1 Faithful Catholic

Stephen Charles Hartwell has arrived

2009-10-06T18:38:00.003-04:00

Stephen Charles made his entrance into the world at 1732 on October 6, 2009. He weighed in at 8lb 8oz and is 20.5 inches long. Mom and Baby are doing great.

Dad holding Stephen

Mom holding Stephen

Great Blog to check out!

2008-12-04T22:34:00.002-05:00

Everyone, There is a great new blog for Catholics, check out Take Courage My Friend.com. Check out the latest article Unborn Babies vs. Turkey Dinner, it is fantastic.
In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

World Youth Day Welcome - Pope Benedict XVI

2008-07-18T11:27:00.003-04:00

Below is the address by Pope Benedict XVI’s Welcome to the Youth at WYD 2008 in Sydney Australia. It's long but amazing. Read on.

Dear Young People,
What a delight it is to greet you here at Barangaroo, on the shores of the magnificent Sydney harbour, with its famous bridge and Opera House. Many of you are local, from the outback or the dynamic multicultural communities of Australian cities. Others of you have come from the scattered islands of Oceania, and others still from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Some of you, indeed, have come from as far as I have, Europe! Wherever we are from, we are here at last in Sydney. And together we stand in our world as God’s family, disciples of Christ, empowered by his Spirit to be witnesses of his love and truth for everyone!
I wish firstly to thank the Aboriginal Elders who welcomed me prior to my boarding the boat at Rose Bay. I am deeply moved to stand on your land, knowing the suffering and injustices it has borne, but aware too of the healing and hope that are now at work, rightly bringing pride to all Australian citizens. To the young indigenous - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders - and the Tokelauans, I express my thanks for your stirring welcome. Through you, I send heartfelt greetings to your peoples.

Cardinal Pell and Archbishop Wilson, I thank you for your warm words of welcome. I know that your sentiments resonate in the hearts of the young gathered here this evening, and so I thank you all. Standing before me I see a vibrant image of the universal Church. The variety of nations and cultures from which you hail shows that indeed Christ’s Good News is for everyone; it has reached the ends of the earth. Yet I know too that a good number of you are still seeking a spiritual homeland. Some of you, most welcome among us, are not Catholic or Christian. Others of you perhaps hover at the edge of parish and Church life. To you I wish to offer encouragement: step forward into Christ’s loving embrace; recognize the Church as your home. No one need remain on the outside, for from the day of Pentecost the Church has been one and universal.

This evening I wish also to include those who are not present among us. I am thinking especially of the sick or mentally ill, young people in prison, those struggling on the margins of our societies, and those who for whatever reason feel alienated from the Church. To them I say: Jesus is close to you! Feel his healing embrace, his compassion and mercy!

Almost two thousand years ago, the Apostles, gathered in the upper room together with Mary and some faithful women, were filled with the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14; 2:4). At that extraordinary moment, which gave birth to the Church, the confusion and fear that had gripped Christ’s disciples were transformed into a vigorous conviction and sense of purpose. They felt impelled to speak of their encounter with the risen Jesus whom they had come to call affectionately, the Lord. In many ways, the Apostles were ordinary. None could claim to be the perfect disciple. They failed to recognize Christ (cf. Lk 24:13-32), felt ashamed of their own ambition (cf. Lk 22:24-27), and had even denied him (cf. Lk 22:54-62). Yet, when empowered by the Holy Spirit, they were transfixed by the truth of Christ’s Gospel and inspired to proclaim it fearlessly. Emboldened, they exclaimed: repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 2:37-38)! Grounded in the Apostles’ teaching, in fellowship, and in the breaking of the bread and prayer (cf. Acts 2:42), the young Christian community moved forward to oppose the perversity in the culture around them (cf. Acts 2:40), to care for one another (cf. Acts 2:44-47), to defend their belief in Jesus in the face of hostility (cf Acts 4:33), and to heal the sick (cf. Acts 5:12-16). And in obedience to Christ’s own command, they set forth, bearing witness to the greatest story ever: that God has become one of us, that the divine has entered human history in order to transform it, and that we are called to immerse ourselves in Christ’s saving love which triumphs over evil and death. Saint Paul, in his famous speech to the Areopagus, introduced the message in this way: "God gives everything – including life and breath – to everyone … so that all nations might seek God and, by feeling their way towards him, succeed in finding him. In fact he is not far from any of us, since it is in him that we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17: 25-28).

And ever since, men and women have set out to tell the same story, witnessing to Christ’s truth and love, and contributing to the Church’s mission. Today, we think of those pioneering Priests, Sisters and Brothers who came to these shores, and to other parts of the Pacific, from Ireland, France, Britain and elsewhere in Europe. The great majority were young - some still in their late teens - and when they bade farewell to their parents, brothers and sisters, and friends, they knew they were unlikely ever to return home. Their whole lives were a selfless Christian witness. They became the humble but tenacious builders of so much of the social and spiritual heritage which still today brings goodness, compassion and purpose to these nations. And they went on to inspire another generation. We think immediately of the faith which sustained Blessed Mary MacKillop in her sheer determination to educate especially the poor, and Blessed Peter To Rot in his steadfast resolution that community leadership must always include the Gospel. Think also of your own grandparents and parents, your first teachers in faith. They too have made countless sacrifices of time and energy, out of love for you. Supported by your parish priests and teachers, they have the task, not always easy but greatly satisfying, of guiding you towards all that is good and true, through their own witness - their teaching and living of our Christian faith.

Today, it is my turn. For some of us, it might seem like we have come to the end of the world! For people of your age, however, any flight is an exciting prospect. But for me, this one was somewhat daunting! Yet the views afforded of our planet from the air were truly wondrous. The sparkle of the Mediterranean, the grandeur of the north African desert, the lushness of Asia’s forestation, the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the horizon upon which the sun rose and set, and the majestic splendour of Australia’s natural beauty which I have been able to enjoy these last couple of days; these all evoke a profound sense of awe. It is as though one catches glimpses of the Genesis creation story - light and darkness, the sun and the moon, the waters, the earth, and living creatures; all of which are "good" in God’s eyes (cf. Gen 1:1 - 2:4). Immersed in such beauty, who could not echo the words of the Psalmist in praise of the Creator: "how majestic is your name in all the earth?" (Ps 8:1).

And there is more – something hardly perceivable from the sky – men and women, made in nothing less than God’s own image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). At the heart of the marvel of creation are you and I, the human family "crowned with glory and honour" (Ps 8:5). How astounding! With the Psalmist we whisper: "what is man that you are mindful of him?" (Ps 8:4). And drawn into silence, into a spirit of thanksgiving, into the power of holiness, we ponder.

What do we discover? Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption. Some of you come from island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising water levels; others from nations suffering the effects of devastating drought. God’s wondrous creation is sometimes experienced as almost hostile to its stewards, even something dangerous. How can what is "good" appear so threatening?

And there is more. What of man, the apex of God’s creation? Every day we encounter the genius of human achievement. From advances in medical sciences and the wise application of technology, to the creativity reflected in the arts, the quality and enjoyment of people’s lives in many ways are steadily rising. Among yourselves there is a readiness to take up the plentiful opportunities offered to you. Some of you excel in studies, sport, music, or dance and drama, others of you have a keen sense of social justice and ethics, and many of you take up service and voluntary work. All of us, young and old, have those moments when the innate goodness of the human person - perhaps glimpsed in the gesture of a little child or an adult’s readiness to forgive - fills us with profound joy and gratitude.

Yet such moments do not last. So again, we ponder. And we discover that not only the natural but also the social environment – the habitat we fashion for ourselves – has its scars; wounds indicating that something is amiss. Here too, in our personal lives and in our communities, we can encounter a hostility, something dangerous; a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are, and distort the purpose for which we have been created. Examples abound, as you yourselves know. Among the more prevalent are alcohol and drug abuse, and the exaltation of violence and sexual degradation, often presented through television and the internet as entertainment. I ask myself, could anyone standing face to face with people who actually do suffer violence and sexual exploitation "explain" that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form, are considered merely "entertainment"?

There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fuelled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made "experience" all-important. Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair.

Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose (cf. Gen 1:28)! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

Christ offers more! Indeed he offers everything! Only he who is the Truth can be the Way and hence also the Life. Thus the "way" which the Apostles brought to the ends of the earth is life in Christ. This is the life of the Church. And the entrance to this life, to the Christian way, is Baptism.

This evening I wish therefore to recall briefly something of our understanding of Baptism before tomorrow considering the Holy Spirit. On the day of your Baptism, God drew you into his holiness (cf. 2 Pet 1:4). You were adopted as a son or daughter of the Father. You were incorporated into Christ. You were made a dwelling place of his Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). Baptism is neither an achievement, nor a reward. It is a grace; it is God’s work. Indeed, towards the conclusion of your Baptism, the priest turned to your parents and those gathered and, calling you by your name said: "you have become a new creation" (Rite of Baptism, 99).

Dear friends, in your homes, schools and universities, in your places of work and recreation, remember that you are a new creation! Not only do you stand before the Creator in awe, rejoicing at his works, you also realize that the sure foundation of humanity’s solidarity lies in the common origin of every person, the high-point of God’s creative design for the world. As Christians you stand in this world knowing that God has a human face - Jesus Christ - the "way" who satisfies all human yearning, and the "life" to which we are called to bear witness, walking always in his light (cf. ibid., 100).

The task of witness is not easy. There are many today who claim that God should be left on the sidelines, and that religion and faith, while fine for individuals, should either be excluded from the public forum altogether or included only in the pursuit of limited pragmatic goals. This secularist vision seeks to explain human life and shape society with little or no reference to the Creator. It presents itself as neutral, impartial and inclusive of everyone. But in reality, like every ideology, secularism imposes a world-view. If God is irrelevant to public life, then society will be shaped in a godless image, and debate and policy concerning the public good will be driven more by consequences than by principles grounded in truth.

Yet experience shows that turning our back on the Creator’s plan provokes a disorder which has inevitable repercussions on the rest of the created order (cf. 1990 World Day of Peace Message, 5). When God is eclipsed, our ability to recognize the natural order, purpose, and the "good" begins to wane. What was ostensibly promoted as human ingenuity soon manifests itself as folly, greed and selfish exploitation. And so we have become more and more aware of our need for humility before the delicate complexity of God’s world.

