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/101523.cfm
​

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)
​

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

A church in southwestern Virginia known for its architecture, art, and prominent place atop a hill is the latest in the United States to be named a minor basilica. 
The former St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Roanoke, Virginia, is now the Basilica of St. Andrew. 
The Diocese of Richmond announced the designation Thursday, several days after being informed by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. 
Some priests of the diocese have long thought it should have that title, said Father Kevin Segerblom, who in a telephone interview Friday called the basilica “living art.” 
“Ours is not huge — it seats 500 — but ours is particularly beautiful. So people come in and their minds and their hearts are lifted up to the divine,” said Segerblom, who leads St. Andrew’s, and whose title has now changed from pastor to rector. “It’s important that those special churches be recognized as places of pilgrimage so that people will come here and have that experience.” 
During the year-and-a-half application process, Segerblom asked church-goers to say a printed prayer to “Glorious St. Andrew” asking for his intercession with God that the church be named a basilica. 
“May the beauty of this building, the reverence of the liturgies we celebrate here, and the pastoral work we engage in with charity, draw many more people, as you did, to faith in Jesus Christ and the fullness of life in the Spirit,” the prayer says. 
Interior photo of Basilica of St. Andrew in Roanoke, Virginia. Credit: Ryan Hunt/Catholic Diocese of RichmondSt. Andrew’s parish was established in 1882. The current yellow-brick, twin-steeple, high Victorian Gothic church was dedicated in 1902. It recently underwent a renovation of its interior and exterior. 
Longtime church-goers told CNA they are thrilled with the announcement. 
“I think the beauty of the church lent itself to be a basilica. It’s quite a facility, and I’ve always been proud of it, said Mick DeSimone, 67, a retired painter who joined the parish in 1980 and currently serves the altar for expositions of the Eucharist and coordinates several Masses a week. “It’s one of the first things people see when they come into Roanoke, and I think it’s fitting that it’s happened.” 
While the appearance of the building attracts newcomers, the people of the parish keep them coming back, another parishioner told CNA.
“When you come here, when you walk in, you’re just awed by the beauty of the church. I think that’s something that would draw a person to come. But the parish and the people are so welcoming,” said Donna DeSimone, 67, a retired second grade teacher, Mick’s wife, and a former Baptist who joined the Catholic Church in June 2022 through the parish’s Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults program. She is now secretary of the parish council. 
Catholics not plentiful The state of Virginia is only about 8% Catholic, according to a 2021 University of Virginia study — and less so in the mostly rural southwestern part of the state. 
That makes the basilica designation particularly meaningful for Catholics who attend St. Andrew’s. 
“It just confirms the fact that Catholicism is alive and well in southwest Virginia. And that church has stood there for more than a hundred years as a symbol of that,” said Susan Thompson, 74, who taught for 32 years at next-door Roanoke Catholic School, most of that time running the school’s prekindergarten through grade 7 program. 
The church building has a magnetic quality that draws strangers in and changes them for at least a short while, one parishioner said. 
“When you come out of Mass many times you’ll just see people standing in the parking lot looking at it. They know it’s a church but they don’t know what denomination. They’re just curious. And then when they come in, it takes their breath away,” said Grimes Creasy, 62, a civil-law attorney and member of the parish council. “And then they get very reverent. That’s the interesting thing. You can see their body posture change. They recognize they’re in a holy place. They just kind of straighten up.” 
Bishop Barry Knestout, who heads the Diocese of Richmond, plans to read the Vatican’s official announcement and bless physical symbols signifying the church’s elevation to basilica during a Mass at St. Andrew’s on Sunday, December 3.
“With this decree, I hope more individuals will be drawn to visit this special treasure, and in doing so, will draw more to inquire about our faith,” the bishop said in a written statement Thursday.
He tied the basilica announcement to the U.S. bishops’ current three-year National Eucharistic Revival.
“May this basilica continue to be a place of personal encounter with Christ, a place of robust faith formation, and through its beauty — externally and in the liturgy — elevate the hearts and minds of all who attend Mass here,” Knestout said.

What is a basilica? 
A basilica in the Catholic Church is a church building singled out for honor by the pope for its beauty and renown. Most are large. 
A basilica doesn’t need to be a cathedral — a word that comes from the Latin cathedra, or chair, which symbolizes the authority of the bishop. Most basilicas aren’t cathedrals. And most cathedrals aren’t basilicas. But some churches are both. 
The “mother church” of the Catholic Church is St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, which has the pope’s cathedra. It is a so-called “major basilica,” along with the more famous St. Peter’s Basilica. The other two major basilicas are St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major. All four are in Rome. 
Outside Rome, a diocese’s cathedral “holds the first place and the greatest dignity” in a diocese, because the bishop’s chair in the cathedral is “the sign of the bishop’s teaching authority and power, as pastor of the same diocese, and the sign of communion with the Roman cathedra of Peter,” according to a 1989 Vatican document called Domus Ecclesiae (“House of the Church”). 
But certain church buildings may be honored by the pope with the title “minor basilica” because of their “particular importance for liturgical and pastoral life,” according to the Vatican document, which sets out criteria for applying for minor basilica status. 
The document mentions “appropriate size,” “a sufficiently large sanctuary,” “historic value or importance,” “worthiness of its art,” “celebrations of the seasons … carried out in a praiseworthy manner,” “an appropriate number of confessors” to offer the sacrament of penance, and an “adequate” choir “to encourage the participation of the faithful with sacred music and singing.” 
How many basilicas are there in the United States? 
There are 93 minor basilicas in the United States, according to GCatholic.org, which keeps a list. Of those, 19 are cathedrals or co-cathedrals. 
The first church in the country designated a basilica is the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, which was so named in 1926. The most recent (before now) is the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Philadelphia, which was named a basilica in January 2023. 
Virginia has two other minor basilicas:  the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk (Diocese of Richmond), and the Basilica of St. Mary in Alexandria (Diocese of Arlington). 
New York state has the most basilicas among U.S. states, at eight. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California have seven. Florida has six. Texas has four. Massachusetts, Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri have three.​

Ibarra is the author of the book “Emilia, the Basket Maker, Martyr of the Rosary,” which tells of her life and death. He said that Emilia’s devotion to the rosary led her to love Jesus Christ more.
According to the historian, Emilia “died from her sufferings, for being faithful to her faith, for bringing a life into the world and did not give in to her jailer’s desire that she apostatize.”
For Ibarra, Emilia “teaches us with her life that God is at our side, especially in the midst of difficulties. Emilia went to prison hardly knowing the faith and when she died, she did so as a friend of God and a martyr of the rosary. That is beautiful.”
She was beatified in a group of martyrs from Almeria, Spain on March 25, 2017. The group included cathedral dean Father Jose Alvarez-Benavides y de la Torre and 114 companion martyrs: 95 priests, 20 laymen and two women, including Emilia.
Emilia is the first Romani woman to be beatified. The first male Gypsy blessed, Ceferino Giménez Malla, known as El Pelé, was beatified by Saint John Paul II in 1997. He died in the religious persecution of the Spanish Civil War for protecting a priest. Before his persecutors shot him, he held a rosary in his hand and cried out “Long live Christ the King!”
Ibarra characterized both Emilia and Ceferino as “martyrs of the rosary” because both of them refused to stop praying it.
“This demonstrates that the Virgin leads us to God. For those two martyrs, she was the Gate of Heaven,” he said.

​

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.”

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.

'Miracle of the sun' broke darkness of Portugal's atheist regimesBy Elise Harris
Fatima, Portugal, Oct 12 (EWTN News/CNA)
On “the day the sun danced,” thousands of people bore witness to a miracle that not only proved the validity of the Fatima Marian apparitions, but also shattered the prevalent belief at the time that God was no longer relevant, according to one theologian.


What crowds witnessed the day of the miracle was “the news that God, in the end, contrary to what was said in the philosophy books at that time, was alive and acting in the midst of men,” Dr. Marco Daniel Duarte told EWTN News.


If one were to open philosophy books during that period, they would likely read something akin to the concept conceived by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who boldly asserted in the late 1800s that “God is dead.”


Yet as this and other philosophies like it were gaining steam in the life and thought of society, the Virgin Mary appears and tells three small shepherds that “God is alive and still attentive to humanity, even though humanity is waging war with one another.”


