Catholic Good News

Receiving the Gospel, Serving God and Neighbor


Ordinary Time

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:"  Ecclesiaties 3:1
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Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
        We are currently in Ordinary Time, that is ORDERED time.  It is not 'ordinary' in that there is nothing special about it; it is 'ordered' so that we can grow in love of God and neighbor, and true love of self.
        We are going through the big green section of the Church's Liturgical calendar.  You hear and will hear, read and will read, Sunday after Sunday, "30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time, 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time," etc.  This in a sense is asking you the same questions each week: Are you loving God and your neighbor more?  Are you working on those faults and sins in your life?  Do you truly desire Heaven, your true home?  Green is for growing and that is what we are meant to do in this season.
         Put God first this Sunday, put everyone else second, and then you will love yourself, not because you put yourself last, but because it is in the right place ORDERED to true love and happiness.
 
Peace and prayers in Jesus through Mary, loved by Saint Joseph,
Father Robert
P.S.  This coming Sunday is 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  The readings can be found at:  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101925.cfm
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588. What does “Hallowed be thy Name” mean? (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 2807-2812, 2858) 
a) a desire for hallowedness to be over all the earth 
b) a petition that our name may be holy as God’s name is holy 
c) a prayer of praise that acknowledges God as holy 
d) none of the above 


589. How is the Name of God made holy in us and in the world? (CCC 2813-2815) 
a) in that we want all men to bless the Name of the Lord 
b) that the Name of God may be known to all 
c) in our Baptism touching every part of our life 
d) all of the above 


590. What does the Church ask for when she prays “Thy Kingdom come”? (CCC 2816-2821, 2859) 
a) the Church prays for the final coming of the Kingdom of the God 
b) the Church is asking for earthly perfection 
c) the Church acknowledges that she does fine on her own, but even better with God 
d) the Church is praying for Jesus to set up an kingdom on earth only 


591. Why pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? (CCC 2822-2827,
2860) 
a) to help unite our will to that of Jesus 
b) the will of the Father is that all be saved 
c) that God’s loving plan is realized here on earth 
d) all of the above 
 
(Answers below) 

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Saving on Gas and being More Safe on the Road

1)  Accelerate slowly; do not drive agreesively (save average of 31%)
2) Lower speeds (save average 12%) [Speed Limit or 5 mph less than speed limit]
3) Use cruise control (save average 7%)
more from: http://www.wikihow.com/Save-Money-on-Gas
 
 "In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive." From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more", brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.
-Catechism of the Catholic Church #312

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Amy Smith Features
October 12
Register contributor and author Sabrina Ferrisi, a mother of five, was on EWTN’s At Home With Jim and Joy over the summer to discuss the beautiful witness of Blessed Carlo Acutis, including her book about the saint whose feast day is Oct. 12. 
“He was a millennial, and so people can relate to him,” Ferrisi explained on the EWTN program. “He lived in our times. He had a laptop, a computer. He was a computer programmer. He had a flip phone … he had a PlayStation, wore jeans and sneakers and did the things we do — and so he’s very relatable and a very fun kid.”
She added of the beloved “super computer geek” who died of leukemia at 15 on Oct. 12, 2006: “He was living with one foot on earth and one foot in heaven — on one hand, a super-normal kid who had a lot of friends; he played soccer … but he was also very religious.”
“Everyone loved him,” Ferrisi underscored, recounting that he even brought friends to the faith.

Love Jesus — and Encourage Others to Love Him Too
The young daily communicant brought his parents back to the faith, too, Ferrisi explained. “They followed him — very, very beautiful.”
“Carlo, at a very young age, was extremely aware of the presence of God in his life.”
He would visit Jesus at every church he passed, and “he would put flowers in front of the statues of Mary and Jesus,” the journalist added. 
“He just had this extraordinary grace and perception and desire for the Lord,” she explained, adding that his cousin said, “He was just like any other kid except for his faith, which was so big it just burst forth from him and it affected all of us.”
On summer vacation with cousins in Assisi, he would plan his day as: “Okay, guys, we’re going to go to Mass, and then walk the dogs, and fly the kites … and then we’re going to pray the Rosary.”

Use Technology Well
What did he think of all things tech?
“He thought that technology could be an atomic bomb for good or it can be an atomic bomb for bad,” Ferrisi explained, quoting the holy teen’s mother. “He recognized that so much good could be done — and he did a lot of good with technology.”
“He was also very concerned that teenagers, or young people, were spending massive amounts of time on the internet, playing videos games, losing touch with reality. He didn’t like that people were so much in the virtual world but not hanging out with friends, flesh and blood in front of you. He was worried about the scourge of pornography and cyber bullying. And social media was starting during his lifetime, and that was also something he was worried about because he was very modest; he never wanted his name to be anywhere — and so he didn’t think taking pictures of yourself and constantly putting those on social media was a healthy thing, because it’s a kind of idolatry of self. He thought all of the attention should be on God and not on ourselves.”

Love the Eucharist
Ferrisi also talked about his “Eucharistic Miracles” exhibit and how “he insisted his name not be on it — not because he wasn’t proud but because he didn’t want the attention on himself. He said, ‘I want the attention on the Lord, not on me.’”
He loved the Eucharist — and highlighted 163 worldwide miracle stories on the website he created.
“With his family, they traveled all over Europe and took pictures of these churches and these miracles for the website. He worked on his website for four years.”
His legacy includes shows on EWTN that highlight these amazing miracles.
He taught catechism too — starting at age 11. It made him sad that the kids at his parish weren’t excited about the Eucharist, and he thought his exhibit and website would help youth become excited about the faith. The exhibit, which has traveled to thousands of parishes on all continents, has prompted conversions — and miraculous healings, too.
His mom gets emails daily about medical miracles, with documentation, as well as conversions and favors — all through his intercession.
“People are praying to him, and things are happening now, it’s incredible,” Ferrisi said. “He’s a very powerful saint. Pray to him, because he’s answering prayers left and right.”
Ferrisi said her son who just graduated from college with a degree in computer science told her, “I can’t relate to the other saints, but I can relate to Carlo because he was like me, into technology.”
 
Make a ‘Spiritual Plan’
In the second episode, Ferrisi shared the first millennial saint’s “spiritual plan.”
“He’s a wonderful person to get to know,” she said, adding: “He lived a spiritual plan of life every day.”
What did that daily plan include?

• Mass
• Rosary
• Adoration before or after Mass — he could often be found in church before the tabernacle. “He had a very deep relationship with Jesus.”
• Reading the Bible
• Community service — he would feed the homeless with his family, including distributing leftovers, in the footsteps of St. Francis, a favorite saint of his.

Bonus trivia: Carlo had mystical experiences: The Fatima seers appeared to him.

Love Your Pets
He loved his pets — the Acutis family had four dogs, two cats and a goldfish.
“He was a big lover of animals.”

Be a Good Friend
“What a wonderful friend he was,” Ferrisi said, explaining that he took time to protect kids who were bullied or invited over those who had family issues — he spent lots of time with friends.

Most of All, Cultivate a Caring Heart Like Christ’s
“He had a very deep spiritual life” that put faith into action: spending time with friends and doing corporal works of mercy, Ferrisi said.
We live for eternity, was his perspective, so he used his time wisely. “I lived my life without wasting even a minute of it,” Carlo said.
Three days after being diagnosed with terminal leukemia, he died.
“Carlo now is bringing so many people into the Church,” the author explained, adding that “Assisi was his favorite place on earth.” That is where he is buried — that was his dying prayer. 
His upcoming canonization — likely in 2025 — Ferrisi said, will be “a moment of hope and joy in the Church.” His family and cousins and friends will attend, including his younger twin siblings, who were born on the four-year anniversary of his death.
Most of all, Carlo wants people to be drawn to Christ.

As Ferrisi said: “He wants to lead us to a deeper relationship with Jesus, which will give us joy and hope. We have to remember that: If we become close to Carlo, we will become close to Jesus.”

“If I can speak to God directly, why should I tell my sins to a human man? I haven’t killed anyone; I don’t need confession. I always confess the same sins.”
A priest and canon lawyer of the Vatican recently responded to these and other questions in a speech on “(Good) Reasons for Not Going to Confession.”
Monsignor Krzysztof Nykiel is regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the office of the Roman Curia responsible for issues related to the sacrament known as penance, reconciliation, or confession.
He addressed 10 common objections during an Oct. 13–14 conference on “celebrating the sacrament of confession today,” organized by the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary in Rome and streamed online.
Here are six of Nykiel’s answers to common reasons people give for not going to confession:
1. I don’t go to confession because I can speak with God directly.
Prayer, or dialogue with God, is good, Nykiel said. It is good to do a frequent examination of conscience and even to ask God for forgiveness for our sins in our personal prayer.
“And certainly,” he explained, “it is not impossible to obtain pardon even just ‘speaking directly with God’ in prayer, but we cannot ever be certain of it.”
“And it is exactly in this ‘certainty’ [that] lies the fundamental difference between the requested and rightly hoped-for forgiveness in the humble prayer to God and the forgiveness obtained in the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation,” he continued.
“The penitent who humbly confesses his sins and obtains absolution for them from the priest is morally sure, for certainty of faith, that his sins are forgiven and will not be imputed to him on the day of judgment,” he said. “The difference between a well-founded hope and a certainty, it seems to me, is worth all the effort of confession.”
2. I don’t go to confession because the priest could be a worse sinner than me.
Nykiel said it is true that priests, who are not God, nor the Immaculate Conception, could find themselves in graver sin than the penitent.
He reassured anyone concerned, however, that even though priests are sinners too, “the moral condition of the priest at the time of sacramental absolution is completely irrelevant to the validity of the absolution.”
“Giving up confession because of uncertainty about the confessor’s moral condition would be like giving up medical treatment because of uncertainty about the doctor’s health condition,” he said.
3. I don't go to confession because I always say the same things.
The priest said it is tempting to respond to this objection by joking that it is a “good thing they are always the same; it means there are no new sins!”
“But joking aside, repeated frailty in the same sins is no reason to abandon confession; in fact, it is exactly the opposite,” he urged. “Only the humble surrender of oneself to God, imploring his mercy, makes it possible to fight and win against the vices that can bind and sometimes grip our souls.”

Nykiel recalled a line he attributed to St. Augustine: “If we defeated one vice a year, we would soon be saints.”
He also said St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, would affirm that “‘God always forgives us, even if he knows that we will sin again.’ So ‘always committing the same sins’ is not a reason to not go to confession, but on the contrary, [it is a reason] to resort to the sacrament more frequently and faithfully.”
4. I don’t go to confession because I’m basically a good person who hasn’t stolen anything or killed anyone.
Nykiel warned people to be vigilant, because having not committed some very serious sins is a gift of grace that can risk becoming “a reason for pride in believing oneself righteous before others or, much worse, God. No one can be righteous before God.”
“The sense of one’s sin and unworthiness before God is always directly proportional to one’s proximity to him,” he explained. “The great saints have always claimed to feel like great sinners. If we do not feel like sinners, we are probably not yet saints.”
He used another analogy, comparing God to the light and heat of the sun: “The closer we get to the ‘sun of God,’ the more intensely we feel the burning fire of our sin and deeply desire to be freed from it. If we do not feel this burning desire, we are probably still far from the sun of Christ.”
The canon lawyer further noted that the Church requires Catholics to go to confession at least once per year and to receive Holy Communion at least during the Easter season. So, he pointed out, if someone has voluntarily gone longer than one year without going to confession, he or she is at fault for this reason.


Is the excuse of not having committed certain grave sins, he added, “not an attempt at self-justification, at self-reproach that ends up dispensing with the salvation offered by Christ? Does not a fear of the reality of self hide behind those masks of respectability?”
“And finally, are we sure that the only way to ‘kill’ is to deprive [someone of] physical life? Or do we kill with words, indifference, and in so many other ways? Let us think about it!”
5. I don’t go to confession because the last time I went it didn’t go well.
The priest also addressed what to think about when a person’s most recent confession left a bad taste in their mouth — whether because the priest was not particularly attentive or available, or because he was either too tough or too lax.
“First, we should ask ourselves: what do we expect from the sacrament of reconciliation?” he said. “If our expectation is disproportionate, or misplaced, or misdirected, we risk being disappointed.”
“Confession,” he said, “does not resolve our guilt, which is psychological and natural, nor does it solve all our personal and spiritual problems. Sacramental absolution destroys the sense of sin, which is theological and supernatural.”

He recommended, when faced with an inadequate confessor, that someone go to confession with a different priest.6. I don’t go to confession because the confessional makes me claustrophobic.
If someone has a genuine problem with claustrophobia, Nykiel said, the rule about using a confessional to preserve the anonymity of the penitent can be exempted with.
But he also warned about the tendency to make trivial excuses for avoiding confession, such as: “I don’t have time, I didn’t remember, the schedule is not convenient, etc.”
“Because the evil one tempts through trivialities,” he said, adding that the devil does not always attack from the “front,” sowing doubt in God’s mercy or the power of the sacrament, “but progressively turning away from its celebration with seemingly harmless trivialities, which, however, over time, end up undermining both the regular practice of confession and — God forbid — faith itself.”
“Divine mercy always awaits us; let us not run away from it like naughty children, devising excuses that no one would believe and, in the end, neither would we,” he urged.

