Saints, Feast, Family
- Traditions passed down with Cooking, Crafting, & Caring -
July 13
Saint of the day:
Patron Saint of the childless, of Dukes, of the handicapped and those rejected by Religious Order
Vinny’s Corner-I like cats
The First Cat Show[2]
Have you ever noticed that some people may be very, very good at lying with their lips; yet by their gestures or body language you can always see the truth? This may be the reason we have such a great affection for pets who bodily speak the truth of their own likings. Let us ask our Lord whose hands were nailed to the wood and can no longer gesture---to allow us to be His hands thus making our own gestures speak His language of love.
A British man, Mr. Harrison Weir, got the idea for the first cat show. He was a Fellow of the Horticultural Society, and artist, and a cat lover. He developed a schedule, classes, and prizes for the show. He also created the "Points of Excellence" -- a guideline for how the cats would be judged.
The Crystal Palace, in south-east London, was chosen for the site of the first show. (Dog shows had already been held there). A man named Mr. F. Wilson was appointed manager of the show for setting up the Crystal Palace. The judges were Mr. Weir, his brother John Weir, and the Reverend J. Macdona.
The show was held on July 13, 1871. Nearly 160 cats were shown. The cats were mostly short-haired and were divided into different color groups. Pedigrees were not around at this time. It wasn't until 1887 that the National Cat Club formed in Britain and began tracking the parentage of cats. The prize cats did not have their photos taken but were drawn by an artist to record them.
The show attracted a great deal of interest. Cat shows soon became fashionable in Britain, particularly because they were patronized by Queen Victoria, who owned a pair of Blue Persians. In the 1870s, larger and larger cat shows were held in Britain. In 1895 the first official cat show was held in Madison Square Garden, New York.
· Let Freedom Ring Day 7 Freedom from Vengeance
FATIMA JULY
13
Matthew,
Chapter 10, Verse 26
“Therefore, do not be AFRAID of them. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.
Christ’s message here is to have courage under persecution.
Yes, if they killed
Christ what will they do to us. Look at what is going on in the Middle East,
there is no doubt it will be here, but Christ reassures us to do not be afraid.
In Acts 8:1-8 we see that there was a severe persecution of the followers of Christ in Jerusalem promulgated by Saul, who by the grace of God was converted and became the apostle to the gentiles Paul. We must not give up hope and we must pray for our persecutors; perhaps Christ will send us another Paul.
Therefore, do not be
afraid, for everyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, and Christ has
told us the He will raise us on the last day. (John 6:40)
For
as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward
those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our
transgressions from us.
Fatima: How July 13, 1917 “changed”
the Church[1]
What Our Lady of Fatima did that day inspired many to convert, but provoked others to reject the faith.
What she did that day inspired many to convert but provoked others to
reject the faith out of hand. It made some people a little nutty and won the
begrudging respect of others.
July 13 was the day Our Lady scared the daylights out of three shepherd
children by showing them hell and sternly warning them about a second global
war and a new age of martyrdom.
But the surprising — and surprisingly harsh — July 13, 1917, apparition
changed the faith of the Church in our time.
·
First: July 13 returned hell to the center of Catholic
consciousness.
Little Lucia dos Santos was 10 when Our Lady of Fatima began to appear to
her every 13th of the month starting in May, 1917, along with her cousins
Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 8 and 7.
But in July, instead of just exhorting the children to say the Rosary and
pointing them to heaven, she showed them a terrible sight.
“We saw as it were a sea of fire,” Lucia wrote. “Plunged in this fire
were demons and souls in human form … amid shrieks and groans of pain and
despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.”
To give Our Lady of Fatima credit, the vision of hell only happened after
a year of preparation, including visits by an angel and much reassurance about
heaven. But the vision so badly rattled Jacinta, especially, that it seemed to
change her personality utterly.
The only thing that would make this vision okay, and not an example of
emotional abuse, is if hell were a real place and we were in eminent danger of
ending up there if we don’t do something drastic.
It is. We are.
·
Second: She reiterated the most unpopular — and most
important — message of Christianity.
The messages of Jesus (Mark 1:15), John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-2) and
Peter (Acts 2:38) were all the same: “Repent!” Jesus defined the Church’s
mission as preaching “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47).
Yet every pope from Pius XII to Francis has said “the sin of the century
is the loss of the sense of sin.”
The refusal to repent — the belief that sin doesn’t really matter — is at
the heart of the major moral disasters of our time, from abortion to human
trafficking, from the pornography epidemic to the urban violent crime rate.
Those who see no wrong do terrible things.
Our Lady of Fatima’s vision of hell is an absolutely necessary corrective
to the presumptuous expectation that we are all going to heaven no matter what.