Duarte, a theologian and director of the Fatima shrine museums, spoke about the cultural significance of the Miracle of the Sun given the atheistic thought prevalent in Portuguese society at the time.


In 1917, Portugal, like the majority of the world, was embroiled in war. As World War I raged throughout Europe, Portugal found itself unable to maintain its initial neutrality and joined forces with the Allies, in order to protect colonies in Africa and to defend their trade with Britain. About 220,000 Portuguese civilians died during the war; thousands due to food shortages, thousands more from the Spanish flu.


Compounding the problem, government stability in the country had been rocky at best following the revolution and coup d’état that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and subsequent establishment of the First Portuguese Republic in 1910.


A new liberal constitution separating Church and state was drafted under the influence of Freemasonry, which sought to omit the faith – which for many was the backbone of Portuguese culture and society – from public life.


Anti-Catholicism in Portugal had initially begun in the 18th century during the term of statesman Marquês de Pombal, and flared up again after the drafting of the new constitution.


Catholic churches and schools were seized by the government, and the wearing of clerics in public, the ringing of church bells, and the celebrating of popular religious festivals were banned. Between 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups.


This was the backdrop against which Mary, in 1917, appeared to three shepherd children – Lucia dos Santos, 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, 9 and 7 – in a field in Fatima, Portugal, bringing with her requests for the recitation of the rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.


To prove that the apparitions were true, Mary promised the children that during the last of her six appearances she would provide a “sign” so people would believe in the apparitions and in her message.


What happened on that day – Oct. 13, 1917 – has come to be known as the “Miracle of the Sun,” or “the day the sun danced.”


According to various accounts, a crowd of some 70,000 people – believers and skeptics alike – gathered to see the miracle that Mary had promised. After appearing and speaking to the children for some time, Mary then “cast her own light upon the sun.”


The previously rainy sky cleared up, the clouds dispersed and the ground, which had been wet and muddy from the rain, was dried. A transparent veil came over the sun, making it easy to look at, and multi-colored lights were strewn across the landscape.


The sun then began to spin, twirling in the sky, and at one point appeared to veer toward earth before jumping back to its place in the sky.


Duarte said the miracle was a direct, and very convincing contradiction to the atheistic regimes at the time, which is evidenced by the fact that the first newspaper to report on the miracle was an anti-Catholic, Masonic newspaper in Lisbon called O Seculo.


The Miracle of the Sun, he said, was understood by the people to be “the seal, the guarantee that in fact those three children were telling the truth.”


Even today, “Fatima makes people change their perception of God,” he said, explaining that for him, one of the most important messages of the apparitions is that “even if man has separated God from his existence, God is present in human history and doesn’t abandon humanity.”


With World War I raging, a war the likes of which the world had never seen, Mary appeared to tell the children that “that story can have another ending, when the power of prayer is stronger than the power of bullets.”


The Miracle of the Sun is also the heart of a special exhibition called “The Colors of the Sun” the shrine is offering for the duration of the centenary year of the apparitions, which focuses on the symbolic nature of the miracle and its cultural significance.


Displayed are “various objects, some older, others more contemporary, some more modern, some made of textile, others of organic materials, paintings, sculptures,” but which are all “placed with a narrative,” he said.


Beginning with a set of black umbrellas used by people who had gathered at the Cova de Iria (Cave of Iria) where Mary appeared Oct. 13, the exhibit aims to build a narrative of what people saw that day, and is supplemented with different works that express the various elements of Mary’s message to the children.


It also shows developments of how the shrine developed over the years, showing the transformation of what used to be a small, simple chapel into what is now two basilicas: the Basilica of Nossa Senhora do Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary) and Basilica da Santissima Trindade (Basilica of the Holy Trinity), with an open chapel in between where the statue of Our Lady of Fatima resides.
Pieces come from all over the world – some from the Fatima shrine, some from the State of Portugal, and some even hail from Germany and France.


One of the highlight pieces is a giant heart made by Joana Vasconcelos, a well-known Portuguese artist who crafted the piece entirely out of red plastic ware, such as spoons and forks.
“It’s material that isn’t important for anyone, but which after everything is united, forms the image of a heart and can be the image of reparation,” Duarte said.


The exhibit closes with white parasols, rather than umbrellas, in order to show the fruit of the miracle, Duarte said, adding that it can also signify “the presence of God, the Eucharistic Christ.”
In this sense, the parasols “can be for us a symbol that also we can be God’s tabernacles and can be the place where God dwells,” he said. “This is the true shrine that God wants. The shrine of Fatima is precisely the image of what God wants: to dwell among men.”

​

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.

​

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 of Ordinary Time – Sunday, October 15th, 2023

The First Reading - Isaiah 25:6-10A
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.  On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever.  The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face; the reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the LORD has spoken.  On that day it will be said: "Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!  This is the LORD for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!"  For the hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain.
Reflection
The prophet Isaiah wrote words of encouragement in a time of threat. Jerusalem, the holy mount of the Lord, would be a place of peace and equality. The city would be a space for mutual respect and mutual worship.
Adults - How do you encourage mutual respect in your daily life?
Teens - How do you treat those that disagree with you?
Kids - How can you show others your love for God?

Responsorial- Psalm 23:1-3A, 3B-4, 5, 6
R.I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
He guides me in right paths
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
with your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R. I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
Reflection
Reading this Psalm (Ps 23:6) in the context of today’s readings gives it new meaning - we can see it referring to Jesus. Jesus invites us to a banquet, the Eucharist, and goodness and love will pursue us all the days of our life and we look forward to dwelling in the house of the Lord for eternity. (Ps 23:6) Thank the Lord for the gift of the Eucharist in prayer this week.

The Second Reading- Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20
Brothers and sisters: I know how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance.  
In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I can do all things in him who strengthens me.  Still, it was kind of you to share in my distress.  My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.  To our God and Father, glory forever and ever. Amen.
Reflection -    In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul held himself to the community as an example of Christian living. He pointed to God's constant care in his experience of the ups and downs of life.
 -How can Saint Paul be an example in your life?

The Holy Gospel according to Matthew 22:1-14
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and elders of the people in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.  He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast, but they refused to come.  A second time he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and  everything is ready; come to the feast.”’  Some ignored the invitation and went away, one to his farm, another to his business.  The rest laid hold of his servants, mistreated them, and killed them.  The king was enraged and sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.  Then he said to his servants, 'The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come.  Go out, therefore, into the main roads and invite to the feast whomever you find.’  The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.  But when the king came in to meet the guests, he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.  The king said to him, 'My friend, how is it that you  came in here without a wedding garment?' But he was reduced to silence.  Then the king said to his attendants, 'Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and  grinding of teeth.’  Many are invited, but few are chosen."
Reflection  Jesus continues to use parables to challenge the chief priests and elders to see what is happening before their eyes and to change. Last week, He used the traditional image of Israel as the beloved vineyard of God - this week, He draws on the symbol of the Wedding Feast. As is customary, those invited to the wedding are those closest to families of those getting married. As is not so customary, Jesus says that those who were invited thought that they had better things to do - working on the farm or going about their business. Some were so incensed about being disturbed that they attacked those bringing the invitations. Understandably, the king who issued the invitation is furious and deals harshly with those who have murdered his servants. The feast is to go ahead - but now, he offers his invitation to the crowds in the streets - an open invitation to anyone who wants to come. Again, what was offered to - and rejected by - one group of people, is now passed on to another. The wedding hall, we are told, was full of guests - bad and good alike. Among the crowds, though, the king spots one who has not dressed for the occasion - and who cannot explain why. Here is someone who has responded to the invitation - but who still does not belong.The guest refuses to explain why not - and so suffers the same fate as those who rejected the first invitation - to be left outside - realising what they were missing. The invitation into the Kingdom is now open to everyone. We accept the invitation - but also need to make ourselves ready to attend the feast. We do this by putting on our “wedding garment” - in St Paul’s words, we put on Christ - we clothe ourselves in love - in gentleness - in all that is worthy of the Kingdom.
Adults - Pray about and choose a virtue that you need to work on in your life, commit to one month of working on it.
Teens - How can you be more gentle in your daily life?
Kids - Why is it important for us to be gentle with others?

