Rachel’s Corner
· do a personal eucharistic stations of the cross.
· Bucket List: Military Hop
o Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, Japan
· Foodie: 50 Traditional Japanese Foods
· Spirit Hour: Chocolate Monk
§ Rtveli
Best Place to visit in August: Lake Tahoe, California
Lake Tahoe in California is a stunning beauty spot and during the summer it offers incredible scenery, outdoor activities and local festivals.
There are many gorgeous hotels resorts here all with superb lake views and the huge range of activities on offer including excellent hiking and biking trails, boating, kayaking, paddle-boarding, parasailing, farmer’s markets, live music, festivals and swimming. Some of the best beaches include the sandy Pope Beach, Kiva Beach and Baldwin Beach.
I loved the summer concert performances at the Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena, which regularly attracts big name,s and the free concerts at Lakeview Commons.
I definitely recommend checking out Tahoe’s nightclubs and casinos as well, it’s a buzzing spot!
- Visitor’s Center Address: 1901 Lisa Maloff Way, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150
- Map Location
- Average temperatures – 78.8 degrees
My highlights…
- Cycling along the paved trails which took me past gorgeous mountain scenery.
- Taking a ride on the Heavenly Mountain Gondola and seeing breathtaking views of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding mountains.
- Enjoying live music and an incredible atmosphere at the Free Summer Concert Series on the Beach.
· It is Happiness Happens Month!
o What makes you happy? Happiness Happens Month is a whole month dedicated to celebrating what makes you happy. The holiday is based on the premise that happiness is unlimited and contagious and that sharing one’s happiness and can bring a lot of joy in other people’s lives.
Acts,
Chapter 13, verse 16
So, Paul
got up, motioned with his hand, and said, “Fellow Israelites and you others who
are God-FEARING, listen.
The Apostle Paul Gestured. Most effective speaker’s gesture. A
gesture is defined by The American Heritage College Dictionary as “a
motion of the limbs or body made to express thought or to emphasize speech.”
Surely every gospel preacher should want to emphasize his sermon. Let’s look to
see what the Bible teaches about such. As Paul was asked by the rulers of the
synagogue, “. . . if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.
Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel,
and ye that fear God, give audience” (Acts 13:15-16). The apostle Paul knew
that gestures can help to enforce the oral expression in gospel preaching. In
Jerusalem, “. . . Paul stood on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto
the people. And when there was made a great silence, he spake unto them in the
Hebrew tongue, saying . . .” (Acts 21:40). Paul knew that gestures help
communicate ideas and help get and hold attention. It has been said that
gesturing is not in keeping with humility. Paul, who gestured, said, “Serving
the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and
temptations, which befell me by the lying-in wait of the Jews” (Acts 20:19).
Paul was a humble-gesturing preacher! When the apostle Paul made his defense
before King Agrippa, he “. . . stretched forth the hand, and answered
for himself” (Acts 26:1). The stretching forth of one’s hand is gesturing. [1]
Copilot
Take
This reflection on Paul’s use of gesture is a
powerful reminder that embodiment—how we move, how we present ourselves—can be
a sacred tool in proclaiming truth. Paul’s physicality wasn’t theatrical; it
was intentional, humble, and deeply aligned with his message. His gestures
weren’t for show—they were invitations. Invitations to listen, to reflect, to
respond.
✋ The
Sacred Power of Gesture in Scripture
Here’s how Paul’s gestures serve as spiritual
signposts:
·
Acts 13:15–16: Paul is invited to speak, and he beckons
with his hand—a gesture that signals readiness, reverence, and urgency.
He’s not just delivering a message; he’s calling hearts to attention.
·
Acts 21:40: Amid tension in Jerusalem, Paul beckons
again, and silence falls. His gesture becomes a bridge between chaos and
clarity.
·
Acts 26:1: Before King Agrippa, Paul stretches
forth his hand—a gesture of dignity, defense, and divine confidence. Even
in chains, he speaks with authority.
These moments show that gesture, when rooted in
humility and truth, becomes a vessel of grace. Paul’s movements weren’t
distractions—they were extensions of his soul’s posture before God and others.
Paul reminds us that the body is not separate from
the spirit—it is a temple, a tool, a testimony.
To say the body is a temple, a tool, and a
testimony is to recognize that we are not merely flesh and bone, but
vessels of divine encounter. And from the moment of creation, humanity has been
invited into communion—with God, with one another, and with the created world.
