I'm Fighting Back, 2020!
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."
Here's What I Am Doing
- I will eat each day between a set window of 2-4 hours. For example, 2pm to 6pm (This is also called "intermittent fasting" and is found to be healthy as it burns unwanted fat and regulates body sugar. One can widen or narrow this window and choose a different time of day that suits a lifestyle).
- I will drink only water. Coffee and Tea are also allowed.
- I will have no sweets or junk food (Allowed on exception days noted above).
- I will daily mortify the flesh with exercise (e.g., walking, strength training, etc.)
- Whenever I hunger, or sacrifice, or suffer in any way, I will offer it up as I pray a Hail Mary for the conversion of sinners and the end to abortion.
- Upon waking up, I will pray the Morning Offering.
- Before the Blessed Sacrament (if possible), preferably in the morning, I will spend at least 15-20 minutes each day, in meditation and quiet mental prayer.
- Before the Blessed Sacrament (if possible), preferably in the morning, I will spend at least 15-20 minutes each day reading and reflecting on the daily Mass readings.
- Before the Blessed Sacrament (if possible), preferably in the morning, I will pray the rosary daily for the following intentions:
- An end of abortion
- My growth in holiness
- For a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pope Francis and our bishops, and for a spiritual renewal in the United States of America.
- I will pray the Chaplet of St. Michael against the forces of evil in the world.
- I will pray the Angelus (6am, noon, 6pm).
- I will examine my conscience and privately ask God's forgiveness each night.
- I will go to Confession frequently. At least once a month.
- I will wear the Brown Scapular (or Scapular Medal)
- I will renew my consecration to Mary on a regular basis (at least weekly).
- Whenever I am asked for prayers, I will journal their name and daily pray the Sacred Heart Novena Prayer for all those who asked for my prayers (this is how Padre Pio prayed for others).
- I will build my Holy Alliance each day by calling upon a Saint to pray with me for a Holy Soul in Purgatory. Then, I will ask my Holy Alliance to pray with me for those who have asked for my prayers, as I pray the Sacred Heart Novena Prayer (Learn about building your Holy Alliance HERE).
I'm Going In!
(Please recruit family and friends to enlist!)
DAY 1 - HOLY MARY, HELP US TO STRIVE FOR PERFECTION!
Read about this "Get Strong" Novena HERE.
GOD'S WORD
HEROES' WORDS
MEDITATION
PRAY A ROSARY
- Rosary of the Day: Joyful Mysteries
- Traditional 54 Day Rotation: Joyful Mysteries
LATERAN BASILICA-WORLD FREEDOM DAY
The God of PEACE be with all of you. Amen.
So be it. This is the joy of the church which is the peace of Christ.
How to be joyful[1]
If there’s one undeniable fact about human
nature, it’s that we all want to be happy. We crave joy—infinite, endless joy.
The problem is, we often look for happiness in all the wrong places, leaving
ourselves frustrated and miserable. The plethora of wildly popular
self-help books shows that we are hungry for guidance on how to live well. One
man found the secret of true happiness. His name was St. John Bosco.
He was a man who experienced many trials, but who also lived a life
full of gladness and joy. St. John Bosco was so happy that he could hardly
contain it. “Dear friend,” he wrote to an associate, “I am a man who loves
joy and who therefore wishes to see you and everybody happy. If you do as I
say, you will be joyful and glad in heart.”
So how did St. John Bosco find real happiness? Here’s his
six recommendations for living a joyful life:
- Live
for God alone – “Give God the greatest possible glory and honor
Him with your whole soul. If you have a sin on your conscience, remove it
as soon as possible by means of a good Confession.”
- Be
a servant – “Never offend anyone. Above all, be willing to
serve others. Be more demanding of yourself than of others.”
- Be
careful in your associations – “Do not trust those who
have no faith in God and who do not obey His precepts. Those who have no
scruples in offending God and who do not give Him what they should will
have many fewer scruples in offending you and even betraying you when it
is convenient for them.”
- Spend
carefully – “If you do not wish to be ruined, never
spend more than you earn. You should bear this in mind and always measure
your true possibilities accurately.”
- Be
humble – “Speak little of yourself and never praise yourself
before anyone. He who praises himself, even if he has real merit, risks
losing the good opinion of others. He who seeks only praise and honors is
sure to have an empty head fed only by wind… will have no peace of soul
and will be unreliable in his undertakings.”
- Carry
your cross – “Carry your cross on your back and take is as it
comes, small or large, whether from friends or enemies and of whatever
wood it be made. The most intelligent and happiest of men is he who,
knowing that he is doomed to carry the cross throughout life, willingly
and resignedly accepts the one God sends him.”
Finding real happiness isn’t complicated. Anyone, even a
child, could live by these simple rules. Yet, these prescriptions are
pretty counter-cultural, aren’t they? They are the exact opposite of what
society tells us will make us happy. You certainly won’t find them shared in a
New York Times best-seller. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter what society
says. The most joyful of all people are the saints—men and women like St. John
Bosco. They were truly and lastingly happy because they had discovered the
secret that holiness is real happiness. And they want you to
discover it too.