LIVING THE WORD OF GOD THIS WEEK!  - We have the invitation to the wedding feast; in fact, we are already in the banquet hall, since our baptism; but are we wearing the wedding garment of virtue and grace?  If not, we are no better off than those who rejected the invitation.  The king may come in at any moment and cast out those who are not properly dressed.  Being a member of the Church on earth is a wonderful privilege, and a sure guarantee that we will reach heaven, if we receive the gift of Jesus.  But the same obstacles which prevented the Pharisees from entering the kingdom—love of this world, its wealth and its pleasures—can impede us too, unless we are on our guard. The world with its allurements is very close to us; heaven seems very far away.  This implies a daily carrying of the cross, a daily struggle against our evil inclinations, a daily endeavor to acquire true love of God and neighbor. This may sound superhuman, but Christ did not ask anyone to do the impossible. He led the way, and millions have followed him to eternal glory. He has called us too and has placed within our easy reach in his Church all the grace we need. We have been called with the many. We can be among the "chosen."


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,
 
      The above quote of the Sacred Scriptures is sometimes misunderstood to accuse Roman Catholics of idol worshiping when our Christian brothers and sisters come into a Catholic church and see statues on the walls and on the altars.
 
      But we must remember that God Himself commanded Moses to make graven cherubim to be placed above the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18-20).  God does not contradict Himself.  The cherubim represented God and help to make Him present to the people of Israel and are not gods themselves like other religions believed in the time of Moses.  So statues remind us and make visible those faithful followers of Jesus who intercede for us and show us how to live during ordinary and difficult times.
​
       Further, we have statues in our city parks and along our highways.  We have pictures of our loved ones in our homes and places of work.  These are not idols nor do we worship them.  They keep near to our hearts and our minds those who love us and whom we love.  Do you have statues in your parish or home of those in heaven who love you and long to help you?
 
Peace and prayers in Jesus through Mary, loved by Saint Joseph,
Father Robert
 

P.S.  This coming Sunday is the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  The readings can be found at: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100823.cfm

P.S.S.  Readings with meditations and questions with reflections are at the end of this e-mail.

​575. As children of God, how may we strengthen our trust in Him? (Catechism of the Catholic Church-2734-2741, 2756)
a) unite our prayer with Jesus
b) this trust is tested when we think we are not heard
c) receive the Holy Spirit who transform our heart
d) all of the above
 
576. Is it possible to pray always? (CCC 2742-2745, 2757)
a) No, we cannot stay awake 24/7
b) No, we get distracted from time to time
c) Yes, for the time of the Christian is the time of the risen Christ who remains with us always
d) Yes, because I can pray in the past and pray in the future for all the times I missed before
 
577. What is the prayer of the Hour of Jesus? (CCC 2604, 2746-2751, 2758)
a) the first 60 minutes of Jesus’ existence
b) the priestly prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper
c) Jesus’ time on the Cross
d) Jesus’ prayer of picking of the 12 Apostles  


(Answers below)

Catholic Term
 

statue (from Latin statuere; “to set up”)

- a likeness of a holy person that leads one to honor and/or imitate them to the glory of God

[A likeness of Christ, the Blessed Virgin, or one of the saints, or a symbolic form of an angel, sculptured, carved, or cast in a solid material, and venerated by the faithful.  Its purpose is to recall the person whom the statue represents in order to inspire greater piety.  Christians do not worship statues as idols.]

Forgiveness and Healing After Abortion
​

http://www.abortionfacts.com/forgiveness-after-abortion
http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/search/index.aspx

 
This page offers a variety of resources for forgiveness and healing but also allows the user to enter his or her zip code to find after-care programs in their area.
From the website:
Have you personally experienced abortion or had your child aborted? It is a difficult issue to deal with. Your feelings associated with the abortion(s) deserve attention. Our hope is to connect you with the resources that can help you understand your feelings and behavior related to your experience.
 
All the resources we recommend have two things in common; one, they will have a powerful positive impact on your life and second, all the people involved care deeply about you, many share your experience and have dedicated their lives to helping you.
​

​The Mystical Life of Guardian Angels, Revealed by the Saints

• Articles
• Quotes
• Saints
• Supernatural

by ChurchPOP Editor - Oct 2 
Eddy Van 3000, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0How often do you call on your Guardian Angel?
The Catholic Church teaches that God assigns every person with at least one Guardian Angel. Several saints, including St. Padre Pio, St. Gemma Galgani, and St. Faustina had mystical encounters with their guardian angels.
Don’t forget to call on your guardian angel! He hears you and guides you at all moments!
Here’s 10 saint quotes about the powerful and mystical life of Guardian Angels:1) “…What a consolation it is to know one is always in the care of a celestial spirit, who does not abandon us (how admirable) even when we disgust God! How sweet is this great truth for the believer! Who, then, does the devout soul fear who tries to love Jesus, having always close by such a great warrior?
“Know that he is still powerful against Satan and his satellites; his charity has not diminished, nor will he ever fail in defending us.
“Develop the beautiful habit of always thinking of him; that near us is a celestial spirit, who, from the cradle to the tomb, does not leave us for an instant, guides us, protects us as a friend, a brother; will always be a consolation to us especially in our saddest moments.”
– St. Padre Pio
2) “Jesus has placed near you an Angel from Heaven who is always looking after you; he carries you in his hands lest your foot strike against a stone.
“You do not see him, and yet he is the one who…has preserved your soul…he is the one who removes from you the occasions of sin.”
“Your Guardian Angel is covering you with his wings, and Jesus, the purity of virgins, reposes in your heart. You do not see your treasures; Jesus is sleeping and the Angel remains in his mysterious silence. However, they are there with Mary who is hiding you also under her veil!…”
– St. Therese of Lisieux
3) “One evening, when I was suffering more than usual, I was complaining to Jesus and telling him that I would not have prayed so much if I had known that He was not going to cure me, and I asked Him why I had to be sick this way.
“My angel answered me as follows: ‘If Jesus afflicts you in your body, it is always to purify you in your soul. Be good.’ 
“Oh, how many times during my long illness did I not experience such consoling words in my heart! But I never profited by them.”
“From the moment I got up from my sick bed…My guardian angel began to be my master and guide. He corrected me every time I did something wrong, and he taught me to speak but little, and only when I was spoken to.”
– St. Gemma Galgani
4) “Gemma saw her guardian angel with her own eyes, touched him with her hand, as if he were a being of this world, and would talk to him as would one friend to another.”
“‘Jesus,’ she once said, ‘has not left me alone; He makes my guardian angel stay with me always.'”
– Ven. Father Germanus C.P., The Life of St. Gemma Galgani
5) “One day, when I was at adoration, and my spirit seemed to be dying for Him, and I could no longer hold back my tears, I saw a spirit of great beauty who spoke these words to me: ‘Don’t cry — says the Lord.’ After a moment I asked, ‘Who are you?’
“He answered me, ‘I am one of the seven spirits who stand before the throne of God day and night and give Him ceaseless praise.’ Yet this spirit did not soothe my yearning, but roused me to even greater longing for God.
“This spirit is very beautiful, and his beauty comes from close union with God. This spirit does not leave me for a single moment, but accompanies me everywhere.”
– St. Faustina
6) “Then I saw one of the seven spirits near me, radiant as at other times, under a form of light. I constantly saw him beside me when I was riding on the train.
“I saw an angel standing on every church we passed, but surrounded by a light which was paler than that of the spirit who was accompanying me on the journey, and each of these spirits who were guarding the churches bowed his head to the spirit who was near me.”
– St. Faustina
7) “With what humility should we assist at Mass, if we realized that our Guardian Angel was kneeling beside us, prostrate before the Majesty of God! With what eagerness should we not ask him to offer our prayers to Jesus Christ!”
– St. John Vianney
8) “When tempted, invoke your Angel. He is more eager to help you than you are to be helped! Ignore the devil and do not be afraid of him: He trembles and flees at the sight of your Guardian Angel.”
– St. John Bosco
9) “I was in bed suffering greatly, when on a sud­den I became absorbed in prayer. I joined my hands and, moved with heartfelt sorrow for my countless sins, I made an act of deep contrition.
“My mind was wholly plunged in this abyss of my crime against my God, when I beheld my Angel standing by my bed. I felt ashamed of being in his presence.
“He instead was more than courteous with me, and said, kindly: ‘Jesus loves thee greatly. Love Him greatly in return.'”
“Then he added, ‘Are you fond of Jesus’ Mother? Salute her very often, for she values such attention very much, and unfailingly returns the salutations offered to Her; and if you do not sense this, know that she makes a proof of your unfailing trust.'”
“He blessed me and disappeared.”
– St. Gemma Galgani
10) “My Guardian Angel told me to pray for a certain soul, and in the morning I learned that it was a man whose agony had begun that very moment. The Lord Jesus makes it known to me in a special way when someone is in need of my prayer. I especially know when my prayer is needed by a dying soul. This happens more often now than it did in the past.”
 – St. Faustina
My guardian angel, please pray for me and protect me!​

