Monday, July 11, 2022

Monday Night at the Movies

FEAST OF ST. BENEDICT-POPULATION DAY

Matthew, Chapter 28, Verse 4-5

⁴The guards were shaken with FEAR of him and became like dead men. ⁵ Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.

Have you ever been so afraid that you lost consciousness? I must admit I have not; however once when praying intently I distinctly heard the singing of angelic voices that scared me so bad I hid and prayed it stop, which it did. Yet it is not impossible for this to happen.

Extreme pain, fear, or stress may bring on fainting. This type of fainting is caused by overstimulation of the vagus nerve, a nerve connected to the brain that helps control breathing and circulation. In addition, a person who stands still or erect for too long may faint. This type of fainting occurs because blood pools in the leg veins, reducing the amount that is available for the heart to pump to the brain. This type of fainting is quite common in older people or those taking drugs to treat high blood pressure.[1]

The Law of Victory[2]

Jesus raised several people from the dead, but in each case differed from His own resurrection. Those people would eventually die again. But Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again. He defeated mankind’s greatest enemy: death. All other problems are problems because they kill us. Once Jesus defeated death, His followers could operate in total security. No struggle is too big for God. No question is unanswerable. No problem is too difficult. The resurrection of Christ trumpeted good news from the graveyard! Jesus in spite of the evil influence of Satan on men practiced the Law of Victory, decisively defeating even death itself.

The Law of Victory: Leaders find a way for the team to win. ~

John C. Maxwell

Leaders make things happen. They are unwilling to accept failure as their reality and choose to do all humanly possible (and sometimes even more) to achieve victory. Not just for themselves, but for their teams. Leaders live and breathe success. Leaders are resilient. They don’t feed off of the past but choose to move forward toward the next victory. Leaders are achievers. Leaders are winners. Leaders understand that they don’t need to win every battle to be victorious. They are patient and understand that victory sometimes takes time and often even sacrifices.[3]

Have courage He has risen, and He has sent His Mother Mary to help us in the end times. Do not be perplexed and remember Our Lady said, “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph!”[4]

Feast of Saint Benedict[5]

Saint Benedict was born in Nursia in central Italy around the year 480. He was born to a noble family, and after being homeschooled, he was sent to Rome to complete his education. The teenaged Benedict was already turning toward the Lord, and when he went to Rome, he was disappointed and dismayed by the lazy, extravagant ways of the other young students. Benedict was born into a time of immense social upheaval. The once grand Roman Empire was on its last legs. The ancient city of Rome was crumbling due to decadence from within and attacks from without. Seventy years before Benedict’s birth the city fell to the invasions of the barbarians. The civil authority was in tatters, the city had been stripped of its grandeur, and the Church herself was beset with corruption and theological arguments. Benedict left the chaos of the city and sought a quiet place to study in the mountains north of Rome. Near the town of Subiaco, he found a community of holy men, and settled near them to pursue a life of prayer. Eventually Benedict was asked to be the leader of the community. When that went wrong, he left to start his own monastic community. One community soon grew to twelve, and to establish these new communities on a sound foundation Benedict, wrote his simple Rule. We mustn’t think of Benedict’s communities as the great monasteries that existed in the Middle Ages. In the sixth century, Benedict’s small communities consisted of perhaps twenty people. They scratched their living from the land just like the other peasants with whom they lived. The only difference is that Benedict’s monks observed celibacy, lived together and followed a disciplined life of prayer, work and study. This simple, serious life was to prove a powerful antidote to the decadent chaos of the crumbling Roman Empire. Saint Benedict died on March 21, 547. After receiving Communion, he died with his arms outstretched, surrounded by his brothers. He left behind a legacy that would change the world. The monasteries became centers of learning, agriculture, art, and every useful craft. In this way, without directly intending it, the monasteries deeply affected the social, economic, and political life of the emergent Christian Europe. The monastic schools formed the pattern for the later urban cathedral schools, which in turn led to the founding of universities. In this way, monasticism preserved and handed on the wisdom of both Athens and Jerusalem, the foundations of Western civilization. It is for this reason that Saint Benedict is named the patron of Europe. Benedict is a great figure in the history of Western Europe, but his life and writings also give us a sure guide for a practical spiritual life today. His practical Rule for monks in the sixth century provides principles for Christian living that are as relevant and applicable today as they have been for the last 1,500 years.

