Saints, Feast, Family
- Traditions passed down with Cooking, Crafting, & Caring -
Claire Day-Make Irish Potatoes (hillbilly spelling)
· Let Freedom Ring Day 29 Freedom from Racism
o It is our society that likes dividing the population into separate corporate bodies in order to pit them against each other. Certainly, more nefarious political systems need and thrive upon such divisions. Within the Body of Christ, this is wholly evil. One of the marks of the Church is 'One', that is, that we are one in Christ. That oneness is not subservient to worldly divisions and political jostling. Consider that the Catholic Church has over 1.4 billion members. 1.4 billion come from every conceivable culture, language, and skin color. Yet we are called to be one. That oneness starts here and stretches to eternity.
§ Diversity Helped Win World War II
· Religion in the Home for Preschool: August
Introduction
to Judges[1]
The
Hebrew word translated “Judges” in the English title of the book refers not to
specialized judicial officers or magistrates but to leaders in general.
According to the biblical narrative these judges led Israel from the end of the
conquest of Canaan until the beginning of the monarchy. The period of the
Judges, therefore, extended from the death of Joshua until the installation of
Saul as Israel’s first king by the prophet Samuel, who was also the last judge.
·
The Book of Judges begins with two
introductory passages.
o
The first (chap. 1)
gives a description of the situation in Canaan after the Israelite conquest. It
emphasizes the continued existence of the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan in
many parts of the land because of Israel’s inability to drive them out
completely.
o
The second passage is a thematic introduction
to the period of the Judges, describing a cyclical pattern of infidelity,
oppression, “crying out,” and deliverance.
·
The main part of the book consists of a
series of stories about thirteen leaders whose careers are described in greater
or lesser detail. The exploits of six of these—Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon,
Jephthah, and Samson—are related at length, and all are shown to have delivered
Israel from oppression or danger. They are customarily called “major judges,”
whereas the other six—Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon—who appear
only in brief notices, are designated “minor judges.” The thirteenth, Abimelech,
is included in neither group, since his story is essentially a continuation of
that of Gideon and his career is presented as deplorable, a cautionary tale of
royal ambition.
·
The final section of the book consists of two
episodes, one about the migration of the tribe of Dan and the other about an
intertribal war directed against the tribe of Benjamin. These stories
illustrate the religious and political disorder that prevailed at the time
when, as yet “there was no king in Israel”.
[1] http://www.usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?bk=Judges&ch=
AUGUST 4 Eleventh Sunday after
Pentecost
SAINT
JOHN VIANNEY-Saint Obama
Judges, Chapter 4, Verse 18
Jael went out to meet Sisera and
said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside with me; do not be AFRAID.” So he went into her tent, and she covered him with a
rug.
This story doesn’t turn
out well for Mr. Evil “Sisera” as God protects Israel from their enemies via
women. We are now in the final stages of God’s covenant that is going to be
completed via another woman, the mother of Christ.
Girl Power
·
Israel turns away from God again. This time they're conquered by
Jabin, the king of Canaan.
·
Israel cries unto the Lord. Wait—haven't we seen this episode
before?
·
Luckily for them, God raises up an awesome judge: Deborah, a
prophetess and the only female judge in the book. Girl power!
·
Deborah tells Barak, an Israelite general, that God commands him
to take 10,000 soldiers from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and attack
Jabin's army. She promises that God will give them victory.
·
Barak says he'll only go to battle if Deborah comes, and she does, but
lets him know that it won't be him who kills Sisera, the captain of Jabin's
army—it'll be a woman!
·
Barak leads his 10,000 men against Sisera's army, including 900
chariots of iron.
·
Barak's army kills every last one of Sisera's men—except for
Sisera. He's hiding at his friend Heber's tent. Looks like things are about to
get really in-tents.
·
Heber's wife, Jael, goes out to meet Sisera, "and said unto
him, turn in, my lord, turn into me; fear not" (KJV 4:18). If your
friend's wife ever says these words to you, run
away.
·
Sisera tells Jael not to tell anyone he's in the tent. "Sure,
Siss. No problem," she says, tucking him into bed with some milk.
·
After he drifted off to sleep, Jael "took a nail of the tent,
and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him,
and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground" (KJV
4:21).
·
And with that, Jabin was defeated. Ladies for the win!
Aids in Battle [1] pegging
the Devil.
The
Devil and I do struggle [God said to St. Bridget], in that we both desire souls
as bridegrooms desire their brides. For I desire souls in order to give them
eternal joy and honor.
·
The
Devil desires souls to give them eternal horror and sorrow.