KNIGHTS TAKE FAITH TO THE BAYOU
​
September 12
By Andrew Fowler
KNIGHTS HELP LEAD 50-BOAT EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION DOWN LA. BAYOU

LEONVILLE, La. — The water of the Bayou Teche was drawn to the Lord. That is what Pat Pourciau, a Knights of Columbus member of Breaux Bridge Council 2398, thought on that quiet August morning.
Pourciau felt his boat rock while he was waiting to participate in a boat procession down the bayou. He watched the waves cutting across the water, heading toward the shore as if the Blessed Sacrament carried by Father Michael Champagne were drawing them.
Father Champagne was joining a 50-boat fleet taking part in the “Fête-Dieu Du Teche Eucharistic Boat Procession” — a 38-mile journey from St. Leo the Great Church in Leonville to Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel in Baton Rouge. The procession stops five times along the shore at makeshift altars and several churches for recitation of the rosary and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
The procession is held on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Its path is culturally significant for many of the residents as it re-enacts the Acadians’ flight from religious persecution by the British government in Canada before fleeing to Louisiana around 1765. Christians still face persecution for publicly living their faith today with ISIS committing genocide against them and other religious minorities in the Middle East.
(Learn more about the Knights of Columbus’ aid for Middle East Christians here)
Father Champagne, a priest in the Community of Jesus Crucified who helped begin the event five years ago, credits the Knights for making the procession a possibility.
“They sponsor the event in their councils throughout the Diocese of Lafayette and they organize into groups to help with the preparation and implementation,” he said. “The Knights have been, and continue to be, an essential component in putting on this unique and complex annual procession.”
Pourciau is one of the 40 Knights on the procession’s planning committee. There are even more Knights among the 125-plus volunteers and the thousands who participate in the event. Knights prepare the benediction sites along the bayou and the churches, moor and launch the 50 boats at each stop and provide tents among other tasks.
The Knights involved said they see it as part of their evangelization efforts.

LEONVILLE, La. — The water of the Bayou Teche was drawn to the Lord. That is what Pat Pourciau, a Knights of Columbus member of Breaux Bridge Council 2398, thought on that quiet August morning.
Pourciau felt his boat rock while he was waiting to participate in a boat procession down the bayou. He watched the waves cutting across the water, heading toward the shore as if the Blessed Sacrament carried by Father Michael Champagne were drawing them.
Father Champagne was joining a 50-boat fleet taking part in the “Fête-Dieu Du Teche Eucharistic Boat Procession” — a 38-mile journey from St. Leo the Great Church in Leonville to Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel in Baton Rouge. The procession stops five times along the shore at makeshift altars and several churches for recitation of the rosary and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
The procession is held on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Its path is culturally significant for many of the residents as it re-enacts the Acadians’ flight from religious persecution by the British government in Canada before fleeing to Louisiana around 1765. Christians still face persecution for publicly living their faith today with ISIS committing genocide against them and other religious minorities in the Middle East.
(Learn more about the Knights of Columbus’ aid for Middle East Christians here)
Father Champagne, a priest in the Community of Jesus Crucified who helped begin the event five years ago, credits the Knights for making the procession a possibility.
“They sponsor the event in their councils throughout the Diocese of Lafayette and they organize into groups to help with the preparation and implementation,” he said. “The Knights have been, and continue to be, an essential component in putting on this unique and complex annual procession.”
Pourciau is one of the 40 Knights on the procession’s planning committee. There are even more Knights among the 125-plus volunteers and the thousands who participate in the event. Knights prepare the benediction sites along the bayou and the churches, moor and launch the 50 boats at each stop and provide tents among other tasks.
The Knights involved said they see it as part of their evangelization efforts.

New Religious Freedom Protections Draw Praise from ExpertsBy Matt Hadro
Washington D.C., Oct 6 (EWTN News/CNA) - 
After the Trump administration announced new exemptions to the contraceptive mandate and a religious freedom guidance, experts said both actions offered concrete protections of religious freedom.

“Today the Trump administration made two commendable decisions in support of the bedrock American principle of religious liberty,” Dr. Matthew Franck, director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute, told EWTN News, calling the actions “cause for much celebration.”

On Friday morning the administration followed through on two promises made in President Donald Trump’s May 4 executive order on religious liberty – relief from the HHS mandate for religious and conscientious objectors, and a Department of Justice guidance to federal agencies on implementing religious freedom protections found in existing federal law.

The administration first announced on Friday an expansion of religious and moral exemptions to the HHS contraceptive mandate, over which many non-profit groups and some for-profit businesses had sued the federal government.

“Groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who dedicate their lives to the indigent elderly, can finally expect the restitution of their conscience-rights in court,” Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, policy advisor with The Catholic Association, stated on Friday.

The HHS had interpreted the Affordable Care Act to include a mandate on cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives, and drugs that can cause early abortions in health plans.

Although many religious groups were opposed to contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-causing drugs, the religious exemptions from the mandate were so narrow that only churches and their integrated auxiliaries were safe from having to comply.

This meant that many religious charities and universities had to comply with the mandate’s demands. The Obama administration offered an “accommodation” to objecting non-profits to comply with the mandate, but charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor said this still forced them to be complicit in the provision of objectionable coverage.

Under the interim final rules released Friday, non-profits, small businesses, and even some publicly-traded companies can apply for a religious exemption to the mandate, if they establish that complying with the mandate would violate their religious beliefs.

The new rules “substantially expand the scope of that religious exemption,” Greg Baylor, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, said.

Large “publicly-traded” companies wouldn’t be eligible to claim a “moral” exemption from the mandate, but secular non-profits and small businesses would be – which benefits groups like the March for Life, which is a pro-life organization opposed to the mandate on conscience grounds, but a group that is “not inherently religious.”

In establishing such broad new exemptions, the new rule “practically amounts to a revocation of the mandate,” Franck told EWTN News.

And the “accommodation” offered to non-profits, where their insurer or third party administrator provided the objectionable coverage, is now voluntary, the Department of Health and Human Services announced.

Prominent U.S. bishops praised the HHS announcement on Friday as a “return to common sense.”

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chair of the U.S. bishops’ religious liberty committee, said in a statement that the new rule “recognizes that the full range of faith-based and mission-driven organizations, as well as the people who run them, have deeply held religious and moral beliefs that the law must respect.”

“We welcome the news that this particular threat to religious freedom has been lifted,” they stated.

The Becket Fund, a religious freedom law firm that defended the Little Sisters of the Poor in court against the mandate, praised the “common sense, balanced rule,” but added that the litigation is ongoing in mandate cases.

In the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor against the mandate at the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court in a rare move in the middle of the case ordered both the plaintiffs and the government to submit briefs detailing if, and how a solution could be crafted that provided for cost-free coverage outlined in the HHS mandate, while at the same time maintaining the religious freedom of the non-profits that sued the government.

In May of 2016, the Court vacated the federal circuit court decisions on the mandate, ordered the federal government not to fine the plaintiffs, and instructed all parties to come to a solution that provided the contraception coverage while respecting the religious freedom of the plaintiffs. The cases are currently still at the federal circuit court level.

“14 or 15 months later” after the Supreme Court asked for a solution, “what we see today is really the resolution of that process,” Rienzi said.