It is true that God wants to forgive everybody. But one thing stops him: We
don’t repent.
·
Third: Our Lady of Fatima de-romanticized war.
“This war will end,” Our Lady of Fatima told the children in July, “but
if men do not refrain from offending God, another and more terrible war will
begin.”
Whatever they understood about the particulars, the general sense of this
message was clear to the children: War isn’t an occasion for God to reward
victors, but to punish sin.
The “reward” paradigm had existed for a long time in Christian history:
From Charlemagne to Joan of Arc, from Notre Dame des Victoires to the
Conquistadores. Every Christian culture had their Robin Hood and King Arthur
figures: Heroes of the unconventional virtues of clever violence. But Our Lady
of Fatima poured cold water on all of that. Martial virtues are real, but they
are an example of God bringing good out of evil — not of God’s will being won
by violence.
·
Finally, July 13 de-romanticized martyrdom.
For that matter, Our Lady of Fatima also level-set our understanding of
martyrdom.
In the at-home movies era, many of us are only now watching Silence by
Martin Scorcese, which follows a Jesuit’s disillusionment as he looks for glory
in the persecutions of Japan and finds soul-numbing horror instead.
The children saw a vision of the pope “half trembling with halting step,
afflicted with pain and sorrow,” praying for the corpses he stumbled past until
he was himself shot. Our Lady knows that in heaven martyrdom is glorious — and
that on earth, it is painful and sad.
The meaning of all of this was not lost on the three shepherd children.
They learned that it was absolutely urgent that they console Jesus,
convert sinners and commit to Mary.
July 13 is only part of their story — a story that
includes far more consolation than condemnation and was meant for every
generation, including ours.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
PART
ONE: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION TWO-I. THE CREEDS
CHAPTER ONE-I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER
Article 1-"I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OF
HEAVEN AND EARTH"
Day 29
The living God
205 God calls Moses from the
midst of a bush that burns without being consumed: "I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."9 God
is the God of the fathers, the One who had called and guided the patriarchs in
their wanderings. He is the faithful and compassionate God who remembers them
and his promises; he comes to free their descendants from slavery. He is the
God who, from beyond space and time, can do this and wills to do it, the God
who will put his almighty power to work for this plan.
"I Am who I Am"
Moses said to God, "If I
come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent
me to you', and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to
them?" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." and he said, "Say
this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you'. . . this is my name
for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations."
206 In revealing his mysterious
name, YHWH ("I AM HE WHO IS", "I AM WHO AM" or "I AM
WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This
divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed
and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as
what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is
the "hidden God", his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes
himself close to men.
207 By revealing his name God
at the same time reveals his faithfulness which is from everlasting to
everlasting, valid for the past ("I am the God of your father"), as
for the future ("I will be with you"). God, who reveals his name
as "I AM", reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to
his people in order to save them.
208 Faced with God's
fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance.
Before the burning bush, Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face in the
presence of God's holiness. Before the glory of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah
cries out: "Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean
lips." Before the divine signs wrought by Jesus, Peter exclaims:
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But because God
is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him:
"I will not execute my fierce anger. . . for I am God and not man, the
Holy One in your midst." The apostle John says likewise: "We
shall. . . reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for
God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."
209 Out of respect for the
holiness of God, the people of Israel do not pronounce his name. In the reading
of Sacred Scripture, the revealed name (YHWH) is replaced by the divine title
"LORD" (in Hebrew Adonai, in Greek Kyrios). It is under this title
that the divinity of Jesus will be acclaimed: "Jesus is LORD."
"A God merciful and gracious"
210 After Israel's sin, when
the people had turned away from God to worship the golden calf, God hears
Moses' prayer of intercession and agrees to walk in the midst of an unfaithful
people, thus demonstrating his love. When Moses asks to see his glory, God
responds "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim
before you my name "the LORD" [YHWH]." Then the LORD passes
before Moses and proclaims, "YHWH,
YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness"; Moses then confesses that the LORD is a forgiving
God.
211 The divine name, "I
Am" or "He Is", expresses God's faithfulness: despite the
faithlessness of men's sin and the punishment it deserves, he keeps
"steadfast love for thousands". By going so far as to give up
his own Son for us, God reveals that he is "rich in mercy". By
giving his life to free us from sin, Jesus reveals that he himself bears the
divine name: "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will
realize that "I AM"."
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Victims
of clergy sexual abuse
·
Novena
to Our Lady of Mount Carmel-Day 7
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
· Rosary
[2] http://www.crazyforkitties.com/fow/fow13.shtml
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