
(“Sitting Bull”) that the venerable chief, impeded from his own
reception into the Church by having two wives, wore a crucifix to his
dying day and saw to it that Buffalo Bill Cody was baptized the day
before he died. Defamation by journalists is unethical in the
professional sphere and sinful in the economy of God, but to submit
saints to detraction is blasphemous.
A mental image of Pope Leo XIII
applauding the Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill and Chief Sitting Bull on
tour in Rome would confound The Washington Post. Buffalo Bill and his
entourage were wined and dined at the North American College there, an
event that might have been inaccurately reported by CNN. But those are
facts, and Catholics who do not know their history are accountable for
letting it be maligned.
Now, this incident with the
Covington boys may be more significant than some transient scandal. One
remembers Senator Joseph McCarthy using the media to his advantage, and
to this day his foes will not admit that he did indeed expose some real
threats to the nation. The young Robert Kennedy was his assistant
attorney and McCarthy was godfather to Robert’s first daughter,
Kathleen, although he died four years later and obviously had no
catechetical influence. But when his actions became extravagant, the
Army attorney Joseph Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency?” The
whole deck of cards collapsed. Perhaps the media are beyond a sense of
shame now, wallowing in destructive polemics, but fair-minded people
may be moved by this Covington incident to recognize the indecency of
political correctness. Such correctness is most demeaning when it
cloaks itself in an affected moralism which agnostic subjectivism has
otherwise displaced from social discourse.
Our Lord condemned “virtue
signaling” in his parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the
Temple. “I thank you, Lord, that I am not like this sinner.” There are
Pharisees in every corridor of society, but they find a most
comfortable berth in the Church. So it was that the very diocese of the
Covington students, without interviewing them or asking for evidence
outside the media, promptly threatened to punish them. There was no
reference to the hateful racism and obscene references to priests
chanted by the cultic Hebrew Israelites as they threatened those
Catholic youths. Instead bishops issued anodyne jargon about the
“dignity of the human person” without respecting the dignity of their
own spiritual sons. The latest advertisement of the Gillette razor
company portraying examples of “toxic masculinity” did not accuse any
bishop, but only ecclesiastical bureaucrats would consider that a
compliment. Pope Francis, once off the cuff and at a high altitude in
an airplane asked, “Who am I to judge?” There might at last be some
application of that malapropism to shepherds who jump to judgment and
throw their lambs to the wolves of the morally bankrupt media in a
display of virtue signaling and in fear of being politically incorrect.
RELATED
Nathan Phillips rally attempted to disrupt Mass at DC’s National Shrine
Drum-Banging Indian Nathan Phillips Was in the News 4 Years Ago, Telling an Eerily Similar Story
After Covington Catholic students caught in social media maelstrom, fuller picture emerges
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
47. Guile is born of conceit and anger.
January 22, 2019
(Psa
139:13-15) You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works!
My very self you know. My bones are not hidden from you, When I was
being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth.
ZENIT.ORG: Chair of USCCB Pro-Life Committee Asks for Prayers to end Abortion
NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER: 6 Pro-Life Catholics Speak as Roe Anniversary Approaches
EDITORIAL: Roe v. Wade: Our Darkest Hour
On Jan. 22, 1973, the temperatures in Washington D.C. were in the 50s and there was no rain.
In the plains, a winter storm
brought an appreciable amount of snow and freezing temperatures. But in
the “sacred halls” of the U.S. Supreme Court, a
spiritual/political/ideological freeze created a national “heart and
conscience blizzard” that has devastated our nation and her people for
46 years.
For it was on that day that seven
gray-haired men decided to take on the role of God, rather than jurist,
and declared that it is “constitutional” for humans to kill other human
beings, if that victim has not yet been born. This was Roe v. Wade, the
infamous decision that legalized abortion (a “nice” way of saying “the
killing of babies”) in America.
These opening paragraphs may sound
harsh, and if so, that’s because I consider abortion harsh. Of all the
inhumanity that we as humans have heaped on each other since the
Creation, I feel none reaches the magnitude of taking the life of the
innocent unborn.