With the HHS announcement, the government now “admits the prior version of the mandate broke the law,” Rienzi said, referring to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Under the 1993 law, the federal government must not substantially burden one’s deeply-held religious beliefs unless it establishes that to do so is in its “compelling interest” and is the “least-restrictive means” of fulfilling that interest.

The government essentially admitted on Friday that there were indeed less-restrictive means of ensuring cost-free coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-causing drugs than forcing the non-profits to comply with the mandate through the “accommodation,” Rienzi said.

“I assume those lawyers at DOJ will cooperate and go into the courtrooms and admit that the federal government broke the law, and that the Little Sisters and other groups are entitled to a final injunction to give them lasting protection against this kind of treatment,” he said.

Also on Friday, the Department of Justice announced a religious freedom guidance that was ordered by President Trump in his May 4 executive order on religious freedom.

The 25-page guidance outlines religious freedom protections in existing federal law that federal departments and agencies are to incorporate into their functions. It states that “Religious liberty is not merely a right to personal religious beliefs or even to worship in a sacred place. It also encompasses religious observance and practice.”

The guidance is significant and establishes solid protections for religious freedom at the federal level, Professor Robert Destro of the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law told EWTN News.

“We’ve never had anything this far-reaching before,” he said, noting that the guidance puts religious freedom on the level of freedom of speech.

It also takes principles of religious freedom and applies them to many federal levels, Destro said.

For instance, U.S. attorneys at the Department of Justice in litigation must “conform all the arguments that the government is making across the country” to the religious freedom principles outlined in the guidance, he said.

This would apply to ongoing court cases, including the DOJ’s position on the current religious freedom case before the Supreme Court of Masterpiece Cakeshop. It would also apply to “other cases where the arguments were already written,” Destro said.

The guidance also informs regulations, grants, contracts, and diversity training. Agencies like the State Department, where many employees have historically been reticent to talk about the role religion in international problems, could be affected by this, Destro said.

Regarding its application to federal contracts, the guidance could influence cases where religious charities are in danger of losing federal contracts due to their employment practices or their religious mission.

“It really gives faith-based organizations and others with religious objections an argument to make when they’re in discussions with a federal agency about accepting a grant or a contract,” Baylor told EWTN News.

The guidance also reiterates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, in that it “does not permit the federal government to second-guess the reasonableness of religious beliefs,” Joshua Mercer, co-founder of CatholicVote.org, told EWTN News.

This is significant because certain Catholic colleges did not receive religious exemptions from the contraceptive mandate, Mercer said, yet the government should have honored their religious objections. “It’s up to our bishops to decide a university is sufficiently Catholic or not, not our federal government,” he said.

It could apply to conscience protections for health care professionals, Baylor noted. The Obama administration, under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act mandated that doctors had to provide gender-transition procedures even if they conscientiously objected to doing so.

“There has been a nationwide injunction against that rule, and the federal government has indicated that it plans to reconsider the rule,” Baylor noted.

However, he added, “this guidance strengthens the hand of those who would argue that this sort of thing violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment.”

Ultimately, the guidance is “pretty far-reaching, and it’s going to take a good deal of time for the agencies to conform their practice to what’s being required,” Destro said.

“This may have an impact that we don’t see” in informing federal agencies how they should operate, Baylor said.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


POPE FRANCIS: SINCERE CONFESSION ALLOWS ONE TO DISCOVER THE DEPTHS OF GOD'S FORGIVENESS
Vatican City -- The Holy Father reflected on the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the forgiveness of God during his homily at Casa Santa Marta this morning.
Pope Francis commented on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, a reading where Paul professes that “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” Paul’s acknowledgement of his condition as a “slave” to sin is the manifestation of all Christians’ struggle in “the life of faith.”


“This is the struggle of Christians,” Pope Francis said. “It is our struggle every day. And we do not always have the courage to speak as Paul spoke about this struggle.”


“We always seek a way of justification: ‘But yes, we are all sinners.’ But we say it like that, don’t we? This says it dramatically: it is our struggle. And if we don’t recognize this, we will never be able to have God’s forgiveness. Because if being a sinner is a word, a way of speaking, a manner of speaking, we have no need of God’s forgiveness. But if it is a reality that makes us slaves, we need this interior liberation of the Lord, of that force. But more important here is that, to find the way out, Paul confesses his sin to the community, his tendency to sin. He doesn’t hide it.”


The Holy Father stressed the importance of confessing one's sins with “concreteness”. Some prefer to “confess to God” so as to have no contact with anyone, while Paul confesses his weakness to his brothers face to face. Others, he continued, will go to confession but say “so many up-in-the-air things, that they don’t have anything concrete.” In confessing such a way, is the “same as not doing it.”


“Confessing our sins is not going to a psychiatrist, or to a torture chamber: it’s saying to the Lord, ‘Lord, I am a sinner,’ but saying it through the brother, because this says it concretely. ‘I am sinner because of this, that and the other thing’”, the Holy Father said.


The 76 year old Pontiff went on to say that through concreteness, honesty and the “sincere ability” to feel shame for one’s sins can bring one to discover the depth of God’s mercy and forgiveness. The approach to confessing one’s sins should be that of little children, who “have that wisdom.”


“When a child comes to confess, he never says something general. ‘But father, I did this and I did that to my aunt, another time I said this word’ and they say the word. But they are concrete, eh? They have that simplicity of the truth. And we always have the tendency to hide the reality of our failings,” the Pope said.


To feel shame in the moment of confessing one’s sins in the presence of God is a grace, he concluded. This “grace of shame” is the same grace exhibited by St. Peter.


“We think of Peter when, after the miracle of Jesus on the lake, [he said] ‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner.’ He is ashamed of his sins in the presence of the sanctity of Jesus,” the Pope said​

A Prayer Before the Blessed Sacrament for
the Increase of Priestly and Religious Vocations
 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Eternal Father,
Son of the Virgin Mary,
we thank you for offering your life in sacrifice on
the Cross, and for renewing this sacrifice
in every Mass celebrated throughout the world.

In the Power of the Holy Spirit
we adore you and proclaim
your living presence in the Eucharist.
We desire to imitate the love you show us
in your death and resurrection,
by loving and serving one another.

We ask you to call many young people to religious
life, and to provide the holy and generous priests
that are so needed in your Church today.
Lord Jesus, hear our prayer. Amen.​

​“The Church is a "communion of saints": this expression refers first to the "holy things" (sancta), above all the Eucharist, by which "the unity of believers, who form one body in Christ, is both represented and brought about" (LG 3).
Catechism of the Catholic Church #960

Catholic Good News

Receiving the Gospel, Serving God and Neighbor
 
Angels of God

`He will give his angels charge of you,' and, `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" 

Matthew 4:6
 ​

"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)

Broadly speaking, it would be an understatement to say that the young men at Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida, are good at sports. Buoyed by numerous state championships in recent years, the school was recently voted the top sports school in the entire Sunshine State.
That competitive and excellence-seeking nature lends itself to a different kind of zeal, however — a zeal to bring souls to Jesus Christ.

The Jesuit High School Tigers football team takes the field on Sept. 8, 2023. Credit: Jesuit High SchoolJimmy Mitchell, director of campus ministry at Jesuit and author of the new book “Let Beauty Speak,” told CNA that the “competitive nature of school” not only lends itself to great sports — and great academics — “but in a really cool way they can also, maybe not get competitive, but certainly ambitious when it comes to souls.”
Because of the school’s emphasis on peer-to-peer Catholic ministry, the young men at the school are encouraged to turn their talents and efforts toward the sharing of the faith with their classmates — and similar to their sports teams, the men of Jesuit have found success.

Jesuit High School students engaged in a peer ministry retreat at the Bethany Center in Florida. Credit: Jesuit High SchoolComing off the disruptions wrought by COVID-19, Jesuit High School had 22 students convert during the 2020-2021 school year through its RCIA program — an unprecedented number that both continued and elevated a trend. 
Since 2010, a total of 104 students have been baptized and received into the Church at Jesuit, Mitchell reported. Fifty-seven of those were during the last three school years alone, and 33 of those converts are current students on campus, he said.
Mitchell said as a campus minister, his goal is “a kind of personal care and personal approach to every student, like they’re the only person on planet Earth.”
“If we can catch them young and love them better than anybody else, it’s going to have a massive impact,” Mitchell said. 
‘A brotherhood with eternal consequences’Father Richard Hermes, SJ, now president of the school for over a decade and a half, told CNA that there’s “nothing more important” to him and to the school than promoting the faith and leading the young men to God.
“The boys are working hard in school and teachers are doing a great job, and the kids are having a lot of success on the field. But there’s also, in the middle of it, this great thing happening in terms of spiritual renewal,” Hermes told CNA.