Feast of the Dedication of the
Lateran Basilica in Rome
Today the liturgy
celebrates the dedication of the Lateran Basilica, called “mother and head of
all the churches of the city and the world.” In fact, this basilica was the
first to be built after Emperor Constantine’s edict, in 313, granted Christians
freedom to practice their religion. The emperor himself gave Pope Miltiades the
ancient palace of the Laterani family, and the basilica, the baptistery, and
the patriarchate, that is, the Bishop of Rome’s residence — where the Popes
lived until the Avignon period — were all built there. The basilica’s
dedication was celebrated by Pope Sylvester around 324 and was named Most Holy
Savior; only after the 6th century were the names of St. John the Baptist and
St. John the Evangelist added, and now is typically denominated by these
latter. Initially the observance of this feast was confined to the city of
Rome; then, beginning in 1565, it was extended to all the Churches of the Roman
rite. The honoring of this sacred edifice was a way of expressing love and
veneration for the Roman Church, which, as St. Ignatius of Antioch says,
“presides in charity” over the whole Catholic communion (Letter to the Romans,
1:1). On this solemnity the Word of God
recalls an essential truth: the temple of stones is a symbol of the living
Church, the Christian community, which in their letters the Apostles Peter and
Paul already understood as a “spiritual edifice,” built by God with “living
stones,” namely, Christians themselves, upon the one foundation of Jesus
Christ, who is called the “cornerstone” (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:9-11, 16-17; 1
Peter 2:4-8; Ephesians 2:20-22). “Brothers, you are God’s building,” St.
Paul wrote, and added: “holy is God’s temple, which you are” (1 Corinthians
3:9c, 17).
The beauty and harmony of
the churches, destined to give praise to God, also draws us human beings,
limited and sinful, to convert to form a “cosmos,” a well-ordered
structure, in intimate communion with Jesus, who is the true Saint of saints.
This happens in a culminating way in the Eucharistic liturgy, in which the
“ecclesia,” that is, the community of the baptized, come together in a unified
way to listen to the Word of God and nourish themselves with the Body and Blood
of Christ. From these two tables the Church of living stones is built up in
truth and charity and is internally formed by the Holy Spirit transforming
herself into what she receives, conforming herself more and more to the Lord
Jesus Christ. She herself, if she lives in sincere and fraternal unity, in this
way becomes the spiritual sacrifice pleasing to God.
Dear friends, today’s
feast celebrates a mystery that is always relevant: God’s desire to build a
spiritual temple in the world, a community that worships him in spirit and
truth (cf. John 4:23-24). But this observance also reminds us of the importance of the material buildings in
which the community gathers to celebrate the praises of God. Every community
therefore has the duty to take special care of its own sacred buildings, which
are a precious religious and historical patrimony. For this we call upon the
intercession of Mary Most Holy, that she helps us to become, like her, the
“house of God,” living temple of his love.
— Benedict XVI, Angelus
Address, November 9, 2008
Things to Do:[2]
- Learn
more about St. John Lateran;
- This
basilica represents the place of baptism, so it would be a good time to
renew your baptismal promises.
- It
also represents heaven, so we can meditate on the joys of heaven and God's
generosity in giving us sufficient graces to be saved.
- Since
St. John Lateran is the Pope's church, say a prayer for our Holy Father.
- From
the Catholic Culture Library: Mother
Church of the World.
Carl
Sagan born 1934[3]
One of the most well-known
gurus of scientism was the late Carl Sagan, best known for his popular
television series "Cosmos." Sagan was unrelenting in his
insistence that the methods and speculations of science are absolutely
necessary for the proper understanding of all reality. Science, then, surpasses
any other form of knowledge, including religion. In the "religion" of
scientism only matter is eternal. "Mother Earth" was for Sagan the only
god to be worshipped, as is the case for many who espouse New Age thinking.
In his book
"Cosmos," Sagan wrote that "our ancestors worshipped the Sun,
and they were far from foolish. And yet the Sun is an ordinary, even a mediocre
star. If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it now make sense
to revere the Sun and stars?" (p. 243).
Put even more simply,
scientism is the belief that whatever cannot be experienced by the senses,
i.e., seen, touched, heard, etc., simply does not exist. First and foremost,
this means that God does not exist because he cannot be subjected to scientific
observation and proof.
Recently, scientism has
taken a curious turn. Last year scientists at the National Institutes for
Health in Bethesda, Md., performed experiments that convinced them that what
religion calls the moral conscience is, in fact, nothing more than basic brain
activity. Remaining true to the tenets of scientism, these scientists would
allow no explanation of moral action other than the claim that that's the way
our brains are wired.