Through human history we have seen
the scourge of diseases and plagues, of horrific natural disasters, the
devastating loss of life in all too many wars, and the continuing
killing of the innocent in homes, schools, churches and our nation’s
streets. But as unimaginable as those may be, they don’t reach the
utter amorality of abortion.
I have stated before that this was
my first “cause” as a young man beginning to write letters to leaders
and to editors, attending rallies and so on. And this has continued to
be the one thing that I can find absolutely no reason or iota of
rationality for.
There are a lot of things I cannot
understand, and as I teacher I’ve taught students some of those. I can
tell you the forces that allow a filled airplane to fly and keep a
filled ship from sinking. I can illustrate an atom and a molecule. I
understand the motives and reasons behind many historic events,
including our wars. And I can even diagram sentences! But there is
nothing even slightly “right” about taking unborn lives by the
thousands every year, and I cannot understand medical practitioners,
who supposedly subscribe to the Hippocratic Oath (“first do no harm”)
and continue this barbaric practice, I suppose simply for financial
gain.
If you find a history book or go
online and read the Roe v. Wade opinions, you find nothing
Constitutionally substantial but lots of circular reasoning and
ideological/political “jabberwocky”. During the recent hearings on the
nomination of our new Justice, there was discussion of the possibility
of reversal of the decision. A couple of our Congresspersons stated
that they did not feel it could or should be overturned because, since
the Court ruled, it is now the law of the land.
Let me state clearly, bad law
should never be the law of the land and should always be subject to
overturning. To those Congresspersons let me remind you that in the
19th century, SCOTUS on more than one occasion approved the practice of
slavery. Using your rationale, that should still be the “law” today,
and we all understand how wrong that was.
I’ve read the Constitution; I’ve
taught the Constitution in schools. And I’ve asked legislators and
jurists to show me, clearly from that document, where we find the right
to kill our innocent unborn. I have yet to receive one answer of any
kind. It’s simply not there!
In brief, abortion is murder
according to the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. God clearly
declares the humanity of the unborn child and from His Book we should
all be able to understand that all life is sacred and precious from
conception to “natural” death.
In addition, there is no reason or
rationality for abortion to occur. And I believe with all my being,
that every human understands the nature and value of life, though it
seems today more and more people are clearing their minds and hearts of
this truth for a number of unreasonable reasons, including finance and
convenience.
So, on this anniversary of Roe v.
Wade, I call on all of us to be active in the fight. There is too much
at stake for us to be apathetic or uninvolved. First, let’s pray,
daily, fervently for our national conscience to “kick-in” and for all
Americans to act on what all Americans know deep down, that all life is
precious and valuable. In our churches, let’s preach the value of human
life as God reveals it in His Word. Let us write to our Congressmen and
women and let them know we will not rest until this awful practice
ceases in America. Let’s support political leaders who clearly are
“pro-life” (not just in lip service but in action). And let’s support
organizations like Coastline Women’s Center, our ally in saving
children, and Grand Strand Citizens for Life as they are a unified
voice for our children.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
46. Hardness of heart sometimes comes from over-eating,
often from insensitivity and attachment. And again attachment comes sometimes
from lust, or from avarice, or from gluttony, or from vainglory, and from
many other causes.
January 20, 2019
(Jer
1:5) Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and
before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made
thee a prophet unto the nations.
ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT: MARCHING FOR LIFE, 2019
This month marks
the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which
effectively legalized abortion on demand. It also marks another annual
March for Life, this year on January 18. It’s a time to look back and
look ahead. The abortion struggle of the past four decades teaches a
very useful lesson. Evil talks a lot about “tolerance” when it’s weak.
When evil is strong, real tolerance gets pushed out the door. And the
reason is simple. Evil cannot bear the counter-witness of truth. It
will not coexist peacefully with goodness, because evil insists on
being seen as right, and worshiped as being right. Therefore, the good
must be made to seem hateful and wrong.
