Keep
your eyes open!...
June 27, 2013
(Mat 24:37-39) And
as in the days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
For, as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noah
entered into the ark: And they knew not till the flood came and took
them all away: so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.
LIFESITENEWS.COM: BREAKING: Supreme Court strikes down part of Defense of Marriage Act as ‘unconstitutional’
NCR: 12 things you need to know about the Court’s homosexual “marriage” decisions
HUMAN LIFE INTERNATIONAL: SCOTUS Rulings Don’t Change True Definition of Marriage
ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. LOUIS: DOMA and Prop 8: The reality of God's definition of marriage cannot be changed
The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the federal Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA) and to dismiss the California Proposition 8 appeal
does not change the reality of marriage, nor does it change the
Archdiocese of St. Louis's responsibility to defend marriage as being
between one man and one woman. It is important to note that marriage
predates both the U.S. government and Western civilization.
From a Catholic perspective, it is not enough to offer the Church’s
position on same-sex union without also saying how it fits into a
broader understanding of the sacrament of marriage, human sexuality,
and the Gospel of Life as
taught by Blessed John Paul II. The vocation to serve God and society
through married life is a sacred union in which man and woman become
one flesh. The Catholic Church does not condemn individuals for having
same-sex attraction. She teaches that all people are called to
responsibility regarding sexuality. The sexual union of a man and
woman, when not obstructed by contraceptives, is the kind that is open
to life even if new life is not the result.
We understand that married persons imitate the way Christ offers His body completely and permanently to the Church so that we might
have life, and have it abundantly. This truth is written into our
bodies as well as on the pages of the Old and New Testaments. While the
law can allow other things to be called marriage, it cannot make them into the kind of union that is marriage.
ALETEIA COMMENTARY: Fr. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D., pastor of Holy Family parish in New York.
"The Supreme Court, in striking down the Federal Defense of Marriage
Act, has accomplished a societal and legal revolution by annihilating
in Federal law the fundamental human institution of marriage. The
People of the United States, acting through their elected officials in
Congress, decided in 1996 that the word marriage meant what marriage
has always meant: the union of man and woman in view of procreation.
Today the Court overthrows both the dictionary and the constitutional
order. The coercive power of the Court has been misused to force the
People of the United States to recognize a counterfeit version of
marriage as being marriage, or face the wrath of the Federal government
in multiple ways.
"Religious and other institutions which refuse to comply with this
re-defintion of marriage now face hitherto unimaginable intrusions upon
their right to act freely in accord with both right reason and
religious doctrine. This is a terrible day for the United States. The
Supreme Court has essentially said: Words, and hence laws made up of
words, have no meaning apart from what we decide.This is perilous for
liberty and heralds a flood of discrimination lawsuits and enforcement
actions that will make the free exercise of religion in America ever
more difficult."
EXCERPT DISSENTING OPINION:
Justice Samuel Alito: "Same-sex marriage presents a highly emotional
and important question of public policy—but not a difficult
question of constitutional law. The Constitution does not guarantee the
right to enter into a same-sex marriage. Indeed, no provision of
the Constitution speaks to the issue".
COURAGEOUS PRIEST: Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone: Gay Marriage, “It’s My Duty to Speak Up”
Thoughts
and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and
Suffering
19. Suffer bravely, and be content that the divine
good pleasure be accomplished in you. You must ever be immolated and sacrificed
to it with unshaken trust that the Sacred Heart will not forsake you: It
is closer to you in suffering than in consolation.
June 26, 2013
(Mat 16:24-25) Then
Jesus said to his disciples: If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For he that will
save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my
sake, shall find it.
POPE FRANCIS:
"The Church exists to proclaim, to be the voice of a Word, her husband,
who is the Word. The Church exists to proclaim this Word until
martyrdom. Martyrdom precisely in the hands of the proud, the proudest
of the Earth".
BISHOP OLMSTED: The Freedom Faith Gives
GEORGIA BULLETIN: The Martyr Who Walked On His Hands
CATHOLIC SENTINEL: Syrian priest killed during rebel attack on Franciscan convent
A 49-year-old Syrian priest and hermit was killed June 23, apparently
when a group of rebels attacked the Franciscan Convent of St. Anthony
in Ghassanieh, a village in the north near the Turkish border.
Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head of the Franciscan
Custody of the Holy Land, told Vatican Radio June 24 that Father
Francois Murad was not a Franciscan, but had taken refuge in the
convent when it became clear he was not safe at the Syriac Catholic
hermitage he was building nearby.
Syriac Catholic Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo of Hassake-Nisibi told
Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of
Peoples, that Father Murad "sent me several messages which showed he
was aware of living in a dangerous situation and was willing to offer
his life for peace in Syria and the world."
Father Pizzaballa told Vatican Radio that Ghassanieh -- "like other
Christian villages -- has been almost completely destroyed and is
almost totally abandoned." He said he believes the only people left in
Ghassanieh "are the rebels with their families, rebels who are not from
Syria and who are extremists."
"The only thing we can do, other than pray for Father Francois and all
the victims, is pray that this folly ends soon and that no more weapons
are sent to Syria because that would only prolong this absurd civil
war," Father Pizzaballa said.
The Franciscan leader said Syria is a "battleground, and not just
between Syrian forces, but also for other Arab countries and the
international community. The ones paying the price are the poor, the
small and the least, including the Christians."
"The international community must put the brakes on this," he said.
Thoughts
and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and
Suffering
18. I know of no other happiness in life than to
remain ever hidden in our nothingess- to suffer and love in silence- to
embrace our crosses, praising and thanking Him Who gives them to us.
June 21, 2013
(Luk 11:11-13) And
which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or
a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an
egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from
heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?
ESSAYS OF INTEREST
Pray, Pray, Pray for Priests!
How Catholics Can Still Achieve Great Things
Always in a Hurry
USCCB: Fortnight For Freedom June 21 to July 4
The U.S. bishops have called for a Fortnight for Freedom, a two-week
period of prayer and action, to address many current challenges to
religious liberty, including the August 1, 2013 deadline for religious
organizations to comply with the HHS mandate, Supreme Court rulings
that could attempt to redefine marriage in June, and religious liberty
concerns in areas such as immigration and humanitarian services.
ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT:
‘If laypeople don’t love their Catholic faith enough to struggle for it
in the public square, nothing the bishops do will finally matter.’
MEDITATION: Thoughts
by St Theophan (1815-1894)
[Acts 25:13–19; John 16:23–33]
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in
my name, he will give it you (John 16:23) the Lord said, even
confirming the point: Verily, verily, I say unto you. What a
shame for us that we do not know how to make use of such a true
promise! It would be alright if were only the shame this causes; but a
shadow is cast also over the promise itself, as though it were too
great and impossible.
No, the guilt lies entirely on us, mainly because we recognize that we
are not faithful servants of Christ, and our conscience does not allow
us to expect mercy from the Lord. In addition it happens that if
someone starts asking God about something, he does it with divided
soul: he mentions that thing in his prayer once or twice as if in
passing — and drops it, and then says later: “God does not hear.”
No, when asking for something in particular, one must be persistent and
indefatigable in prayer, like the widow who forced even the heartless
judge to satisfy her petition by simply not giving him any peace. When
true men of prayer ask for something in prayer, they unite with it
fasting, vigil, all sorts of deprivation, and charity; furthermore they
ask not for a day or two, but for months and years. For this they
receive it. Imitate them, if you desire to have success in prayer.
Thoughts
and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and
Suffering
15. Trust to the goodness of our Lord in the crosses
which He sends you; He will never abandon you, for He knows how to draw
good from our ills and His glory from our trials.
June 19, 2013
(Mat 5:10-12) Blessed
are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven. 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.
VIDEO: Syria: The Civil War and the Christian Minority
ASIANEWS.IT: Beirut: appeal for Catholic-Orthodox unity and an end to the war in Syria
The leaders of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches opened their
respective synods today in Beirut to discuss the grave situation facing
Syria's Christian communities, caught between warring Shias and Sunnis,
whose conflict has now spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon.
From Ain Trez, home of the Melkite Catholic Church, Gregory III Laham,
patriarch of Antioch, slammed the decision by the United States and
some other European countries to send weapons to the rebels. Because of
this move, the population "will face more problems" than in the past.
According to the prelate, the position of Western countries is
incomprehensible. "It's as if the world is no longer able to understand
anything save the language of arms, war, destruction, violence and
terrorism."
Weapons, he added, only "fuel the violence and hatred, and lead to more
killing, destruction, displacement and more suffering-economically,
socially, health-wise-for families, young people, students and workers".
