VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST
Psalm 103, Verse 17-18
17
But the LORD’s mercy is from age to
age, toward those who FEAR him. His
salvation is for the children’s children 18 of
those who keep his covenant, and remember to carry out his precepts.
God the father wants to extend mercy to his children and their children’s
children. God’s covenant is a covenant of love. Consider the gift of Christ to
forgive not only a sinner but also his children as noted in the “drops of
Christ’s blood devotion. God insists that we see the truth and follow it. He
would not force us as our freedom is absolute; but he grieves when we just
don’t get it. He invites, encourages, assists, and continues in drawing us to
the truth. We must choose daily. God is faithful and offers us spiritual
healing for the times we choose poorly through the sacrament of reconciliation.
Many sadly do not seek his mercy. When we have our hearts open to and
responding to God’s love, we begin to carry out his precepts and we are not
alone. For we by the grace of God have the holy spirit and our assigned
guardian angel to assist us.
Guardian Angels[1]
According to saint Jerome, the concept of
guardian angels is in the "mind of the church". He stated: "how
great the dignity of the soul is, since each one has from his birth an angel
commissioned to guard it".
The first Christian theologian to outline a
specific scheme for guardian angels was Honorius of Autum in the 12th century.
He said that every soul was assigned a guardian angel the moment it was put
into a body. Scholastic theologians augmented and ordered the taxonomy of
angelic guardians. Thomas Aquinas agreed with Honorius and believed that it was
the lowest order of angels who served as guardians, and his view was most
successful in popular thought, but Duns Scotus said that any angel is bound by
duty and obedience to the divine authority to accept the mission to which that
angel is assigned. In the 15th century, the feast of the guardian angels was
added to the official calendar of catholic holidays.
In his march 31, 1997 Regina Caeli address, Pope
John Paul ii referred to the concept of guardian angels and concluded the
address with the statement: "let us invoke the queen of angels and saints,
that she may grant us, supported by our guardian angels, to be authentic
witnesses to the lord's paschal mystery".
In cardinal Newman’s 1865 poem the dream of Gerontius,
the departed soul is met by his guardian angel.
According to Aquinas, "on this road man is
threatened by many dangers both from within and without, and therefore as
guardians are appointed for men who have to pass by an unsafe road, so an angel
is assigned to each man as long as he is a wayfarer." by means of an
angel, God is said to introduce images and suggestions leading a person to do
what is right.
Father Giovan Giuseppe Califano recounted how,
one day, a newly appointed bishop confessed to pope john xxiii "that he
could not sleep at night due to an anxiety which was caused by the
responsibility of his office". "The pope told him, ‘You know, I also
thought the same when I was elected pope. But one day, I dreamed about my
guardian angel, and it told me not to take everything so seriously.’" pope
john attributed the idea of calling second Vatican council to an inspiration
from his guardian angel.
Saint Gemma Galgiani, a roman catholic mystic,
stated that she had interacted with and spoken with her guardian angel. Saint
Pio of Pietrelcina was known to instruct his parishioners to send him their
guardian angel to communicate a trouble or issue to him when they could not
travel to get to him, or another urgency existed.
International Day of Victims of the Holocaust[2]
Holocaust
Memorial Day is a day commemorating the millions of Jews and minority groups
who were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust in the 1930s and 40s. The
Holocaust, a systematic and state-planned program to kill millions of Jews and
other minority groups in Europe, was one of the most horrific genocides in
history with an estimated 11 million lives lost. The purpose of the day is to
encourage discussion of this difficult subject in order to make sure that it
never happens again. In 2005, Holocaust Memorial Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly. January 27, the
remembrance date, is significant as it was the date that Auschwitz-Birkenau,
the largest and most infamous Nazi extermination camp in Poland, was liberated
in 1945. The Holocaust is marked by many different days around the world. In
Israel, the day is known as Yom HaShoah and begins when the sun sets on May 4
and finishes in the evening of May 5.
International
Day of Victims of the Holocaust Facts & Quotes
·
Jewish people were excluded from public life on
September 15th, 1935, when the Nuremberg Laws were issued, stripping German
Jews of their citizenship and the right to marry Germans.
·
The mass killings of Jews and undesirables in death
camps was referred to as the Final Solution by the Nazis.
·
If we bear all this suffering and if there are
still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be
held up as an example. ― Anne Frank, well-known Holocaust victim
·
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever
human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality
helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never
the tormented” ― Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor
Victims
of the Holocaust Top Events and Things to Do
·
Visit the largest extermination/concentration camp
from the Holocaust. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, located in Poland, allows
visitors to see the camp and learn more about the atrocities committed inside.
·
Join social media campaigns that promote awareness
of the Holocaust, try tweeting using the hashtag #holocaustmemorial or
#remembranceday.
·
Find a HMD activity near you by consulting their
website. There are many different workshops and discussions held year-round. Or
if there are none near you organize an activity yourself to mark HMD in your
community. The HMD website has a
selection of useful information on how to do this.
·
Read one of the thought provoking, gripping and
saddening accounts of the Holocaust. Some choice picks include:
1) The
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
2) Maus by Art
Spiegelman
3) Eichmann
in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt
·
Watch a movie about the Holocaust. Some popular
picks: Schindler's
List (1993), Auschwitz (2011),
The
Boy in Striped Pajamas (2008), Life is Beautiful (1997)
and The
Pianist (2002).