The very existence of people, in
the March for Life and elsewhere, who refuse to accept evil and who
seek to act virtuously burns the conscience of those who don’t. And so,
quite logically, people who march and lobby and speak out to defend the
unborn child will be — and are — reviled by leaders and media and
abortion activists that turn the right to kill an unborn child into a
shrine to personal choice.
Seventy years ago, abortion was a
crime against humanity. Four decades ago, abortion supporters talked
about the tragedy of abortion and the need to make it safe and rare.
Those days are long gone. Now abortion is not just a “right,” but a
right that claims positive dignity, the license to demonize its
opponents and the precedence to interfere with constitutional
guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. We no longer
tolerate abortion. We venerate it as a totem.
People sometimes ask me if we can
be optimistic, as believers, about the future of our country. My answer
is always the same. Optimism and pessimism are equally dangerous for
Christians because both God and the devil are full of surprises. But
the virtue of hope is another matter. The Church tells us we must live
in hope, and hope is a very different creature from optimism. The great
French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos defined hope as “despair
overcome.” Hope is the conviction that the sovereignty, the beauty, and
the glory of God remain despite all of our weaknesses and all of our
failures. Hope is the grace to trust that God is who he claims to be,
and that in serving him, we do something fertile and precious for the
renewal of the world.
Our lives matter to the degree that
we give them away to serve God and to help other people. Our lives
matter not because of who we are; rather, they matter because of who
God is. His mercy, his justice, his love — these are the things that
move the galaxies and reach into the womb to touch the unborn child
with the grandeur of being human. And we become more human ourselves by
seeing the humanity in the poor, the weak, and the unborn child, and
then fighting for it.
Over the past 46 years, the
pro-life movement has been written off as dying too many times to
count. Yet again and again, we disappoint our critics and refuse to
die. And why is that? It’s because the Word of God and the works of God
do not pass away. No court decision, no law, and no political lobby can
ever change the truth about when human life begins and the sanctity
that God attaches to each and every human life.
The truth about the dignity of the
human person is burned into our hearts by the fire of God’s love. And
we can only deal with the heat of that love in two ways. We can turn
our hearts to stone. Or we can make our hearts and our witness a source
of light for the world. Those who March for Life have already made
their choice. It’s a wonderful irony that despite the often ugly
weather of January, there’s no such thing as winter in the hearts of
those who March for Life, only the warmth of God’s presence. And that
leaves us no room for fear or confusion or despair, because God never
abandons his people, and God’s love always wins.
We are each of us created and
chosen by God for a purpose, just as David was chosen in Scripture;
which is why the words of the Psalmist speak to every one of us, year
in and year out:
Oh God, I will
sing a new song to you; With a ten-stringed lyre I will chant your
praise, You who give victory to kings, And deliver David, your servant
from the sword.
The Psalmist wrote those words not
in some magical time of peace and bliss, but in the midst of the Jewish
people’s struggle to survive and stay faithful to God’s covenant
surrounded by enemies and divided internally among themselves. That’s
the kind of moment we find ourselves in today. We love our country and
want it to embody in law and in practice the highest ideals of its
founding. But nations are born and thrive, and then decline and die.
And so will ours. Even a good Caesar is still only Caesar. Only Jesus
Christ is Lord, and only God endures. Our job is to work as hard as we
can, as joyfully as we can, for as long as we can, to encourage a
reverence for human life in our country and to protect the sanctity of
the human person, beginning with the unborn child.
We also have one other duty: to
live in hope; to trust that God sees the weakness of the vain and
powerful, and the strength of the pure and weak. Scripture reminds us
that David cut down the warrior Goliath with a sling and “five smooth
stones from the brook” (1 Sam 17:40). Those who March for Life are not
just five smooth stones, but hundreds of thousands of them, joined in
spirit by millions of other good people across the country. Our job is
to slay the sin of abortion and to win back the women and men who are
captive to the culture of violence and despair it creates. In the long
run, right makes might, not the other way around. In the long run, life
is stronger than death, and your courage, your endurance, your
compassion even for those who revile you, serves the God of life.