For this reason, Laham appealed to the international community for an
immediate cessation of all arms transfers, and for the world's major
powers to work together towards a political solution rather than
contributing to the "division" of the Arab world along political,
social, religious and tribal lines.
THE TELEGRAPH: War in Syria: what would Thomas Aquinas do?
A decision by the Government to arm the rebels in Syria ought to be
taken as carefully as one to commit British troops. It is akin to war,
albeit by proxy, and must be treated with equal seriousness and meet
the tests for a just war. Thomas Aquinas set out three criteria for
such a war. It must be waged by a legitimate authority; the cause needs
to be just; and there has to be a right intention to restore peace.
Tony Blair, in his Chicago speech in 1999, set out five conditions for
intervention in his view of the new world order. Inevitably, both sets
of tests are matters of judgment but neither seems to be met in full.
The first question is who is the legitimate authority? It is clearly
the nation state when it is attacked or its essential interests are
threatened. Only it can decide if these conditions are met. This is not
the case for the United Kingdom in relation to Syria, so legitimacy
must be sought in international conventions. There are certain
circumstances in which it is agreed that nations may intervene in the
internal affairs of sovereign states. However, this needs the sanction
of an international body –otherwise it would allow arbitrary attacks.
The United Nations Security Council has served this purpose in the past
and although it is a flawed body, it can legitimise military action
against independent states for their internal actions. There is no
prospect of this happening in the case of Syria, which is seen as a
reason for ignoring the UN. This ought to lead to pause for thought as
it makes it hard to show that there is a legitimate authority, and so
Aquinas’s first test is not met.
The second condition is easier to meet as it allows that "those who are
attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some
fault". Assad is unquestionably guilty of the most grievous fault and
has inflicted horrors upon his people. This would make war just in the
event that the other conditions were met, but cannot stand alone.
The third test is that the "belligerents should have a rightful
intention". Essentially they need to have a realistic prospect of
promoting peace. This is hard to meet as foreign intervention so far
has prolonged war and has allowed some wicked, extreme figures to grow
in importance. The response to America's promise to send arms seems to
be the dispatch of 4,000 troops by Iran and anti-aircraft missiles by
Russia: in other words, the intent may be pious but it is not rightful
as it has little prospect of leading to peace.
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First European & NATO heavy arms for Syrian rebels. Russian reprisal expected
Thoughts
and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and
Suffering
14. You must constantly carry the cross which He
lays on you, be it interior or exterior, without growing weary or complaining
of its length or weight. Does it not suffice that it has been given you
by the hands of a Friend Whose all-loving Heart had destined it for you
from all eternity?
June 7, 2013
THE TRIB TIMES
WILL
RETURN IN TWO WEEKS, GOD WILLING (James 4:15).
(John
19:33-34) But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was
already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers with
a spear opened his side: and immediately there came out blood and water.
TIMELY LINKS
Jesus’s Heart: An abyss of love and mercy
5 reasons to adore the Sacred Heart
Mama Mary as shield against war, disaster
ARCHBISHOP CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M.CAP.: The evidential power of beauty
“Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend for the hearts of men.”
– Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Late have I loved thee, Beauty so
old and so new; late have I loved thee. Lo, you were within, but I was
outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have
made I rushed headlong — I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not
with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have
no being, were they not in you.”
– Augustine, The Confessions
A friend once told me the story of how she first met God. She doesn’t
remember her age; it must have been about 4 or 5. Her family lived in
the countryside on the rim of one of our big eastern cities. And one
June evening, cloudless, moonless, with just the hint of a humid
breeze, her father took her out into the back yard in the dark and told
her to look up at the sky.
From one horizon to the other, all across the black carpet of the
night, were the stars — thousands of them, tens of thousands, in
clusters and rivers of light. And in the quiet, her father said, “God
made the world beautiful because he loves us.”
That was more than 50 years ago. My friend grew up and learned all
about entropy and supernovae and colliding galaxies and quantum
mechanics and the general theory of relativity. But still, when she
closes her eyes, she can see that carpet of stars and hear her father’s
voice. God made the world beautiful because he loves us.
Creation is more than an accident of dead matter. It’s a romance. It
has purpose. It sings of the Living God. It bears his signature.
The story of my friend offers several lessons we might consider this week as summer begins and life starts to briefly slow down.