Jesuit High School students on a summer Wyoming Wilderness Leadership retreat. Credit: Jesuit High SchoolRetreats, 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. 

Jesuit High School's chapel on Clubs Open House day, August 2023. Credit: Jesuit High School‘Wherever I looked, I could see witnesses to the faith’Diego Mejia, a Jesuit senior and president of peer ministry, told CNA before arriving at the school, despite being introduced to the faith by his parents at a young age, he did not consider himself Catholic and had “no understanding” of the Catholic faith. 
That said, Mejia said he had always been inspired by people who gave themselves entirely to their causes, whether it be a doctor fighting to cure diseases, or an environmentalist fighting for what he or she believed in. He says he found many such people at Jesuit, giving themselves wholly over to their belief in Christ. 
“Jesuit did everything for me with bringing me back to the faith, which my parents had introduced me to when I was in elementary school, but which I had strayed away from when I was in middle school,” Mejia said. 
“I saw people just wholeheartedly giving themselves over to this faith that they had found and to the life that the faith proposes for them.”

Jesuit High School students en route to Mass of the Holy Spirit on Sept. 1, 2023. Credit: Jesuit High SchoolAt Jesuit, groups of eight to 10 students convene regularly during lunch periods to discuss their faith, engaging in vulnerable conversations about their struggles and sharing wisdom and counsel with each other. 
Mejia said the school’s peer ministry groups were a key factor in his eventual intellectual embrace of the faith — complimenting what he was learning in theology class — as well as the fostering of an environment where he felt supported in his faith by his peers. 
“Discipleship created this environment for me where I’d come in during lunch with my friends and we just have conversations. And simply by reflecting on where we stood in our own faiths and hearing testimonies from one another, and then also in discussing different topics and different things related to the faith, I was able to really grow in my own faith,” he explained. 
“And I was able to take what I learned in my theology class and bring it then into my heart … Wherever I looked, I could see witnesses to the faith. And these witnesses inspired me.”
Jake Killian, a fellow senior and student body president, told CNA that despite being raised Catholic, his faith was more of a “Sunday thing” than an integral part of his life. But arriving at Jesuit changed his outlook.
“Once I got to Jesuit, it turned from a once a week thing on Sunday to a true, actual relationship,” he said.
“I learned so many different ways to pray, and one of my favorite ones was probably Liturgy of the Hours … so many opportunities on campus to be formed.”

Jesuit High School students walking in front of the new Antinori Center for the Arts on campus. Credit: Jesuit High SchoolKillian said one of the reasons for this was simply the emphasis that the school puts on faith formation. He, too, spoke about how the yearly retreats have impacted him, mentioning the seriousness with which the retreats are treated, as a special and privileged time to build friendships and deepen faith. 
“It’s pretty hard to ‘miss’ the faith. Our chapel is literally right in the middle of campus, and it’s an incredible environment … [but] it’s not forced on kids. I feel like you’ve got to buy into it, but with the culture on campus, it’s kind of hard not to,” he said. 
The 17-year-old Killian said at this time in his life, he wants to go to college, possibly to play soccer. He said he has come to understand the importance of finding and joining a Catholic community in college, in order to not lose what he has cultivated at Jesuit. 
“The thing I hear a lot is that if you’re able to make it to Mass the first week [of college], that’s a huge first step, because usually when kids don’t make it to Mass their first week in college, they don’t really find a time to go, ever,” he said. 
Mejia said he is still discerning his next steps, mulling over religious vocations as well as various options for college. He says he’s seen firsthand at Jesuit how important brotherly accountability is to maintaining the faith and plans to continue seeking out that accountability while in college and beyond. 
“I myself and many of my friends have learned that if we’re going to continue our faith in college and thereafter, we’ll have to find other like-minded people with whom we can pursue our faith … [and] I’ll have to continue growing my intellect, and my understanding of the faith and reasoning at every step of the way so that I can continue on believing and adhering to the doctrine which our faith lays out.”
Mitchell commented that forming the young men to be strong in their faith after they leave Jesuit and enter the wider community is a major focus.
“Even young people are coming from rock-solid Catholic homes, devout parents, great parishes — if at a certain point they don’t start to see the faith lived out in really cool and attractive ways, especially by their friends, it’s really challenging for them to stay committed to that faith in college and beyond,” he noted.
Hermes further confirmed that teaching the students how to live as solid Catholic men in a collegiate atmosphere is an “important part of our mission.” Amid what Hermes sees as a scourge among young people comprising “a general collapse of faith, the affliction of pornography, mental anxiety, mental depression, mental health issues,” Hermes said the school takes care to attend to the students’ mental health along with their spiritual health. And the results have been positive. 
“We’re seeing more and more of these guys becoming leaders in the Church, whether in college, during their college years, or beyond. They’re making a real impact on the Church,” Hermes said. 
“They’re leaving here with a mentality of being at the service of the Church, and [their faith’s] not just dying here after they get the diploma.”
‘Unapologetic and uncompromising’Perhaps surprisingly, although there will always be a few students who don’t ultimately embrace the faith, most of the young men who come into the school as non-Catholics “don’t really come fighting the faith too much,” Hermes said. 
“Most of our students come here either without any knowledge of the faith or without any experience of it, and relatively little practice of it,” he explained. 
“So just introducing them to God and to the Catholic Church, to the Lord Jesus, to the sacraments, to Sunday Mass, confession, Eucharistic adoration, that’s obviously a challenge both in the theology classroom and then in retreats and campus ministry.”

Jesuit High School musicians and choir at the Mass of the Holy Spirit on Sept. 1, 2023. Credit: Jesuit High SchoolThe school features a “rock-solid theology department” that aims to provide truth combined with “unapologetic and uncompromising” love, Mitchell said. Teachers at the school can and do set an example of true devotion, Mitchell said, spending time on their knees at the adoration chapel, modeling prayer and faith for the young men. 
“The deeper [the teachers’] interior lives run … the more the pursuit of holiness is sort of normalized … the more accessible it seems to everybody, you know?” he said. 
Mitchell said he has heard about other schools starting RCIA programs and hiring full-time campus ministers, seeking to replicate Jesuit’s success. But Mitchell said it is vital to recognize that conversions and deepening of faith are really the Lord’s work — it’s always at his initiative that a person comes to believe. 
The students at Jesuit appear to have bought into the idea of cooperating with God’s plan to bring more people into the Church. 
“There’s a desire, I think, among many of our student leaders in this particular senior class to use their platform, if you want to call it that, to use their influence, to use their leadership ultimately for God’s glory and for the salvation of souls,” Mitchell said.

​

Susan Klemond InterviewsSeptember 21, 2022Patrick Cross has gained momentum in recent years with cartoons illustrating his love of country, but he’s setting aside cartooning for his first love, Christ, as he discerns priesthood with a community of Norbertine Fathers in Southern California.
For the past seven years, Cross’ cartoons, which are political, reverent, humorous — and sometimes all of the above — have appeared in publications including the Register, National Review, Catholic Vote and TheCollegeFix.com, and on social media.
Cross, 30, grew up with his four siblings in a devout Catholic home-schooling family in Ohio and Massachusetts. He attended Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California, where he met Norbertine Fathers from St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. In August, Cross entered the abbey as a postulant.
In this interview with the Register, he talks about responding to a religious call that has meant putting his political cartoons on hold, but not his love of America and drawing.


Can you share about how you developed your interest in drawing?
I was about 5 or 6. My mom went to art school, so she showed me some tricks of the trade, and I was always much better at drawing than reading or writing. I did a lot of it as a boy. I would look at the encyclopedia pictures, and my brother would actually read the encyclopedia. He was the smart one. I was the one who drew pictures.