But what of our social environment? Are we equally alert to the signs of turning our back on the moral structure with which God has endowed humanity (cf. 2007 World Day of Peace Message, 8)? Do we recognize that the innate dignity of every individual rests on his or her deepest identity - as image of the Creator - and therefore that human rights are universal, based on the natural law, and not something dependent upon negotiation or patronage, let alone compromise? And so we are led to reflect on what place the poor and the elderly, immigrants and the voiceless, have in our societies. How can it be that domestic violence torments so many mothers and children? How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space – the womb – has become a place of unutterable violence?

My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable. Our world has grown weary of greed, exploitation and division, of the tedium of false idols and piecemeal responses, and the pain of false promises. Our hearts and minds are yearning for a vision of life where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. This is the work of the Holy Spirit! This is the hope held out by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to bear witness to this reality that you were created anew at Baptism and strengthened through the gifts of the Spirit at Confirmation. Let this be the message that you bring from Sydney to the world!

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Mission Possible: This double-life will self-destruct - Archbishop Chaput

2008-07-17T08:30:00.002-04:00

I know it is long, but it is very worth the read. The Archdiocese of Denver has the PDF file HERE. Lets pray for all those attending the 2008 World Youth Day!

World Youth Day 2008: Theology on Tap
"Mission Possible: This double-life will self-destruct"

P.J. Gallagher's Irish Pub, Sydney, Australia, July 16, 2008

You hear a lot of stories when you're in a pub having a pint. So I thought I'd start our time together tonight with a story. Now, some of the tales you hear when you're sitting with friends over a beer might stretch the truth a little. But I promise: the one I'm about to tell you is true.

It's about a young man named Franz who lived about 60 years ago in a small village in Austria. Franz was the illegitimate son of a farmer who later died in World War I. He was a wild kid. Everyone recalls he was the first one in the village to drive a motorcycle. And I don't think that's because he drove safely or kept to the posted speed limits.

Franz was the leader of a gang that used to fight rival gangs in neighboring villages with knives and chains. He was something of a cad, too, and a womanizer. He got a girl pregnant and was forced to leave town. People said he went to work for a while in an iron mine. For reasons nobody knows, Franz came back a changed man. He had always gone to church, even during his wildest days. But when he returned, he was a serious Catholic, not just a Sunday-Catholic. He started making payments to support the child he had fathered out of wedlock. He married a good Catholic woman and settled down to become a good farmer, husband and father, raising three children and serving as a lay leader in his local parish.

I'll tell you the rest of the story later. But I want to quote something Franz wrote in a letter to his godson. He wrote: "I can say from my own experience how painful life often is when one lives as a halfway Christian. It is more like vegetating than living."

I remembered Franz and those words when I started thinking about tonight's topic: "Mission Possible: This Double-Life Will Self-Destruct." Most of you aren't Americans, and you're all too young to remember the original "Mission Impossible" TV series that aired in the States in the '60s and '70s. But I suppose the organizers of my talk figured you'd all seen the Tom Cruise movies that came out a few years back.

In any event, it's a clever image. Believers today are relentlessly tempted to lead a "double life" – to be one person when we're in church or at prayer and somebody different when we're with our friends or family, or at work, or when we talk about politics.

Part of this temptation comes from normal peer pressure. We don't want to stand out. We don't want to appear different, so we keep our religious beliefs to ourselves. It's as if we've internalized the old adage: "Never talk about religion or politics in polite company." I've never bought that line of thinking, myself. Religion, politics, social justice - these are precisely the things we should be talking about. Nothing else really matters. What could be more important than religious faith, which deals with the ultimate meaning of life, and politics, which deals with how we should organize our lives together for the common good?

So those are the things we want to talk about tonight. I think it's important, though, that we start with a kind of "diagnosis" of the culture we're living in. The reason is simple. We're living in the first age in human history where entire societies are organized according to this principle of "the double life."

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor calls our period the "secular age." How we got to this moment is far too big a subject for us tonight. The point is that in just a few centuries we've gone from living in a world where it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to living in a world where belief in God doesn't seem to be necessary or to make any difference.

Most men and women today can live their whole lives as if God didn't exist. Of course in the West – and by "the West" I mean developed, Western-style democracies like Australia -- we're allowed to believe in God, and even to pray and worship together. But we're constantly lectured by the mass media to never "impose" our religious viewpoints on our neighbors. This curious idea is always framed as a very reasonable and enlightened way to live. You're free to believe what you want to believe; I'm free to believe what I want to believe; and the government agrees not to tell either of us what to believe or not to believe.

But things aren't as reasonable and enlightened as they seem. For example, the last time I was in Australia, your parliament was considering legislation to allow the cloning of embryonic stem-cells. This cloning would translate into an attack on the fundamental dignity of human life. And Cardinal Pell and your bishops had the courage to stand up and say so. What astounded me was the backlash their statements provoked. There was talk of charging Church leaders with intimidating MPs and tampering with the legislative process. All because they had the audacity to voice a political opinion that was based on their religious convictions.

Cases like this are cropping up more and more in the developed world. Just last month a court in Belgium dismissed charges filed against a Catholic bishop. The allegation was that this bishop was fomenting hatred of homosexuals. Of course he did nothing of the sort. All he did was articulate the Church's ancient teaching that homosexual activity is a sin and that it's detrimental to an individual's spiritual health and well-being.

In a secular age, however, this kind of opinion becomes grounds for prosecution. And these cases have a very calculated "chilling effect." They reinforce, with the threat of jail and fines, the pressures that we Catholics already feel to keep our mouths shut. To obey the "double life" rule. To define our faith as simply private prayer and personal piety.

But we know we can't do that. We can't live a half-way Christianity. The organizers of tonight's event were right. Every double life will inevitably self-destruct. The question then becomes: How are we going to live in this world? How can we lead a Christian life in a secular age?

We can't really answer that question until we get some things straight about what it means to be a Christian. And that means first getting some things straight about Jesus Christ. This is another one of the by-products of our secular age: we don't really quite know what to think about Jesus anymore. A few years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote something that is unfortunately very true. He wrote: "Today in broad circles, even among believers, an image has prevailed of a Jesus who demands nothing, never scolds, who accepts everyone and everything, who no longer does anything but affirm us. . . . The figure is transformed from the 'Lord' (a word that is avoided) into a man who is nothing more than the advocate of all men."

We all know people -- friends or family members or both -- who think about Jesus in these terms. It's hard to avoid. Our culture has given Jesus a make-over. We've remade him in the image and likeness of secular compassion. Today he's not the Lord, the Son of God, but more like an enlightened humanist nice guy.

The problem is this: If Jesus isn't Lord, if he isn't the Son of God, then he can't do anything for us. Then the Gospel is just one more or less interesting philosophy of life. And that's my first point about how we need to live in a secular age: We have to trust the Gospels and we have to trust the Church that gives us the Gospels. We have to truly believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the son of Mary. True God and true man. The One who holds the words of eternal life. If we aren't committed to that truth, then nothing else I say tonight can make any sense.

Second point: Jesus didn't come down from heaven to tell us to go to church on Sunday. He didn't die on the cross and rise from the dead so that we would pray more at home and be a little nicer to our next-door neighbors. The fact that you smile when I say these things means we know intuitively how absurd it is to imagine a privatized, part-time Christianity.

The one thing even non-believers can see is that the Gospels aren't compromise documents. Jesus wants all of us. And not just on Sundays. He wants us to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all our mind. He wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is, with a love that's total.

We need to take Christ at his word. We need to love him like our lives depend on it. Right now. And without excuses. Remember that man who told Jesus: I'm ready to be your disciple, but first I need to plan my father's funeral? The way Jesus responds is so blunt, so disturbing: "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. Follow me and proclaim the kingdom of God." Of course, he's not commanding disrespect for our parents. What he's saying is that there can be no more urgent priority in our lives than following him and proclaiming his kingdom.

My third point flows from the first two: Being a follower of Christ is not just one among many aspects of your daily life. Being a Christian is who you are. Period. And being a Christian means your life has a mission. It means striving every day to be a better follower, to become more like Jesus in your thoughts and actions.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld once said that, "God calls all the souls he has created to love him with their whole being. . . . But he does not ask all souls to show their love by the same works, to climb to heaven by the same ladder, to achieve goodness in the same way. What sort of work, then must I do? Which is my road to heaven?"

God expects big things from each of you. That's why he made us. To love him and to serve one another, and to play our personal part in bringing about the kingdom of love. So you have to ask yourselves the same questions that Blessed Charles asked himself. What does God want you to be doing? How does he want you to follow Christ?

Now, how do you go about finding the answers to these questions? By talking to God, humbly and honestly, in prayer. By getting to know Christ better through daily reading and praying over the Gospels. By opening yourself up to the graces he gives us in the sacraments. "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." It's not about you choosing what you want to do with your life. It's about discovering how God wants to use your life to spread the good news of his love and his kingdom.

Blessed Charles, by the way, is one of the great stories of the 20th century. He was a Frenchman who lived most of his life like the prodigal son, squandering his inheritance on alcohol, women, and dead-end pleasures. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, his life changed forever. He felt called to follow Christ literally, setting off on foot to Nazareth to devote himself to a humble life of manual labor, prayer, and charity. Some years later, his imitation of Christ led him to the Sahara Desert, where he lived as a hermit and eventually died a martyr's death.

I want to suggest tonight that most of you will find your road to heaven starting a little closer to home. To illustrate that point, let's recall a story about another holy person of the 20th century, Blessed Mother Teresa.

Maybe you've heard of Celestial Seasonings, the herbal tea company. The company was founded by a man named "Mo" Siegel in the 1960s. "Mo" was very much a child of his age -- idealistic, with a generous heart. "Mo" made millions with his brand of herbal teas. And he gave a lot of his money to worthy causes. Yet he still wasn't satisfied. So he went to India to volunteer with Mother Teresa among the poor and dying. But when she met him, she told him to go home. The little nun poked this multi-millionaire entrepreneur in the chest and told him: "Grow where you're planted."