Throughout the Gospels we see that
Jesus has power over illness and deformity. But even more radically,
Scripture reminds us that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath itself — the
one day set aside every week to honor the Author of all creation. The
Sabbath is for man, as Jesus said, not man for the Sabbath. In like
manner, the state and its courts and its laws were made for man, not
man for the state. The human person is the subject of life and the
subject of history; immortal and infinitely precious in the eyes of
God; not an accident of chemistry, not a bit player, and not a soulless
object to be affirmed or disposed of at the whim of the powerful or
selfish.
If Jesus is the lord of the
Sabbath, he is also the lord of history. And sooner or later, despite
the weaknesses of his friends and the strengths of his enemies, his
will will be done—whether the powerful of our day approve of it or not.
EDITORIAL: Faith, Reason, Life
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Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
45. Blasphemy is properly the offspring of pride;
but it is often born of condemnation of our neighbour for the same thing;
or of the excessive envy of the demons.
January 18, 2019
(Eph
5:31-33) For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother: and
shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be two in one flesh. This is a
great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the church. Nevertheless,
let every one of you in particular love for his wife as himself: And
let the wife fear her husband.
HUMAN LIFE INTERNATIONAL: Putting the Family First
FIRST THINGS: Reclaiming the Houshold
CRISIS MAGAZINE: Parenting in the Image of God
REGINA PROPHETARUM AUDIO HOMILY: Humble Hearts of Families Change the Order of Things
Summary
St. Ephrem speaking about Our Lady,
said: “The Belly [i.e., the womb] of Thy Mother changed the order of
things, O Thou that orderest all! The rich went in, He came out poor:
the High One went in, He came out lowly. Brightness went into her and
clothed Himself, and came forth a despised form” (Hymns on the
Nativity, VIII). The same doctor and father gives many other examples
of how the womb of Our Lady, the Heart of the Holy Family, changed the
order of things.
We could extend this to all wives
and mothers who truly fulfill their state in life… they, being the
heart, when taking their place and acting in imitation of the Blessed
Virgin change the order of things for the good! What an awesome
reality! The Scriptures and Tradition tell us the proper order in a
family. “Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ. Let women
be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord” (Eph. 5:21-22); “Wives be
subject to your husbands, as it behoveth the Lord” (Col. 8:18). Ah.
These are among the unspoken and forbidden passages of the Scriptures
in these days. This fact is very telling. Although the husband is the
head of the household… head of the family, it is the wife who is the
heart. And things are changed only when they pass through the heart
that is in its place. Let us look into the life of one of these saintly
mothers... Bd. Anna Maria Taigi.
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION: Complete my Joy by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted
EXCERPT: Enemy of God, Enemy of the Family
If this is “natural” for a
Christian family, then why is it so hard? Here we run into a real
difficulty, and another mystery: the mystery of sin and evil. Before
they fell, love was easy for our first parents, Adam and Eve, but after
falling to the temptation to try to be gods themselves, love became
hard—and love remains hard in this life. The soil no longer obeys Adam
easily, childbirth is a matter of pain for Eve. We face disease, and
earthquakes, and bedbugs. Family life exists now on a spiritual
battlefield. You have as spouses and parents the choice either to
engage the challenge as an adventure or to abandon the field in some
way. There is no escape from this choice—not to choose is, in fact, to
choose retreat.
Satan, the enemy of God and of all
of His creation, is profoundly aware of the centrality of the family in
God’s plan and its irreplaceable role as an icon of the Trinity. We
shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that this leader of the evil angels
would aggressively target the family with all of his cunning and
resources. St. Paul assures us that it is Satan who is behind the great
battles that we face, “Our struggle is not with flesh and blood but
with…the evil spirits in the heavens.” (Ephesians 6:12)
Before her death in 2005, Sr.
Lucia, one of the three visionaries visited by Our Lady at Fatima,
wrote in a letter to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra that “the final battle
between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and
the Family. Don’t be afraid because whoever works for the sanctity of
Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in
every way, because this is the decisive issue. Nevertheless, Our Lady
has already crushed his head.”