·
Great
courage is required in spiritual warfare. ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA
·
Draw
near to God, and Satan will flee from you. ST. EPHRAEM THE SYRIAN
·
To
sin is human, but to persist in sin is devilish. ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA
·
Repentance
is returning from the unnatural to the natural state, from the Devil to God,
through discipline and effort. ST. JOHN THE DAMASCENE
·
Hence
the Lord has said that he who has faith the size of a mustard seed can move a
mountain by a word of command; that is, he can destroy the Devil’s dominion
over us and remove it from its foundation. ST. MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR
·
Do
not oppose head-on the thoughts that the Enemy sows in your mind. Instead, cut
off all conversation with them by prayer to God. ST. ISAAK OF SYRIA
ON KEEPING THE LORDS DAY HOLY[2]
CHAPTER
V
DIES
DIERUM
Sunday:
The Primordial
Feast, Revealing the Meaning of Time
CONCLUSION
85. As she strains towards her goal,
the Church is sustained and enlivened by the Spirit. It is he who awakens
memory and makes present for every generation of believers the event of the
Resurrection. He is the inward gift uniting us to the Risen Lord and to our
brothers and sisters in the intimacy of a single body, reviving our faith,
filling our hearts with charity and renewing our hope. The Spirit is
unfailingly present to every one of the Church's days, appearing unpredictably
and lavishly with the wealth of his gifts. But it is in the Sunday gathering
for the weekly celebration of Easter that the Church listens to the Spirit in a
special way and reaches out with him to Christ in the ardent desire that he
return in glory: "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!'" (Rev
22:17). Precisely in consideration of the role of the Spirit, I have wished
that this exhortation aimed at rediscovering the meaning of Sunday should
appear in this year which, in the immediate preparation for the Jubilee, is
dedicated to the Holy Spirit.
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost[3]
Daily
dying to our sins and rising to new life in Christ.
AT
the Introit of the Mass, with the priest, pray God for brotherly love, and for
protection against enemies, within and without. God, in His holy place; God,
Who maketh men of one mind to dwell in a house, He shall give power and
strength to His people. Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered; and
let them that hate Him flee before His face (Ps. Ixvii.).
Prayer. almighty and everlasting God, Who
in the abundance of Thy mercy dost exceed the desires and deserts of Thy
suppliants, pour forth Thy mercy upon us, that Thou mayest forgive what our
conscience fears, and grant what our prayer does not presume to ask.
EPISTLE,
i. Cor. xv. 1-10.
I
make known unto you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also
you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved: if you
hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in
vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received: how
that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures: and that He was
buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures: and
that He was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then was He seen by
more than five hundred brethren at once, of whom many remain until this
present, and some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by
all the apostles: and last of all, He was seen also by me as by one born out of
due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an
apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am
what I am: and His grace in me hath not been void.
Explanation. This epistle teaches us that as
the holy apostle Paul was not elated with vanity by the revelations he had
received from God, but rather felt himself unworthy of them, ascribing it to
God’s grace that he was what he was, even so the truly humble man thinks little
of himself, is willing to be despised by others, and gives glory to God alone.
Such humility is a most difficult lesson to our sensual nature. But are we not
sinners, and far greater sinners, than St. Paul was? and shall we then esteem
ourselves highly? And granting that we have not to reproach ourselves with any
great sins, and have even done much good, is it not presumption and robbery to claim
for ourselves what belongs to grace? Let us learn, therefore, to be humble, and
to count ourselves always unprofitable servants.
Aspiration. O most humble Savior, banish from
my heart the spirit of pride, and impart to me the most necessary grace of
humility. Give me grace to know that, of myself, I can do nothing that is
pleasing to Thee, that all my sufficiency for good comes from Thee, and that
Thou workest in us both to will and to accomplish (n. Cor. iii. 5; Phil. ii.
13).
GOSPEL Mark vii 31-37
At that
time, Jesus, going out of the coasts of Tyre, came by Sidon to the Sea of
Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring to Him
one deaf and dumb: and they besought Him that He would lay His hand upon him. And
taking him from the multitude apart, He put His fingers into his ears, and
spitting, He touched his tongue: and looking up to heaven, He groaned, and said
to him: Ephpheta, which is, be thou opened. And immediately his ears were opened,
and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right. And He charged
them that they should tell no man. But the more He charged them, so much the
more a great deal did they publish it: and so much the more did they wonder,
saying: He hath done all things well; He hath made both the deaf to hear, and
the dumb to speak.
·
Who among Christians are like the
deaf and dumb of this gospel?
o
Those
who are deaf to the voice of God, and dumb in prayer, in the praise of God, in
the defense of religion, and of the good name of their neighbor, and in
confessing their sins.
·
Why did Christ take the deaf and dumb man
aside?
o
Because He did not seek the praise of men, and
at the same time was loath to provoke too soon the hatred of His enemies.
·
Why did Jesus put His fingers into
the ears of the deaf and dumb, and spitting, touched his tongue?
o
To
show this unfortunate person by signs that it was He Who freed him from his
bodily evils, and that the healing power was not the consequence of secretly
given remedies but proceeded immediately from Himself.
·
Why did Jesus look up to heaven and
groan?
1. To show that He
acted not as mere man, but that He had received all power from His eternal
Father.
2. That He might thereby
awaken and animate the deaf and dumb man to confidence in His power and belief
in His divine mission. Learn hence to practice the beautiful virtue of
compassion for others sufferings, and to acknowledge that every good gift is
from above.
·
Why did Christ charge them that
they should tell no man?
o
That we might learn not to seek the praise of
men for our good deeds. Let us learn to make known the works of God to His
glory; for He is continually working before our eyes everyday so many wonders,
in order that we may praise His benignity and omnipotence.