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A portrait of Bl. Michael McGivney, unveiled Oct. 31 during the priest's beatification Mass. Credit: Christine Rousselle/CNA

Hartford, Conn., Oct 31 (CNA).-  
Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, was beatified October 31, at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut. He will now be known as “Blessed Michael McGivney” and his feast day will be observed August 13 in the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Fr. McGivney was formally beatified through an apostolic letter from Pope Francis that was read on Saturday by Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, the appointed representative of Pope Francis. Tobin was the principal celebrant of the beatification Mass at Hartford’s cathedral.
“Fr. McGivney’s life is an illustration of how a holy priest can provide the necessary and intimate connection, so crucial in the life and mission of a parish,” Tobin said. He described McGivney as a priest who loved his flock, and was happy to see them work together as a community.
“The signature accomplishment for which he is remembered, founding the Knights of Columbus, grew out of his ministry as a parish priest,” Tobin added.
“This great brotherhood of 2 million now spanning the globe was born from the pastoral ingenuity of a parish priest to respond to the twin challenges faced by the people he served. Because he knew his people well, so well.”
“We accept that like him, God calls each one of us in our own day and our own way, to be vessels of mercy, and so, enter into our heavenly inheritance.”
Cardinals Sean O’Malley of Boston and Timothy Dolan of New York were cardinal concelebrators of the Mass. Several other archbishops and bishops, including representatives from the Ukrainian Catholic Church, were also present.
Pope Francis said that McGivney’s “zeal for the proclamation of the Gospel and generous concern for his brothers and sisters,” that “made him an outstanding witness of Christian solidarity and fraternal assistance.”
The pope concluded that the Connecticut priest “henceforth be given the title blessed.”  The letter was dated September 13, 2020.
The date selected for McGivney’s feast, August 13, is the day between his birth, which was August 12, 1852, and his death, which was August 14, 1890.
Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore read an English translation of the letter. McGivney was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s cathedral in 1877.
A tapestry of Father McGivney’s portrait was unveiled in the cathedral’s sanctuary immediately after the letter was read.
Before the letter was read, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson read a biographical letter of McGivney’s life, and detailed his earthly ministry.
After the portrait was unveiled, Michael “Mikey” McGivney Schachle, accompanied by his parents and many of his siblings, presented a monstrance containing a relic of McGivney to Cardinal Tobin. Mikey Schaecle’s live birth after a prenatal diagnosis of fetal hydrops, a rare, typically fatal, condition, was confirmed by the Vatican to be a miracle attributed to the intercession of Bl. McGivney.
Archbishop Leonard Blair of Hartford read a letter of thanks to Tobin for presiding over the beatification Mass, and requested that Tobin relay his thanks to Pope Francis.
“I believe that Fr. McGivney is truly Pope Francis’ kind of priest,” said Blair. “A model of his time of closeness to Christ Jesus on the peripheries of life and society.”
In his homily, Tobin said that early Christians, weary due to the demands of a Christian life, were consoled that there was a “cloud of witnesses who would give them courage to go on” and reminding them that their fidelity would be rewarded in heaven.  
 
“In his beautiful reflection on holiness Pope Francis dares to name some of those witnesses. Abraham, Sarah, Moses, gideon, and others,” said Tobin.
“Today, in the name of the Church, Pope Francis recognizes one more face among those witnesses: the serene and youthful countenance of Fr. Michael Joseph McGivney.”
Today, explained Tobin, is a celebration of the faithfulness of God to the body of His Son, the Church. He said that the beatification of McGivney coincided with “timely signs of God’s providential care that can speak in a personal way to each one of us, especially in this moment of our history.”
McGivney, said Tobin, was someone who “worked to keep families united in dignity, and security,” and took special care for members of his flock who were immigrants to the United States.
“We are in the presence of an apostle, who cared for victims of an epidemic, before he himself would die of the disease,” said Tobin. “We acknowledge gratefully the providence of God by confirming in the holiness of this witness by the miraculous cure of an unborn child, healed in utero of a fatal, multi-organ failure, after prayer by his family to Fr. McGivney.”
“We praise God for the timeliness of the celebration, because 130 years after his death, the brief life of this holy man speaks eloquently to our own path to holiness. We should listen to his testimony,” said Tobin.
While August 13 is the date of McGivney’s feast in the Archdiocese of Hartford, priests outside the archdiocese will be permitted to celebrate votive Masses for Knights of Columbus gatherings on this date with permission of their bishops.
 
Blair closed the Mass by thanking those who had assisted with the beatification process and the logistics of planning and broadcasting the Mass amid a pandemic. He requested that people pray daily for McGivney’s continued intercession in the world.
 
“First, that with Bl. Michael McGivney as our model, and with his intercession, that many more men will heed God’s call to serve as priests,” said Blair.
 
“And second, that at Bl.Michael McGivney’s intercession, we may be blessed with a further miracle leading to his canonization as a saint for the whole Church.”

What's the Secret to 70 Years of Religious Life? The Virgin Mary, This Nun SaysBy Diego Lopez MarinaMexico City, Mexico, Sep 21,  (EWTN News/CNA) - Sister Crucita has been a member of the Josephine Sisters in Mexico for 70 years. At nearly 100 years old, she says she is happy with her vocation and would not change her decision to give her life to God.

In an interview with EWTN News, Sister Crucita – whose full religious name is Sister Maria of the Royal Cross – said that the secret of her perseverance has always been her trust in the mercy of God and the support of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“I say to the Blessed Virgin Mary, 'Take care of me, you already know I'm yours. Deliver me from the snares of the devil.' The Blessed Virgin has taken great care of me,” she said.

Through the Holy Rosary she was able to persevere in face of the temptation to abandon the religious life on many occasions, she said.

“One of the strongest temptations was to want to leave the religious life, because there were a lot of difficulties at the hospital where I was. The doctors encouraged me to leave, but I trusted in God and the Blessed Virgin. And here I am, thanks to them,” she said.

Sister Crucita was born Nov. 23, 1917 in the El Oro municipality in Mexico State. From a very young age, she had a love for Christ and the Church, thanks to the devotion of her parents who took her to Mass.

“I always liked going to Mass. I had an uncle who was a sacristan and I liked to spend time with him. So I was always drawn to the things of the Lord,” she said.

She began thinking about a religious vocation after a group of religious sisters came to her home town. She even discerned with a cloistered convent, but was forced to return home after two years, due to an illness.  

Sister Crucita was introduced to the Josephine Sisters by a priest. She worked alongside the sisters at a local hospital for a few months, and then entered the novitiate.

On Aug. 15, 1947, Sister Crucita made her final vows as a Josephine sister, at 30 years of age. Currently she goes to confession about every two weeks, prays the Holy Rosary three or four times a day, and attends Mass daily.

She said her religious vocation was always tied to her profession as a nurse.

At the start of the 1950s, Sister Crucita was sent to her congregation's hospital in Cuba. Later, in 1952, she arrived in Guadalajara and was assigned as a nurse to the Civil Hospital. For many years she was the supervisor of the pediatrics department.

“I see how the sick suffer and there are many who offer everything to God, they don't complain or anything. So then I think, if they who are sick and are always thinking about God, then what can I complain about. Anything on my part is something passing and I offer it to the Lord,” she emphasized.

Sister María de la Cruz said that one of her secrets to keep on going has always been to feel welcomed by the mercy of God: “I know that He loves me much more than I love him. I have always thought that He seeks me, he calls me, that he is always with me. If something happens to me, He watches over me.”

She encouraged young people to trust “completely in God, in the love that He has for us” because “He helps us and gives us peace.”

On Nov. 23, at Our Lady of Bethlehem and Saint Michael the Archangel church, a Mass of Thanksgiving will be celebrated for Sister Crucita’s 100th birthday.

Sister Beatriz Escamilla, a 44-year-old Josephine sister, said that at nearly 100 years old, Sister Crucita is still very independent.

“She begins her routine at 5:00 am, because she moves at a slower pace, and then she comes to the chapel at 7:00 am. She is one of the most punctual sisters, and sometimes she beats us all there. Sometimes she's the one who opens up the chapel,” Sister Beatriz said.  

She also highlighted Sister Crucita's fervent prayer for “vocations and for those of us still working in the apostolate.”

“She has an hour dedicated to prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament to especially ask for these needs,” she said.

Whenever things at the hospital get difficult, Sister Beatriz said, she can always count on Sister Crucita for encouragement.

“She's a person you're drawn to, through the peace she conveys. She offers a lesson in joy, perseverance, dedication and sacrifice,” she concluded.

Homeless Persons Find a Spiritual Father in Pope FrancisBy Hannah Brockhaus
Vatican City, Nov 14, 2016 / 02:06 pm (EWTN News/CNA) -
Always close to his heart, around 3,600 homeless men and women were given the chance to be also physically near the Pope this weekend – and near the heart of the Church – as they participated in the Jubilee of Mercy.

From 22 countries around Europe, the men and women came at the invitation of Pope Francis, who has called the poor the “treasures of the Church,” to participate in the European Festival of Joy and Mercy held in Rome Nov. 11-13.

From the UK, Josephine Kandeba said meeting Pope Francis was like “a daughter talking with her father.”

“He is very humble,” she told EWTN News. “He listened to me. When I stopped him, I said, 'Holy Father, if you don’t mind, I want to say something'. He stopped, while I was holding his hand and while he was holding mine, and I said what I wanted to say to him.”

Having been on the streets for years, Josephine now lives at a shelter in London. She said she never thought that one day she “could see the Pope.”

Other pilgrims attending the event said they were struck by Francis’ great love for the poor, and the attention he showed to all of them.

“Do you know why we’re here?” asked Terence, another pilgrim from the UK. We’ve come “from all over the world at the Holy Father’s invitation; that’s why we’re here.”

Terence also pointed out that Pope Francis said “he’s the Pope of the poor, and that has really stuck in my mind. Never before has a Pope said he’s the pope of the poor. He’s an exceptional man.”

Organized by the French organization Fratello, the event brought in groups of pilgrims from around Europe and the UK, including a large number from France and Poland, and Rome itself. It was organized as a way to help the homeless participate more fully in the Church and in the Jubilee of Mercy.

Organizations from five cities in the UK – Father Hudson’s Care, Cornerstone, the Church of Scotland and The Passage – together brought a group of around 50 pilgrims. The Passage, located in London, does street outreach in addition to having two hostels and a resource center for homeless.

The weekend’s schedule for pilgrims included an audience and catechesis with Pope Francis on Friday, a vigil of Mercy at the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on Saturday evening, and concluded with Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday.

In between these, the schedule included Morning Prayer, faith sharing, and of course, some free time to tour Rome and to walk through the Holy Doors for the Jubilee.

Charlie Egan, another pilgrim, told EWTN News he found it very moving when an older homeless man from France spoke to the Pope on Friday, with “tears in his eyes.”

“And the Pope, he showed so much love,” even giving the Frenchman a hug, Charlie said. “And then the Pope didn’t go away, he had a chat as if they were in a restaurant.”

“The Pope talked about every person, homeless or not, looking for that dream and that goal, talking about peace and love and charity.”

Charlie said that before going on the pilgrimage, he had four days to “look back” at his life. He said that he had “messed up” his life by drinking and had practiced no religion for years, only coming back to the faith a few years ago.

But at the vigil at St. Paul Outside the Walls, Charlie said he had the chance to speak with a priest “about everything,” and he came out afterward “with a bit of emotion.”

One of the messages he said he received that weekend was that even if you’ve lived a “bad life,” there is still the sacrament of confession.

“Everything that Pope Francis said was brilliant,” said Jacob Mensah, a young man, also from London. What struck him was what Pope Francis said about dreams being for everyone, and that they all “have dignity.”

Fr. Padraig Regan, a chaplain at The Passage, said the weekend was a huge “sign of respect” for everyone who participated. It was incredibly important for each of them to be “taken seriously” by the Church.

One of the organizers of the group from the UK, Bénédicte Miolane, is a member of Fratello who now lives in London. She said that Fratello is already talking about how they can include even more people from around the world in the future.

The goal, she said, would be to make it like a World Youth Day, but a version specifically for the poor and homeless.

Terence said that another major thing that struck him “and changed his view” was the love he witnessed between “rough sleepers” (what they call those who sleep on the street) and the “ordinary” people also participating in the event.

“It was the love between them that I noticed,” he said. “They have something about them, they show each other affection.”

Speaking to pilgrims at the event’s concluding Mass Nov. 13, Pope Francis said: “Let us look with trust to the God of mercy, with the certainty that ‘love never ends.’”

