Sunday, May 5, 2024
Sixth Sunday after Easter
HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY Cinco De Mayo
Acts,
Chapter 10, verse 34-35
34 Then Peter proceeded to speak and
said, “In truth, I see that God shows no
partiality. 35 Rather, in every nation whoever FEARS
him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.
God
shows no impartiality. This is true today as it was in the time of Peter. Rome
had no fear of God when it came to the sins of the flesh and lust of the eyes
having killed an estimated 400,000 human beings in the coliseum. Yet Rome, as
terrible as it was, pales in comparison to the sins of America with 63,459,781
abortions in America since
Roe v. Wade in 1973. God shows no impartiality to Nations either. Each receives
their due.
God
is no respecter of rank or titles and asks us to combat the evil in our day.
Pope John Paul has proclaimed “Here is the remedy against evil. Pray, pray, and
nothing more.
Michael Brown in his book “Prayer of the Warrior,” reminds us that it was Luke who mentions that Jesus very frequently stated: “Unless you repent you will all perish.” (Lk. 13:3) To save us our Lord has not abandoned us we have His church and the Virgin Mary’s apparitions during these last days. She constantly emphasizes prayer, conversion, fasting, penance, and faith. At Medjugorje she has stated, “Members of all faiths are equal before God. God rules over each faith just like a sovereign over his kingdom. In the world, all religions are not the same because all people have not complied with the commandments of God. They reject and disparage them.” Indeed, God shows no impartiality there are saints of God that are not catholic. The Virgin told the seers of Medjugorje that there was a saint in the village, and they were astonished because this person was a Muslim.
ON KEEPING
THE LORD'S DAY HOLY[1]
CHAPTER III
DIES ECCLESIAE
The Eucharistic Assembly:
Heart of Sunday
The day of the Church
35. Therefore, the dies Domini
is also the dies Ecclesiae. This is why on the pastoral level the
community aspect of the Sunday celebration should be particularly stressed. As
I have noted elsewhere, among the many activities of a parish, "none is as
vital or as community-forming as the Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and
his Eucharist". Mindful of this, the Second Vatican Council recalled that
efforts must be made to ensure that there is "within the parish, a lively
sense of community, in the first place through the community celebration of
Sunday Mass". Subsequent liturgical directives made the same point, asking
that on Sundays and holy days the Eucharistic celebrations held normally in
other churches and chapels be coordinated with the celebration in the parish
church, in order "to foster the sense of the Church community, which is
nourished and expressed in a particular way by the community celebration on
Sunday, whether around the Bishop, especially in the Cathedral, or in the
parish assembly, in which the pastor represents the Bishop".
Sixth
Sunday after Easter[2]
THIS
Sunday is a preparation for the feast of Pentecost. At the Introit of the Mass,
the Church sings: “Hear, O Lord, my voice, with which I have cried to Thee,
alleluia. My heart hath said to Thee, I have sought Thy face; Thy face, Lord,
will I seek; turn not away Thy face from me, alleluia, alleluia. The Lord is my
light and my salvation, whom shall, I fear?
Prayer. O almighty and everlasting God
grant us ever to entertain a devout affection towards Thee, and to serve Thy
majesty with a sincere heart.
EPISTLE, i. Peter iv. 7-11.
Dearly
Beloved: Be prudent, and watch in prayers. But before all things have a
constant mutual charity among yourselves; for charity covereth a multitude of
sins. Using hospitality one towards another without murmuring. As every man
hath received grace, ministering the same to one another, as good stewards of
the manifold grace of God. If any man speaks, let him speak as the words of
God. If any man minister, let him do it as of the power which God
administereth: that in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Practice. The virtues here recommended are
excellent preparatives for receiving the Holy Ghost, for nothing makes us more
worthy of His grace than temperance, prayer, charity, unity, and hospitality towards
our neighbors. Endeavor, therefore, to exercise these virtues, and every day
during the following week pray fervently to the Holy Ghost for help in your
endeavors.
GOSPEL. John xv. 26, 27; xvi. 1-4.
At that time Jesus said to
His disciples: When the Paraclete cometh Whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth, Who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of
Me: and you shall give testimony, because you are with Me from the beginning.
These things have I spoken to you, that you may not be scandalized. They will
put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you
will think that he doth a service to God. And these things will they do to you,
because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told
you, that when the hour shall come, you may remember that I told you.