I read that, early on, you copied sacred artworks and also read the Far Side cartoons. What appealed to you in those very different art forms?
I loved sacred art, especially in high school, and I would definitely copy it. I had a book of Michelangelo, and I would copy the Sistine Chapel particularly. And definitely I loved the Far Side, and I loved Calvin and Hobbes. I still love both of them.
The best art, in my opinion, is generally sacred art. If you want to learn the anatomy, you have to look at and copy the greats. In my cartoons, I try to make them pleasing to look at. Sometimes they were good, and sometimes they weren’t. I hope I got better as time went on. Cartoons, they’re supposed to be kind of ridiculous, but you also want people to actually want to look at them.


How did your family’s faith life inspire your interest in sacred art?
The Catholic faith was always the center of our household growing up. My parents always taught us that your first duty is to worship God. When you have parents who live the faith genuinely, that just bleeds into, hopefully, the life of the family. I think it’s just kind of natural for somebody who’s interested in art, who’s in a good Catholic family, to really want to express the truths of the faith through the gifts God gave them — which, for me, was art.


How did you move from doing sacred art into drawing politically related cartoons?
I do think that the welfare of the country is intimately tied to the welfare of the Church. Obviously, the Church is the most important, and it’s what will endure. The United States will come and go. I think very much because of the piety that my parents instilled in me, and I still have for the country, I think the Church teaches you to love where God has put you. [Cross referenced Jeremiah 29:7.] We’re all pilgrims, and God has sent us into this land. We’re all trying to get home, but he wants us to pray for the welfare of the land he sent us to, and he sent us to America.
My parents, especially towards the end of high school and while I was in college, said, “You should do some political cartoons.” I really didn’t do many cartoons in college. I had started following one political cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, and I was able to meet him at the end of college. I saw what he did, and I thought, “Wow, this is amazing.”
After that, I graduated from college, and I started a blog. I think the first place that really started regularly taking my cartoons was Catholic Vote. After that, it was just a slow process of developing relationships with editors.


Has it sometimes been necessary to criticize the country you love?
I think Christian love speaks truth always. I can’t put it into words how much I love this country, but when things happen in the country that are clearly bad, I think it is incumbent on somebody who loves that country to tell the country that or to speak to it. Especially, for example, with the “LGBTQ” issues or “gay marriage” or abortion, you want to direct your country in a Godly manner. That’s part of love.


What have you most enjoyed about political cartooning, and how do think you’ve made a difference?
Drawing a great political cartoon when you know you have something good, and it resonates.
When it does really well and “catches fire,” that’s exciting, obviously. When you communicate a truth you don’t think has been communicated any other way because images are different than words, that’s exciting.
When I decided to enter religious life, lots of people reached out and told me they loved my work. I think it made a difference. I hope my cartoons communicate truth; that’s the most important thing, and I think they did that — [though] imperfectly.
I wanted people to not be discouraged. I think [Christians] feel like they’re alone, and seeing a cartoon that says the things that you know are true, but you don’t see other people saying, it makes you realize you can still see truth and “I’m not alone.”


Can you give an example?
A cartoon on marriage published in the Register in July shows an image of a jet plane with wings on either side of the body labeled “man” and “woman.” A second image shows a plane with its two wings on the same side of the body, which are both labeled “man.”
That cartoon was picked up online, and it went viral because someone with a big following who didn’t like it posted it on Twitter. It made people very, very angry because, right now, the whole issue of gay marriage is kind of a third rail [avoided topic], even in conservative circles.
There was a lot of pushback, but you know you’re speaking the truth when people go after you.


When did you start sensing you might be called to priesthood?
A priest friend, my spiritual director, started encouraging me to consider it in 2019. I didn’t think when I was 5 years old, “I want to be a priest.” It wasn’t like that. I started looking in different places, and I dragged my feet because it’s hard to decide to enter formation.


What made you consider religious life with the Norbertine Fathers?
I looked [for] the support of a community religious life, the idea of living in community, experiencing the common good of that community and worshipping Christ together.
For me, I really look to the community life. [Some of the Norbertines] from St. Michael’s Abbey are priests who run parishes or teach, but the focus and the center of life is liturgy.
I knew about [the Norbertines] well before I was seriously considering them, by reputation through [Father Hildebrand Garceau, chaplain at Thomas Aquinas College while Cross was a student, and Father Sebastian Walsh, both alumni of the college]. Then one of my very good college friends entered about a year after graduation. I would visit him and St. Michael’s Abbey.
There’s an incredibly strong community life here, based on prayer and liturgy. They do the Liturgy of the Hours; they say a beautiful Mass. There’s just so much beauty in the life that’s lived here and just the witness of the priests and the men in formation. I visited other orders, as well.


What are your hopes for priestly ministry, if you are ultimately called to it? Do you think you will have opportunities to draw?
I don’t think I’ve drawn my last cartoon. I’m taking a break from it in its current form. The main thing, of course, is just learning to bring the sacraments to the faithful. That’s huge. And communicating the truths of the Church in a way that is helpful.
It’s definitely hard letting go in the current way I was using those skills, to do several cartoons a week. I don’t know what future cartoons would be like, but I suspect I’ll probably do more in the future. It could definitely be different, but I think if God wants it to happen, it will.


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

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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."

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Straight from the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding angels:
 
326 ... Finally, "heaven" refers to the saints and the "place" of the spiritual creatures, the angels, who surround God.186
 
 
I. THE ANGELS
The existence of angels - a truth of faith
328 The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "angels" is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.
 
Who are they?
329 St. Augustine says: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel.'"188 With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God. Because they "always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven" they are the "mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word".189
330 As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.190
 
Christ "with all his angels"
331 Christ is the center of the angelic world. They are his angels: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him. . "191 They belong to him because they were created through and for him: "for in him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through him and for him."192 They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?"193
332 Angels have been present since creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham's hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples.194 Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself.195
333 From the Incarnation to the Ascension, the life of the Word incarnate is surrounded by the adoration and service of angels. When God "brings the firstborn into the world, he says: 'Let all God's angels worship him.'"196 Their song of praise at the birth of Christ has not ceased resounding in the Church's praise: "Glory to God in the highest!"197 They protect Jesus in his infancy, serve him in the desert, strengthen him in his agony in the garden, when he could have been saved by them from the hands of his enemies as Israel had been.198 Again, it is the angels who "evangelize" by proclaiming the Good News of Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection.199 They will be present at Christ's return, which they will announce, to serve at his judgement.200
 
The angels in the life of the Church
334 In the meantime, the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels.201
335 In her liturgy, the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli. . .["May the angels lead you into Paradise. . ."]). Moreover, in the "Cherubic Hymn" of the Byzantine Liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, and the guardian angels).
336 From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession.202 "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life."203 Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.
IN BRIEF
350 Angels are spiritual creatures who glorify God without ceasing and who serve his saving plans for other creatures: "The angels work together for the benefit of us all" (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 114, 3, ad 3).
351 The angels surround Christ their Lord. They serve him especially in the accomplishment of his saving mission to men.
352 The Church venerates the angels who help her on her earthly pilgrimage and protect every human being.
 
188 St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 103,1,15: PL 37,1348.
189 Mt 18:10; Ps 103:20.
190 Cf. Pius XII, Humani generis: DS 3891; Lk 20:36; Dan 10:9-12.
191 Mt 25:31.
192 Col 1:16.
193 Heb 1:14.
194 Cf. Job 38:7 (where angels are called "sons of God"); Gen 3:24; 19; 21:17; 22:11; Acts 7:53; Ex 23:20-23; Judg 13; 6:11-24; Isa 6:6; 1 Kings 19:5.
195 Cf. Lk 1:11,26.
196 Heb 1:6.
197 Lk 2:14.
198 Cf. Mt 1:20; 2:13,19; 4:11; 26:53; Mk 1:13; Lk 22:43; 2 Macc 10:29-30; 11:8.
199 Cf. Lk 2:8-14; Mk 16:5-7.
200 Cf. Acts 1:10-11; Mt 13:41; 24:31; Lk 12:8-9.
201 Cf. Acts 5:18-20; 8:26-29; 10:3-8; 12:6-11; 27:23-25.
202 Cf. Mt 18:10; Lk 16:22; Ps 34:7; 91:10-13; Job 33:23-24; Zech 1:12; Tob 12:12.
203 St. Basil, Adv. Eunomium III, I: PG 29,656B.