“And let us open our eyes to our neighbor, especially to our brothers and sisters who are forgotten and excluded. That is where the Church’s magnifying glass is pointed.” 
"From the time of the Mosaic law, the People of God have observed fixed feasts, beginning with Passover, to commemorate the astonishing actions of the Savior God, to give him thanks for them, to perpetuate their remembrance, and to teach new generations to conform their conduct to them. In the age of the Church, between the Passover of Christ already accomplished once for all, and its consummation in the kingdom of God, the liturgy celebrated on fixed days bears the imprint of the newness of the mystery of Christ."   -Catechism of the Catholic Church #1164

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"From the time of the apostles, becoming a Christian has been accomplished by a journey and initiation in several stages. This journey can be covered rapidly or slowly, but certain essential elements will always have to be present: proclamation of the Word, acceptance of the Gospel entailing conversion, profession of faith, Baptism itself, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and admission to Eucharistic communion."  
-Catechism of the Catholic Church #1229


+JMJ+

SUNDAY BIBLICAL MASS READINGS AND QUESTIONS
for Self-Reflection, Couples or Family Discussion
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday, October 19th, 2025

The First Reading- Exodus 17:8-13

In those days, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.  Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, "Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle.  I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand."  So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.  As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.  Moses' hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on.  Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset.  And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
Reflection
We should recall the context here.  After the ten plagues and the Passover, Israel has left Egypt a few weeks ago, crossed the Red Sea, and now entered into the Sinai Peninsula, a vast, rocky, mountainous desert.  Amalek was a nation of nomads that controlled the northeastern part of the Sinai Peninsula. The Amalekites are not happy to have the Israelites moving through the outskirts of the their territory, and they sent bands of scouts to trail them. Now on their way to Mount Sinai, the Israelites are attacked outright by the bulk of the Amalekite forces, and they are forced to respond, despite the fact that they are not military men but former slaves, and have few if any proper weapons. The young man Joshua goes out to lead those forces the Israelites could muster, while Moses goes to the mountain top to beseech God in prayer.  The moral sense of this text is a good example of the complementarity of prayer and action, of ora et labora (pray and work).  The people fight and pray: both are necessary, for the same reason that faith and works operate together. How curious that Moses’ prayers are necessary!  Why doesn’t God just send victory without them?  Surely he could!  Yet this is the mystery of God’s will: that he chooses to incorporate our participation in the fulfillment of his plans (See Thomas, Summa Q. 83).  He ordains to grant victory to Israel through Moses’ intercession.  Prayer is a cooperation with God’s will for us.
Adults - Do you offer your work up as a prayer?
Teens - Do you make time for both work and prayer in your life?
Kids - Think of one chore you don’t enjoy doing. Offer that chore up as a prayer while you are doing it!

Responsorial- Psalm 121: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I lift up my eyes toward the mountains;
whence shall help come to me?
My help is from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
May he not suffer your foot to slip;
may he slumber not who guards you:
indeed he neither slumbers nor sleeps,
the guardian of Israel.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD is your guardian; the LORD is your shade;
he is beside you at your right hand.
The sun shall not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The LORD will guard you from all evil;
he will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your coming and your going,
both now and forever.
R. Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Reflection
-Appropriately, the Lectionary follows the account of the life-or-death spiritual battle against Amalek with a spiritual warfare psalm, an ancient prayer that the people of Israel once took on their lips to invoke the protection of their God, the LORD, against the curses and evils of a violent pagan world.
Do you ask God’s protection throughout the day?

The Second Reading- 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Beloved: Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it, and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.  I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
Reflection
We could always do a better job of meditation on Scripture.  To do so requires us not necessarily to add more things to our schedule, but just to pay more attention to the rhythm of prayer handed to us in the Church’s liturgy.  There is plenty of Scripture in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Lectionary.  Let’s be more attentive when we read it or hear it proclaimed. Do you take time to read Scripture every day? Try to start that habit this week!

The Holy Gospel according to Luke 18:1-8
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.  He said, "There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.  And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, 'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.'  For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, 'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'"  The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.  Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?  Will he be slow to answer them?  I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.  But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Reflection
As is his custom, Jesus uses an earthly, every-day-life example to teach spiritual lessons.  Israelites were well-familiar with government corruption and local officials who looked out only for themselves.  They could probably think of examples of civic judges, appointed by the Romans or some other authority, who had cared nothing for the widows, orphans, poor, and sick in their cities.  Yet this persistent widow prevails over the unjust judge in Jesus parable.  The judge concedes, lest “she finally come and strike me.”  This last line is probably a mistranslation: the Greek verb rendered “strike me” is better translated “wear me out.”  The judge is not worried about the old woman coming and hitting him with her cane, but just in become exhausted by her constant asking. The message is simple: if evil authorities concede to persistence, how much more a loving Father!  So let us not give up persevering in prayer.
Adults - Is it easy for you to persevere in prayer? Do you get discouraged? How can you fight that discouragement?
Teens  - What are you struggling with in your life that you can consistently take to God in prayer?
Kids - Think of something your struggling with, or that someone that you love is struggling with. Pray about that every day this week!

LIVING THE WORD OF GOD THIS WEEK! –“Our divine Lord teaches us, in this parable, the need for perseverance in prayer.  This perseverance develops our trust and confidence in God.  It helps us to become humble and to realize how weak we are when left to ourselves.  It keeps us close to God, as we learn how dependent we are on His generosity.  If we only would realize that God is perhaps never closer to us than when we think He is forgetting us!  The trials of life, spiritual or temporal, which He allows us to suffer are not obstacles to our spiritual progress but rather stepping-stones without which we could not cross the rivers of life at all.” — Excerpted from The Sunday Readings Cycle C, Fr. Kevin O' Sullivan, O.F.M.




588. What does “Hallowed be thy Name” mean? c) a prayer of praise that acknowledges God as holy 
To hallow or make holy the Name of God is above all a prayer of praise that acknowledges God as holy. In fact, God revealed his holy Name to Moses and wanted his people to be consecrated for him as a holy nation in which he would dwell. 


589. How is the Name of God made holy in us and in the world?d) all of the above 
To make holy the Name of God, who calls us “to holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:7) is to desire that our baptismal consecration animate our whole life. In addition, it is to ask –with our lives and our prayers – that the Name of God be known and blessed by every man. 


590. What does the Church ask for when she prays “Thy Kingdom come”?a) the Church prays for the final coming of the Kingdom of the God 
The Church prays for the final coming of the Kingdom of God through Christ’s return in glory. The Church prays also that the Kingdom of God increase from now on through people’s sanctification in the Spirit and through their commitment to the service of justice and peace in keeping with the Beatitudes. This petition is the cry of the Spirit and the Bride: “Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). 


591. Why pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”?d) all of the above 
The will of the Father is that “all men be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). For this Jesus came: to perfectly fulfill the saving will of his Father. We pray God our Father to unite our will to that of his Son after the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. We ask that this loving plan be fully realized on earth as it is already in heaven. It is through prayer that we can discern “what is the will of God” (Romans 12:2) and have the “steadfastness to do it” (Hebrews 10:36). 

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*not pictured
Quote of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta set to a telling background.​

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
        We are often deceived that we can do little to nothing to change the world or situation of life that we find ourselves in.  But the truth is that if we do the little that God gives us to the best of our ability, the big stuff will take care of itself.
         And so what are the little things that God gives us?  It is being faithful to our families, it is doing our schoolwork well and playing kindly in the school yard, it is putting in a full day's work to the best of our ability and reaching out to co-workers, it is doing household duties and yes even cleaning the toilet until it sparkles. :o)
       Whether it is getting up, eating, cleaning, picking up a piece of trash, smiling, saying, "I love you," or whatever the next moment of life brings you, do it with great love FOR GOD, and for your neighbor, and in this you do it for yourself and change the world!
 Peace and prayers in Jesus through Mary, loved by Saint Joseph,
 Father Robert
P.S.  This coming Sunday is 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  The readings can be found at:  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101225.cfm
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578. What is the origin of the Our Father? (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 2759-2760, 2773)
a) Jesus taught it to us
b) it dropped out of the sky from heaven
c) an angel taught it to the apostles
d) its organ’s ultimately come from a prophet of the Old Testament


579. What is the place of the Our Father in the Scriptures? (CCC 2761-2764, 2774)
a) it is found in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount
b) it is the perfect prayer
c) it is the summary of the whole Gospel
d) all of the above


580. Why is it called the “Lord’s Prayer”? (CCC 2765-2766, 2775)
a) it is the shortest title we could give it
b) it is a prayer Jesus said
c) it is a prayer Jesus taught us
d) all of the above


581. What place does the Our Father have in the prayer of the Church? (CCC 2767-2772, 2776)
a) it is optional, and not that important
b) it is secondary behind many other prayers
c) it is very important and is required to be said everyday
d) it is integral and the prayer of the Church par excellence
(Answers below)
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"Helpful Hints of Life"


A Small White Cross in the Front Yard
(Truth of story is unknown, but idea for action is sound.)



 When driving to, from, and through Frankenmuth, Michigan, my family was always intrigued with the many small simple crosses in the front yards of the homes we passed by. Then one day we learned that those crosses are a statement of support for Frankenmuth's Christian foundation. The men from St. Lorenze Lutheran Church were making the crosses for those who wanted one. As fast as they could make them, they flew out of the church!
 
Two years ago an atheist living there complained about two crosses on a bridge in town. He requested that they be removed and the town removed them. He then decided that, since he was so successful with that, the city shield should also be changed since it had on it, along with other symbols, a heart with a cross inside signifying the city's Lutheran beginnings.
 
At that point, the residents decided they had had enough. Hundreds of residents made their opinions known by placing small crosses in their front yards. Seeing this quiet but powerful statement from the community, the man removed his complaint. Those simple crosses remain in those front yards today.
 
After passing those crosses for two years, it finally hit me that a small cross in millions of front yards across our country could provide a powerful and inspiring message for all Americans passing them every day. I think it might be time to take this idea across America.
 
We have those who say, even high up, that "we are not a Christian nation" and everywhere you look others are trying to remove from our history and current lives any reference to God, prayer, or the fact that our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The majority of Americans are Christians, why are we letting this happen to us?  It's time to stand up and make a statement...a small, quiet, but powerful statement.
 
If you agree, place a small wooden cross in your front yard or garden for all to see that they are not alone. It would be a beautiful thing to see crosses all across America.
 
God has richly blessed America but America is falling short of returning thanks for it, and this is only one way that we can help to change that. Do not be afraid to unobtrusively let others know where you stand and what you believe.
 
P.S. It's not a bad idea to make this a worldwide effort.
 
"Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will." Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes." Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman."
 Catechism of the Catholic Church #2610

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​by NEWS DESK   October 7, 2021  in WORLD NEWS 0

*Not Pictured - ​Dolores del Olmo, her catechist, baptized Emilia’s newborn daughter with the name Angeles (“Angels,” a common name for female Spaniards.) The new mother died 10 days later.

By Courtney Mares
Assisi, Italy, Oct 10 (CNA).-  ​

With the beatification of Carlo Acutis in Assisi Saturday, the Catholic Church now has its first “Blessed” who loved Super Mario and Pokémon, but not as much as he loved the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
“To be always united with Jesus, this is my life program,” Carlo Acutis wrote at the age of seven.
The young Italian computer whiz, who died of leukemia at 15 offering his suffering for the pope and the Church, was beatified Oct. 10 in a Mass at the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.
Born in 1991, Acutis is the first millennial to be beatified by the Catholic Church. The teen who had an aptitude for computer programming is now one step away from canonization. 
“Since he was a child … he had his gaze turned to Jesus. Love for the Eucharist was the foundation that kept alive his relationship with God. He often said ‘The Eucharist is my highway to heaven,” Cardinal Agostino Vallini said in his homily for the beatification.
“Carlo felt a strong need to help people discover that God is close to us and that it is beautiful to be with him to enjoy his friendship and his grace,” Vallini said.
During the beatification Mass, Acutis’ parents processed behind a relic of their son's heart which was placed near the altar. An apostolic letter from Pope Francis was read aloud in which the pope declared that Carlo Acutis’ feast will take place each year on Oct. 12, the anniversary of his death in Milan in 2006.
Masked pilgrims spread out in front of the Basilica of St. Francis and throughout the different piazzas in Assisi to watch the Mass on large screens as only a limited number of people were allowed inside.

​Acutis’ beatification drew an estimated 3,000 people to Assisi, including people who personally knew Acutis and many other young people inspired by his witness.
Mattia Pastorelli, 28, was a childhood friend of Acutis, who first met him when they were both around the age of five. He remembers playing video games, including Halo, with Carlo. (Acutis’ mother also told CNA that Super Mario and Pokémon were Carlo’s favorites.)
“Having a friend who is about to become a saint is a very strange emotion,” Pastorelli told CNA Oct. 10. “I knew he was different from others, but now I realize just how special he was.”
“I watched him while he was programming websites … He was truly an incredible talent,” he added.
In his homily, Cardinal Vallini, the pontifical legate for the Basilica of St. Francis, hailed Acutis as a model of how young people can use technology at the service of the Gospel to “reach as many people as possible and help them know the beauty of friendship with the Lord.”
For Carlo, Jesus was “the strength of his life and the purpose of everything he did,” the cardinal said.
“He was convinced that to love people and do them good you need to draw energy from the Lord. In this spirit he was very devoted to Our Lady,” he added.
“His ardent desire was also that of attracting as many people to Jesus, making himself herald of the Gospel above all with the example of life.”
At a young age, Acutis taught himself how to program and went on to create websites cataloguing the world’s Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions.
“The Church rejoices, because in this very young Blessed the Lord's words are fulfilled: ‘I have chosen you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit.’ And Carlo ‘went’ and brought the fruit of holiness, showing it as a goal reachable by all and not as something abstract and reserved for a few,” the cardinal said.
“He was an ordinary boy, simple, spontaneous, likeable … he loved nature and animals, he played football, he had many friends of his age, he was attracted by modern means of social communication, passionate about computer science and, self-taught, he built websites to transmit the Gospel, to communicate values and beauty,” he said.
Assisi is celebrating the beatification of Carlo Acutis with more than two weeks of liturgies and events Oct. 1-17. During this time images of a young Acutis standing with a giant monstrance containing the Eucharist can be seen in front of churches all around the city of St. Francis and St. Clare.
People stood in line to pray before the tomb of Carlo Acutis, located in Assisi’s Sanctuary of the Spoliation in the Church of St. Mary Major. The church extended its hours until midnight throughout the beatification weekend to allow as many people as possible to venerate Acutis, with the social distancing measures in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Fr. Boniface Lopez, a Franciscan Capuchin based at the church, told CNA that he noted that many people who visited Acutis’ tomb also took advantage of the opportunity to go to confession, which is being offered in many languages throughout the 17 days when Acutis’ body is visible for venation.
“Many people are coming to see Carlo to ask for his blessing … also many young people; they come for confessions, they come because they want to change their lives and they want to come near God and really experience God,” Fr. Lopez said.
At a youth vigil the evening before the beatification, pilgrims gathered outside of the Assisi’s Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels while priests heard confessions inside.
Churches throughout Assisi also offered additional hours of Eucharistic Adoration to mark Acutis’ beatification.
Lopez said that he had also encountered many religious sisters and priests coming on pilgrimage to see Actutis. “Religious come here to ask his blessing to help them to cultivate a greater love for the Eucharist.”
As Acutis once said: “When we face the sun we get a tan ... but when we stand before Jesus in the Eucharist we become saints.”