That's my advice to you, too. Grow where you're planted. Preach the gospel with your lives no matter where you are or whatever you find yourself doing -- going to school, working, making a home. St. John of the Cross said: "Where there is no love, put love and you will draw out love." Those are good words to live by. Put real love into everything you do. Not a vague, sentimental warm feeling. That kind of love doesn't mean anything because it doesn't cost you anything. No. Jesus wants a love that comes from the heart, a love that sacrifices for others as he sacrificed for us.

One final point before we begin our questions and discussion tonight. And it's this: Love the Church; love her as your mother and teacher. Help to build her up, to purify her life and work. We all get angry when we see human weakness and sin in the Church. But we have to remember always that the Church is much, much more than the sum of her human parts.

The Church is the Bride of Christ. The Spirit that worked in Jesus Christ and in his apostles is still at work in the Church. Jesus promised his apostles that when they teach, it will be he who is teaching. That when they forgive sins, it will be he who forgives. That when they say his words, "This is my body," the bread and wine will become his body and blood. Jesus doesn't forget his promises. Where the Church is, Jesus Christ is. Until the end of the age. And we always want to be where Christ is, because there is no way home to God except through him.

So love the Church. And this is crucial: Know what the Church teaches. What the Church teaches is what Christ wants you and everyone else to know -- for our own good and for our salvation. Know what the Church teaches so you can live those teachings and share those teachings with others.

The leaders of today's secularized societies like to fancy themselves as true humanists and humanitarians. But these same societies justify killing millions of babies in the womb and dismembering embryos in the laboratory. We dispatch the handicapped and the elderly and call it "death with dignity." Our very language has become distorted. The family is no longer the covenant communion of man and woman that leads to new life and hence the future of society. In fact, there are so few babies being born now in developed, Western-style countries that we have to wonder whether our civilization has lost its will to survive.

Only the Church stands up against these inhuman trends in our societies. It's your mission, as lay men and lay women, to ensure that Christ's teaching is preached and explained and defended at every level of our society -- in politics, in the workplace, in the culture. This takes real courage. There are all sorts of pressures, subtle and not so subtle, to sell out Jesus. To water down or diminish his Gospel. To pick and choose among his teachings. But we can't do that. Make a promise to Jesus Christ never to contradict the Church's teachings by your words or actions.

The Gospel is not just rules and "thou-shalt nots." It's the path to leading a heavenly life on earth. The way of life that alone brings true happiness and lasting joy. This age encourages us to seek a fool's paradise. To imagine that happiness is found in doing whatever we want to do. That's a snare. And many of our brothers and sisters are caught in that trap.

Only the truth can set people free. That truth is Jesus Christ. So if we truly love our neighbors we will want them to know the truth. The whole truth. Not just the parts of it that make them feel good, the parts that don't challenge them to change.

It's not possible for real Christians to lead a double life. We'll self-destruct. Or worse still, we'll just waste away. It will be like what Franz said. Being a half-way Christian is like being a vegetable. It's not a life. It's barely an existence.

I guess it's time for me to tell you the rest of the story about Franz.

The Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. Unlike most of his neighbors, Franz refused to cooperate in any way with the regime because he considered Hitler to be an enemy of Christ and the Church. For five years he waged a lonely campaign of resistance. Finally, he was arrested for refusing an order to enlist in the Nazi army.

While awaiting his sentence, many people, including his family and his local priest, urged him to pay lip-service to the regime and thereby spare his life. Franz wouldn't do it.

So 65 years ago, on August 9, 1943, Franz died on a Nazi guillotine. Today we remember him as Blessed Franz Jägerstätter -- a martyr for the truth that a Catholic can never lead a double-life. That there can be no such thing as a half-way Christian.

Blessed Franz wrote beautiful letters to his wife from prison. In one of them he talked about the great martyrs of the Church. He wrote: "If we hope to reach our goal some day, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith. For as long as we fear men more than God, we will never make the grade." Another time he wrote: "The important thing is that we do not let a single day go by in vain without putting it to good use for eternity."

Let me leave you with those thoughts. May you all strive to be heroes of the faith. And may you put every day to good use for eternity. Thank you.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Commentary on the recent Pope Benedict XVI trip to the US - George Weigel

2008-07-16T11:49:00.003-04:00

The article linked HERE gives a great commentary on the recent trip by Pope Benedict XVI to the US. It is written by George Weigel. Please take the time to read it.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Pope's Message to Astrailia and Youth Pilgrims

2008-07-14T09:56:00.005-04:00

Thanks to Zenit.org for the coverage of the WYD events. Below are 2 paragraphs from the middle of the address. The full content can be found HERE. Please pray for all those attending WYD 08 and for the Holy Father during his travels.

"If You Wish to Remain Young, Seek Christ" - Saint Augustine

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you will be my witnesses" (Act 1:8). This is the theme of the Twenty-Third World Youth Day. How much our world needs a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit! There are still many who have not heard the Good News of Jesus Christ, while many others, for whatever reason, have not recognized in this Good News the saving truth that alone can satisfy the deepest longings of their hearts. The Psalmist prays: "when you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth" (Ps 104:30). It is my firm belief that young people are called to be instruments of that renewal, communicating to their peers the joy they have experienced through knowing and following Christ, and sharing with others the love that the Spirit pours into their hearts, so that they too will be filled with hope and with thanksgiving for all the good things they have received from our heavenly Father.

Many young people today lack hope. They are perplexed by the questions that present themselves ever more urgently in a confusing world, and they are often uncertain which way to turn for answers. They see poverty and injustice and they long to find solutions. They are challenged by the arguments of those who deny the existence of God and they wonder how to respond. They see great damage done to the natural environment through human greed and they struggle to find ways to live in greater harmony with nature and with one another.

Where can we look for answers? The Spirit points us towards the way that leads to life, to love and to truth. The Spirit points us towards Jesus Christ. There is a saying attributed to Saint Augustine: "If you wish to remain young, seek Christ". In him we find the answers that we are seeking, we find the goals that are truly worth living for, we find the strength to pursue the path that will bring about a better world. Our hearts find no rest until they rest in the Lord, as Saint Augustine says at the beginning of the Confessions, the famous account of his own youth. My prayer is that the hearts of the young people who gather in Sydney for the celebration of World Youth Day will truly find rest in the Lord, and that they will be filled with joy and fervour for spreading the Good News among their friends, their families, and all whom they meet.

Again the full content can be found HERE.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Death Wish! The Impending Suicide of a Once Great Nation - Fr. Corapi

2008-07-11T10:11:00.004-04:00

Father Corapi writes a compelling letter about the plight of America and what
we have lost. He calls us to a challenge to return our nations status to that on
which it was founded. Below are a few excerpts. The full article can be found
HERE (Acrobat Reader Required).

A large number of endangered, unwanted, and unborn children held a town hall meeting on the 4th of July--alarmed at the brutal and untimely killing of millions of their brothers and sisters in recent years.
Their complaint was humble and it was simple.
They had become an endangered species, and little had been done to answer their terrified and silent screams from the womb...They cried out to their Creator for inspiration and protection, and then unanimously they put forth a declaration. It began as follows:

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS….”

THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE; THAT AMONG THESE IS LIFE!
The first and pre-eminent right is the right to life...
The United States of America seems to have a death wish, and we have traveled far down the road to having that wish realized...
The judges and politicians that support such barbaric practices are truly guilty of genocide: genocide—the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious, national, or social group. “What is the group so targeted?” you might ask. The group is unwanted, unborn children--tens of millions of them...

The words of the prophet thunder through the ages, “ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20)...

In the end it is likely that President Abraham Lincoln had it right: “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Thus forgetting that we are one nation under God, we become a nation gone under (President Ronald Reagan)...

Again, the full article can be found HERE (Acrobat Reader Required).

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Reaping the whirlwind of abortion - - Bishop Thomas Doran

2008-07-09T09:21:00.002-04:00

Reaping the whirlwind of abortion

I want to touch on this matter before we get too close to the November madness. As human beings, as citizens of a “first world country,” as Americans, and as Catholics, most importantly, we have to take count of the circumstances in which we live. We know that the only creatures of God that outlast time are those created having intellect and will. All other things, with the passage of time, break up or break down.

Many of the issues that confront us are serious, and we know by now that the political parties in our country are at loggerheads as to how to solve them. We know, for instance, that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people. The seven “sacraments” of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation. These things they unabashedly espouse, profess and promote. Their continuance in public office is a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.

Since the mid-1940s we have been accustomed to look askance at Germans. They were protagonists of the Second World War and so responsible for fifty million deaths. We say, “How awful,” and yet in our country we have, for the most part, allowed the party of death and the court system it has produced to eliminate, since 1973, upwards of forty million of our fellow citizens without allowing them to see the light of day. They have done their best to make ours a true culture of death. No doubt, we shall soon outstrip the Nazis in doing human beings to death.

¬I do not think that we should spend a great deal of time in lamentation over the children whose lives have been snuffed out by the barbaric practice of therapeutic abortion. They passed from their lives quickly in this world and have gone into the hands of the Lord of Life and Mercy for all eternity. We must make it clear too, that many who have sought to have practiced on themselves therapeutic abortion are in many instances driven to it by persons heedless of their welfare, or by well- meaning but inept parents or guardians who regard abortion as a solution and not as what it is — an immense problem. There are some, I think few, largely given over to immoral lives who regard abortion as a good, but their number is not great.

What we have to remember is that violence breeds violence. When we tolerate unjust attacks upon the tiniest innocents among us, we habituate ourselves to violence. And so we have allowed these barbaric practices to corrupt our laws, our medical practice, and even our ordinary lives. How accustomed we have become to the immense loss of life in our wars throughout the world! Those who have killed millions under their mother’s hearts cannot be expected to balk at a mere few thousand killed in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Darfur, in Bosnia, in Madrid, in London, in Baghdad, in Beirut, in Washington, in New York. The violence of abortion coarsens the lives of all of us.