Question: Are the babies in the
womb considered human? At the Judgement Germany will have 11 million souls
to account for: -and America now has 60 million and counting to account for---think about it.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION ONE-MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE
SPIRIT
CHAPTER THREE-GOD'S SALVATION: LAW AND
GRACE
Article 1-THE MORAL LAW
III. The New Law or the Law of the Gospel
1965 The New Law or the Law of
the Gospel is the perfection here on earth of the divine law, natural and
revealed. It is the work of Christ and is expressed particularly in the Sermon
on the Mount. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit and through him it becomes
the interior law of charity: "I will establish a New Covenant with the
house of Israel. . . . I will put my laws into their hands, and write
them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people."
1966 The New Law is the grace
of the Holy Spirit given to the faithful through faith in Christ. It works
through charity; it uses the Sermon on the Mount to teach us what must be done
and makes use of the sacraments to give us the grace to do it:
If anyone
should meditate with devotion and perspicacity on the sermon our Lord gave on
the mount, as we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, he will doubtless find
there . . . the perfect way of the Christian life.... This sermon contains ...
all the precepts needed to shape one's life.
1967 The Law of the Gospel
"fulfills," refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its
perfection. In the Beatitudes, the New Law fulfills the divine promises by
elevating and orienting them toward the "kingdom of heaven." It is
addressed to those open to accepting this new hope with faith - the poor, the
humble, the afflicted, the pure of heart, those persecuted on account of Christ
and so marks out the surprising ways of the Kingdom.
1968 The Law of the Gospel
fulfills the commandments of the Law. The Lord's Sermon on the Mount, far from
abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their
hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire
divine and human truth. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to
reform the heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure
and the impure, where faith, hope, and charity are formed and with them
the other virtues. the Gospel thus brings the Law to its fullness through
imitation of the perfection of the heavenly Father, through forgiveness of
enemies and prayer for persecutors, in emulation of the divine generosity.
1969 The New Law practices the
acts of religion: almsgiving, prayer and fasting, directing them to the
"Father who sees in secret," in contrast with the desire to "be
seen by men." Its prayer is the Our Father.
1970 The Law of the Gospel
requires us to make the decisive choice between "the two ways" and to
put into practice the words of the Lord. It is summed up in the Golden
Rule, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; this is
the law and the prophets."
The entire Law of the Gospel is contained in the "new commandment" of
Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us.
1971 To the Lord's Sermon on
the Mount it is fitting to add the moral catechesis of the apostolic teachings,
such as Romans 12-15, 1 Corinthians 12-13, Colossians 3-4, Ephesians 4-5, etc.
This doctrine hands on the Lord's teaching with the authority of the apostles,
particularly in the presentation of the virtues that flow from faith in Christ
and are animated by charity, the principal gift of the Holy Spirit. "Let
charity be genuine.... Love one another with brotherly affection.... Rejoice in
your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the
needs of the saints, practice hospitality." This catechesis also
teaches us to deal with cases of conscience in the light of our relationship to
Christ and to the Church.
1972 The New Law is called a
law of love because it makes us act out of the love infused by the Holy Spirit,
rather than from fear; a law of grace, because it confers the strength of grace
to act, by means of faith and the sacraments; a law of freedom, because it sets
us free from the ritual and juridical observances of the Old Law, inclines us
to act spontaneously by the prompting of charity and, finally, lets us pass
from the condition of a servant who "does not know what his master is
doing" to that of a friend of Christ - "For all that I have heard
from my Father I have made known to you" - or even to the status of son
and heir.
1973 Besides its precepts, the
New Law also includes the evangelical counsels. the traditional distinction
between God's commandments and the evangelical counsels is drawn in relation to
charity, the perfection of Christian life. The precepts are intended to remove
whatever is incompatible with charity. The aim of the counsels is to remove
whatever might hinder the development of charity, even if it is not contrary to
it.
1974 The evangelical counsels
manifest the living fullness of charity, which is never satisfied with not
giving more. They attest its vitality and call forth our spiritual readiness.
the perfection of the New Law consists essentially in the precepts of love of
God and neighbor. the counsels point out the more direct ways, the readier
means, and are to be practiced in keeping with the vocation of each:
(God) does
not want each person to keep all the counsels, but only those appropriate to
the diversity of persons, times, opportunities, and strengths, as charity
requires; for it is charity, as queen of all virtues, all commandments, all
counsels, and, in short, of all laws and all Christian actions that gives to
all of them their rank, order, time, and value.
The
"Depositio" of the Alleluia
The last ceremonial act of
the Time after Epiphany is the bittersweet farewell, or depositio, to
the word "Alleluia," which is suppressed for seventy days in the
traditional Roman rite from Septuagesima Sunday until Holy Saturday night. This
ceremony usually takes after the office of none (i.e., around 3 p.m.) on the
Saturday before Septuagesima Sunday (see Depositio).
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: Binding and
suppressing the Devils Evil Works
·
Saturday Litany of the Hours
Invoking the Aid of Mother Mary
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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