How Cardinal Newman saved a mother and baby in a dangerous pregnancy
By Mary FarrowChicago, Ill., Oct 12, (CNA).- Melissa Villalobos spoke to CNA Newsroom for the Cardinal Newman episode, which can be found here. This article is an adaptation of that conversation.
When Melissa Villalobos first heard about Cardinal John Henry Newman, she had no idea the pivotal role he would play in her life, nor the pivotal role she would play in his cause for sainthood. The Catholic wife and mother from Chicago stumbled into a show about Newman on EWTN “just by accident” in 2000, while she was getting ready for work and ironing her clothes. She was struck by what the show had to say about him.
“These priests and scholars were talking about him and his life and what a holy man he was, and what a tremendous influence he had on the church and on other people in his life,” Villalobos told CNA.
“I was really taken by it and I thought, ‘This man is so amazing,’” she said. But it wasn’t until a year later, when her husband brought home two holy cards of Cardinal Newman, that Villalobos’ devotion to him really began.
She displayed one of the cards in the living room, the other in her bedroom, and “I would pass by his image every day, and I would look into his eyes and I would pray to him and I would just talk to him as a mother,” she said. “And I felt like his expression was matching my emotions at the time. If I felt sad for some reason he looked sympathetic, if I felt joy, he looked pleased, and I just felt like we were really living life together,” Villalobos recalled. She invoked Cardinal Newman often, and considered him one of her closes spiritual friends. Eventually she started looking up his writings online, and described the experience like “finding gold in the backyard.”
“He was every bit as holy and loving as I had suspected he was by looking at his face. He had such a tremendous affection for ordinary people, which I discovered by reading his letters, and I felt like I could be one of those ordinary people in his life.”
Born in 1801 in London, John Henry Newman was originally an Anglican priest before his conversion to Catholicism in 1845 at the age of 44. He would soon become a renowned Catholic priest, theologian, poet, homilist, and, in 1879, a cardinal. His works are considered among the most important contributions to the thought of the Church in recent centuries.
His conversion to Catholicism was controversial in the birthplace of Anglicanism, and he lost many friends as a result, including his own sister, who refused to speak to him again. Newman was also a devoted educator and founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England in two locations. He died in Birmingham in 1890 at the age of 89. The Vatican announced his Oct. 13 canonization date in July. The more Villalobos learned about Newman, the closer she felt to him, and she would eventually come to rely on his intercession in a major way. In 2013, more than a decade after first hearing about Newman on EWTN, Villalobos was pregnant with her fifth child and was experiencing serious complications. In her first trimester, Villalobos started bleeding continuously, and she learned she had a condition called subchorionic hematoma, a blood clot between the placenta and the uterine wall that causes the placenta to be “partially ripped and detached from the uterine wall.” “It was a life-threatening problem because I could hemorrhage to death,” Villalobos recalled. 
The prognosis was grim. There was no cure to be found in medicine or surgery. Villalobos was ordered to be on strict bed rest to give her baby the best possible chance. She did the best she could, but Villalobos was still caring for her other four young children in the meantime. On the morning of May 15, less than a week after being diagnosed with the condition, Villalobos woke up in a pool of her own blood.
With her husband away on a work trip, Villalobos debated when she should call 9-1-1. She decided to give her kids some breakfast first, and then she locked herself in the bathroom to figure out what to do. But by then, Villalobos had lost so much blood that she collapsed on the floor.
“Unfortunately though, somehow I did not have my cellphone with me,” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe it.”
She considered shouting for one of her kids to bring her phone, but worried that the shouting would cause more bleeding or a miscarriage. Desperate, she called out to her old friend, Cardinal Newman. “I said, ‘Please Cardinal Newman, make the bleeding stop.’ And just then, immediately it stopped. And I stood up and I smelled roses that filled the bathroom air.”
The smell of roses is often considered the “scent of holiness”, with many stories of saints leaving a rosy scent in places where they have intervened in prayer. “And I said, ‘Oh Cardinal Newman, did you just make the bleeding stop? Thank you!’ And then there was this second burst of roses. And I knew I was cured, and I knew Gemma my daughter was ok,” Villalobos said. Villalobos had an ultrasound scheduled for that afternoon, and the doctor found what Villalobos attributes to Cardinal Newman’s intercession: the bleeding had completely stopped.
“The doctor saw that there was no more bleeding and he was amazed, and he said, ‘the baby looks perfect.’”
It was vastly different than Villalobos’ previous experience in the pregnancy. 
“The doctors (had) said you will probably miscarry if you’re lucky, the placenta could barely hold up to the third trimester, and she’ll be born but she’ll be really small and she’ll have medical problems,” Villalobos recalled. “Thanks be to Cardinal Newman and to God that I was cured and Gemma was born completely healthy.”
Villalobos said she waited until after Gemma was born to report the miracle to Fr. Ignatius Harrison, the postulator for Newman’s cause for canonization. After receiving her letter, Fr. Harrison came to Chicago to meet with Villalobos, her husband, Gemma, and the doctors. He examined medical records and conducted interviews, and told Villalobos to keep the potential miracle a secret until it could be investigated by the Vatican. She got brief updates about twice a year, she said, but for the most part, she did not really know how the cause was advancing, she just prayed with her family that Newman would soon be canonized.
“There was really no one to ask to say, ‘Well how does this usually work?’ You know sometimes if you’re going through something in your life you say ‘Oh, well how did it work for you?’ But there was no one to ask to say ‘Well, when you were miraculously cured, how long did it take to hear from the postulator?’” she said.
Then in February 2019, Villalobos received the news that Pope Francis signed the degree recognizing the miracle.
“I’m surprised at how many people tell me that they’re happy to know that God still performs miracles,” Villalobos said, “I’m glad they know that. I feel like I’ve known that, and I want other people to know that God has never abandoned us. I know it’s hard to believe in miracles because we don’t always get what we want, but we know that God the Father in his love always gives us what’s best for us.” Villalobos, Gemma, and the rest of the family traveled to Rome to be there for Newman’s canonization, which will take place this Sunday.
“I just love him dearly and I hope that anybody who needs help, whether you’re a mother, or a student...or a convert, he can really touch the lives of so many people. I just hope they’ll reach out to him and see a friend in him. He’s so loving and amazing.”
Kate Veik contributed to this report.

A bit of humor...

Some Observations 
--Little Johnny complains to mom at home, “Mom, our teacher really doesn’t know anything. He keeps asking us!” 
--"And, Johnny? How did your school report turn out?” asks mother. “Come on mom, the most important thing is that I’m healthy!”  
--I hope the children will never find out why I say ‘oooops….” so often when I vacuum their rooms.  
--What an amazing, clever dog we have, darling. - He brings in the newspaper every day, and we’ve never even subscribed to any!


THE OUR FATHER
A mother was teaching her 3-year-old the Our Father.  For several evenings at bedtime she repeated it after her mother.  One night she said she was ready to solo.  The mother listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer.
 
"Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us some e-mail, Amen."
 
Baptism
After the Baptism of his baby brother in church, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car.  His father asked him three times what was wrong.  Finally, the boy replied, "That priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, but I want to stay with you guys."


Love Your Sibling As You Love Yourself.A PSR teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds.  After explaining the commandment to 'honor thy father and thy mother', she asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat, one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."
 
 
Irish Fisherman...

It was raining hard and a big puddle had formed in front of an Irish pub.
An old man stood beside the puddle holding a stick with a string on the end and jiggled it up and down in the water.
A curious gentleman asked what he was doing.
'Fishing,' replied the old man.
'Poor old fool' thought the gentleman, so he invited the old man to have a drink in the pub.
Feeling he should start some conversation while they were sipping their whisky, the gentleman asked, And how many have you caught?'
'You're the eighth".
Some Observations
-I hope the children will never find out why I say ‘oooops….” so often when I vacuum their rooms.
-What an amazing, clever dog we have, darling.
He brings in the newspaper every day, and we’ve never even subscribed to any!

The liturgy is also a participation in Christ's own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit. In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal. Through the liturgy the inner man is rooted and grounded in "the great love with which [the Father] loved us" in his beloved Son. It is the same "marvelous work of God" that is lived and internalized by all prayer, "at all times in the Spirit."
Catechism of the Catholic Church #1073 



+JMJ+
SUNDAY BIBLICAL MASS READINGS AND QUESTIONS
for Self-Reflection, Couples or Family Discussion
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday, October 12th, 2025

The First Reading- 2 Kings 5:14-17
Naaman went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times at the word of Elisha, the man of God.  His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean of his leprosy.  Naaman returned with his whole retinue to the man of God.  On his arrival he stood before Elisha and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.  Please accept a gift from your servant."  Elisha replied, "As the LORD lives whom I serve, I will not take it;" and despite Naaman's urging, he still refused.  Naaman said: "If you will not accept, please let me, your servant, have two mule-loads of earth, for I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the LORD."
Reflection
A foreign leper is cleansed and in thanksgiving returns to offer homage to the God of Israel. We hear this same story in both the First Reading and Gospel today. There were many lepers in Israel in Elisha’s time, but only Naaman the Syrian trusted in God’s Word and was cleansed (see Luke 5:12–14). Today’s Gospel likewise implies that most of the ten lepers healed by Jesus were Israelites—but only a foreigner, the Samaritan, returned.
In a dramatic way, we’re being shown today how faith has been made the way to salvation, the road by which all nations will join themselves to the Lord, becoming His servants, gathered with the Israelites into one chosen people of God, the Church (see Isaiah 56:3–8).
Adults - Is there an area in your life where you are highly blessed, but have not thanked God for?
Teens - Sometimes we can really take God for granted. Are you doing this in any area of your life? How can you begin to change those habits?
Kids - Make a list of blessings and thank God for them!

Responsorial- Psalm 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
R.The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
his right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands:
break into song; sing praise.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
Reflection
-Today’s Psalm also looks forward to the day when all peoples will see what Naaman sees—that there is no God in all the earth except the God of Israel. We see this day arriving in today’s Gospel.
How do you share the Gospel in your daily life?

The Second Reading- 2 Timothy 2:8-13
Beloved: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David: such is my gospel, for which I am suffering, even to the point of chains, like a criminal.  But the word of God is not chained.  Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory.  This saying is  trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him.  But if we deny him he will deny us.  If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.
Reflection
Paul teaches us in today’s Epistle, to persevere in this faith—that we too may live and reign with Him in eternal glory.  What does the phrase “trust in God” mean to you?”

The Holy Gospel according to Luke 17:11-19
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.  As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.  They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master!   Have pity on us!"  And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests."  As they were going they were cleansed.  And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  He was a Samaritan.  Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not?  Where are the other nine?  Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"  Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."
Reflection
The Samaritan leper is the only person in the New Testament who personally thanks Jesus. The Greek word used to describe his “giving thanks” is the word we translate as “Eucharist.” And these lepers today reveal to us the inner dimensions of the Eucharist and sacramental life. We, too have been healed by our faith in Jesus. As Naaman’s flesh is made again like that of a little child, our souls have been cleansed of sin in the waters of Baptism. We experience this cleansing again and again in the Sacrament of Penance—as we repent our sins, beg and receive mercy from our Master, Jesus. We return to glorify God in each Mass, to offer ourselves in sacrifice—falling on our knees before our Lord, giving thanks for our salvation. In this Eucharist, we remember “Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David,” Israel’s covenant king, and our eternal King.
Adults - How long has it been since you have been to the Sacrament of Confession? Get an examination of conscience sheet from your parish and consider whether it’s time to go and experience the mercy of the Lord.
Teens  - Doing a nightly examen prayer can help you know when it’s time to visit the confessional. Look up how to do this fruitful and quick nightly review, and try it out!
Kids - Every night this week before you go to sleep, thank God for the blessings of your day, look back over your day with God, pray about what happened that day, and make plans for tomorrow.
LIVING THE WORD OF GOD THIS WEEK! –“Think for a moment. If those nine ungrateful lepers were struck again with disease some months later and returned to implore Christ for a cure, would you blame Him if He refused? Most of us would refuse. Yet we expect Him to listen to our urgent pleas the minute we make them, while we have not given Him a thought and never said one "thank you, Lord; while things were going well with us.  We all need to be more grateful to God every day of our lives—more grateful than we have been. He has not only given us life on this earth with its joys and its sorrows, but He has prepared for us a future life where there will be no admixture of sorrows. It is for that life that we are working. It is because there is a heaven after death that we are Christians. God has already done His part in preparing this heaven for us. He is assisting us daily to get there. We need a lot of that assistance and one of the surest ways of getting further benefits from God (as well as from men) is to show true gratitude for the benefits already received.”  (Let us do that today and this week.)  — Excerpted from The Sunday Readings Cycle C, Fr. Kevin O' Sullivan, O.F.M.