Once it was said, “... for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) So we see the rise in the number of predations among youth, even among the youngest, the rise of domestic violence. We speak of road rage as a common thing. It is true what the theologians have said, that sin darkens the intellect, and weakens the will. Having sown the wind of abortion we now reap the whirlwind. This appears in every quarter of our culture and on every day. And that just from the first of the “sacraments of death” of our secular human culture.

The toleration of sexual perversions among inverts, widespread contraception, easy access to “no fault” divorce, the killing of the elderly, radical feminism, embryonic stem cell research — all of these things defile and debase our human nature and our human destiny. Should we cry out with the prophet “To the mountains, ‘Cover us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us’” (Hosea: 10:8), lest other peoples see and, God forbid, imitate us?

I ran across, in one parish, prayers of the faithful with the intention that “we pray for those who work and demonstrate for the cause of life and the unborn, the aged and the defected, that they may persevere in spite of the ridicule they receive sometimes, even from pastors and priests.” I shudder to think that might be true. We know from the sad experience of recent years that some Catholics (even among priests) are so warped and perverted from their Catholic vocation, that they are capable of enormities. But, they should know that it was no prelate or bishop or pope that said, “Suffer the little children to come to me and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14). The Invisible Head of the Church will one day come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire, particularly those who have either by acts of omission or commission, destroyed innocent human life.

It is the duty of every Catholic to support the work of the parish Pro-Life directors and commissions and to work for the extirpation from our society of all those who in any way foster or promote these things. I wholeheartedly endorse the activities of our Pro-Life Office in the sure and certain knowledge that divine justice will not allow those who act against human life to prosper. These unholy sacraments of our secular culture are the seeds of the destruction of our nation. Think for yourself: what nation that kills its young, perverts marriage, prevents new life, and destroys the family, kills those deemed useless, makes the war of the sexes into a real war, and manipulates the genetic basis of human nature, can long endure?

Bishop Thomas Doran
The Observer
August 10, 2006

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Sundays Sacred - PB XVI

2006-12-06T15:39:00.000-05:00

Thanks to www.Zenit.org for posting this great article.

Benedict XVI says that it is urgent to emphasize "the sacredness of the Lord's Day and the need to participate in Sunday Mass."
...
The Holy Father stressed that, for the early Christians, participation in Sunday Mass "was the natural way to express one's belonging to Christ, his communion with his Mystical Body, in the joyful hope of his glorious return."

This "was manifested in a heroic way in the case of the martyrs of Abitene, who faced death exclaiming: 'Sine dominico non possumus,' that is, we cannot live without gathering on Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist," Benedict XVI said.

Today, it is necessary to emphasize the "sacredness of the Lord's Day,"
...
"Weekends"

"May the Lord's Day, which can also be called the 'Lord of the days,' regain all its importance and be perceived and lived fully in the celebration of the Eucharist," the Holy Father said.
...
The "virus of secularism" cannot be accepted, he insisted, as "religion is not something optional, a superfluous accessory," but a duty to God.

Full article can be found HERE

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Help Save Christmas...thank you lc.org

2006-12-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

Liberty Counsel has posted a great website to help us "Save Christmas". It has a Naughty and Nice list, legal docs about celebrating Christmas at work and in public places and much more. Check out the website at www.LC.org

FREE Legal Memorandum about public Christmas observances (pdf)

FREE Legal Memorandum about celebrating Christmas at work (pdf)

Again, check out the website at www.LC.org

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Lay ministers may not cleanse Communion vessels, Pope Benedict says

2006-10-25T08:51:00.000-04:00

Thanks to CNS for publishing this for the faithful! A wise person reminded me that I should "share it just as a point of interest, giving the system a chance to get kicked into gear. The practive is so pervasive that it will send many parishes reeling. Be patient...and prayerful."

At the direction of Pope Benedict XVI, extraordinary ministers of holy Communion will no longer be permitted to assist in the purification of the sacred vessels at Masses in the United States.
In an Oct. 23 letter, Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, asked his fellow bishops to inform all pastors of the change, which was prompted by a letter from Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.
...
Another "legitimate option" when "the high number of communicants may render it inadvisable for everyone to drink from the chalice" is intinction -- the practice of dipping the consecrated host into the consecrated wine -- "with reception on the tongue always and everywhere," (emphasis mine) the cardinal's letter said.
...
Ordinary ministers of Communion are priests and deacons, with instituted acolytes being permitted in the Roman Missal to help the priest or deacon "to purify and arrange the sacred vessels."

In the United States, instituted acolytes, who must be male, generally are seminarians preparing for priesthood.

See the full article HERE

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Father Cantalamessa on Marriage

2006-10-11T08:19:00.000-04:00

"Rediscover the Art of Repairing!" Says Pontifical Household Preacher
From Zenit.org

Here is a translation of a commentary by the Pontifical Household preacher, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, on the readings from this Sunday's liturgy.

The Two Shall Become One Flesh
Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16

The topic of this 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time is marriage. The first reading (Genesis 2:18-24) begins with the well-known words: "The Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'"

In our days the evil of marriage is separation and divorce, whereas in the time of Jesus it was repudiation. In a certain sense, the latter was a worse evil, because it also implied an injustice in regard to the woman, which, sadly, persists in certain cultures. Man, in fact, had the right to repudiate his wife, but the wife did not have the right to repudiate her husband.

There were two opposite opinions in Judaism, in regard to repudiation. According to one of them, it was lawful to repudiate one's wife for any reason, hence, at the discretion of the husband. According to another, however, a grave reason was necessary, established by the law.

One day they subjected Jesus to this question, hoping that he would adopt a position in favor of one or the other thesis. However, they received an answer they did not expect: "Because of the hardness of your hearts he [Moses] wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (and be joined to his wife), and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

The law of Moses about repudiation is seen by Christ as an unwanted disposition, but tolerated by God (as polygamy and other disorders), because of hardness of heart and human immaturity. Jesus did not criticize Moses for the concession made; he recognized that in this matter the human lawmaker cannot fail to keep in mind the reality in fact.

However, he re-proposed to all the original ideal of the indissoluble union between man and woman -- "one flesh" -- that, at least for his disciples, must be the only form possible of marriage.

However, Jesus did not limit himself to reaffirming the law; he added grace to it. This means that Christian spouses not only have the duty to remain faithful until death; they also have the necessary aids to do so. From Christ's redeeming death comes a strength -- the Holy Spirit -- which permeates every aspect of the believer's life, including marriage. The latter is even raised to the dignity of a sacrament and of living image of the spousal union with the Church on the cross (Ephesians 5:31-32).

To say that marriage is a sacrament does not only mean -- as often believed -- that in it the union of the sexes is permitted, licit and good, which outside of it would be disorder and sin; it means even more yet, to say that marriage becomes a way of being united to Christ through love of the other, a real path of sanctification.

This positive view is the one that Benedict XVI happily showed in his encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" on love and charity. In it the Pope does not compare the indissoluble union in marriage to another form of erotic love; but presents it as the most mature and perfect form, not only from the Christian, but also from the human point of view.

"It is part of love's growth toward higher levels and inward purification that it now seeks to become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular person alone) and in the sense of being 'forever.' Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks toward its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal" (No. 60).

This ideal of conjugal fidelity has never been easy (adultery is a word that resounds ominously even in the Bible!). But today the permissive and hedonist culture in which we live has made it immensely more difficult. The alarming crisis that the institution of marriage is going through in our society is easy for all to see.

Civil laws, such as that in Spain, permit (and indirectly, in this way, encourage!) beginning divorce proceedings just a few months after life in common. Words like: "I am sick of this life," "I'm going," "If it's like this, each one on his own!" are uttered between spouses at the first difficulty.

Let it be said in passing: I believe that Christian spouses should accuse themselves in confession of the simple fact of having uttered one of these words, because the sole fact of saying them is an offense to the unity, and constitutes a dangerous psychological precedent.

In this marriage suffers the common mentality of "use and discard." If a device or tool is in some way damaged or dented, no thought is given to repairing it -- those who did such repairs have disappeared -- there is only thought of replacing it. Applied to marriage, this mentality is deadly.

What can be done to contain this tendency, cause of so much evil for society and so much sadness for children? I have a suggestion: Rediscover the art of repairing!

Replace the "use and discard" mentality with that of "use and repair." Almost no one does repairs now. But if this art of repairing is no longer done for clothes, it must be practiced in marriage. Repair the big tears, and repair them immediately.

St. Paul gave very good counsels in this respect: "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil," "forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other," "Bear one another's burdens" (Ephesians 4:26-27; Colossians 3:13; Galatians 6:2).

What is important is that one must understand that in this process of tears and repairs, of crises and surmounted obstacles, marriage is not exhausted, but is refined and improves. I perceive an analogy between the process that leads to a successful marriage and one that leads to holiness.

In their path toward perfection, the saints often go through the so-called dark night of the senses, in which they no longer experience any feeling, or impulse.

They have aridity, are empty, do everything through will power alone and with effort. After this, comes the "dark night of the spirit," in which not only feelings enter into crisis, but also the intelligence and will. There is even doubt that one is on the right road; if it has not all been an error; complete darkness, endless temptations. They go forward only through faith.

Does everything end then? On the contrary! All this was but purification. After they have passed through these crises, the saints realize how much more profound and selfless their love of God now is, in relation to that of the beginning.

For many couples, it will not be difficult to recognize their own experience. They have also frequently gone through the night of the senses in their marriage, in which the latter have no rapture of ecstasy, and if there ever was, it is only a memory of the past. Some also experience the dark night of the spirit, the state in which the profoundest option is in crisis, and it seems that there is no longer anything in common.

If with good will and the help of someone these crises are surmounted, one realizes to what point the impulse and enthusiasm of the first days was but little compared to the stable love and communion matured over the years.

If at first husband and wife loved one another for the satisfaction it gave them, today perhaps they love one another a bit more with a love of tenderness, free of egoism and capable of compassion; they love one another for the things they have gone through and suffered together.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Benedict XVI - Servant of the Truth

2006-08-31T13:16:00.000-04:00

Ingatius Press has 2 very cool Pope Benedict XVI wallpapers available for FREE download. Follow the link to get them in the 3 available sizes. Click either picture to be taken to the download page.