First, the most powerful kind of witness doesn’t come from a classroom
or pulpit. It doesn’t need an academic degree or special techniques.
Instead, it grows naturally out of the lives of ordinary people –
parents and spouses and friends; people confident in the love that God
bears for them and eager to share it with others; people who know the
world not as a collection of confused facts but as a symphony of truth
and meaning.
Second, nature is sacramental. It points to things outside itself. God
speaks and creation sings in silence. We can’t hear either if we’re
cocooned in a web of manufactured distraction, anxiety and noise. We
can’t see the heavens if our faces are buried in technologies that turn
us inward on ourselves. Yet that’s exactly what modern American life
seems to promote: a restless and relentless material appetite for
“more,” that gradually feeds selfishness and separates each of us from
everyone else.
Third and finally, every experience of real beauty leads us closer to
three key virtues: humility, because the grandeur of creation invites
awe and lifts us outside ourselves; love, because the human heart was
made for glory and joy, and only the Author of life can satisfy its
longings; and hope, because no sadness, no despair, can ultimately
survive the evidence of divine meaning that beauty provides.
If the world we see taking shape around us today in the name of a false
freedom often seems filled with cynicism, ugliness, little blasphemies
and sadness, we need to ask why. And then we need to turn our hearts
again to the God of beauty – Augustine’s “Beauty so old and so new” —
who created us, who sings his longing for us in the grandeur of the
world he made, and who renews our souls.
God lives in the summer rain, the stars in the night sky, the wind in
the leaves of the trees. He speaks to us through a creation alive with
his love. We need to be silent, and watch and listen. And then we need
to join in nature’s symphony of praise.
MEDITATION: Thoughts
by St Theophan (1815-1894)
[Acts 14:20–27; John 9:39–10:9]
And Jesus said, For judgment I am
come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they
which see might be made blind (John 9:39). They which could not see
were the simple people who believed the Lord in simplicity of heart,
while they which saw were the scribes and learned men of that time, who
due to their pride of mind did not believe, and held back the people.
Our clever ones think that they see, and, this is why they are
alienated from that faith in the Lord that the simple in heart and mind
firmly hold to. Therefore, according to the truth of the Lord they are
blind, whereas the people see. They are exactly like those birds which
can see at night, but not during the day. The truth of Christ is
dark for them, whereas what is contrary to this truth — falsehood — to
them seems clear: here they are in their element. This is so obvious,
but nevertheless they are ready to ask: Are we blind also? (John 9:40).
There is nothing to hide; you are blind. But since it is your own fault
that you are blind, the sin of blindness and not seeing the light lies
on you. You can see, but you do not want to, because you came to love a
deceptive, yet tempting lie.
Thoughts
and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and
Suffering
13. Nothing unites us so closely to the Sacred
Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ as the cross which is the most precious
pledge of his love.
June 4, 2013
(Luk 11:9-13) And
I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find:
knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh
receiveth: and he that seeketh findeth: and to him that knocketh it
shall be opened: And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he
give him a stone? Or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or
if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more
will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?
POPE FRANCIS ON PRAYER:
"I remember once, I was in a dark moment in my spiritual life and I
asked a favor from the Lord. Then I went to preach the annual spiritual
retreat to nuns and on the last day the made their confession. One
elderly nun, over 80 years of age, but with clear, bright eyes came to
confession: she was a woman of God. In the end I saw that she really
was a woman of God so I said ‘ Sister, as penance, pray for me, because
I need a grace, ok? If you asks the Lord for this grace on my behalf, I
am sure to receive it'. She stopped for a moment, as if in prayer, and
said, 'Of course the Lord will grant you this grace, but do not be
deceived: in His own divine manner’. This did me a lot of good. To hear
that the Lord always gives us what we ask for, but in His own divine
way. And this is the divine way to the very end. The divine way
involves the Cross, not out of masochism: no, no! Out of love. For love
to the very end”.
ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON: A Word from the Lord and a Saint as to what Prayer Does by Msgr. Charles Pope
VATICAN RADIO: The Apostleship of Prayer in cyberspace
Thoughts
and Sayings of Saint Margaret Mary: Love of the Cross, Contempt and
Suffering
12. This is the thought He wishes me to dwell upon:
"The cross do I glory to bear,
And love to it leadeth me e'er;
Love divine my entire being doth own,
And for me, love sufficeth alone".
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