Things to do:

o Get a St. Benedicts Medal

o Practice the Liturgy of the Hours

Ora and Labora (Work and Prayer)[6]

THE BENEDICTINE MONASTIC OFFICE

The Divine Office is at the center of the Benedictine life. Through it the monk lifts heart and mind to Almighty God, and uniting himself to his confreres, the Church and the entire world in offering God praise and thanks, in confessing his sins, and in calling on God for the needs of all people. The office punctuates the day of the monk; like a leaven awakening his soul to make the entire day, indeed the whole of life, a gift of the self to God. Praying the hours puts the monk into the real world, sanctifying his whole life and assisting him toward his goal of unceasing prayer – Ut In Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

The Benedictine Office is a rich collection of prayer that is based on the Rule of St. Benedict. Historically it is distinct from the Roman Office – also recently called the Liturgy of the Hours – which, after the Second Vatican Council, was reshaped to simplify and make more practical the prayer of the hours for the secular clergy, as well as the religious who use it, and the laity who make it a part of their life of prayer.

In 1966 the Breviarium Monasticum was the universal order of Divine Office for Benedictines. In that year the monks were given a period of time for liturgical experimentation, allowing each congregation of monasteries to adapt the tradition for its particular use, under certain guidelines. To this day the Breviarium Monasticum remains “official” and the time of experimentation is still in effect. In that circumstance, communities are using various forms of the Divine Office, and a few communities have even elected to take the new Roman Office (Liturgy of the Hours) as a convenient guideline because of its universal use among the secular clergy.

The following is a brief, general description of the centuries old Benedictine tradition of prayer in word and action. Reference is made occasionally to the Roman Office as another point of reference. The structure of the Office described below and outlined is according to the use at St. Bernard Abbey in Cullman, Alabama.

Traditional Monastic Hours (which became the standard for the Roman Office)	New Roman Office (Liturgy of the Hours) (American English version uses terms in parentheses)
Matins (Vigils)	Matins (Office of Readings) – any time of day
Lauds	Lauds (Morning Prayer)
Prime	Prime omitted in New Roman Office
Terce	Terce (Mid-Morning Prayer)
Sext	Sext (Mid-Day Prayer)
None	None (Mid-Afternoon Prayer)
Vespers	Vespers (Evening Prayer)
Compline	Compline (Night Prayer)

World Population Day[7]

World Population Day seeks to draw attention to issues related to a growing global population. The world's population as of April 2016, is over 7.4 billion. The world's population is rapidly surging with birth rates on the rise and life expectancy increases. Over the last century, between 1916 and 2012, global life expectancy more than doubled from 34 to 70 years while world population has quintupled from 1.5 billion to 7.3 billion between 1900 and 2016.

In 1989, the United Nations designated July 11th as World Population Day in an effort to garner attention for population issues and crises such as displaced people, rights and needs of women and girls and population safety on a global level. With an ever-growing world population, World Population Day serves to highlight the challenges and opportunities of this growth and its impact on planet sustainability, heavy urbanization, availability of health care and youth empowerment.

Agenda 2030's Goal #12 Will Exterminate Six Billion People[8]

Move over, Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot, there is a new extermination king in town. It is called Agenda 2030. The Agenda 2030 conference in Paris is being guided by 17 goals which contains targets that will forever alter humanity and change the planet forever. Of particular concern is goal #12, as it is the conduit from which the globalist depopulation agenda will be ushered in.

Agenda 2030 Goal #12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns Following the planned economic collapse, Agenda 2030 will enforce the most brutal austerity programs ever conceived of, or ever enforced. Just as it was in the Hunger Games movie, all food, water and medicine will be rationed. Inhabitants will be forced to take the Mark of the Beast, the dreaded but largely unknown RFID chip. We are already witnessing the birth of a cashless society. Soon, cash will be banned. Automation will bring promises of unlimited food production. The public will be sold on the widespread use of robots to achieve this goal. It will be a ruse. The goal is to replace human workers with robots. The globalists will horde the food in order to help wipe out the ‘useless eaters’ through starvation. Then the population will be forced into a devastating World War III. Subsequently, Ted Turner and the other globalists will be able to achieve their goals of reducing the world's population to a low of 500,000,000.

Catholic Population Principles[9]

In order to provide a moral perspective, we affirm the following principles derived from the social teaching of the Church.

1. Within the limits of their own competence, government officials have rights and duties with regard to the population problems of their own nations—for instance, in the matter of social legislation as it affects families, of migration to cities, of information relative to the conditions and needs of the nation. Government's positive role is to help bring about those conditions in which married couples, without undue material, physical or psychological pressure, may exercise responsible freedom in determining family size.