The Eucharist and Confession are not just rituals; they are the sacred
architecture of that communion.
🕊️ From Creation to Redemption: The
Sacramental Arc
1.
The Body as Temple (Genesis to Christ):
·
In Eden, humanity was created in the image and
likeness of God—a living temple where divine breath animated dust.
·
The Fall fractured that temple, introducing sin and
separation. But even then, God began the long arc of restoration.
·
The Incarnation—God taking on flesh—was the ultimate
affirmation that the body is sacred. Christ’s body became the new Temple (John
2:21).
2.
The Eucharist: The Temple Restored and Filled
·
In the Eucharist, Christ offers his Body and
Blood—not symbolically, but sacramentally, as real presence.
·
It is the reversal of Eden’s rupture: where
Adam took and ate in disobedience, we now take and eat in obedience, receiving
life.
·
The Eucharist transforms the body into a living
tabernacle. As St. Augustine himself said, “Become what you receive.”
3.
Confession: The Temple Cleansed
·
Confession is the sacrament of restoration. It
echoes the cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem, but now within the soul.
·
From the beginning, God sought repentance—not
punishment. Adam hid, but God called out, “Where are you?”
·
In Confession, we answer that call. We return to the
Garden, not in shame, but in grace.
🔥 The Body as Tool and Testimony
·
Tool: Through
the sacraments, the body becomes a means of grace. We kneel, speak,
taste, and touch—our senses participate in salvation.
·
Testimony: A life
shaped by Eucharist and Confession becomes a living witness. The body tells the
story of redemption—through acts of mercy, through ritual, through suffering
offered in union with Christ.
The Roman Catholic Church invites us to trace the
spiritual architecture of the human person from Eden to Calvary, and into our
own daily walk. To see ourselves as temple, tool, and testimony is to
recognize that we are not passive recipients of grace, but active participants
in a divine drama. Fear, sin, and virtue are not just moral categories—they
shape the very contours of how we live out our created purpose.
🕍 The Body as Temple: Fear and
Holiness
·
Holy
Fear is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). It’s not terror, but awe—a
trembling reverence before the mystery of God. It guards the temple from
desecration.
·
Disordered
Fear, however, leads to hiding (like Adam and Eve) or grasping (like Cain).
It turns the temple inward, away from God.
·
The Seven Deadly Sins—pride, envy, wrath,
sloth, greed, gluttony, lust—are intrusions into the temple. They defile the
sanctuary of the soul, replacing reverence with self-idolatry.
·
The Beatitudes, by contrast, cleanse and
consecrate the temple. Blessed are the poor in spirit—they empty
themselves so God may dwell. Blessed are the pure in heart—they restore
the altar.
The temple is not just a place—it is a posture. Fear
rightly ordered keeps us bowed before the Holy of Holies.
🛠️ The Body as Tool: Sin and Service
·
As tools, we are meant to build, heal,
serve. But sin misuses the tool:
o Pride turns
the tool into a weapon.
o Sloth leaves
it rusted and unused.
o Lust and gluttony misuse
it for fleeting pleasure.
·
The Beatitudes reforge the tool:
o Blessed
are the merciful—they use their hands to lift others.
o Blessed
are the peacemakers—they mend what wrath has broken.
o Blessed
are those who hunger for righteousness—they labor for justice, not self.
The tool is sanctified when it serves love. Sin
dulls it; grace sharpens it.
📜 The Body as Testimony: Witness and
War
·
Our lives speak. Even silence testifies.
·
The Seven Deadly Sins distort the message:
o Envy
whispers, “You are not enough.”
o Greed shouts,
“Take more.”
o Wrath screams,
“You are owed.”
·
The Beatitudes rewrite the testimony:
o Blessed
are those who mourn—they testify to love’s cost.
o Blessed
are the persecuted—they bear witness to truth under fire.
o Blessed
are the meek—they speak with quiet strength.
The testimony of a soul shaped by the Beatitudes is
luminous. It echoes Christ’s own sermon on the mount—where heaven touched
earth.
Feast
of St. Augustine of Hippo[2]
St.