578. What is the origin of the Our Father? a) Jesus taught it to us;  Jesus taught us this Christian prayer for which there is no substitute, the Our Father, on the day on which one of his disciples saw him praying and asked him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). The Church’s liturgical tradition has always used the text of Saint Matthew (6:9-13).


579. What is the place of the Our Father in the Scriptures? d) all of the above;  The Our Father is the “summary of the whole Gospel” (Tertullian), “the perfect prayer” (Saint Thomas Aquinas). Found in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), it presents in the form of prayer the essential content of the Gospel.  
580. Why is it called the “Lord’s Prayer”? c) it is a prayer Jesus taught us;  The Our Father is called the “Oratio Dominica”, that is, the Lord’s Prayer because it was taught to us by the Lord Jesus himself.  
581. What place does the Our Father have in the prayer of the Church? d) it is integral and the prayer of the Church par excellence; The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer of the Church par excellence. It is “handed on” in Baptism to signify the new birth of the children of God into the divine life. The full meaning of the Our Father is revealed in the eucharist since its petitions are based on the mystery of salvation already accomplished, petitions that will be fully heard at the coming of the Lord. The Our Father is an integral part of the Liturgy of the Hours.

​

​Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
 
      On September 29, the Church honors and called upon the archangels Sts. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.  And then on October 2, the Church will honor and call upon Guardian Angels.  Let’s here it for angels!  Yeah!!!
 
 
      There are almost 300 references to angels in the Sacred Scriptures, but what are they, what do they do, and what does the Church through which Christ speaks say about them?
 
      An angel is a pure spirit being with no body.  They were created ‘before’ humanity.  They were given a choice at the moment of their creation to serve God or not serve God.  Fallen angels, also called devils, chose not to serve God and were separated forever with no possibility of change because their choice is forever.
 
      They are depicted with wings because everything they do, they do ‘instantaneously.’  Every human person at the moment of their conception is assigned a guardian angel.  “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels always see the face of my Father in heaven.”  -Matthew 18:10-11
 
     When we die, we do NOT become angels.  Our soul goes either to Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell and waits to be reunited with our bodies at the Last Judgment when our bodies will be resurrected.  If we have loved ones in heaven, they are saints and are "like the angels (Luke 20:36),' but not real angels.
    The Church teaches much more on the Holy Angels of God.  But the most important is that we should cooperate with our Guardian Angel to get to heaven.  Our Guardian Angel is always with us to protect if we let our angel, obtain for us grace if we let our angel, helps us be good if we let our angel.  SCROLL DOWN TO THE END TO READ MORE ABOUT ANGELS.
 
Peace and prayers in Jesus through Mary, loved by Saint Joseph,
 
Father Robert
P.S. 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time Sunday Readings can be found at:  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092825.cfm


P.S.S.  More below on the Holy Angels from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
P.S.S.S. Sunday Readings with commentary and reflection questions are near end.

CATHOLIC QUESTIONS AND CATHOLIC ANSWERS
Getting to Know Catholicism Better
(Answers at very end.)


572. Why is prayer a “battle”? (Catechism of the Catholic Church-CCC 2725)
a) because one has to get up so early to do it
b) because we can only do it in silence
c) because we deal with ourselves, our surroundings, and especially the devil
d) because it is something we will on our own


573. What are some objections to praying?(CCC 2726-2728, 2752-2753)
a) people think they do not have the time
b) some think praying is useless
c) some find it difficult or not having effect
d) all of the above


574. What are the difficulties in prayer? (CCC 2729-2733, 2754-2755)
a) being distracted
b) being too happy
c) getting all we want
d) none of the above   


(Answers below)​

Catholic Terms

angel (both from Late Latin angelus, from Greek angelos, literally, “messenger”)
-         a spiritual being created by God superior to humans in power and intelligence;
-         [In medieval angelology, angels constituted the lowest of the nine celestial orders: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels.]
 
Michael
-“who is like God” (The title given to one of the chief angels (Dan. 10:13, 21; 12:1). He had special charge of Israel as a nation. He disputed with Satan (Jude 1:9) about the body of Moses. He is also represented as warning against "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. 12:7-9).
 
Gabriel
-“strength of God”  (Dan. 8:16, 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26.)
 
Raphael
-“remedy of God” (one of the archangels; the angel of healing and the guardian of Tobias (Tobit 3:17; 5--12).
(-el means “of God”)
 
 ​

"Helpful Hints of Life"

We are Not the Only One Who Weeps
Mary’s Tears – Seven Sorrows of Mary
 
The tears of the Mother of Sorrows fill the Scriptures and flow down across the centuries.
 
All of the weeping mothers, widows and virgins will add nothing to this copious outpouring that would suffice to cleanse the hearts of ten thousand desperate worlds.
 
All those who are hurt, destitute or oppressed, the sad tide of humanity that choke the fearful paths of life will find succor in the ample folds of the sky-blue cloak of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows.
 
Each time that someone falls weeping, whether in a throng of people or alone, she is there weeping too, because all tears belong to her as the Empress of Beatitude and Love.
 
Mary’s tears are the very Blood of Jesus Christ, but differently shed, just as her compassion was a sort of internal crucifixion for the divine humanity of her Son.


-Léon Bloy (1846-1917)

​
"Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will." Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes." Jesus is as saddened by the "lack of faith" of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman."
 Catechism of the Catholic Church #2610

The Purgatory Project

https://holysouls.com/home/

The Purgatory Project exists to aid the souls in purgatory. Anyone can register the names of people who have died. It costs nothing to register and will benefit those you add to the registry. Perpetual Masses are said for all souls in the Purgatory Project.  The site also offers articles and links. ​

Best Parish Practices

TEACH AND REMIND PEOPLE OF THEIR GUARDIAN ANGELS
​
From Catholic Schools and PSRs to parish groups, teach and speak about the presence and power of Guardian Angels in each person's life.

BENEFITS:
An awareness of this friend of God in our lives and in the lives of each person help us keep a better awareness of God and truly following Him.


HOW:
Pray the "Angel of God" prayer after each class or parish group meeting.  Speak and teach about Guardian Angels. Cultivate an awareness of praying to one's guardian angel for daily help, and to pray to the guardian angel of another to help them and help them to be open to interactions with them.

For centuries Christians have attributed a first-century date to the Shroud of Turin. Nuclear engineer Robert Rucker says that his latest research on the shroud verifies that.
“The Shroud of Turin is the second-most valuable possession of the human race next to the Bible itself,” Rucker told CNA. The shroud is currently preserved in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud adjacent to St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Turin (Torino), Italy.
For more than 10 years, Rucker has studied the physics of the disappearance of the body of Jesus and its imprint on the shroud. His website, Shroud Research, challenges conclusions that the shroud dates to the period of 1260 to 1380 A.D., leading skeptics to conclude it is a medieval fake.
In 1988, scientists used tiny samples snipped from the shroud to determine the amount of carbon 14 isotopes they contained, destroying the samples in the process. The radioactive carbon 14 isotope is a variant of carbon-containing excess neutrons, which are particles smaller than atoms. Over time, carbon 14 decays into nitrogen 14 in organic materials such as bone and plant matter. The ratio of carbon 14 atoms remaining in a sample provides the data needed to estimate the sample’s age.
Rucker said his calculations show that the 1988 carbon 14 dating is erroneous because it does not take into account the radiation emitted from Jesus’ body at the resurrection, which included neutrons that were absorbed by the shroud and formed new carbon 14 atoms, thus leading to a misinterpretation of the data. 

“Carbon 14 dates can be vastly wrong if something has changed the ratio of c-14 to c-12 in the sample, other than the decay of the carbon 14,” Rucker explained. “There have been six different explanations for the carbon date of 1260-1380. The first explanation was in a letter to the editor of Nature magazine in 1989. Tom Philips, who holds a Ph.D. in particle physics, suggested to Nature that the most obvious explanation is that new carbon 14 atoms were produced by neutron absorption” in the shroud.
“That proposal,” Rucker said, “was never followed up on until I did the nuclear analysis computer calculations in 2014.”
Rucker will offer a workshop about his research on Oct. 6-7 at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor as well as professional engineering certificates in nuclear engineering and mechanical engineering.
Bolstering his credentials are 38 years of experience in the nuclear power industry, which called for making nuclear analysis computer calculations related to nuclear reactor design and statistical analysis of experimental data. He has been researching the shroud since 2013 and has conducted nuclear analysis computer calculations related to its date.
Paola Conti-Puorger, who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering and a postgraduate degree in shroud studies from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, is a parishioner of St. Thomas and manages its permanent Othonia exhibit on the shroud, which includes a photographic reproduction, a 3D hologram, and a bronze likeness of Jesus lying in the tomb before his resurrection, as revealed by the imprint on the shroud.
Othonia is a research center based in Rome devoted to preserving, promoting, and disseminating knowledge about the shroud. It is part of the Science and Faith Institute within the Athenaeum.
“Rucker has studied the shroud for years and can offer an authoritative word about the scientific research on it,” she told CNA.
“The shroud is the very best news we can receive in this life: that our sins are forgiven, that we are loved, that we have an important dignity, that we are called to this image within ourselves, and that we are called to love with the same love. This is the truth and real happiness of humanity,” Conti-Puorger said.
“It is like contemplating the Gospel and seeing it very alive. Like the Eucharist, Christ’s body and blood are there. This is a living presence. It’s not a relic,” she said.

In 2015, Pope Francis prayed before the shroud and during an Angelus address said: “The shroud attracts [us] toward the martyred face and body of Jesus.”
He continued: “At the same time, it pushes [us] toward the face of every suffering and unjustly persecuted person. It pushes us in the same direction as the gift of Jesus’ love.” 
Neither the pope nor his immediate predecessors have made any pronouncements on the authenticity of the shroud.
The shroud has been venerated for centuries in northern Italy where it was guarded by the powerful Savoy family. In 1983, ownership was granted to the pope. When it was exhibited in 1898, permission was granted for photography. It was shown to be a natural negative image and beyond the competence of a medieval forger.
In 1981, an international team of scientists with the Shroud of Turin Research Project determined that the image shows a “scourged, crucified man” not produced by an artist. They said it tested positive for blood. But how the image was produced is a problem that “remains unsolved.”
“The shroud came searching for us,” Conti-Puorger said. “It came to St. Thomas providentially, so I think it is the Lord himself who is calling people to come.”  
“There are people searching for many things,” Father Bill Ashbaugh, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, told CNA. “They often think that science contradicts faith. But it’s just the opposite. Science is a help to faith.”
​

Retreats, whether abroad or closer to home, are a big part of the school’s ministry to the students. In 2021 the school brought a group of over 100 young men on a pilgrimage to Europe that coincided with the 500th anniversary of St. Ignatius’ conversion and the 400th of his canonization. (The school provides scholarship assistance to allow students of all financial backgrounds to go on the retreats.) This year a large group of students went to Lourdes. 

“I think all of that really solidifies a lot of guys in their faith [and] helps guys open up to the faith. It produces converts, too,” Hermes said. 

Mitchell previously told CNA that a key factor in the campus’ “dynamic, orthodox, authentically Catholic culture” is the availability of the sacraments. Mass is offered daily, along with regular Eucharistic adoration and opportunities for confession.

The school itself seeks to emphasize beauty, Mitchell said, with the crown jewel being the multimillion-dollar Holy Cross Chapel, a Romanesque edifice dedicated in 2018. Hermes said the school prizes “beautiful, noble, dignified liturgies … trying to create an atmosphere of prayer and make the Masses and the other liturgical services as dignified and solemn as you can.”