Sister Lucia’s words are alarming,
but also encouraging. The final war has already been won! Nevertheless,
the battle raging around us is real. On every side, and painfully even
within our own families, we experience destructive attacks that only a
short time ago would have seemed unimaginable
Despite these real challenges, this
is not the moment for us to become discouraged or lose heart, for that
would be to forget that “where sin increases, grace abounds all the
more,” (Romans 5:20)and that “in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:38) The breaches in the
civilization of love and culture of life are many, but they call us not
to despair. Rather, they challenge us to unflagging trust in the Lord
and Giver of life, to radical reliance on God’s grace and mercy, and to
personal engagement in the domestic church on behalf of love and life.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
44. Despondency is born sometimes of luxury, and
sometimes of lack of fear of God.
January 16, 2019
(Mar
1:23-27) And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit;
and he cried out, Saying: What have we to do with thee, Jesus of
Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know who thou art, the Holy
One of God. And Jesus threatened him, saying: Speak no more, and go out
of the man. And the unclean spirit, tearing him and crying out with a
loud voice, went out of him. And they were all amazed insomuch that
they questioned among themselves, saying: What thing is this? What is
this new doctrine? For with power he commandeth even the unclean
spirits: and they obey him.
POPE FRANCIS:
"We are not dealing merely with a battle against the world and a
worldly mentality that would deceive us and leave us dull and mediocre,
lacking in enthusiasm and joy. Nor can this battle be reduced to the
struggle against our human weaknesses and proclivities (be they
laziness, lust, envy, jealousy or any others). It is also a constant
struggle against the devil, the prince of evil."
YOUTUBE: The Devil - Venerable Fulton Sheen
THE CATHOLIC THING: A Brief Primer on the Devil
EXCERPT CRISIS MAGAZINE: Satan and the Millennium by Peter Kreeft
The meaning of life, according to
just about every single page of the Bible, is spiritual warfare. This
is also what life is according to all the saints, even the most gentle.
Saints are spiritual warriors, not nice people. What Rabbi Abraham
Heschel says of God, we can also say of those closest to Him, the
saints: “God is not an uncle. God is not nice. God is an earthquake.”
Rabbi Heschel evidently read modern psychology in light of the Bible
instead of vice versa. Would that our priests had studied spiritual
formation under this rabbi!
It is a profound shock to realize
we are at war, not peace, and that we have enemies who even now are
trying their hardest to destroy us, not just to kill our bodies but our
souls forever. It is like the shock of children running across
springtime fields chasing butterflies suddenly realizing there are live
bullets in the air and that their playground is in fact a battlefield.
What happens when you realize you are at war? Drama, adrenaline,
attention, alertness, and a sense of perspective; little things no
longer loom so large. We do not complain about lumpy beds on
battlefields. We do not even talk about our “sexual needs,” much less
let them dominate our whole lives.
Without Satan there is no drama,
because without Satan there is no history. History is “challenge and
response” (Toynbec’s formula). Without some challenge of the bad, there
is no response of the good, and without the first inventor of badness,
there is no challenge of the bad. History, like individual life, is
essentially the drama of spiritual war between good and evil. History
began in Genesis 3, not Genesis 1.
Evil is not trivial, and therefore
its first inventor cannot be trivial. Satan probably loves the modern
media stereotype of himself, for it is just enough of an inoculation to
keep us from the real disease. No one really fears the clown in horns,
hoofs, and pitchfork. But the real Satan—well, that’s in another genus.
No less an authority than God Incarnate told us to fear him: “Do not
fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him
who can destroy both body and soul in her (Matthew 10:28)
Jesus took Satan very, very
seriously (though not obsessively). If we do not, how can we say we are
in line with our Lord? If we object to the fear of Satan, or even
belief in Satan, in principle, or if we scorn it as foolish, we call
Christ a fool and thus deny either the Incarnation (that He is God) or
the wisdom of God (for if fear of Satan is foolish, and Christ taught
it, and Christ is God, then God is foolish). Christ commanded us to
conclude the only prayer He ever gave us, His model prayer, with
“Deliver us from the evil one.” The Greek word is a singular noun, not
a plural participle, and it has a definite article; the proper
translation is not just “evil” but the “evil one.” And this reference
to the Devil makes up one of the prayer’s six petitions, one-sixth of
the perfect prayer.