Wallpaper 1

Wallpaper 2

I think they are quite good. I hope you enjoy them also.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Heretical Hymns? George Weigle

2006-08-29T15:19:00.000-04:00

As usual The Curt Jester found it first...but I will post anyway. George Weigel is one of America's leading commentators on issues of religion and public life. He is also the author of many fantastic catholic books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II.

He wrote an article titled "Heretical Hymns?". Below you will find a few excerpts.

I love hymns. I love singing them and I love listening to them. Hearing the robust Cardiff Festival Choir belt out the stirring hymns of Ralph Vaughan Williams at what my wife regards as an intolerable volume is, for me, a terrific audio experience.

...Hymns are distinct forms of confessing the Church's faith. Old school Lutherans take their hymns very seriously.

Most Catholics don't. Instead, we settle for hymns musically indistinguishable from "Les Mis" and hymns of saccharine textual sentimentality. Moreover, some hymn texts in today's Catholic "worship resources" are, to put it bluntly, heretical. Yet Catholics once knew how to write great hymns; and there are great hymns to be borrowed, with gratitude, from Anglican, Lutheran, and other Christian sources. There being a finite amount of material that can fit into a hymnal, however, the first thing to do is clean the stables of today's hymnals.

Thus, with tongue only half in cheek, I propose the Index Canticorum Prohibitorum, the "Index of Forbidden Hymns." Herewith, some examples.

Again, the full article can be found Here.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Catholic Facts (take 3) - 2 questions

2006-08-29T13:57:00.000-04:00

Here is a 2 question Catholic Facts post. Hope you like them.

Question: Who is the Infant of Prague?

Answer: A statue of the Christ Child King has been preserved since 1628 in the church of Our Lady of Victory in Prague. Carved of wood and covered with wax, it stands 18 inches in height and rests on a broad pedestal. Its left hand encircles a miniature globe surmounted by a cross and its right hand extended in the manner of a pontifical blessing. The figure appears to represent in symbolical synthesis the idea of the Kingship of Christ and that of the Holy Childhood. The origin of the figure is shrouded in legend. It was brought from Spain to Prague in the 16th Century, and in 1628 was presented to the Discalced Carmelites. It became an object of popular devotion that received Church approval through its coronation by the Bishop of Prague on April 4, 1655 and through generous amounts of indulgences ("New Catholic Encyclopedia," McGraw-Hill Co,). Besides being the Adult Christ the King, Jesus is the Infant King of Bethlehem and His young years in Nazareth. The Infant of Prague is the King of our school children. Bob and Jolene Cole’s statue gift is an abiding reminder to our school children that Christ, their King, infant and adult, watches over them.

Question: If Jesus, the divine one, was the all holy-sinless person, why did He get John to baptize Him?

Answer: John the Baptist had the very same question: "I should be baptized by you," said John to Jesus. Jesus responded: "Give in for now. We must do this if we would fulfill all of God’s demands. So Jesus was following orders from his Father who, at the baptism, voiced His approval of His Son and had the Holy Spirit, like a dove, hover over Jesus. In having Jesus be baptized, the Father assured John’s disciples that Jesus would be "one of them," a card carrying member of the God movement, a citizen of the People of God. John’s baptism of repentance was not needed for Jesus; it was good for us, an assurance from heaven that Jesus was the approved Messiah, an assurance on earth that He was one of us. (Matt. 3: 13-17) ("Daily Bible Studies, Mathew," W. Barclay, Fortress Press).

Thanks to Fr. Mark at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton for most of the questions and answers.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

150 Reasons Why I am a Catholic.

2006-08-24T15:58:00.000-04:00

Saw this at Cor ad cor loquitur and felt the need to share it. I'll list a few, for the others see the entire list.

1. Best One-Sentence Summary: I am convinced that the Catholic Church conforms much more closely to all of the biblical data, offers the only coherent view of the history of Christianity (i.e., Christian, apostolic Tradition), and possesses the most profound and sublime Christian morality, spirituality, social ethic, and philosophy.

2. Alternate: I am a Catholic because I sincerely believe, by virtue of much cumulative evidence, that Catholicism is true, and that the Catholic Church is the visible Church divinely-established by our Lord Jesus, against which the gates of hell cannot and will not prevail (Mt 16:18), thereby possessing an authority to which I feel bound in Christian duty to submit.

3. 2nd Alternate: I left Protestantism because it was seriously deficient in its interpretation of the Bible (e.g., "faith alone" and its missing many other "Catholic" doctrines - see evidences below), inconsistently selective in its espousal of various doctrines of Catholic Tradition (e.g., the canon of the Bible), inadequate in its ecclesiology, lacking a sensible view of Christian history (e.g., "Scripture alone"; ignorance or inconsistent understanding of of development of doctrine), compromised morally (e.g., contraception, divorce), and unbiblically schismatic and (in effect, or logical reduction, if not always in actual belief) relativistic.

Disclaimer: I don't therefore believe that Protestantism is all bad (not by a long shot - indeed, I think it is a pretty good thing overall), but these are some of the major deficiencies I eventually saw as fatal to the "theory" of Protestantism, over against Catholicism. All Catholics must regard baptized, Nicene, Chalcedonian Protestants as Christians.

8. Catholicism avoids theological relativism, by means of dogmatic certainty and the centrality of the papacy.

10. Catholicism formally (although, sadly, not always in practice) prevents the theological "pick and choose" state of affairs, which leads to the uncertainties and "every man for himself" confusion within the Protestant system among laypeople.

14. Catholicism retains (to the fullest extent) the elements of mystery, supernatural, and the sacred in Christianity, thus opposing itself to secularization, where the sphere of the religious in life becomes greatly limited.

There are more, but these are the few I saw and liked the most.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Prayer Request

2006-08-24T12:32:00.000-04:00

All,
Please say a special prayer for a dear frend of mine who lost her baby at about 15 weeks in utero.

Mother Mary, we pray for our sister in Christ that you will place your comforting arms around her and she will feel your love and peace. Lord Jesus, we ask that you bring this child to be with you forever in paradise. Saints in Heaven, we ask you to show this young one the glories of the Father in Heaven and to pray for the family here on earth.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Adoration for Vocations - St. Joseph's Catholic Church

2006-08-23T08:17:00.000-04:00

A local parish St. Jospeh's Catholic Church has Adoration for Vocations this Friday evening 8-25-2006.

"Our own belief is that the renovation of the world will be brought about only by the Holy Eucharist."
~ Pope Leo XIII

Adoration for Vocations will be this Friday, August 25th in the Cody Family Enrichment Center Chapel. Adoration begins at 7 p.m. and concludes at 8:30 p.m. "It is our hope to instill in our youth the need for prayerful discernment of vocation. The call from God to single, married or religious life can truly only be heard through prayer and our children need our guidance and support. One way (the best way) to do this is before the Blessed Sacrament. Our children need to see our faith and trust if they too are going to follow. For this reason, all ages are welcome and encouraged to attend." ~ Matt Breen

The Importance of Eucharistic Adoration and Prayer
“The worship given to the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit... must fill our churches also outside the timetable of Masses…This worship must be prominent in all our encounters with the Blessed Sacrament… Adoration of Christ in this sacrament of love must also find expression in various forms of Eucharistic devotion: personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, hours of adoration, periods of exposition – short, prolonged, and annual (Forty Hours) - Eucharistic benediction, Eucharistic processions, Eucharistic Congresses… Let us be generous with our time in going to meet him in adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. May our adoration never cease.”
~ Pope John Paul II

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Catholic Facts (take 2) - About Hell...

2006-08-22T12:39:00.000-04:00

Like I mentioned in the first "Catholic Facts" post ... I have been thinking about "Catholic Facts". I have been asked may questions about the "small" things in the Church as well as the "Big" things. Here is the second installment...

Question: What does the Catholic Church say about "Hell"?

Answer: Some one liners about hell: 1. There is a hell. 2. Hell’s eternal. 3. Those who die in mortal sin descend into hell. 4. The chief punishment of hell is separation from God. 5. God predestined no one to go to hell. 6. A person goes to hell because of a willful turning away from God (mortal sin) and persistence in it until the end of life. These are just the hot points of the Church’s traditional teaching about hell. Consult the "Catechism" 1033-1037.

Thanks to Fr. Mark at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton for most of the questions and answers.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Bishop Thomas Doran - The 'seven sacraments' of secular culture.

2006-08-22T10:40:00.000-04:00

EWTN is hosting an article titled "AMERICANS TO ‘OUTSTRIP’ NAZIS IN TAKING HUMAN LIFE, SAYS BISHOP" referencing an article by Bishop Doran from the Diocese of Rockford. The article gives a clear view of how far America has fallen in the last 33 years.

The United States, with its vast abortion industry, will soon rival the Nazis, who were responsible for about 50 million deaths during the Second World War.

...“No doubt, we shall soon outstrip the Nazis in doing human beings to death,” he stated.

In his Aug. 10 column, the bishop said the “seven sacraments” of secular culture-abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation-are “a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.”

These “sacraments”, he said, “defile and debase our human nature and our human destiny.” He noted that these behaviors are promoted and defended in government by a particular political party, though he did not name the party.

...“What we have to remember is that violence breeds violence. When we tolerate unjust attacks upon the tiniest innocents among us, we habituate ourselves to violence,”

...All Catholics have the duty to support local pro-life movements and to work for an end to the culture of death, he insisted. The bishop expressed his dismay about some of his priests and some faithful not supporting the pro-life movement.

I have requested the August 10 article referenced in the column and will post it when I recieve it. Bishop Doran is right on. The abortion holocost is a horror that the United States of America has largely turned her back on.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas and Intersessor for the unborn, pray for us.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

"Fishers of Men" - Archdiocese of New York (one of several)

2006-08-21T15:44:00.000-04:00

This video is a small compilation of several videos that the Archdiocese of New York has produced in a hope to get a greater response to the call for Vocations.

