!UNITY!

Hi Fr. John,
I need to share this, I thought best to share it w/ you, just taking courage to break out of my comfort zone like you said yesterday at Mass.
I just came back from Exposition at Nativity parish. While I was there I sat in a chair off to the left in front of Jesus, but there was a glare and I couldn’t quite see him in the Blessed Sacrament so I moved to kneel at the step just to the left of the center in front of him. A women walked in and kneeled right next to me, she probably just wanted to be right in the center as she said a few prayers, she obviously didn’t mind getting to close. As she kneeled there with her eyes closed I looked over at her with a sense of joy to be sharing a moment of love for our Lord and I had this thought of wanting to reach out to her. So as she finished and was about to stand up to take a seat in the pews I was empowered to reach over.I gently grabbed her hand and drew myself to kiss it. She kinda pulled back a little as I did this and asked in spanish, “pero porque mi besas la mano(but why do you kiss my hand)”, as I gently repeated the action to kiss her other hand I said to her in spanish, “pues porque tu sos mi madre y mi hermana(well because you’re my mother and my sister)”, she was overcome with affection as she saw that my eyes were teary from haven been crying in sadness asking God not to allow me to lose him again. She said, “ay mijo porque sufres( oh my son why do you suffer)”, as she embraced me and put her hands on my face. “porque no lo quierro pierder otra ves(because I don’t want to loose him again).” She asked me my name with sighs of love, I told her and so she proceeded to take her seat.
It was such a beautiful expirience to have right in front of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Since I couldn’t kiss my Lord I felt that I had in embracing my sister.

Thank you Father John, I never would of thought your homily would take such an effect in my life as it did. May we all take courage to reach out to one another.
“They will know we are his disciples in that we love one another.”
+t+PACEM+t+

The Third Largest Religous Group in the USA

Here’s an interesting article that is very short.  What are your thoughts on this information released a few days ago?  By the way, I grabbed this article off our RSS feeds at the bottom of the navigation bar on the right.

The Forum: Pew survey shows America’s vast Catholic exodus

Feb. 27, 2008 (CWNews.com) - One out of every ten adult Americans is a lapsed Catholic. From the Catholic perspective that is the most striking statistic among the many furnished in a “Religious Landscape Survey” by the Pew Forum.

Catholics still constitute the single largest religious denomination in the US, accounting for 23.9% of the adult population. (Evangelical churches, taken as a group, are home to 26.3% of the American people; but they are divided among the different Protestant denominations.) Baptists run a distant second, with 12.7%. If they qualified as a separate denomination, the Americans who have deserted the Catholic Church of their childhood would constitute the third-largest religious group in the country, with 10.1% of the population….read more

LOL Some More

I ran across this one as I was doing my homework.

An opportunity is realized

Photo credit: gcc/cs/is

Kick-Butt Movies on the Lives of the Saints

http://www.netflix.com/Search?v1=Padre%20Pio%3A%20Miracle%20Man&search_submit.x=0&search_submit.y=0

      I actually  rented this movie last Lent, but I loved it so much I plan on buying it and adding it to my library. Hit me up, and if I have it by then I’d gladly lend it out to whomever wants to borrow. I have a dream to become a saint, I know, funny ha, I laugh myself about that sometimes. Really though, it’s the very definition of the theological virtue of Hope, to desire heaven and become perfected in the very image of God, trusting he will accomplish this in me. Being witness to the miracle of my ongoing conversion, especially in comparison to what God had to work with 10 years ago, being a straight-out “menace to society”, my belief in God completing this work in me only becomes stronger from year to year or rather from Lent to Lent, lol. Watching these types of movies on the saints only fires up that desire in me more and more.  I’ve seen the Saint Rita(Rita da Cascia) movie which was also exceptional.  These flicks are pretty long and usually come in two parts, well over 3 hrs. a piece, but well worth the time. Trust me as a fellow lover of the Church and the Saints, you end up wishing they had made them even longer. I also recommend Mother Teresa starring Olivia Hussey who played the role of Mary from Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and Saint Anthony(Sant’Antonio di Padova) in Italian w/ English subtitles, although these two films are much shorter, they too are excellent. I have ‘Saint Anthony’ on dvd, actually it’s Franky’s, but I’m sure he wont mind lending it out, you know that Franky, ready to give the shirt off his back. I also have the Pope John Paul II movie starring John Voight ready to hand out, great movie! Lots of these movies cannot be found at your local blockbuster, except for Mother Teresa and JPII, but netflix has them all. click the link and hit the search for any of these movies I’ve recommended, they all have great reviews. This one on Padre Pio is my favorite, though it’s also in Italian. I just got the movie on John Bosco: Mission to Love, I’ll be sure to let yall know how it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s another hit.+t+PACEM+t+ 

                     

LOL Photo

This is one funny photo.  I have to admit that I didn’t take the picture or do the photoshop work, but it is funny all the same.