But beauty can only do so much on its own. It’s the face-to-face, brotherly support that makes the difference when it comes to producing converts, Mitchell said. 
​
“This is a brotherhood with eternal consequences. With eternal significance,” he said. ​

5 Things Every Catholic Man Should Start Doingby ChurchPOP Editor - September 26
1) Go to MassRyan Scheel explains that “studies have found that only one-third of men attend Mass weekly.”
He continues, “One of the things that gives men identity is a sense of duty.
“Number one: Mass is fulfilling. It’s spiritually nourishing and you’re communing with the Body of Christ. But there’s also a sense of fulfilling your duty. You have a duty as a Catholic to attend Mass every week. There’s few things that edify a man more than the ability to consistently fulfill his duty.
“You look at soldiers, you look at fathers of past generations–of course, you wake up, you do your job, you do it well. As a Catholic man, your job is to go to Mass every week.
“The sense of accomplishment that you can have a sort of structure in your life to go to Mass every week–number one, it provides a structure to your week. Number two, it provides a sense of accomplishment of your duty as a Christian.
“To me, the most important part is number three: the impact of what happens to the families of Catholics where the man does not go to Mass.”
Click here find out what happens to families when the male does not go to Mass.
2) Pray the Rosary and Perform Consecration to Jesus Through MaryScheel explains that “you cannot understate the importance of manliness, but still having the subjugation to Our Mother…there’s something to be said for a real devotion to the tender love of Our Lady that absolutely nurtures a man to be what he should be.”
Fr. Rich Pagano adds, “Mary is the perfection of femininity. She is the New Eve.”
“When I went through my reversion…the very first contact that I had was with the Blessed Mother and her Sorrows–the Seven Sorrows of Mary.
“Learning the Rosary, praying the Rosary–and it’s the manifest femininity of the Blessed Virgin Mary that drew me out to make me want to become more of a man,” Fr. Pagano says.
3) Participate in the Parish “Male participation in parish life, councils, etc., and creating a masculine presence is necessary for the life of parishes,” Scheel explains.
“Male participation has been seated in many cases to women, and men no longer find a real home in the parish because they’ve been somewhat feminized by the nature that women are the ones making those decisions,” Scheel explains.
“And rightly, they’re making decisions from their own genius, so they do things that make sense to them. But they don’t have the complimentary male perspective to then be adding to what they’re doing. This is not to say that female participation in parishes make them overly-feminized, it’s saying that it’s lacking male participation to balance that to make it a full-functioning place.”
Scheel adds that male participation in parish life “brings the Church into the community where it can actually have an impact on society,” and faith and parish life no longer becomes the view that religion is merely something personal–it’s communal.
“You don’t have to set up the tent or anything, but just go to something, and shake hands with somebody else and just get to know them.” Ryan DellaCrosse adds.
4) Spend time with other Catholic menBecoming involved in parish life allows men to spend time with other men, Scheel explains.
The four guys then explain the importance of Christian brotherhood.
5) Practice AsceticismAccording to Baxter of Exodus 90, asceticism means “acts of self-denial,” or saying no to things we want so “we can say yes…to love–wherever the Lord calls us.”


Angels Accompany Us on the Path to Salvation, Pope Says
Vatican City, Sep 29 (EWTN News/CNA) - 
Christians and angels cooperate “together in God’s salvific design,” Pope Francis told Catholics in his morning homily, on the Feast of the Archangels: Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.

He elaborated, saying that angels serve God by accompanying all people on the path to salvation. Each archangel has a specific role, he explained: protection, annunciation, and guidance.  

“Michael is the one who fights against the devil,” he said. The archangel Michael aids our resistance against Satan’s temptations, and protects us when the devil tries to claim us as his own, Pope Francis said.

Gabriel is the bearer of good news, he continued. “Gabriel too accompanies us and helps us on our journey when we ‘forget’ the Gospel,” he said, noting the archangel’s message acts as a reminder that “Jesus came to save us.”

Raphael, he said, “walks with us taking care of us on our journey and helping us not take the wrong step.”

The Pope encouraged Catholics to call upon the help of the archangels, and concluded by invoking their intercession.

“Michael: help us in our battle – each of us has a battle to fight in our lives; Gabriel: bring us news, bring us the good news of salvation; Raphael: take us by the hand and lead us forward without taking the wrong turning,” the Pope prayed. “Always walking forward, but with your help!”


THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MOTHER TERESA'S LIFE
By Mary Rezac


Vatican City (EWTN News/CNA) - It’s been said that saints often come in pairs.


Sts. Peter and Paul, Mary and Joseph, Francis and Clare, and Louis and Zelie Martin are just a handful of such saints, coupled together through marriage or friendship.


Perhaps the best-known modern saintly pair of friends would be Mother Teresa and John Paul II, whose lives intersected many times during her time as Mother Superior of the Missionaries of Charity, and his pontificate.


When John Paul II came to visit Mother Teresa’s home in the heart of the slums in Kolkata in 1986, Mother Teresa called declared it “the happiest day of my life.”


When he arrived, Mother Teresa climbed up into the white popemobile and kissed the ring of the Bishop of Rome, who then kissed the top of Mother’s head, a greeting they would exchange almost every time they met.


After their warm hello, Mother took John Paul II to her Nirmal Hriday (Sacred Heart) home, a home for the sick and the dying she had founded in the 1950s.


Footage of the visit shows Mother Teresa leading John Paul II by the hand to various parts of the home, while he stops to embrace, bless, and greet the patients. He also blessed four corpses, including that of a child.


According to reports of the visit from the BBC, the Pope was “visibly moved” by what he saw during his visit, as he helped the nuns feed and care for the sick and the dying. At some points the Pope was so disturbed by what he saw that he found himself speechless in response to Mother Teresa.


Afterwards, the Pope gave a short address outside the home, calling Nirmal Hriday “a place that bears witness to the primacy of love.”


“When Jesus Christ was teaching his disciples how they could best show their love for him, he said: 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' Through Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, and through the many others who have served here, Jesus has been deeply loved in people whom society often considers ‘the least of our brethren,’” the Pope remarked.


“Nirmal Hriday proclaims the profound dignity of every human person. The loving care which is shown here bears witness to the truth that the worth of a human being is not measured by usefulness or talents, by health or sickness, by age or creed or race. Our human dignity comes from God our Creators in whose image we are all made. No amount of privation or suffering can ever remove this dignity, for we are always precious in the eyes of God,” he added.


After his address, the Pope greeted the gathered crowds, making a special stop to greet the smiling and singing sisters of the Missionaries of Charity.


Besides calling the visit the happiest day of her life, Mother Teresa also added: "It is a wonderful thing for the people, for his touch is the touch of Christ."


The two remained close friends, visiting each other several times over the years. After her death in 1997, John Paul II waived the five-year waiting period usually observed before opening her cause for canonization. At her beatification in 2003, John Paul II praised Mother Teresa’s love for God, shown through her love for the poor.


“Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and a tireless benefactor of humanity. In her we honour one of the most important figures of our time. Let us welcome her message and follow her example.”
 

The Eastern churches that are not in full communion with the Catholic Church celebrate the Eucharist with great love. "These Churches, although separated from us, yet possess true sacraments, above all - by apostolic succession - the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are still joined to us in closest intimacy." A certain communion in sacris, and so in the Eucharist, "given suitable circumstances and the approval of Church authority, is not merely possible but is encouraged."
Catechism of the Catholic Church #1399

A bit of humor…

​-My dog once ate all the Scrabble tiles. He kept leaving messages around the house for days. 
----Wife asks her husband: “Did you like the dinner today?“-Husband replies: “Really, Shirley? Why are you always trying to pick a fight?”
-The first time I see a jogger smile, I will consider it.
-My dad always said fight fire with fire…that is probably why we got thrown out of the volunteer fire department.
-Little Johnny to his mom: “I shot 4 goals at the soccer match today!”  Mom: “Wonderful, looks like your team won, right?” Little Johnny: “Not really, we tied 2:2.”

Teacher tells little Johnny, “You know very well you can’t sleep in my class, Johnny.” Johnny admits, “Yes, I know miss. But maybe, if you didn’t speak quite so loud, I could.”
 

Hymns

Dentist's Hymn  ................................Crown Him with Many Crowns
Weatherman's Hymn ......................There Shall Be Showers of Blessings
Contractor's Hymn ........................The Church's One Foundation
The Tailor's Hymn ...........................Holy, Holy, Holy
The Golfer's Hymn .........................There's a Green Hill Far Away
The Politician's Hymn....................Standing on the Promises
Optometrist's Hymn.......................Open My Eyes That I Might See
The IRS Agent's Hymn  .....................I Surrender All
The Gossip's Hymn ..........................Pass It On
The Electrician's Hymn ....................Send The Light
The Shopper's Hymn ........................Sweet Bye and Bye
The Realtor's Hymn..........................I've Got a Mansion Just over the Hilltop
The Massage Therapists Hymn .......He touched Me
The Doctor's Hymn .............................The Great Physician
 
AND for those who speed on the highway - a few hymns:
 
45mph ....................God Will Take Care of You
65mph ...................Nearer My God To Thee
85mph ....................This World Is Not My Home
95mph .....................Lord, I'm Coming Home
100mph ..................Precious Memories
 
 
You May Choose 3
One Sunday a pastor told the congregation that the church needed some extra money and asked the people to prayerfully consider giving a little extra in the offering plate. He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns.
After the offering plates were passed, the pastor glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a $1,000 bill in offering. He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with his congregation and said he'd like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the plate. A very quiet, elderly, saintly lady all the way in the back shyly raised her hand. The pastor asked her to come to the front.
Slowly she made her way to the pastor. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in gratitude asked her to pick out three hymns. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three handsomest men in the building and said, "I'll take him and him and him."
 
​

P.S.S.  More than a few are trying to change this authentic develop in the history of the Church.  The Pope warns:
There are groups, of no small influence, who are trying to talk us out of kneeling. "It doesn't suit our culture", they say (which culture?) "It's not right for a grown man to do this — he should face God on his feet". Or again: "It's not appropriate for redeemed man — he has been set free by Christ and doesn't need to kneel any more".  - The Spirit of the Liturgy
 
Do not receive false talk or thinking as St. Paul warns.  If interested check out the website section (below) for more foundation of kneeling from history and Church documents.

​This Notre Dame Student Wrote Hundreds of Letters to Convince His Family to Become Catholic. It Worked.Four years after his own conversion to Catholicism, Colin Smith welcomed his whole family into the faith.

​Mary Frances Myler Interviews
September 16
University of Notre Dame student Colin Smith didn’t expect the story of his family’s conversion to Catholicism, which he shared on X, to go viral. 
“I am at a loss for words!” he wrote in one post. “It has been surreal to watch our story blow up and to be shared by so many Catholic heroes of mine.”
Raised a devout evangelical Protestant, Smith converted to Catholicism before beginning his freshman year at Notre Dame. After his conversion, Smith wrote hundreds of letters to his parents and two younger siblings explaining the theological reasoning of his faith. 
Four years later, his parents, Beth and Byron, and siblings, Abby and Andrew, entered the Catholic Church on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, at the St. Cecilia Motherhouse for the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee. 
Smith credited the “enemies of the Church” with convincing his family, explaining on the platform formerly known as Twitter how seeking the truth amid a secular, progressive culture drew his parents and siblings to the Church. “God trounced Satan at every turn,” he wrote online.
Smith spoke with the Register to share the inspiration behind the hundreds of letters he wrote to his family members throughout their gradual conversions. Responses have been edited for clarity and length. 
 
 
What’s your conversion story? 
In early high school, I began facing the questions that many Christians face around this age: Does God really exist? Is the Resurrection reasonable? Is the Bible reliable? 
I decided to give every major religious view a fair examination, and I began experiencing an intense spiritual deadening. I only began to feel God again when the Dominican priests and sisters entered my life — especially Father Dominic Legge. He would visit our house for dinners, or we would visit him in D.C., and I remember being perpetually taken aback at how reasonable he made Christianity seem. 

​He introduced me to St. Thomas Aquinas and Thomism broadly — especially the Thomistic Institute, which he ran, and Pints with Aquinas, a now-famous podcast hosted by Matt Fradd. At the time, actually delving into Aquinas’ Summa Theologica would have been too much for me, but these less academic summaries helped introduce me to his thought. 
Eventually, I began to read Aquinas' own writings, especially the Summa, and these sources convinced me of the Christian faith. I was especially struck by the number of excellent questions that Aquinas would pose, which I had never considered before. The study of basic Thomism was profoundly therapeutic. It totally changed how I viewed the world, and it erased much of the garbage modern philosophy that I had imbibed through the culture. 
I decided that intellectual honesty demanded giving Catholicism a fair chance to persuade me. When I dove into the Catholic Tradition, I quickly realized that there were too many points of contention to cover, so I decided to focus on questions of authority. 
St. John Henry Newman's “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” finally convinced me of Catholicism's claims to authority by resolving my questions about why the Church Fathers disagreed about many theological issues. The other doctrines fell into place for me, and I became convinced of Catholicism in my senior year of high school. I became Catholic the following summer before Notre Dame at the Dominican House of Studies.
 
 
Online, you emphasized the role that “enemies of the Church” played in your family’s conversion, including this explanation, “Years before my own conversion, my family put my sister at a very secular progressive feminist girls’ school for middle school. That situation quickly became untenable. My sister was given demerits for drawing a Christmas tree on the white board one December, not because she wasn’t allowed to draw there, but because it could offend some students. Our parents decided that they had had enough. They decided to bite the bullet and send her to St. Cecilia Academy, the Catholic girls’ school down the road, run by the Dominican sisters! Through this school, the Eastern Province Dominican sisters and priests entered our lives!” Did they impact your conversion as well? 
They did, but much less so than for my other family members. The primary way that enemies of the Church aided in my own conversion was to bring the Dominicans into my life and the lives of my family members. It was because of the antics of a secular, progressive girls’ school that my family became acquainted with the Nashville Dominicans and Father Dominic Legge became a mentor of mine. 
 
 
How did your family view your conversion at the time? 
It was quite difficult, but I never faced any serious disincentive from my parents to discourage my conversion. My sister had been attending St. Cecilia Academy, so she was familiar with the faith more than the rest of my family. Still, they attended my confirmation in D.C., which I remember thinking was a shocking show of love and support.
 