We can not have a Catholic church with out our priests. Please join me in a Novena for Priests
(Thanks EWTN). Mother Mary, please protect them and draw them closer to your son Jesus.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Cardinal Francis Arinze - Questions on Liturgy

2006-08-18T10:30:00.000-04:00

The question and answer session followed Cardinal Arinze's talk on the meaning of the Eucharist. The cardinal, who has headed the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments since last October, has addressed these summer conferences, held at "Catholic Familyland" in Bloomingdale, Ohio for a number of years. Full text and article located HERE.

Does everybody have to stand until the last person has received Holy Communion?

There is no rule from Rome that everybody must stand during Holy Communion. There is no such rule from Rome. So, after people have received Communion, they can stand, they can kneel, they can sit. But a bishop in his diocese or bishops in a country could say that they recommend standing or kneeling. They could. It is not a law from Rome. They could -- but not impose it. Perhaps they could propose. But those who want to sit or kneel or stand should be left reasonable freedom.

Why do so many churches not place the tabernacle in the center of the altar or in a prominent place?

The directives from Rome -- including the new Missal issued two years ago -- say that the tabernacle in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved is to be located in a very prominent place either at the center or at such a side altar that it is really prominent and that around it there are kneelers and chairs so that people can pray -- kneel down or sit down. And it is to be so prominent that nobody should need to look for it when you enter the church.

Therefore, whenever you enter a church and you look for the tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and you do not easily see it, then those who arrange it are already wrong. Because it should be prominent -- it should stand out -- to show our faith.

However, it is not a law that it must be at the center. But it is a law that where it is should be prominent. And that it should be easy for people to see it and to go there and pray. But unfortunately in some churches, sometimes those who did it did not know. But they did not know that they did not know.

So you enter the church and you ask where is the tabernacle? "They have taken the Lord away and we do not know where they have put Him". That's what Mary Magdalene said on Easter day.

In the history of the Church, were there ever women priests? Women can't be made priests, at any time; even the pope can't do that, can he?

No, the pope issued a document about seven years ago* saying that the Church has no power to ordain women priests. There were never women priests in the Church. If Christ would have wanted women to be priests, His Blessed Mother surely should have been number one.

* Ordinatio Sacerdotalis

Could you address the Church's teaching on abstaining from meat on Fridays outside of Lent?

The law is that we don't -- well, Good Friday and Ash Wednesday are the major days for fasting in general for those who have reached the age 21 and are not yet 60. Abstinence, that means no meat on those days for those who are age 14 [or over]. General canon law says that Fridays are days of abstinence -- no meat -- but if you want to eat meat, you should substitute some other form of penance. That's the Church law.

Has liturgical dance been approved for Masses by your office?

There has never been a document from our Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments saying that dance is approved in the Mass.

...Now, some priests and lay people think that Mass is never complete without dance. The difficulty is this: we come to Mass primarily to adore God -- what we call the vertical dimension. We do not come to Mass to entertain one another. That's not the purpose of Mass. The parish hall is for that.

So all those that want to entertain us -- after Mass, let us go to the parish hall and then you can dance. And then we clap. But when we come to Mass we don't come to clap. We don't come to watch people, to admire people. We want to adore God, to thank Him, to ask Him pardon for our sins, and to ask Him for what we need.

Don't misunderstand me, because when I said this at one place somebody said to me: "you are an African bishop. You Africans are always dancing. Why do you say we don't dance?"

A moment -- we Africans are not always dancing! [laughter]

Moreover, there is a difference between those who come in procession at Offertory; they bring their gifts, with joy. There is a movement of the body right and left. They bring their gifts to God. That is good, really. And some of the choir, they sing. They have a little bit of movement. Nobody is going to condemn that. And when you are going out again, a little movement, it's all right.

But when you introduce wholesale, say, a ballerina, then I want to ask you what is it all about. What exactly are you arranging? When the people finish dancing in the Mass and then when the dance group finishes and people clap -- don't you see what it means? It means we have enjoyed it. We come for enjoyment. Repeat. So, there is something wrong. Whenever the people clap -- there is something wrong -- immediately. When they clap -- a dance is done and they clap.

It is possible that there could be a dance that is so exquisite that it raises people's minds to God, and they are praying and adoring God and when the dance is finished they are still wrapped up in prayer. But is that the type of dance you have seen? You see. It is not easy.

...I saw in one place -- I will not tell you where -- where they staged a dance during Mass, and that dance was offensive. It broke the rules of moral theology and modesty. Those who arranged it -- they should have had their heads washed with a bucket of holy water! [laughter]

...If people want to dance, they know where to go.

Full text and article located HERE.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Mary Assumed into Heaven

2006-08-15T10:45:00.000-04:00

Thank the Lord and the Holy Catholic Church for the gift of Mary our mother. Mary we ask your intersession for our priests and all religious, that they will cling to you and that you will place your mantle around them and draw them closer to your son Jesus.

For those who might not know the details...

According to Roman Catholic doctrine and the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary (Mary, the mother of Jesus) "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." This means that Mary was transported into Heaven with her body and soul united. Mary's passage into Heaven is called the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Roman Catholics. This doctrine was dogmatically and infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII on 1 November 1950 in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus.
Quoted from Wikipedia.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Catholic Facts - As often as I can get them posted

2006-08-15T10:27:00.000-04:00

I have been thinking about "Catholic Facts". I have been asked may questions about the "small" things in the Church as well as the "Big" things. In this section I will attempt to give a brief answer to a question about a "Catholic Detail".

Question: Is it ok for the priest to add his own pious prayers to the Mass, prayers like the "Hail Mary" immediately after Communion?

Answer: No, he may not "..no sacramental rite may be modified or manipulated at the will of the minister or the community. Even the superior authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily." ("Catechism" #1125). Additions to the Mass are not authorized. Even the priest is not to impose his personal piety on the congregation. " Absolutely no other person (than Pope or Bishop) not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority." (Constitution on the Liturgy, Vol. II, #22, 3).

Thanks to Fr. Mark at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton for most of the questions and answers.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Pope Benedict XVI - Interview on Vatican Radio

2006-08-14T13:07:00.000-04:00

Vatican Radio transcript of the interview with Pope Benedict XVI by Bayerische Rundfunk (ARD), ZDF, Deutsche Welle and Vatican Radio.

Question: As Pope you are responsible for the Church throughout the world. But., clearly, your visit focuses attention on the situation of Catholics in Germany as well. All observers say there’s a positive atmosphere, partly thanks to your election as Pope. But, obviously, the old problems are still around. Just to quote a few examples: fewer churchgoers, fewer baptisms, and especially less Church influence on the life of society. How do you see the present situation of the Catholic Church in Germany?

Benedict XVI: I’d say, first of all, that Germany is part of the West, with its own characteristic colouring obviously, and that in the western world today we are experiencing a wave of new and drastic enlightenment or secularization, whatever you like to call it. It’s become more difficult to believe because the world in which we find ourselves is completely made up of ourselves and God, so to speak, doesn’t appear directly anymore. We don’t drink from the source anymore, but from the vessel which is offered to us already full, and so on. Humanity has rebuilt the world by itself and finding God inside this world has become more difficult. This is not specific to Germany: it’s something that’s valid throughout the world, especially in the west. Then again, today the West is being strongly influenced by other cultures in which the original religious element is very powerful. These cultures are horrified when they experience the West’s coldness towards God. This “presence of the sacred” in other cultures, even if often veiled, touches the western world again, it touches us at the crossroads of so many cultures. The quest for “something bigger” wells up again from the depths of western people and in Germany. We see how in young people there’s the search for something “more”, we see how the religious phenomenon is returning, as they say. Even if it’s a search that’s rather indefinite. But with all this the Church is present once more and faith is offered as the answer. I think that this visit, like the visit to Cologne, is an opportunity because we can see that believing is beautiful, that the joy of a huge universal community possesses a transcendental strength, that behind this belief lies something important and that together with the new searching movements there are also new outlets for the faith that lead us from one to the other and that are also positive for society as a whole.

Read the entire interview.

Thanks to Me monk. Me meander for the original post.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Novena to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - Day 8

2006-08-14T12:54:00.000-04:00

Day 8, "And we know that all things work for good for those who trust in the Lord" Romans 8:28

Mary, Queen Assumed into Heaven, I rejoice that after years of heroic martyrdom on earth, you have at last been taken to the throne prepared for you in heaven by the Holy Trinity.

Lift my heart with you in the glory of your Assumption above the dreadful touch of sin and impurity. Teach me how small earth becomes when viewed from heaven. Make me realize that death is the triumphant gate through which I shall pass to your Son, and that someday my body shall rejoin my soul in the unending bliss of heaven.

From this earth, over which I tread as a pilgrim, I look to you for help. I ask for this favor: (Mention your request).

When my hour of death has come, lead me safely to the presence of Jesus to enjoy the vision of my God for all eternity together with you.

EWTN link.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

"Imposing Our Beliefs" on Others - Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk

2006-08-14T12:17:00.000-04:00

An amazing article by Fr. Tad in responce to a senatorial testimony he gave on embryonic stem cell research. The full text can be found HERE.

After I gave my testimony, one of the senators asked a pointed question. "Father Tad, by arguing against embryonic stem cell research, don't you see how you are trying to impose your beliefs on others, and shouldn't we as elected lawmakers avoid imposing a narrow religious view on the rest of society?"

...Lawmakers face the daunting task of making decisions about what should or should not be permitted by law within a reasonable society. Recently I was asked to speak in Virginia at legislative hearings about embryonic stem cell research. After I gave my testimony, one of the senators asked a pointed question. "Father Tad, by arguing against embryonic stem cell research, don't you see how you are trying to impose your beliefs on others, and shouldn't we as elected lawmakers avoid imposing a narrow religious view on the rest of society?" The senator's question was an example of the fuzzy thinking that has become commonplace in recent years within many state legislatures and among many lawmakers.

...Two major errors were incorporated into the senator's question.

First, the senator failed to recognize the fact that law is fundamentally about imposing somebody's views on somebody else. Imposition is the name of the game. It is the very nature of law to impose particular views on people who don't want to have those views imposed on them. Car thieves don't want laws imposed on them which prohibit stealing. Drug dealers don't want laws imposed on them which make it illegal to sell drugs. Yet our lawmakers are elected precisely to craft and impose such laws all the time.