We are at war, and our enemies are “principalities and powers.” We
cannot win a war if we do not know our enemy. Those who know this enemy
have become spiritual warriors; those who do not have become camp
followers and journalists.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
43. Talkativeness is born sometimes of gluttony,
and sometimes of vainglory.
January 13, 2019
(Luk
4:9-13) And he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of
the temple and said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself
from hence. For it is written that He hath given his angels charge over
thee that they keep thee. And that in their hands they shall bear thee
up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus
answering, said to him: It is said: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God. And all the temptation being ended, the devil departed from him
for a time.
CATHOLIC HERALD: Driving out the Devil: what’s behind the exorcism boom?
ALETEIA: The first two weapons in spiritual combat
UNIVERSALIS: From
a commentary on the psalms by Saint Augustine, bishop- In Christ
we suffered temptation, and in him we overcame the Devil
Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be
exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself
except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or
strives except against an enemy or temptations.
The one who cries from the ends of
the earth is in anguish, but is not left on his own. Christ chose to
foreshadow us, who are his body, by means of his body, in which he has
died, risen and ascended into heaven, so that the members of his body
may hope to follow where their head has gone before.
He made us one with him when he
chose to be tempted by Satan. We have heard in the gospel how the Lord
Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Certainly
Christ was tempted by the devil. In Christ you were tempted, for Christ
received his flesh from your nature, but by his own power gained
salvation for you; he suffered death in your nature, but by his own
power gained glory for you; therefore, he suffered temptation in your
nature, but by his own power gained victory for you.
If in Christ we have been tempted,
in him we overcome the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations
and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and
see yourself as victorious in him. He could have kept the devil from
himself; but if he were not tempted he could not teach you how to
triumph over temptation.
MEDITATION: Thoughts
by St Theophan (1815-1894)
[Eph. 6:10–17; Matt. 4:1–11]
The Apostle clothes Christians in
the whole armour of God. It is appropriate that this follows the
previous lesson. For, if someone, heeding the call of God, has taken on
the beginning of a new life through God's grace, providing for his own
part all diligence (II Pet. 1:5), then he must not expect to rest on
his laurels, but rather to struggle. He has left the world — for that
the world will begin to press him. He was saved from the power of the
devil — the devil will chase after him and set snares before him, to
throw him off the path of good and drag him back to his domain. He has
denied himself, denied selfishness together with a whole horde of
passions. But this sin living in us will not suddenly relinquish its
free and untrammelled existence as we live in self-pleasure, and every
minute it will attempt under various pretexts to establish once more
the same life routine that so richly filled and fed it earlier.
These are three enemies, each with
innumerable hordes; but the commander-in-chief is the devil, whilst his
closest helpers are the demons. They run the show in a sinful life —
the opponents of a spiritual life. That is why the Apostle arms the
Christian against them as if there were no other enemies at all. He
says: we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). If
they did not exist, perhaps battles would not exist either. Likewise,
as soon as they are repelled and struck down, it takes nothing to repel
and defeat the others.
So each of you look to see where
you need to direct your arrows, or at least look to see from which side
you particularly need to defend yourself. Then, defend yourself! The
Apostle prescribed several weapons; but all of them have power only
through the Lord. That is why experienced spiritual fighters have
passed on to us this instruction: “Strike the enemy with the name of
the Lord Jesus!”
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
42. Much sleep is born sometimes of luxury; and
sometimes of fasting, when those who fast are proud of it; and sometimes
of despondency; and sometimes from nature.
January 9, 2019
(Eph 4:22-24) To
put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is
corrupted according to the desire of error. And be renewed in spirit of
your mind: And put on the new man, who according to God is created in
justice and holiness of truth.