What inspired you to write letters to your family? 
The most obvious reason that I wrote the letters was my love for my family and a genuine desire for them to find the fullness of the Christian life that I believed I had found.
However, I wrote letters specifically because I did not want to lecture them. Explaining the Catholic position in its disputes with Protestantism takes a long time, and giving extended lectures would be both awkward and undesirable. If I wanted to explain the faith in the appropriate detail, I knew that I had to write it down. 
Furthermore, letters add a personal touch that I knew would be appreciated. I had developed the reputation of being very intellectual in my faith, as I am sure comes across even in my answers to these questions. Some members of the family viewed this as a fault, believing that it might have come at the expense of the heart. Letters were a great way to show love for my family and the emotional appeal of the faith while still providing the intellectual arguments. 
 
 
What resources did you rely on in your apologetics? Were there any books or thinkers who you found to be helpful? 
By the time that I was writing these letters, I knew most of the Catholic arguments on these [theological] disputes quite well myself. However, The Fathers Know Best stands out as an excellent book that I consulted throughout the process to find the quick references to the Church Fathers that I wanted to cite in my letters. 
 
 
You mentioned online that Rome was an important place for your mother’s conversion. Were there any sites or experiences that especially impacted her?
The site that most impacted her was certainly the Circus of Nero. She and I had been discussing the Eucharist extensively at this point, but a tour of St. Peter's Basilica made all the difference. 
She told me that her secular tour guide was explaining the key events in Nero's rule. When my mom turned to my brother to remark that Nero was a very evil man, this guide defended Nero, arguing that he never hated Christians. Rather, he thought they were “weird” for eating their God. 
My mom was taken aback, and she asked for clarification. The tour guide confirmed that the reason for many early Christian martyrdoms was the martyrs’ refusal to recant the belief that the Eucharist is the true flesh and blood of Christ. Later, she told me that, because of this experience, she felt compelled to accept the Real Presence. 
 
 
From your perspective, what was it like to view your family members growing in their faith and becoming increasingly curious about the Catholic faith? 
It was truly remarkable. I think it is easy to mistakenly imagine the process as a gradual motion toward their becoming Catholic that I could observe. However, it was not always easy to discern movement in their relationship to Catholicism. At times, it felt like progress was being undone. I could not see what was happening before my eyes until near the end of the process. Once I realized what had happened, I was in awe of God’s providence. 

​How did it feel to welcome your parents and younger siblings into the Catholic Church last month? 
It was a wonderful and beautiful experience. However, it was also a temptation to pride if I viewed it as my accomplishment, which it was decidedly not. 
Part of the reason that I wrote the thread about their conversion for Twitter was to write out the ways in which God brought about their conversion where I was failing. The letters alone did not bring about their conversion. The biggest factors were totally outside of my control. 
It was also a great honor and humbling duty to act as the sponsor for my father and brother. Beyond the indescribable experience of witnessing God shower my family with his graces in the sacraments, we also had many of our Catholic family friends in attendance for the private ceremony, which was a great joy.

When There's a Problem, ‘We just pray’: Lebanese Teen Started Charity to get Medical Care to Poor 
 

Helena Andraos when she woke up from her coma. Helena AndraosAlthough she woke up from her coma, the fight for her life had only just begun. She had to pay thousands of dollars for follow-up head surgery to preserve her life. 
But that amount of money is out of reach for most Lebanese, including Andraos, as an ongoing economic crisis has crippled the Middle Eastern country.
Andraos got the money she needed for her surgery in fewer than two weeks thanks to the hard work of another 19-year-old woman, Marina Khawand from Beirut. Khawand, now 21, could not afford to personally donate any money to Andraos. All Khawand had was a willing heart.
But that willing heart accomplished huge feats, as Andraos became one of the thousands of ill or injured Lebanese who benefited from Khawand’s missionary work following the blast.
Khawand’s mission of aiding the sick and poor during the ongoing fiscal disaster turned into a nongovernmental organization in Lebanon that has since served 18,000 people in the country. She says that her work is just beginning.
‘I had faith’Khawand’s Beirut-based NGO, which she called Medonations, aims to provide free, equal, and fair medical assistance to all vulnerable Lebanese patients living in the country, she said. 
Khawand says common over-the-counter medicines like Tylenol are hard to come by in the country, even if one can afford it, because of supply chain problems. 
So, the main service Medonations provides is securing medicine for Lebanese patients who are otherwise unable to afford or obtain them. But her services are flexible depending on what is needed most at the moment.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Medonations provided oxygen machines to COVID-19 patients. In September, Khawand distributed solar panel backpacks to schoolchildren that provided power for cell phones and flashlights in order to keep a continual charge while the country suffers major power supply problems.
She has also raised money for surgery, as in Andraos’s case. 
Khawand raises the funds and resources through calls for help on social media. She says the response of individuals all over the world has been overwhelming.
Khawand’s mission of helping her people began on Aug. 4, 2020, the day of the Beirut blast. 
“After the blast, I just went down the streets. I didn’t have any resources to help. I just went down, cleaning down the homes, asking people how we can help them, and trying to rescue some of the citizens that were severely injured,” Khawand said.
It was soon after the blast that Khawand heard about Andraos’ situation. After Andraos woke up from her coma, she needed $7,000 to pay for surgery on her skull. It would cost another $1,000 for physical therapy following the surgery.
“I had faith that we would be able to raise the money,” Khawand told CNA. The money was raised in a week and a half through a flier on Instagram. Now, Andraos, completely recovered from her surgery, is one of the volunteers that helps Khawand serve. They’ve also become close friends.

Helena Andraos when she woke up from her coma. Helena Andraos

​Although she woke up from her coma, the fight for her life had only just begun. She had to pay thousands of dollars for follow-up head surgery to preserve her life. 
But that amount of money is out of reach for most Lebanese, including Andraos, as an ongoing economic crisis has crippled the Middle Eastern country.
Andraos got the money she needed for her surgery in fewer than two weeks thanks to the hard work of another 19-year-old woman, Marina Khawand from Beirut. Khawand, now 21, could not afford to personally donate any money to Andraos. All Khawand had was a willing heart.
But that willing heart accomplished huge feats, as Andraos became one of the thousands of ill or injured Lebanese who benefited from Khawand’s missionary work following the blast.
Khawand’s mission of aiding the sick and poor during the ongoing fiscal disaster turned into a nongovernmental organization in Lebanon that has since served 18,000 people in the country. She says that her work is just beginning.
‘I had faith’Khawand’s Beirut-based NGO, which she called Medonations, aims to provide free, equal, and fair medical assistance to all vulnerable Lebanese patients living in the country, she said. 
Khawand says common over-the-counter medicines like Tylenol are hard to come by in the country, even if one can afford it, because of supply chain problems. 
So, the main service Medonations provides is securing medicine for Lebanese patients who are otherwise unable to afford or obtain them. But her services are flexible depending on what is needed most at the moment.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Medonations provided oxygen machines to COVID-19 patients. In September, Khawand distributed solar panel backpacks to schoolchildren that provided power for cell phones and flashlights in order to keep a continual charge while the country suffers major power supply problems.
She has also raised money for surgery, as in Andraos’s case. 
Khawand raises the funds and resources through calls for help on social media. She says the response of individuals all over the world has been overwhelming.
Khawand’s mission of helping her people began on Aug. 4, 2020, the day of the Beirut blast. 
“After the blast, I just went down the streets. I didn’t have any resources to help. I just went down, cleaning down the homes, asking people how we can help them, and trying to rescue some of the citizens that were severely injured,” Khawand said.
It was soon after the blast that Khawand heard about Andraos’ situation. After Andraos woke up from her coma, she needed $7,000 to pay for surgery on her skull. It would cost another $1,000 for physical therapy following the surgery.
“I had faith that we would be able to raise the money,” Khawand told CNA. The money was raised in a week and a half through a flier on Instagram. Now, Andraos, completely recovered from her surgery, is one of the volunteers that helps Khawand serve. They’ve also become close friends.

Pope Francis beatified 15-year-old Carlo Acutis on Sat., Oct. 10, 2020 in Assisi, Italy.
Born on May 3, 1991, Bl. Carlo is best known for his incredible computer programming skills and his website dedicated to Eucharistic miracles. The Italian teen also deeply loved the Eucharist and Our Lady. He prayed the Rosary and went to Mass every day.
Bl. Carlo died of leukemia on Oct. 12, 2006. He offered his sufferings for “the pains of the Pope and the Church.” His tomb remains on display in Assisi, due to the vast number of pilgrims visiting before and following his beatification.
He is also the first millennial to be named “blessed.”
Here’s 15 quotes from this new blessed to inspire you in your daily living:
1) “The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.”
2) “Our soul is like a hot air balloon. If by chance there is a mortal sin, the soul falls to the ground. Confession is like the fire underneath the balloon enabling the soul to rise again. . . It is important to go to confession often.”
3) “Continuously ask your guardian angel for help. Your guardian angel has to become your best friend.”
4)  “All people are born as originals but many die as photocopies.”
5) “I am happy to die because I lived my life without wasting even a minute of it on anything unpleasing to God.”
6) “The Virgin Mary is the only woman in my life.”
7) “I offer all the suffering I will have to suffer for the Lord, for the Pope, and the Church.”
8) “Do not be afraid because with the Incarnation of Jesus, death becomes life, and there’s no need to escape: in eternal life, something extraordinary awaits us.”
9) “The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven”.
10) “When we face the sun we get a tan… but when we stand before Jesus in the Eucharist we become saints.”
11)  “By standing before the Eucharistic Christ, we become holy.”
12) “Our goal must be infinite, not the finite. The infinite is our homeland. Heaven has been waiting for us forever.”
13) “Sadness is looking at ourselves, happiness is looking towards God.”
14) “The only thing we have to ask God for, in prayer, is the desire to be holy.”
15) “What does it matter if you can win a thousand battles if you cannot win against your own corrupt passions? It doesn’t matter. The real battle is with ourselves.”
Bl. Carlo Acutis, pray for us!
​

The Saint and the Synod – Pope St. John Paul II’sLegacy Still Seen in Church TeachingBy Angela AmbrogettiVatican City, Oct 22 / 04:55 pm (EWTN News/CNA)  -  Though it has been more than 10 years since the death of Pope John Paul II, the saint’s impact can still be seen in those working to uphold Church teaching at the Synod on the Family, said his former secretary.

“The teaching of the magisterium of the Church and of John Paul II is always current,” said Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv.

He told CNA that the words and writings of St. John Paul II are being frequently invoked by bishops at the synod who are defending the Church’s teachings on marriage.

Responding to calls for the Church to permit the divorced-and-remarried to receive Communion, he said, “many bishops have recalled the great teaching of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI which they expressed clearly, that it would be against the doctrine of the Church, against the sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Penance, against grace.”

Archbishop Mokrzycki, who is the president of the Ukrainian Bishops Conference, is among the synod fathers gathered in Rome for the Oct. 4-25 Synod on the Family, which gathers bishops from around the world to discuss issues relating to families in the Church today.

But many remember Archbishop Mokrzycki for another role – one of John Paul II’s two personal secretaries during the last nine years of his life.

Archbishop Mokrzycki spoke to CNA’s sister agency, ACI Stampa Oct. 22, the feast day of St. John Paul II. He discussed the Pope’s legacy, relevance to the synod, and what it was like to live beside a saint. The full transcript of the interview is below:


Q: Your Excellency, today – Oct. 22, the feast of St. John Paul II – is a special day for you personally and for the universal Church. It might be difficult for you to explain how you feel, but maybe we can try?

It is a great joy for us, and I don't only mean the Polish people, but for the entire Church, to think about the day of the election of John Paul II, who after his election won over the whole world, particularly the Italians, because he said those beautiful and famous words: “I don't know if I can explain myself well in your – in our – Italian language. If I make a mistake, correct me.” And from then on, all the children of Italy when they met him said: you asked us to correct you, so say it right!

It was a special day for the entire Church, and we saw it for the entirety of his long pontificate, he was an extraordinary man.

Q: What was it like to live with a saint? Was it more joy, or work?

Both – joy and fatigue, because John Paul II was a very strong man with himself and with others. We worked a lot and made others work a lot. And this is also why we saw that his pontificate was very interesting and very rich.

Q: What has he taught you as a bishop and as a pastor that is useful for your mission today?

The Holy Father was not only the head of the universal Church, not only the head of the Vatican State, but was above all a pastor, the bishop of the diocese of Rome, and he underlined this a lot during his pontificate. He wanted to visit all the parishes of the diocese. And at the end when we saw that he had so much fatigue and couldn’t visit the parishes anymore, about 20 parishes remained and he wanted to meet them just them same, and so he invited all the parishes that he still hadn’t visited to the Paul VI Hall. And we saw that the Romans were very grateful for this great gesture of love, because they saw that the Pope didn’t neglect them, he didn’t forget them, and even if he couldn’t go, he invited them to his house. And so also for me.

He was a great pastor. I was able to learn from him a vision of pastoral life, of concern for all levels, of love for one’s neighbor, of charity and of bringing people to salvation. The great ones, the poor, the little ones; I saw how with great love he embraced each and every one.

Q: Of the magisterium of John Paul II, a large part was dedicated to the family. Right now you are busy with the synod on the family. How does this magisterium enter into the synodal debate?

During the pontificate of John Paul II, above all in the years in which I was with him, the Pope didn’t speak a lot about his family. He sometimes spoke about his father, sometimes about his sister that he lost as a child and his brother who was a doctor that died young. But he made it visible that around him was a great family of friends, a great family of the Church. And then I saw that in the years I was with him many families came to find him from different parts of the world: from Poland, from Italy, from the United States. He had the capacity of maintaining contact with many people, with many families and not only Christians. Also and above all with many Jewish families. And in this I saw the importance of contact with the family, and as the Pope he underlined the role of the family in the life of the Church and in the life of society.