What is interesting,
however, is that, instead of using science to discredit religion, these
scientists seem to be claiming that what people of faith have known all along
can now be substantiated by the scientific method. It's an intriguing twist,
but in the end scientism reigns supreme.
Harvard neuroscientist and
philosopher Joshua Greene, as good an example of scientism as anyone, has
stated that his goal as a scientist is "to reveal our moral thinking for
what it is: a complex hodgepodge of emotional responses and rational
(re)constructions, shaped by biological and cultural forces . . ." There
it is. For Greene — as for all good proponents of scientism — not only do
conscience and morality have no objective meaning or content or even less do
they come from God, the human person is ultimately understood to be no more
than the product of cultural and biological forces.
Several decades ago, a
Russian cosmonaut returned from his first venture into space and proudly
announced that he had been into the heavens and could now verify that God was
nowhere to be seen. This finding, of course, fit nicely into the atheistic
picture of reality that prevailed in the Soviet Union of those days.
More than simply a glib
pronouncement on the non-existence of God, however, the remark was expressive
of what has come to be known as "scientism." Michael Shermer, founder
of the Skeptics Society, provides a good definition of scientism:
"Scientism is the scientific worldview that encompasses natural
explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal
speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a
philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science."
This way of thinking is
becoming more and more acceptable in what has been called our "age of
science." It has infected even people of faith. Nowhere is it more obvious
than in the implicit — and even explicit at times — agreement that conscience
is, in fact, nothing more than what I think and feel about a particular
subject. My own personal thoughts are understood to be little other than the
effects of the culture in which I live. And so, even for some Catholics, the
moral conscience has little to do with God or his revelation or the natural
law. Rather, conscience has everything to do with how I, as an individual,
perceive reality. What else could account for the sad fact that many Catholics
believe that a crime like abortion could be morally justified in certain
situations?
In an age of relativism
such as ours, it is vitally important that we appreciate that God is the source
of all truth and meaning. He created that world and all that is in it. It is
his law that governs right behavior. It is his truth that informs and binds
every human conscience. It is his truth that is communicated authoritatively by
the magisterium of the Catholic Church. We read in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church: "A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful.
It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true
good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is
indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and
tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative
teachings" (No. 1783).
World Freedom Day[4]
In many parts of the
world, freedom is something that is taken for granted—the freedom to choose any
religion we want (or no religion at all), the freedom to be in a relationship
with the person we love, the freedom to travel…the list goes on. Unfortunately,
there are many, many places in the world where these freedoms are not available
to most people, who are forced to live empty, unfulfilling lives so the rulers
of their countries don’t have them thrown in jail or worse. If you don’t know
what it means to be afraid to voice your opinion, then you can consider
yourself very lucky to live in a place where liberty is a priority as well as a
basic human right. And like all good things, liberty should be celebrated, and
that’s what World Freedom Day is all about. The World Freedom Day is a federal
observance commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. The day commemorates the
end of communism in Eastern and Central Europe and was designated in 2001 by
President George W. Bush. It was created to celebrate the reunification of
loved ones separated by the Iron Curtain and differing ideologies, and
ultimately serves to acknowledge that the resolve of the masses can shift
boundaries, break unfavorable resolutions and ultimately determine the type of
leadership they desire so as to live is a freer, more fair society.
How
to Celebrate World Freedom Day
·
The
day is celebrated in different ways, depending on who’s celebrating.
Conservative groups such as the College Republicans and Young America
Foundation encourage students to celebrate the day through activism projects
and flyer campaigns, while on the other hand, political activists and
commentators see the day as an occasion to recognize President Ronald Reagan as
one of the most instrumental personalities in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
·
If
you are not living in the United States and therefore cannot be politically
active in the ways described, don’t worry! There are still plenty of ways you
can celebrate this day. Doing some reading about Ronald Reagan is a good start,
regardless of your nationality, but there are other figures that played large
parts in the fall of Communism as well. Among them are for example Margaret
Thatcher, often called the “Iron Lady” due to her determination and resolve,
who personally worked with Reagan to undermine the Communist regime.
·
Yet
another example of a person who was instrumental was a Pole named Karol
Wojtyła, more commonly known as Pope John Paul II. The pope helped ordinary
Poles and East Europeans banish their fear of Soviet Communism, convincing them
that liberation was possible. The prime minister restored her country’s failing
economy by reviving the “vigorous virtues” of the British people. The president
rebuilt America’s military power, its national morale, and its position as
leader of the free world.
·
All
three of these figures, working together, brought down an evil empire and
changed the world for the better, and these are the people that deserve remembrance
on World Freedom Day. The Cold War was a time of tension and uncertainty for
the West and misery and destruction for the East, so taking the time to find
out a bit more about the people that helped put an end to all of this is the
perfect way to celebrate this day.
Daily
Devotions
·
Eat
waffles and Pray for the assistance of the Angels
·
Monday: Litany of Humility
·
Rosary
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