2. Decisions about family size and the frequency of births belong to the parents and cannot be left to public authorities. Such decisions depend on a rightly formed conscience which respects the divine law and takes into consideration the circumstances of the places and the time. In forming their consciences, parents should take into account their responsibilities toward God, themselves, the children they have already brought into the world and the community to which they belong, "following the dictates of their conscience instructed about the divine law authentically interpreted and strengthened by confidence in God."

3. Public authorities can provide information and recommend policies regarding population, provided these are in conformity with moral law and respect the rightful freedom of married couples.

4. Men and women should be informed of scientific advances of methods of family planning whose safety has been well proven and which are in accord with the moral law.

5. Abortion, directly willed and procured, even if for therapeutic reasons, is to be absolutely excluded as a licit means of regulating births.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY

SECTION ONE THE SACRAMENTAL ECONOMY

CHAPTER TWO-THE SACRAMENTAL CELEBRATION OF THE PASCHAL MYSTERY

Article 1 CELEBRATING THE CHURCH'S LITURGY

IV. Where is the Liturgy Celebrated?

1179 The worship "in Spirit and in truth" of the New Covenant is not tied exclusively to any one place. the whole earth is sacred and entrusted to the children of men. What matters above all is that, when the faithful assemble in the same place, they are the "living stones," gathered to be "built into a spiritual house." For the Body of the risen Christ is the spiritual temple from which the source of living water springs forth: incorporated into Christ by the Holy Spirit, "we are the temple of the living God."

1180 When the exercise of religious liberty is not thwarted, Christians construct buildings for divine worship. These visible churches are not simply gathering places but signify and make visible the Church living in this place, the dwelling of God with men reconciled and united in Christ.

1181 A church, "a house of prayer in which the Eucharist is celebrated and reserved, where the faithful assemble, and where is worshipped the presence of the Son of God our Savior, offered for us on the sacrificial altar for the help and consolation of the faithful - this house ought to be in good taste and a worthy place for prayer and sacred ceremonial." In this "house of God" the truth and the harmony of the signs that make it up should show Christ to be present and active in this place.

1182 The altar of the New Covenant is the Lord's Cross, from which the sacraments of the Paschal mystery flow. On the altar, which is the center of the church, the sacrifice of the Cross is made present under sacramental signs. the altar is also the table of the Lord, to which the People of God are invited. In certain Eastern liturgies, the altar is also the symbol of the tomb (Christ truly died and is truly risen).

1183 The tabernacle is to be situated "in churches in a most worthy place with the greatest honor." The dignity, placing, and security of the Eucharistic tabernacle should foster adoration before the Lord really present in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar.
The sacred chrism (myron), used in anointing's as the sacramental sign of the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, is traditionally reserved and venerated in a secure place in the sanctuary. the oil of catechumens and the oil of the sick may also be placed there.

1184 The chair (cathedra) of the bishop or the priest "should express his office of presiding over the assembly and of directing prayer."

The lectern (ambo): "The dignity of the Word of God requires the church to have a suitable place for announcing his message so that the attention of the people may be easily directed to that place during the liturgy of the Word."

1185 The gathering of the People of God begins with Baptism; a church must have a place for the celebration of Baptism (baptistry) and for fostering remembrance of the baptismal promises (holy water font).

The renewal of the baptismal life requires penance. A church, then, must lend itself to the expression of repentance and the reception of forgiveness, which requires an appropriate place to receive penitents.

A church must also be a space that invites us to the recollection and silent prayer that extend and internalize the great prayer of the Eucharist.

1186 Finally, the church has an eschatological significance. To enter into the house of God, we must cross a threshold, which symbolizes passing from the world wounded by sin to the world of the new Life to which all men are called. the visible church is a symbol of the Father's house toward which the People of God is journeying and where the Father "will wipe every tear from their eyes." Also for this reason, the Church is the house of all God's children, open and welcoming.

Daily Devotions

· Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them in fasting: End Sex Trafficking, Slavery

· Tired of thinking of the New World Order: Just make yourself a Mojito!

· Eat waffles and Pray for the assistance of the Angels

· Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel-Day 5

· Litany of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus

· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus

· Practice fidelity to baptismal vows

· Monday: Litany of Humility

· National Pina Colada Day

· Let Freedom Ring Day 5

· Drops of Christ’s Blood