From the beginning of his pontificate, he placed a lot of focus on the great role of the family. He dedicated a cycle of catechesis in the Wednesday audiences to the passage in Genesis which says: male and female I created them. And then there is the apostolic letter to the family, Familiaris Consortio. He was very committed in the development of this theme and was close to the family, to emphasize the great importance of the family in daily life, and the necessity of being close to the family in order to live better the vocation of each one. Because every person has a vocation, to be a religious sister, a priest, a doctor. But to be a family is a great beauty, but also a committed vocation that requires responsibility, and is also difficult to live. Because of this, John Paul II wanted to help this vocation to grow.

Q: Now 10 years after John Paul II’s death, what is his legacy today?

The teaching of the magisterium of the Church and of John Paul II is always current. Of course society has changed a bit, because culture changes, circumstances change. Also during this synod the bishops have brought different problems and family difficulties. Some wanted to be a little bit “progressive” and offer Communion to the divorced-and-remarried, but many bishops have recalled the great teaching of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI which they expressed clearly, that it would be against the doctrine of the Church, against the sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Penance, against grace. Certainly the teaching of John Paul II was perhaps very demanding, but real. If we want our faith to have value, we must bear some sort of difficulty, because only then are we faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Q: What does your diocese bring to the synod?

For me, it was a great experience, because I was able to hear testimonies and the vision of life and of the Church throughout the world on the different continents. But I want to say above all that we bishops are very close to families, we want to help people grow in the vocation of being in a marriage, a family. And we know that this vocation is very beautiful, very important, but we also want to help families realize their vocation and their commitment.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Elderly Priests, Sisters are 'true shrines of holiness,' Pope Says
 
VATICAN CITY, October 18 (CNA/EWTN News) .- During his daily Mass homily Pope Francis reflected on various biblical figures who experienced difficulty in their old age, and encouraged those present not to forget the elderly. 
The Pope directed his reflections to those gathered in the Santa Marta guesthouse of the Vatican on Oct. 18 for his daily Mass, centering his thoughts upon the latter lives of Moses, John the Baptist and Saint Paul. 
These three figures, he noted, remind him of "the shrines of holiness which are the nursing homes of elderly priests and religious sisters."
 
Pope Francis recalled the excitement and enthusiasm displayed by all three men in their youth, and contrasted it to isolation and pain they suffered at the end of their lives, stressing that although none of them were spared suffering in their old age, the Lord never abandoned them.
 
Noting that the apostle Paul "has a joyful and enthusiastic beginning," the Pope recalled that he experienced a decline in the latter years of his life, and both Moses and John the Baptist shared a similar experience.
 
"Moses, when young," stressed the pontiff, was "the courageous leader of the People of God who fought against his enemies" in order to save his people, however at the end of his life "he is alone on Mount Nebo, looking at the promised land" but is unable to enter it.
 
Saint John the Baptist, noted the Pope, in his later life was tormented by anguish, and "finished under the power of a weak, corrupt and drunken ruler who in turn was under the power of an adulteress' jealousy and the capricious wishes of a dancer."
 
Turning his thoughts back to Saint Paul, Pope Francis stressed that the apostle endured a similar experience, speaking in his letters of those who abandoned him and rejected his teachings.
 
However, the Pope clarified that although Paul wrote about his great sufferings, he also wrote that "the Lord was close to him and gave him the strength to complete his mission of announcing the Gospel."
 
Pope Francis concluded his reflections by stressing that the situations of the three biblical characters in their old age reminded him of those elderly priests and religious sisters in nursing homes.
 
Referring to them as a "shrine of holiness," he urged the guests present not to forget the elderly, and to visit them, because "bearing the burden of solitude, these priests and sisters are waiting for the Lord to knock at the door of their hearts."

 
In the liturgy of the New Covenant every liturgical action, especially the celebration of the Eucharist and the sacraments, is an encounter between Christ and the Church. The liturgical assembly derives its unity from the "communion of the Holy Spirit" who gathers the children of God into the one Body of Christ. This assembly transcends racial, cultural, social - indeed, all human affinities. -Catechism of the Catholic Church #1097

Teacher: "Why are you praying in class little Johnny?” Little Johnny: “My mom taught me to always pray before going to sleep."  


Little Johnny, why does your little sister cry?  Because I helped her.  But that is a good thing! What did you help her with?  I helped her eat her gummy bears. 


Pronunciation
Wife: “Oh the weather is lovely today. Shall we go out for a quick jog?“ - Husband: “Hahaha, I love the way you pronounce ‘Shall we go out and have a cake’!”
Optimist: The glass is half full.  Pessimist: The glass is half empty.  Mother: Why didn’t you use a coaster!

Friendly Competition…
My girlfriend and I often laugh about how competitive we are. But I laugh more.
Dating a Hoarder
I used to date a hoarder, and she broke up with me. That stings extra hard—I’m like the one thing she can get rid of.

A Teacher Tries 
There was a teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put his boots on.  He asked for help and she could see why.  With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn't want to go on.

When the second boot was finally on, she had worked up a sweat.  She almost whimpered when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet."  She looked, and sure enough, they were.  It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on.  She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on -- this time on the right feet. 

He then announced, "These aren't my boots."  She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?" like she wanted to. Once again, she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off.

He then said, "They're my brother's boots.  My Mom made me wear them."  The teacher didn't know if she should laugh or cry.  She mustered up the grace to wrestle the boots on his feet again.

She said, "Now, where are your mittens?"  He said, "I stuffed them in the toes of my boots." 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Jesus and Satan were having an argument as to who was the better programmer. This went on for a few hours until they agreed to hold a contest with God the Father as the judge. They sat at their computers and began. They typed furiously for several hours, lines of code streaming up on the screen. Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning struck, taking out the electricity. Moments later, the power was restored, and God the Father announced that the contest was over. He asked Satan to show what he had come up with. Satan was visibly upset and cried, "I have nothing. I lost it all when the power went out." "Very well, then," God the Father said, "Let us see if Jesus did any better." Jesus entered a command and the screen came to life in vivid display, the voice of an angelic choir poured forth from the speakers. Satan was astonished. "But how? I lost everything, yet Jesus' program was intact. How did he do it?" God chuckled, "Jesus saves!"
 
________________________________
TIME TO PRAY
 A pastor asked a little boy if he said his prayers every night.  'Yes, sir.' the boy replied.
 
'And, do you always say them in the morning, too?' the pastor asked..
'No sir,' the boy replied. 'I ain't scared in the daytime.'
________________________________


WHY GO TO CHURCH?One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church,
to which he replied, "I'm not going." 
"Why not?" she asked.  
I'll give you two good reasons," he said. "(1), I'm tired, and (2), I don't fell like it."  
His mother replied, "I'll give you two good reasons why you SHOULD go to church: 
(1) You're 59 years old, and (2) you're the pastor!" 

+JMJ+
SUNDAY BIBLICAL MASS READINGS AND QUESTIONS
for Self-Reflection, Couples or Family Discussion
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday, September 21th, 2025

The First Reading- Amos 8:4-7
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!  "When will the new moon be over," you ask, "that we may sell our grain, and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?  We will diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating!  We will buy the lowly for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!"  The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done!
Reflection
A striking feature of this First Reading is the way these ancient Israelite merchants regard religion as an impediment to profit. “When will the Sabbath be over, that we may display our wheat?”  The Sabbath, which God gave to man as a beautiful day of rest, to be enjoyed with family, friends, and God Himself, is now seen as a burden and restraint to the pursuit of profit. In our culture even we, as Catholics, can forget that observance of the Sabbath (in the New Covenant, shifted to the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day - Sunday) is still part of the Ten Commandments and obligatory for Christians. As a Church, we cannot restore a Christian culture without re-establishing a respect—at least among Christians—for the rest that is appropriate to the Lord’s Day.
Adults - Do you rest on the Lord’s Day? How can you incorporate more rest into your Sunday?
Teens - Many teenagers have weekend jobs that require them to work on Sunday - if this is the case for you, how can you incorporate rest into the part of your Sunday where you are not working?
Kids - Try to make sure all of your chores and homework are done before Sunday so you can rest on the Lord’s Day.
 
Responsorial- Psalm 113:1-2, 4-6, 7-8
R.Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.
Praise, you servants of the LORD,
praise the name of the LORD.
Blessed be the name of the LORD
both now and forever.
R. Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.
High above all nations is the LORD;
above the heavens is his glory.
Who is like the LORD, our God, who is enthroned on high
and looks upon the heavens and the earth below?
R. Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.
He raises up the lowly from the dust;
from the dunghill he lifts up the poor
to seat them with princes,
with the princes of his own people.
R. Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.
Reflection
-God wants everyone to be saved, even kings and princes, even the lovers of money (see Luke 16:14). But we cannot serve two masters. By His grace, we should choose to be - as we sing in today’s Psalm - “servants of the Lord.”
How can you serve the Lord by serving others today?

The Second Reading- 1 Tim 2:1-8
Beloved: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time. For this I was appointed preacher and apostle — I am speaking the truth, I am not lying —, teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.
Reflection
The Second Reading at this time of year is working its way through the personal letters of St. Paul. This passage from St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy stresses the need of the Christian community to pray together, especially for government officials. Good government is necessary that we may lead a “quiet and tranquil life in all devotion,” which pleases God who “desires all to be saved.” Why is good government and tranquil life connected with “all being saved?” Because political stability helps enable the Church to go about her evangelizing mission.
Research the candidates from a Catholic perspective before you vote.

The Holy Gospel according to Luke 16:1-13
Jesus said to his disciples, "A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property.  He summoned him and said, 'What is this I hear about you?  Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.'   The steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?  I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.  I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.'  He called in his master's debtors one by one.  To the first he said, 'How much do you owe my master?'  He replied, 'One hundred measures of olive oil.'  He said to him, 'Here is your promissory note.  Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.' Then to another the steward said, 'And you, how much do you owe?' He replied, 'One hundred kors of wheat.'  The steward said to him, 'Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.' And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.  "For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.  The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.  If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?  If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?  No servant can serve two masters.  He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and mammon."
Reflection
The role of steward in a large household was one of great responsibility, but also wealth and prestige.  It went to the master’s most trusted male slave.  As a result, enterprising young freemen in the Roman empire sometimes sold themselves as slaves to wealthy men in order to become stewards of their households. Since the stewardship was an administrative position in which one lived in physical comfort, the steward realizes he is in great trouble when the master wishes to fire him.  He’s not suited to any other way of making a living, and as a slave he has no estate of his own.  He’s been use to socializing with his master’s peers, although he is not truly their social or legal equals. So he pulls of a kind of “white collar crime.” Calling in his master’s debtors, he has them manipulate their receipts to “erase” a significant portion of their debt.  Then they will be in this steward’s debt after he is fired, and “owe him one.” Eventually, when the master found out what the steward had done, he “commended” him. This probably means, he acknowledged (grudgingly) how cunning his former employer had been. Non-religious people frequently have more “street smarts” in manipulating others than those who practice a faith.  That’s why its best for Christians to stay out of the “rat race” rather than try to compete in it. The world encourages an attitude in which we use people to gain things. Jesus reverses this: use things to gain people.  If spending money and giving goods can open others to friendship with the Church and ultimately Christ Himself, then spend the money, give the goods.
Adults - One of the keys to evangelization is to meet people where they are and then share the love of Jesus. Research sharing the kerygma from a Catholic perspective for some tips on how to do this.
Teens  - Evangelization starts with sharing your story. Have you ever told your faith story to anyone?
Kids - Tell two family members that you’re praying for them this week - and then pray for them!

LIVING THE WORD OF GOD THIS WEEK! –“Two resolutions worthy of your serious consideration today in relation to earthly goods are: Never let them take up all your time. You have a far more serious purpose in life. Give it a little more thought and enterprise than you have been doing. Secondly, be grateful to God for what He has given you in this life. You might like to have a lot more, but God knows best. Work honestly and be generous with what you have. You are serving God, not money. God will be waiting for you where there is no currency, and where the one bank account that matters will be the good use that you made of your time and your share of this world's goods while you were alive. — The Sunday Readings Cycle C, Fr. Kevin O' Sullivan, O.F.M.

582. Why can we dare to draw near to God in full confidence? a) because Jesus brings us to the Father: Because Jesus, our Redeemer, brings us into the Father’s presence and his Spirit makes us his children. We are thus able to pray the Our Father with simple and filial trust, with joyful assurance and humble boldness, with the certainty of being loved and heard.
583. How is it possible to address God as “Father”? d) all of the above:We can invoke the “Father” because the Son of God made man has revealed him to us and because his Spirit makes him known to us. The invocation, Father, lets us enter into his mystery with an ever new sense of wonder and awakens in us the desire to act as his children. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are therefore aware of our being sons of the Father in the Son.
584. Why do we say “our” Father? b) because it expresses a totally new relationship with God: “Our” expresses a totally new relationship with God. When we pray to the Father, we adore and glorify him with the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Christ we are “his” people and he is “our” God now and for eternity. In fact, we also say “our” Father because the Church of Christ is the communion of a multitude of brothers and sisters who have but “one heart and mind” (Acts 4:32).