The second logical mistake the senator made was to suppose that because religion happens to hold a particular viewpoint, that implies that such a viewpoint should never be considered by lawmakers or enacted into law.

...What is important is not whether a proposed law happens to be taught by religion, but whether that proposal is just, right, and good for society and its members.

...During my testimony, I pointed out how in the United States we have stringent federal laws that protect not only the national bird, the bald eagle, but also that eagle's eggs. If you were to chance upon some of them in a nest out in the wilderness, it would be illegal for you to destroy those eggs. By the force of law, we recognize how the egg of the bald eagle, that is to say, the embryonic eagle inside that egg, is the same creature as the glorious bird that we witness flying high overhead. Therefore we pass laws to safeguard not only the adult but also the very youngest member of that species. Even atheists can see how a bald eagle's eggs should be protected; it's really not a religious question at all. What's so troublesome is how we are able to understand the importance of protecting the earliest stages of animal life but when it comes to our own human life, a kind of mental disconnect takes place. Our moral judgement quickly becomes murky and obtuse when we desire to do certain things that are not good, like having abortions, or destroying embryonic humans for their stem cells.

Once the religious imposition card is played, and Christian lawmakers suddenly become weak-kneed about defending human life and sound morals, the other side then feels free to do the imposing themselves, without having expended too much effort on confronting the essence of the moral debate itself.

About the Aauthor
Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the diocese of Fall River, MA, and serves as the Director of Education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See http://www.ncbcenter.org/.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Novena to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - Day 4

2006-08-10T11:02:00.000-04:00

Day 4, "... Ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you." John 15:7

Mary, Queen Assumed into Heaven, I rejoice that after years of heroic martyrdom on earth, you have at last been taken to the throne prepared for you in heaven by the Holy Trinity.

Lift my heart with you in the glory of your Assumption above the dreadful touch of sin and impurity. Teach me how small earth becomes when viewed from heaven. Make me realize that death is the triumphant gate through which I shall pass to your Son, and that someday my body shall rejoin my soul in the unending bliss of heaven.

From this earth, over which I tread as a pilgrim, I look to you for help. I ask for this favor: (Mention your request).

When my hour of death has come, lead me safely to the presence of Jesus to enjoy the vision of my God for all eternity together with you.

EWTN link.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Who should teach your kids about sex?

2006-08-10T10:04:00.000-04:00

"Catholic Matriarch in my Domestic Church aka Catholic Mom" has a great article about this. Below are a few excerpts. Click the link above to view the original article.

The original title of the following artivle is
"It'sMy Job, Not the School's Job, To Teach My Child About Sex"

There was a time in my life when I understood calculus, differential equations, and advanced physics. Now, however, those brain cells have been permanently deleted. Therefore, I am happy to have someone whose advanced math and physics brain cells are still intact teach my children the wonders of integrals, vectors, and quantum mechanics. On the other hand, it is my job to teach my children about sex and sexuality. Because of this, my 10th grader is now happily engaged in a study hall each day, rather than sitting through the “morally neutral” presentation of human sexuality offered by this quarter’s health class. The public school program pays lip service to abstinence but with a “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” says, “Here is the rest of the story.” They proclaim to the students, “You are not ready to have sex now!” Okay. When will they be ready? The program can’t say “after marriage” because that is a moral stricture and this program is ---all together now—“morally neutral”. So they use the tried and true parental line, “When you are older.” This is followed up with “We know some of you will not follow our advice and are going to be sexually active, so here is what you need to know.”

...Discussions about sex and sexuality have proceeded in an age appropriate fashion their entire lives. I want them to have all the facts.

...I want them to receive this information within the framework of our values formed by our Catholic faith. My children need more than abstinence education. They need character formation and development of the virtue of Chastity.

...In the first encyclical of his papacy, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI describes this marital love as the ultimate reflection of God’s loving relationship with mankind. This is what I want my children to learn.

...So as parents, we need to prepare ourselves. We need to be clear about the Church’s teachings. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is a pivotal work on human sexuality. However, the full text can be intimidating. I recommend one of the works by Christopher West as a good starting point. In addition, read Real Love by Mary Beth Bonacci and Did Adam and Eve have Belly Buttons by Matthew Pinto. Once you are finished reading them, give them to your teens to read. Then listen to them. Don’t launch into your analysis of the books. Let your children tell you what they understood. Ask questions. Help them to make the lessons their own conclusions, not just parental lectures.

The full article can be found here

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Compendium of the CCC

2006-08-09T10:28:00.000-04:00

I recently attended a talk by a Deacon in our area titled "An Intro to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church" I have to aggree with the instructor, it is a great resource! All Catholics should have one. With the low price, why not!

For those who say it is not for everyone... (emphasis mine)

I entrust this Compendium above all to the entire Church and, in particular, to every Christian, in order that it may awaken in the Church of the third millennium renewed zeal for evangelization and education in the faith, which ought to characterize every community in the Church and every Christian believer, regardless of age or nationality.

-- Pope Benedict XVI, Motu Proprio, Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Thank you Holy Father for another great gift to the Church.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Crossroads Pro-Life Walk Across America

2006-08-09T08:54:00.000-04:00

I first heard about Crossroads from a young man who came and spoke at St. Joseph's Catholic Church. He shared with us about his experience, and the trails and joys of this journey. I share this story with you. Let us all keep the walkers in our prayers.

It's difficult to walk in the heat, but what keeps all of us going, I think, is knowing that the purpose of our pilgrimage is to witness to life," said Missourian Dennis Stoll, one of more than 40 young people who have spent much of the summer walking across the country for the pro-life cause. Each summer, college-age walkers spread the pro-life message as they pray at abortion clinics in cities and towns along their route, attend daily Mass, recite the rosary and pray for a change in the culture to bring an end to abortion. "Crossroads Pro-Life Walk Across America" sponsors three walks that take place simultaneously. The northern walk starts in Seattle and goes through Billings, Mont., Minneapolis and Cleveland, among other places. The central walk begins in San Francisco and some of the cities on the route are Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Kan., and Indianapolis. The southern walk skirts the bottom of the country, originating in Los Angeles, and stops include Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta. All three walks were to merge Aug. 12 in Washington for a rally on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Their website is www.crossroadswalk.com. Thanks to The World IMHO for the origional link.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Novena to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - Day 3

2006-08-09T08:01:00.000-04:00

Day 3, Lord hear our prayers.

Mary, Queen Assumed into Heaven, I rejoice that after years of heroic martyrdom on earth, you have at last been taken to the throne prepared for you in heaven by the Holy Trinity.

Lift my heart with you in the glory of your Assumption above the dreadful touch of sin and impurity. Teach me how small earth becomes when viewed from heaven. Make me realize that death is the triumphant gate through which I shall pass to your Son, and that someday my body shall rejoin my soul in the unending bliss of heaven.

From this earth, over which I tread as a pilgrim, I look to you for help. I ask for this favor: (Mention your request).

When my hour of death has come, lead me safely to the presence of Jesus to enjoy the vision of my God for all eternity together with you.

EWTN link.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Is God Calling You?

2006-08-08T22:20:00.000-04:00

Here is a great video from the Archdiocese of New York showing a true witness to the world!

Be Not Afraid!

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Novena to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - Day 2

2006-08-08T19:35:00.000-04:00

Day 2, keep the prayers flowing!

Mary, Queen Assumed into Heaven, I rejoice that after years of heroic martyrdom on earth, you have at last been taken to the throne prepared for you in heaven by the Holy Trinity.

Lift my heart with you in the glory of your Assumption above the dreadful touch of sin and impurity. Teach me how small earth becomes when viewed from heaven. Make me realize that death is the triumphant gate through which I shall pass to your Son, and that someday my body shall rejoin my soul in the unending bliss of heaven.

From this earth, over which I tread as a pilgrim, I look to you for help. I ask for this favor: (Mention your request).

When my hour of death has come, lead me safely to the presence of Jesus to enjoy the vision of my God for all eternity together with you.

EWTN link.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Novena to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary - EWTN

2006-08-07T16:09:00.000-04:00

Today is the day to start it! A good friend of mine has a beautiful devotion to our Mother Mary and recently gave me a book of daily devotions to Mary. With that in mind, please join me in a Novena to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Special thanks to EWTN for the link.

Mary, Queen Assumed into Heaven, I rejoice that after years of heroic martyrdom on earth, you have at last been taken to the throne prepared for you in heaven by the Holy Trinity.

Lift my heart with you in the glory of your Assumption above the dreadful touch of sin and impurity. Teach me how small earth becomes when viewed from heaven. Make me realize that death is the triumphant gate through which I shall pass to your Son, and that someday my body shall rejoin my soul in the unending bliss of heaven.

From this earth, over which I tread as a pilgrim, I look to you for help. I ask for this favor: (Mention your request).

When my hour of death has come, lead me safely to the presence of Jesus to enjoy the vision of my God for all eternity together with you.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Honest Sex, Honest Marriage, Honest Celibacy (Link)

2006-08-04T15:37:00.000-04:00

I found this post by "Me Monk. Me Meander." It is well written and really gives good cause for reflection!

HONEST SEX, HONEST MARRIAGE, HONEST CELIBACY

— Without Reference to God, the Bible or the Church!

If we understand that sexual intercourse is "body language" that says, "I give you my all," then wholehearted HONESTY in making that statement requires several conditions.

Honestly:

… all of me entirely for you alone, not for another— monogamy;

… all my years— lifelong monogamy;

… all my body— without latex, pills or surgery to shield or impede my body.

— Now … What DOES God Have to Do with It?

Click HERE for the entire post (it is well worth the read).

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Back to School Time - Even for Pope Benedict XVI

2006-08-03T12:45:00.000-04:00

As that time of year approches quickly, students everywhere are think about what this year will bring. School, some love it, some dread it. I for one would love to be in a class taught by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Ratzinger-Schülerkreis, that is the ‘Ratzinger Students’ Circle’, brings together once a year the old theology professor, now pope Benedict XVI, and his former students to discuss a new topic every year.