Aspiration: O Jesus, great
physician of souls, open mine ears to attend to Thy holy will; loosen my tongue
to proclaim and praise forever Thy love and goodness.
Feast of Saint John Vianney[4]
During
the French Revolution a small band of Ursuline nuns was imprisoned in the
Bastille. To cheer her disconsolate companions, one of the groups passed
wheaten discs of bread, cut from the loaf of the daily rations, to memorialize
the happy days when they were free and could receive Our Lord in Holy
Communion. At that time all religious schools and churches were closed, and
those who harbored priests were imprisoned. At the Vianney farmhouse near
Dardilly, France, fugitive priests were offered a refuge. Here their son was
prepared in his tenth year for the reception of Holy Communion by a hunted
priest. While tending to his father's sheep, John Vianney fashioned a small
statue of Our Lady out of clay. He hid it in the hollow of an old tree with
this petition: "Dear Lady Mary, I love you very much; you must bring Jesus
back to His tabernacles very soon!" On a visit to his aunt at Ecully, John
listened to her praises of Father Balley, the parish priest, and he sought the
Father's advice regarding his vocation to the priesthood. The pastor appraised
the overgrown, awkward youth of faltering speech and devoid of general
education. Though John was unable to answer the questions pertaining to earthly
science which Father asked him, yet, when the priest put to him the questions
of the catechism, his face became luminous with lively interest. He answered
every question correctly, and in a manner beyond his years. The amazed pastor
took this evidence as a sign from heaven, prophesying, "You will become a
priest!" The ensuing years brought many trials to John. He was
conscripted; his mother died; he failed often in his studies. Ordained as a
Mass priest, August 12, 1815, he remarked to Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy:
"Here is your priest, O Blessed Mother! Stay close to me. Help me to be a
good priest!" As a curate and as a pastor, St. John Vianney's daily
instruction on the catechism found an inspired audience, among whom were noted
orators such as Père Lacordaire, O.P., the famed preacher of Notre Dame. The
saintly pastor performed many miracles, but the greatest was his own manner of
Eucharistic living. It was his Lord, living in Father Vianney, who made him
"spend and be spent" in ceaseless service for both sinner and saint
in the sacred tribunal of penance.
Things to Do[5]
·The
Collect praises St. John Vianney's zeal for souls and his spirit of prayer and
penance. Say a special prayer today that by his example and intercession we too
may win the souls of our brothers for Christ.
·Say
a prayer for priests that they may persevere in their vocation. If you haven't
been to confession for a while resolve to do so right away and be sure that you
remember to say an extra prayer for your confessor.
·From
the Catholic Culture library: Pope John XXIII holds St. John Vianney as a model
for the priesthood in this Encyclical.
·June
19, 2009--June 19, 2010 was The Year for Priests declared by Pope Benedict XVI,
which held St. John Vianney in particular prominence and example, and he was
proclaimed as patron saint of all the priests of the world. Although some links
are no longer present, see Catholic Culture's special section for the Year for
Priests.
·Read this
longer life of the Curé
of Ars and also these excerpts from his sermons.
Saint
Barak Obama-Today has also been recognized as “Obama Day” and it
seems the left has already begun his canonization.
Obama’s frequent appeals to history’s judgment reflect his confidence that history will be kind to him. In the short run, it will: liberals will canonize Obama. Like the faithful Catholics chanting “santo subito” after the death of Pope John Paul II, Obama’s liberal boosters will turn him into Saint Barack, savior of health care and slayer of bin Laden.
You might see hints of this already in your
liberal friends’ wistful Facebook posts: “I’m really going to miss this guy.”
If liberals are calling the shots, Obama’s name will shortly be inscribed on
statues and state buildings, and his face will someday appear on coins and
currency, while the divisions he sowed and exploited in pursuit of personal
glory will be papered over. Generations of schoolchildren will learn about the
beloved, barrier-shattering college professor with the megawatt smile who could
tell a joke and make a jump shot—not the ambitious, polarizing ideologue whose
disdain for half the country was palpable. No mention will be made of his habit
of insulting supposedly lazy, ignorant Americans who cling bitterly to their
religion, guns, and “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them,” and who
fall prey to “anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to
explain their frustrations.”[6]
In celebration of Barry’s day, I
think we should have a beer summit.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
Day 51
II. "BODY AND SOUL BUT
TRULY ONE"
362 The human person, created
in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. the biblical
account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that
"then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Man,
whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.
363 In Sacred Scripture the
term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human
person. But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man,
that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially
in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.
364 The human body shares in
the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely
because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person
that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:
Man, though
made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up
in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus
brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely
given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life.
Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honour since
God has created it and will raise it up on the last day
365 The unity of soul and body
is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of
the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of
matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two
natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that
every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not
"produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not
perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with
the body at the final Resurrection.
367 Sometimes the soul is
distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may
sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and
body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. The Church
teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the
soul. "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a
supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it
deserves to communion with God.
368 The spiritual tradition of
the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of
one's being, where the person decides for or against God.
Daily Devotions
·
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: An
increase of the faithful
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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