Augustine (354-430) was born at Tagaste, Africa, and died in Hippo. His father,
Patricius, was a pagan, his mother, Monica, a devout Christian. He received a
good Christian education. As a law student in Carthage, however, he gave
himself to all kinds of excesses and finally joined the Manichean sect. He then
taught rhetoric at Milan where he was converted by St. Ambrose. Returning to
Tagaste, he distributed his goods to the poor, and was ordained a priest. He
was made bishop of Hippo at the age of 41 and became a great luminary of the
African Church, one of the four great founders of religious orders, and a
Doctor of the universal Church.
"Though I am but dust and ashes, suffer
me to utter my plea to Thy mercy; suffer me to speak, since it is to God's
mercy that I speak and not to man's scorn. From Thee too I might have scorn,
but Thou wilt return and have compassion on me. ... I only know that the gifts
Thy mercy had provided sustained me from the first moment. ... All my hope is
naught save in Thy great mercy. Grant what Thou dost command, and command what
Thou wilt" (St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions,
6, 19).
As a young man, Augustine prepared for
a career as a teacher of Rhetoric and subsequently taught in Carthage and Rome.
Unfortunately, despite having a saint for a mother, as his career progressed,
he wandered far from his Christian upbringing, and his life sank into an abyss
of pride and lust. Like many young pagan men of his time, he lived with a
mistress and conceived a child with her out of wedlock. However, the Lord did
not want to lose hold of this lost sheep altogether: thus, inspired by the
writings of the Roman philosopher Cicero (and, no doubt, prompted by the Holy
Spirit), Augustine began what would prove to be a lifelong search for wisdom.
This search took him first to the religious cult called the
"Manichees," a strange sect that believed the material world is the
product of the powers of "darkness," while the spiritual realm is the
realm of "light." After becoming disillusioned with the bizarre
theories of the Manichees, Augustine adopted the philosophy of the Neo-Platonists.
This was a school of philosophy centered on the writings of the ancient
philosopher Plotinus, who described the mystical journey that all people ought
to undertake as "the flight of the alone to the Alone," in other
words, as a mystical, solitary search for the ineffable Source of all things.
In 386, Augustine moved to Milan to a new teaching post, and there, by divine
providence, he encountered the preaching of the archbishop of the city, the
great theologian St. Ambrose. As a result of the example and preaching of this
great saint, as well as the prayers and tears of his saintly mother, Augustine
was quickly plunged into a profound inner struggle, wrestling with his sins of
the flesh and with temptations to intellectual pride. The turning point of this
struggle came in the summer of 386 when Augustine was sitting in a garden,
recollecting his past life and gazing into the depths of his own soul. He
describes what happened next in his autobiographical Confessions
(written in 397)[3]:
Such things I said, weeping in the most
bitter sorrow of my heart. And suddenly, I heard a voice from some nearby
house, a boy's voice or a girl's voice, I do not know but it was a sort of
sing-song repeated again and again, "Take and read, take and read." I
ceased weeping and immediately began to search my mind most carefully as to
whether children were accustomed to chant these words in any kind of game, and
I could not remember that I had ever heard any such thing. Damming back the
flood of my tears I arose, interpreting the incident as quite certainly a
divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the passage at which I
should open. ... I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the passage
upon which my eyes first fell: "Not
in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention
and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the
flesh in its concupiscence’s" (Rom 13:13). I had no wish to read
further, and no need. For in that instant, with the very ending of the
sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in my heart, and
all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away.
Then we [Augustine and his friend Alypius] went in to my mother and told her,
to her great joy. We related how it had come about: she was filled with
triumphant exultation and praised You who are mighty beyond what we ask or
conceive: for she saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful
weeping she had ever asked. For You converted me to Yourself ... (Confessions, 8.11-12).
A prayer by St. Augustine
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that
my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, That I
love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to
defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, That
I always may be holy. Amen.[4]
Things to Do:
- Read
more about St. Augustine at CatholicIreland.net and at CatholicSaints.Info
- Go
here
for links to the writings of St. Augustine
- Also
learn more here, St. Augustine of Hippo
- See
St
Augustine, the Holy Trinity, the Child and the SeaShell
- Visit
Anastpaul for more info including many images
Bible in a Year Day 70 The Offense of Balaam
Fr. Mike dives into the character of Balaam,
and explains why his offense against God was so treacherous. Today's readings
are Numbers 22, Deuteronomy 23, and Psalm 105.
Daily Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Binding
and suppressing the Devils Evil Works
·
Religion
in the Home for Preschool: August
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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