What kind of sin is scandal?
It is a frightful sin. By it countless sins are
occasioned, thousands of souls are carried to perdition, while the loving
design of God for the salvation of men is frustrated.
How, in general, is scandal given?
By saying, doing, neglecting to do something which
becomes the occasion of sin to another.
When do parents give scandal?
When they set a bad example to their children. When
they do not correct them for doing wrong, or neglect to keep them from what is
bad and to teach them that which is good.
How do employers give scandal?
In much the same way that parents give scandal to
their children: when, by bad example or by command, they keep their servants or
other employees from divine service, or neglect to make them attend it. When
they themselves use, or give to others, flesh-meat on days of abstinence. When
they order the commission of sin.
Rogation
Sunday
It is only a few weeks since Good
Friday when we commemorated the agonizing death of Christ on Mount Calvary.
This was an excruciating, shameful death even for hardened criminals who
deserved it.
But for our loving Savior, the
innocent lamb of God, one who had never offended God or neighbor, it was
something of which the whole human race should be ashamed forever. What caused
Christ that torment and death on the cross was our sins, the sins of all
mankind and not the spite and hatred of his Jewish opponents, who were only
instruments in the tragedy. Atonement had to be made to God for the sins of the
world, so that men could reach the eternal inheritance which the incarnation
made available to them.
However, not all the acts of the
entire human race could make a sufficient atonement to God. A sacrifice, an expiation
of infinite value was needed. The death of the Son of God in his human nature
was alone capable of making such an expiation. That Christ willingly accepted
crucifixion for our sakes, that he gave the greatest proof of love which the
world has ever known, by laying down his life for his friends, did not make his
sufferings any less, did not ease any of the pains of Calvary. His agony in the
Garden before his arrest shows this: he foresaw all the tortures and pains
which he was to undergo and sweated blood at the thought of what awaited him.
But he was to keep his Father's commandment "not my will but thine be
done." We Christians must have hearts of stone, hearts devoid of all sense
of gratitude, when we forget what Christ has done for us and deliberately
offend him! Alas, this is what all of us do sometimes, and many of us do all
the time. Christ died to bring us to heaven, but we tell him, by our sins, that
he was wasting his time. We do not want to go to heaven, we are making our
happiness here!
How far can human ingratitude and
thanklessness go?
Christ told us,
through the disciples on Holy Thursday night, that he had made us his friends,
his intimates. We are no longer servants in the household, who merely earn
their daily wage and have no intimacy with the family and no hope of ever
sharing in the family possessions.
Instead, we have been adopted into the
family by Christ becoming man, we have been guaranteed all the rights of
children intimacy with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the future sharing
in the eternal happiness of that divine household. Christ's incarnation made us
God's children, Christ's death on the cross removed sin. Sin is the one
obstacle that could prevent us reaching our eternal inheritance. Because God
gave us a free will we can in a moment of folly, a moment of madness really,
deprive ourselves of the privileges and possessions which Christ has made
available to us. We can choose to exchange an eternity of happiness for a few
fleeting years of self-indulgence on earth. We can fling Christ's gift of love
back in his face and tell him we don't want it. God forbid that we should ever
act like this, that we should ever forget God's purpose in creating us. It is a
marvelous thing to be alive, if we have hope in a future life. If nothing
awaited us but the grave, then to live on this earth, which is a valley of
sorrow and tears for the vast majority, would be the cruelest of jests. But of
this we need have no fear. Life on earth is but a short prelude to our real
existence. If we use this brief period as Christ has told us how to use it,
death for us will be the passage into the eternal mansions. Be grateful to God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit; love the Blessed Trinity; prove your love by
loving your fellowmen. By doing this you are fulfilling the whole law and the
prophets; and you are assuring yourself of the place in heaven which Christ has
won for you.
Yom
HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)[3]
The Holocaust Remembrance
Day, (Yom Hashoah, Hebrew: יום
השואה),
seeks to commemorate the Holocaust, a systematic and state-planned program to
murder millions of Jews and other minority groups in Europe. This program of
mass killing was run by the German Nazis in the 1930s and 40s during the Second
World War, where Jews and minorities were brought into concentration camps and
murdered at the hands of Nazi officials. This observance seeks to remember and
honor the victims of the Holocaust, including six million Jews and thousands of
Russians gypsies, homosexuals, disabled persons and other minorities.