COMMENTARY: New Year’s resolutions for a scandalized church
REGINA PROPHETARUM SERMON: To Buy the Time Again We have Lost
Summary- In the Gospel, His Majesty tells a parable where God sent many
servants to those governing His vineyard. Each of them was rejected,
beaten or killed. Then He sent His Son. One of the messages of this
parable is simply this: God renews His efforts. He keeps trying. He
gives us new opportunities to reform and change our lives before the
Judgment comes. Is this not a fitting theme for the beginning of the
New Year? We are given yet another year of Our Lord to start anew… to
receive the graces of God to reform and renew our lives … to get to
work while we have time. Or as St. Thomas More puts it, “To buy the
time again that I have lost.” The Sun is still shining. Night is not
here yet. Let’s work!! Let’s do good and practice virtue as St. Paul
says in the Lesson today. If we do so, God will grant grace to bring to
completion the good works He has given us to do… prayer, penance,
almsgiving… acts of mortification and reparation… to build up the City
of God.
EXCERPT ANGELUS: From a new year’s retreat by Archbishop Gomez
I am writing to you from Chicago, where the bishops of the United
States are finishing a weeklong spiritual retreat recommended to us by
Pope Francis.
The retreat has been led by the preacher of the papal household, Father
Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., who is focusing our attention on the
vocation and responsibility of bishops in this moment in the Church.
We are praying together as a visible sign of our unity as bishops and
our communion with the Holy Father. There is a collegial spirit here
and a firm commitment to address the causes of the abuse crisis we face
and continue the work of renewing the Church.
On the first day of the retreat, Francis sent the bishops a long and
challenging letter. He concluded with a quote from St. Mother Teresa. I
want to share it with you: “Yes, I have many human faults and failures.
… But God bends down and uses us, you and me, to be his love and his
compassion in the world; he bears our sins, our troubles and our
faults. He depends on us to love the world and to show how much he
loves it. If we are too concerned with ourselves, we will have no time
left for others.” As we begin a new year, I think this is an important
point for all of us to reflect on — and especially those of us who hold
leadership positions.
None of us is perfect, and this side of heaven, none of us will be. We
sin. We make mistakes. We hurt other people. We make the same
confession in every Mass: “I have sinned … in what I have done and in
what I have failed to do.” In this life, there will never be a day when
that is not true.
God knows this about us. He knows your heart and my heart better than
we know ourselves. Jesus did not come for the righteous, but to save
sinners. And that means every one of us. That is the mystery of God’s
love for us — that even though we are sinners, he comes to bear our
sins, to die for us, and to bring us forgiveness.
This does not excuse sins or crimes or the hurt that is done to others.
Everyone needs to be held accountable and make reparation for the
wrongs they commit.
But we need to remember that God goes with us, in our afflictions and
in our struggles. He is always bending down to reach out to us, to lift
us up. He knows our faults and failures and yet still he calls each one
of us to do his work in the world. What a beautiful thought Mother
Teresa gives us: “He depends on us to love the world and to show how
much he loves it.” Throughout the retreat, Father Cantalamessa asked us
to reflect on the words of the ancient prayer, “Veni Creator.” We need
to trust more in the Holy Spirit. We need to have confidence that we
are always living in God’s loving presence.
God will never abandon us or leave us alone. We need to call on him,
personally and constantly. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to come to
us, “with Thy grace and heavenly aid to fill the hearts which Thou has
made,” as the prayer says.
We need to live more and more by the virtue of hope, with our eyes on
heaven as we work for God’s kingdom on earth. Our hope is in Jesus and
his promise — that if we follow him, he will show us the path to
eternal life.
So, now is the time for us to really live our faith in Jesus Christ — with new understanding, new commitment, and new love.
Ladder
of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions,
and virtues"
41. Untimely jesting is sometimes born of lust;
and sometimes of vainglory, when a man impiously puts on a pious air; and
sometimes too of luxury.
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