Star Squirrel Wars

Credit: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/215/504806006_0e51da8759.jpg

Sacred Scripture

So what are some of your favorite passages from Sacred Scripture?

‘TEMPTATION’(writings of St.John of the Cross)

*so as I was looking back through my February issue of Magnificat to find and add quotes of the Saints, I came across this which slipped my mind that I had read* 

    The reason trials are necessary in order to reach this state is that highest union cannot be wrought in a soul that is not fortified by trials and temptations and purified by tribulations, darknesses, and distress, just as a superior quality liqueur is poured only into a sturdy flask which is prepaired and purified. By these trials the sensory part of the soul is purified and strengthened and the spiritual part is refined, purged, and disposed…  God allows them to be tempted in order to elevate them as high as possible, that is, to union with the divine wisdom…   The combat of trials, distress, and temptations deadens the evil and imperfect habits of the soul and purifies and strengthens it. A man should hold in esteem the interior and exterior trials God sends him, realizing that there are few who merit to be brought to perfection through suffering and to undergo trials for the sake of so high a state…   For God repays the interior and exterior trials very well with divine goods for the soul and body, so that there is not a trial which does not have a corresponding and considerable reward.

                                                                              

 SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS(The Mystical Doctor)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_the_Cross

*”Lead us not into temptation,BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL”

Attitude

I received this in an e-mail and wanted to share it with all of you:

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. “Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.” So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. “Hmm,” she said, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.” So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. “Well,” she said, “today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.” So she did, and she had a fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn’t a single hair on her head. “YAY!” she exclaimed. “I don’t have to fix my hair today!”

Attitude is everything.

Be kinder than necessary,
for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Live simply,
Love generously,
Care deeply,
Speak kindly.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…

It’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Let’s Start

So I thought I’d go with Christine’s first suggestion to get our feet wet. You don’t have to take any photos if you don’t want to, but it’s just something fun to do. Freely interpret the ideas…there is no right or wrong. HAVE FUN and let’s see what inspires us.

Subject #1: LOL (Laugh out loud)

Put to the test through the walk in the valley of the shadow of death

CONFESSIONS OF THE WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH (revised with inserts from the “DARK NIGHT”)

      For the past couple years Lent has been for me a time where God raises me up from the dirt,the dirt of my addictions selfishness and despondence to God, where I usually spend the rest of the year.  From what I’ve observed last Lent and then again this new years Lent, this seems to be so true, awkward but true. Actually it’s been somewhat of my personal experience with the changing seasons within our Catholic calender since my full return home, home being our true mystical home which is the Catholic Church.

 But those who are very weak he keeps in this night for a long time. Their purgation is less intense and their temptations abated, and he frequently refreshes their senses to keep them from backsliding. They arrive at the purity of perfection late in life. And some of them never reach it entirely, for they are never wholly in the night or wholly out of it. Although they do not advance, God exercises them for short periods and on certain days in those temptations and aridities to preserve them in humility and self-knowledge; and at other times and seasons he comes to their aid with consolation, lest through loss of courage they return to their search for worldly consolation. God acts with other weaker souls as though he were showing himself and then hiding; he does this to exercise them in his love, for without these withdrawals they would not learn to reach him.

 And who was it that brought me home…but of course our dear Holy Mother, Mary.           I have this tattoo on my right arm of the Miraculous Medal. Having come to a personal revelation of the very true existence of God and His Son at the age of 18, at a time when I was amongst the worst that St.Dominic’s Parish had confirmed a year earlier under the patron saint of thieves,St.Dismas. Not practicing my faith as many young adults are sadly accustomed to do in todays society, the culture of death, as our late beloved Pope John Paul II referred to it, skeptical of the Church due to a lack of understanding, I put my faith in the promises of the Mother of Christ in reference to the private revelation of her miraculous medal. I so wanted to break free from my addictions that I skipped the wearing of the medal and straight out tattooed it to the back of my arm.