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance
Day) Facts
·
Yom Hashoah is an Israeli Festival, as opposed
to an ancient Jewish festival. Yom Hashoah was inaugurated in 1953. It was
instituted by the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and the President
Isaac (Yitzchak) Ben Zvi. The Ancient fast of the Tenth of Tevet
(December) is the day on which the siege of Jerusalem commenced, prior to the
destruction of the Holy Temple. Many Jews commemorate the Holocaust on
this day.
·
In Israel, on the Eve of Yom Hashoah, a siren is
sounded, followed by an official memorial service headed by the Prime Minister,
President, Army Officials and Holocaust survivors. The service includes
speeches, Kaddish and El Maleh Rahamim (memorial prayers) and the Hatikvah
(Israel National Anthem). Another siren is heard in the morning, followed by
various memorial services.
Yom HaShoah Top Events and Things
to Do
·
Many communities read a list of those who
perished in the camps and Ghettos. One way to commemorate the Holocaust
is to browse the names in the Yad Vashem
(Israel's Memorial to the Holocaust) names Database.
·
Watch the mini-series Holocaust
starring Meryl Streep. It depicts the story of a Jewish family's struggle
to survive the Nazis.
·
Attend a local memorial service. Tip: find
one in your community by doing an internet search for Yom Hashoah.
·
Donate to a charity
that serves holocaust survivors or promotes education about the holocaust.
·
Watch a movie about the Holocaust. Some
popular picks: Schindler's List (1993), Auschwitz
(2011), The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008), Life is
Beautiful (1997) and The Pianist (2002).
American writer Jim Marrs
claimed that former Nazis and their sympathizers had been continuing Nazi
policies worldwide, especially in the United States.
Conspiracy theorists often
use the term "Fourth
Reich" simply
as a pejorative synonym for the "New World Order" to imply that its
state ideology and government will be similar to Germany's Third Reich.
Conspiracy theorists, such
as American writer Jim Marrs, claim that some ex-Nazis, who survived the fall of the Greater German Reich, along with sympathizers in the
United States and elsewhere, given haven by organizations like ODESSA and Die Spinne, has been working behind the
scenes since the end of World War II to enact at least some principles
of Nazism (e.g., militarism, imperialism, widespread
spying on citizens,
corporatism, the use of propaganda to manufacture a
national consensus)
into culture, government, and business worldwide, but primarily in the U.S.
They cite the influence of ex-Nazi scientists brought in under Operation
Paperclip to help
advance aerospace manufacturing in the U.S. with technological principles from Nazi UFOs, and the acquisition and creation
of conglomerates by ex-Nazis and their sympathizers
after the war, in both Europe and the U.S.
This neo-Nazi conspiracy is said to be animated
by an "Iron Dream" in which the American
Empire, having
thwarted the Judeo-Masonic
conspiracy and
overthrown its Zionist Occupation Government, gradually establishes a Fourth
Reich formerly known as the "Western Imperium"—a pan-Aryan world empire modeled after Adolf Hitler's New
Order—which
reverses the "decline
of the West"
and ushers a golden age of white supremacy.
Skeptics argue that
conspiracy theorists grossly overestimate the influence of ex-Nazis and
neo-Nazis on American society and point out that political
repression at home
and imperialism abroad have a long history in the
United States that predates the 20th century. Some political scientists, such
as Sheldon
Wolin, have
expressed concern that the twin forces of democratic
deficit and superpower status have paved the way in the
U.S. for the emergence of an inverted
totalitarianism
which contradicts many principles of Nazism.
Cinco de Mayo[5]
Today
is Cinco de Mayo; sometimes referred to as Cinco de Drunko, due to the heavy
consumption of alcohol connected with the hedonistic celebration. Cinco de Mayo
is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico. However, in America it is up there
with some of our most celebrated: like the Fourth of July and St. Patrick’s Day.
The holiday has reinvented itself in America, from celebrating Mexico's win at
the Battle of Puebla, to celebrating Mexican culture, and beer, and tequila. If
we're being completely honest though, the actual meaning of Cinco de Mayo in
America is pretty lost on us, but so is the meaning of St. Patrick’s Day. Today
instead of following this hedonistic celebration try and make it to Mass today.