The private meeting is set for Saturday, September 2, and Sunday, September 3, at the Pontifical Villa in the pope's summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.

he first such meeting was held when Joseph Ratzinger was still a professor in Regensburg. Once he became archbishop of Munich, his students asked him to continue and he accepted. When he moved to Rome to take up the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the annual event continued. Typically, meetings were held at a monastery over a weekend. When the 2004 meeting ended, participants left already knowing the following year’s subject: the concept of God in Islam.

When in the spring of 2005, cardinal Ratzinger became pope, his former students thought that their annual tradition would stop, but were proved wrong. Thanks to Benedict XVI, the annual meeting was held last year and so it will this year.

Read the entire article HERE

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

"If you don't pray, you fail," - Fr. Kevin Gallagher

2006-08-03T10:35:00.000-04:00

Encouraging message about a young priest in Philadelphia from The Christian Science Monitor.

In the 31-years since Fr. Gallagher was born, the number of Roman Catholic priests in the U.S. has dropped sharply, from about 59,000 to fewer than 44,000 today.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, where Gallagher ministers, is no different. In 1975, 15 men were ordained for the archdiocese - but Gallagher was one of only five in his 2002 ordination class. That same year, emerging national news of sexual abuse of children began to thin congregations, fuel cynicism and foster mistrust among clergy and lay people alike.

But anyone who thinks the Catholic priesthood is dispirited should take a look at the Fr. Gallaghers of the church.

"I just want to say how happy I am," he declares unnecessarily. "And I think most priests are."

Gallagher is second in command at St. Denis Parish, a compact complex of church, rectory, convent, school, and cemetery serving a congregation of 2,600 families here in this Philadelphia suburb.

After Mass, the priest moves quickly through the rectory's big, comfy kitchen, gulping cereal, making introductions, absent-mindedly shoveling errant strawberries into the mouth of a visitor whose cerebral palsy makes her hand shaky. This morning, like all mornings, starts with a list of good intentions. Most of them get tossed as the day progresses, interrupted, as it is, by the never-ending beeping of voice mail, e-mail, intercom, phone, and the tuition payment queries, and church maintenance questions. There's a 9 a.m. spiritual direction appointment, which no one seems to notice is slow getting underway. There's the new family to register. There's a trip into Philadelphia to help prepare for the installation of a bishop. There's a meal with the family whose loved one Gallagher buried not long ago.

But first he's sitting down with a couple he has never met to plan the funeral of their 18-year-old son, the victim of an apparent drug overdose. The tragedy is compounded by news that the friend at whose house the man died has apparently taken his own life. Not parishioners, they came to St. Denis for the funeral because "we were the first place they thought of," says the priest.

Many who tussle with the ways of the Catholic church wonder how a celibate, all-male priesthood can adequately minister to a rarely celibate, often-female church. On this day, though, one wonders what a boyish and relentlessly positive 31-year-old can possibly do for a mother and father in shock. After the meeting, he appears unshaken. He says, he considers it a "blessing" to be able to minister at funerals - even gut-wrenching ones like this. "This is what I was ordained for."

Being dismissed as "young," with its implication that he's unqualified, drives Gallagher crazy. After all, this is a man sure of his mission, in full agreement with the teachings of his church, which undergird his every activity. By virtue of his ordination, his calling is to act - in however flawed and human a form - as the person of Christ for his flock. "You want to spend yourself for others," he explains.

"We often, often, often get called in the middle of the night. The callers don't want to see me," he says. "They want to see Christ." To Catholics, the sacraments an ordained priest administers are signs of the presence of God. As a priest, he says, "You're everything and you're nothing."
__________

Then and now, he's had no qualms about wearing clerical dress, even after receiving some "eerie" looks when first the scandal broke. "You [wanted to] say 'stop staring at me. I'm not a pedophile.' "
__________

An unapologetic "people person," the priest consciously surrounds himself with family, parishioners, and friends, taking care to avoid isolation and to head off the acute loneliness he felt when he arrived at the parish. Gift money from his ordination went to a down payment on a house at the Jersey shore he owns with two other priests, where the talk is sports, politics, current events, and the funnier side of parish life. He also remains close friends with several women, one of them a high school crush who married recently. His one fear, he acknowledges, is the passing of his parents. "They are everything to me."

These days, his praying comes more easily. "If you don't pray, you fail," he explains.

So, before he hurries downstairs in the morning, he reads the breviary prayers that all priests recite daily. "Quiet time is sacred," he says. "Sometimes you even say your prayers faster so you can have your quiet time. Because once I come down those stairs in the morning it's all over."

We must continue to pray for all our priests that Christ will strengthen and support them and that Mother Mary will surround them with her vail and continue to draw them deeper into their vocation. St. John Vianney, Patron Saint of Priests, Pray for all our priests.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Theology on Tap - Friday 08-04-2006

2006-08-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

The Diocese of St. Augustine's Office of Young Adult Ministry presents.....

THEOLOGY ON TAP!

A discussion about VOCATIONS with our distinguished speaker:

Fr. Alan Bower

August 4
6:30pm Happy Hour, 7pm - 8pm speaker

Mudville Grill, St. Nicolas Shopping Plaza

Please join us for an opportunity to socialize and enjoy an interesting discussion and dialogue about our faith. Remember to tell a friend, bring a friend!

Contact Chris Wilkey with questions.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

A Gift to Alter Servers from Pope Benedict XVI

2006-08-02T22:27:00.000-04:00

Our beloved Pope Benedict XVI gave a special gift to alter servers during his General Audience today. Below are a few excerpts, the rest can be found at CNS.

The Holy Father began his remarks by recalling his first year serving Mass in 1935. Pope Benedict, assuring them that he would keep his comments brief due to the heat, told the altar servers that he wished to offer a message, “that can accompany you in your life and your service to the Church.”

Benedict spoke of the Apostles and their great friendship with the Lord as well as their service to him and the Gospel.

“Today, as a look out at you standing here in St. Peter’s Square,” the Pope told the many altar servers, “I think of the Apostles and feel the voice of Jesus who says to you, ‘I no longer call you servants, but friends, remain in my love and bear much fruit.’ I invite you: listen to this voice. Christ did not just say this 2000 years ago, he lives and speaks to you now.”

Benedict told the servers to listen faithfully to the voice of Jesus and that, while the Vocation of each person is different, He desires friendship with all.

The Pope challenged the young servers to take the fruits of goodness and service and carry them to all areas of their life, this he said, would make them true apostles and friends of Jesus.

Don't forget to keep Pope Benedict XVI in your prayers, that the Lord guide, protect, and strengthen our "German Shepard" in the walk God has planned for his life.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Portiuncula - August 2 - Indulgence

2006-08-02T10:35:00.000-04:00

Having recently attended a conference at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, I was blessed by the chance to pray at the replica of the Portiuncula located on the beautiful campus in Ohio.

Any chance for an indulgence is one that I want to avail myself of. Here is your chance as well.

I am posting just the basics here. The Roman Sacristan has all these details and much more on indulgences.

First:
An indulgence is the remission in the eyes of God of the temporal punishment
due to sins whose culpable element has already been taken away. The Christian
faithful who are rightly disposed and observe the definite, prescribed
conditions gain this remission through the effective assistance of the Church,
which, as the minister of redemption, authoritatively distributes and applies
the treasury of the expiatory works of Christ and the Saints.-Handbook of
Indulgences, Norms

Now for the details:
one can obtain a plenary indulgence on August 2nd by visiting a parish church and doing the following:

Devoutly carry out the indulgenced work and devoutly pray the required prayers (if there are any) that go along with the action. In this case, visiting a parish church and reciting the "Our Father" and the Creed.
Say one “Our Father” and one “Hail Mary” for the intentions of the Pope on the day you perform the indulgenced work.
Worthily receive Holy Communion, ideally on the same day on which you perform the indulgenced work or at least within a few days of performing the indulgenced work.
Make a Sacramental Confession within a week of (before or after) the day on which you perform the indulgenced work.
It is also required that one be free from all attachment to sin, even venial sin.

Remember, indulgences may be obtained for oneself or may be applied to the souls in Purgatory, but they may never be done for other living persons.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Archbishop Charles Chaput (Denver) - Church vs. State

2006-08-01T08:50:00.000-04:00

I saw this on NewAdvent.org and felt that it needed to be shared again. In light of the media's comments about religious people complicating the political scene with faith with their views; Pro-Life, Marriage between a man and a woman, the intrinsic value of the person, and many more.

The mostly solemn crowd erupted in laughter and applause when Chaput was asked if the government would listen to his church.
He replied, "I don't think the government should listen to the church - the government should listen to the people and the people should listen to the church."

Now that is a line worth memorizing! Archbishop Chaput gets an A in Civics.

Archbishop Charles Chaput (Denver) on July 18, 2006 from Rocky Mountain News.

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

A Great Gift from Pope Leo XIII

2006-07-31T13:37:00.000-04:00

Thank you Pope Leo XIII for the blessing of your faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ. I have always had a special place in my heart for the The St. Michael the Archangel Prayer. The most common version is as follows:

Saint Michael, The Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into Hell, Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

There is a full version from Pope Leo XIII. "A Catholic Life" blog shares it with us.
Click here for "A Catholic Life"

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Great news for St. Joseph's Youth Group

2006-07-31T08:53:00.000-04:00

Heard some great news about a local Catholic Church youth group. St. Joseph's Youth Group won the 106.5 The Promise scavenger hunt and been awarded the Disney Night of Joy prize package. They get 50 tickets to NOJ, a chartered bus ride down and back and snacks for the trip! The other news is that out of all the entries, St. Joseph's Youth Group was the only Catholic church that entered and now on the front page of the Promise website we can see "Congrats to our winning Youth Group St. Joseph's Catholic!"
Great Job St. Joseph's Youth Group!

In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic

Welcome to 1 Faithful Catholic

2006-07-28T13:59:00.000-04:00

This first post is to officially welcome all to my new blog. I started this for all the faithful and faith filled Catholics in North East Florida and Catholics everywhere. It might take a little while to get the full site up and running, but I will do my best.
In Our Lord and Our Lady,
1FaithfulCatholic