Things
to Do[6]: other than drinking yourself into unconsciousness
- Attend a
Cinco de Mayo Festival. Popular such festivals can be found in San
Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
- Go eat or have
drinks at a Mexican restaurant.
- Make Margaritas
with Mexican tequila.
- Attend a
Parade.
- Make a piñata
with your friends. Piñatas usually contain sweets or treats that fall out
once it has been smashed open.
Instruction on Intemperance[7]
“Be sober and watch.” I. Peter v. 8.
St. Peter prescribes sobriety and watchfulness as necessary means for resisting the attacks of the devil, who by day and night goes about seeking whom he may devour. Woe to those who, by reason of their drunkenness, (The term drunkard applies to any person who is caught up in the addiction cycle, whether it is drink, gambling, drugs or sex.) live in a continual night and lie in the perpetual sleep of sin! How will it be with them if, suddenly awakened from this sleep by death, they find themselves standing, burdened with innumerable and unknown sins, before the judgment-seat of God? For who can number the sins, committed in and by reason of drunkenness, which the drunkard either accounts as trifles, easily pardoned, or else, not knowing what he has thought, said, and done in his fit of intoxication, considers to be no sins at all? Will the divine Judge, at the last day, thus reckon? Will He also find no sin in them? Will He let go unpunished the infamous deeds and the scandals of their drunkenness?
He Who demands strict account of every word spoken in vain, will He make no inquiry of so many shameful, scandalous, and blasphemous sayings, of so much time wasted, of so much money squandered, of so many neglects of the divine service, of the education of children, of the affairs of home, and of innumerable other sins? Will they be able to excuse themselves before this Judge by saying that they did not know what they were doing? Or that what they did was for want of reflection, or in jest? Or that they were not strong, and could not bear much? Will not such excuses rather witness against them that they are the worthier of punishment for having taken more than their strength could bear, thereby depriving themselves of the use of reason, making themselves like brutes, and, of their own free will, taking on themselves the responsibility for all the sins of which their drunkenness was the occasion? What, then, awaits them? What else than the fate of the rich glutton who, for his gluttony, was buried in hell? (Luke xvi. 22.)
Yes, that shall be the place and the portion of the
drunkard! There shall they in vain sigh for a drop of water. There, for all the
pleasures and satisfactions which they had in the world, as many pains and
torments shall now lay hold of them (Apoc. xviii. 7); there shall they be
compelled to drain the cup of God’s anger to the dregs, as they, in life,
forced others into drunkenness. This is what they have to hope for, for St.
Paul says expressly that drunkards shall not possess the kingdom of God (i.
Cor. vi. 10). What then remains for them but to renounce either their
intemperance or heaven? But how rare and difficult is the true conversion of a
drunkard! This is the teaching of experience. Will not such a one, therefore,
go to ruin?
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART FOUR: CHRISTIAN PRAYER
SECTION ONE-PRAYER IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
CHAPTER THREE-THE LIFE OF PRAYER
Article
1-EXPRESSIONS OF PRAYER
IN BRIEF
2720 The
Church invites the faithful to regular prayer: daily prayers, the Liturgy of
the Hours, Sunday Eucharist, the feasts of the liturgical year.
2721 The
Christian tradition comprises three major expressions of the life of prayer:
vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplative prayer. They have in common the
recollection of the heart.
2722
Vocal prayer, founded on the union of body and soul in human nature, associates
the body with the interior prayer of the heart, following Christ's example of
praying to his Father and teaching the Our Father to his disciples.
2723
Meditation is a prayerful quest engaging thought, imagination, emotion, and
desire. Its goal is to make our own in faith the subject considered, by
confronting it with the reality of our own life.
2724
Contemplative prayer is the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a
gaze of faith fixed on Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent
love. It achieves real union with the prayer of Christ to the extent that it
makes us share in his mystery.
PRAYERS AND TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Prayer to St. Michael the
Archangel
St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the
Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the
heavenly hosts, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Claire’s Corner
·
Today in honor of the
Holy Trinity do the Divine Office giving your day to God. To honor God REST: no
shopping after 6 pm Saturday till Monday. Don’t forget the internet.
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: True
Masculinity
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Religion in the Home for
Preschool: May
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Make
reparations to the Holy Face
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