+JMJ+
SUNDAY BIBLICAL MASS READINGS AND QUESTIONS
for Self-Reflection, Couples or Family Discussion
25th  Sunday of Ordinary Time – Sunday, September 24, 2023
The First Reading - Isaiah 55:6-9
Seek the LORD while he may be found, call him while he is near. Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked his thoughts; let him turn to the LORD for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.
Reflection
Sometimes this passage has been used to justify a distorted fideism (an overemphasis on faith that ignores reason and logic).  The fideist says: “Why try to understand God and his ways?  He’s incomprehensible.  We should just accept everything on faith.” It’s true that understanding God poses difficulties, and that ultimately He is beyond what we can grasp with our rational faculties.  However, the incomprehensibility of God, ironically, makes sense.  We would not expect finite creatures to be able completely to comprehend an infinite, all-powerful, and all-wise being.  If God is really who and what we believe Him to be, we would expect there to be a cognitive gap between His reality and our understanding of Him. Recognizing the gap between our understanding and the reality of God, the Church has nonetheless never advocated a dismissal of human reason from the life of faith.  It must always be “faith seeking understanding,” and St. John Paul II dedicated his famous encyclical Fides et Ratio precisely to this issue. However, Isaiah 55:6-9 is not primarily making a philosophical argument about the intelligibility of the divine essence or actions.  If we examine the context, we see that the discourse concerns God’s mercy toward the undeserving. Our Reading for today follows directly on that striking and beautiful passage in Isa 55:1-5, which promises a future experience in which the poor, hungry, and thirsty will be able to come to a free, divinely-provided banquet which will initiate them into the covenant God had made with David long ago.  It is in the context of forgiveness and mercy that our text says, “my thoughts are not your thoughts … my ways are above your ways.”
Adults - What helps you understand more about the Lord?
Teens - Why is it understandable that we would not fully understand God?
Kids - How can you grow in knowledge of God?
Responsorial- Psalm 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18
R.The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
Every day will I bless you,
and I will praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
The LORD is just in all his ways
and holy in all his works.
The LORD is near to all who call upon him,
to all who call upon him in truth.
R. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.
Reflection
First Reading and the Psalm are to concepts of covenant and covenantal faithfulness.  We saw how our First Reading, in context, follows closely upon an offer of a new, gracious, eternal covenant in Isaiah 55:1-3, in which the hesed or “covenantal love” of the Davidic covenant will be extended to all the poor who answer God’s call (Isa 55:3). Covenantal virtues of God are also extoled in Psalm 145, a Psalm that functions as a kind of preparation for the five “halleluiah” (Heb. “Praise” hallelu “the Lord” yah) Psalms with which the Psalter concludes.  So, by the time we reach Psalm 145, we are beginning to “wrap up” the book of Psalms by trying to take in the “big picture” of God in relationship to his people, and sum up the message of this entire collection of sacred poems.
 How has God been faithful in your life?
The Second Reading- Philippians 1:20C-24, 27A
Brothers and sisters: Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.  And I do not know which I shall choose.  I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better.  Yet that I remain in the flesh is more necessary for your benefit. Only, conduct yourselves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Reflection -    In a providential pun, St. Paul describes his life of ministry as “fruitful labor,” because he is, in a true sense, a faithful worker in the vineyard of the Lord, even one who has borne the heat of the day, although St. Paul would not be one to complain to receive the same “pay” as every other Christian.  In fact, he would rejoice if so many could share in the same “salary” from the Lord. All Paul wants is Christ.  To live is Christ, and to depart this life means to be with Christ.  So “it’s all good.”  He’s not looking forward to some kind of material benefit or carnal pleasure in heaven as a pay-off, a kind of eternal free ticket to the heavenly Disney World because he “put his time in the trenches.”  No, Paul just wants communion with Christ.  That is quite a contrast to the Gospel parable, where the workers don’t want a relationship with the vineyard owner, they want more pay.
 -Focus this week on putting the Lord first and letting all of your actions flow from that relationship.
The Holy Gospel according to Matthew 20:1-16A
Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you.  Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?  Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?  Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Reflection  The vineyard in this parable can be identified as “Israel,” based on Old Testament texts (Isa 5:1-7).  Jesus’ choice of twelve apostles makes clear that in his ministry he is establishing a New Israel, a new community of God’s people.  This community will consist as one people made up of both Jews and Gentiles (Matt 28:19; Eph 2:11-16).  This new community is the manifestation on earth of the Kingdom of God, and it is also the “vineyard” of this parable.  It comes to be called the ekklesia, the “gathering,” the Church. The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard comes immediately after Peter’s request to know what the reward for the apostles will be (Matt 19:27).  Thus, it can be interpreted as a warning against thinking of the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of personal reward: “What’s in it for me?” In the first sense, then, the vineyard is God’s Kingdom on earth, in our own age manifested as the Church.  The workers in the vineyard are those the Lord calls to assist him in his labors: the apostles first, but in later generations their successors and others who work to “cultivate” and care for God’s Kingdom.  A secondary application can be made to all Christians, for we are all called to care for and cultivate the Kingdom manifest as the Church, even if the only member of that body we ever are able to “help” or “cultivate” is our own self. The message of the parable then is clear: all who are called to work with the Lord to care for his Kingdom will receive the same reward: the “denarius” (“usual wage” in our Mass translation). The Fathers generally held that this “denarius” represents eternal life, the basic “pay” of all who heed the Master’s call to come into his vineyard.  All workers will receive this reward equally.
Adults - Do you operate with a “what’s in it for me?” mindset? How can you work against this?  
Teens - Are there things in your life causing you bitterness? Take them to the Lord in prayer.
Kids - What does it mean that God loves us all equally?
LIVING THE WORD OF GOD THIS WEEK!  - Looking back on our past life, how many years have we really given to God since we came to the use of reason? Those school years, the time spent learning a trade or profession, the weeks, months, years working in an office or factory or farm, the hours among the pots and pans in the kitchen — have we earned some credit in heaven for all of this, or is it all crossed off our pay sheet through lack of right intention or through sin?  If so, those years are lost to us. We were "idle" all that time. Today's parable, however, should give us new hope and courage. It may be the sixth or the ninth or even the eleventh hour of our life but we can still earn heaven if we listen to God's call and set to work diligently in His vineyard. If we put our conscience right with God today and resolve to be loyal to Him from now on He will be as generous to us, as the parable promises.  -Excerpted from The Sunday Readings by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.




572. Why is prayer a “battle”? c) because we deal with ourselves, our surroundings, and especially the devil
Prayer is a gift of grace but it always presupposes a determined response on our part because those who pray “battle” against themselves, their surroundings, and especially the Tempter who does all he can to turn them away from prayer. The battle of prayer is inseparable from progress in the spiritual life. We pray as we live because we live as we pray.


573. What are some objections to praying?  d) all of the above
Along with erroneous notions of prayer, many think they do not have the time to pray or that praying is useless. Those who pray can be discouraged in the face of difficulties and apparent lack of success. Humility, trust and perseverance are necessary to overcome these obstacles.


574. What are the difficulties in prayer?  a) being distracted
Distraction is a habitual difficulty in our prayer. It takes our attention away from God and can also reveal what we are attached to. Our heart therefore must humbly turn to the Lord. Prayer is often affected by dryness. Overcoming this difficulty allows us to cling to the Lord in faith, even without any feeling of consolation. Acedia is a form of spiritual laziness due to relaxed vigilance and a lack of custody of the heart.

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Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
 
      Almost all of us have set patterns or rituals we go through each day or each year.  We may not realize it, but this is very similar to Liturgy, what we do every Sunday as Roman Catholics.
 
      Many families have taken their summer vacations as they do every year.  I met a priest friend of mine, and he said he was getting a late start, but said that he wanted to do his spring cleaning like he does every year.  Whether we admit or not, like or not, we are creatures of habit and ritual, it is our nature, the way God designed us.  So Holy Mass every Sunday, further than being obligatory, is natural for us.  However, unlike family tradition or daily ritual which only accomplishes something for the day or time.  Holy Mass gives us what we need for a day and life, and further Holy Mass takes us to Calvary and the Last Supper, gives us Jesus fully since It is Him, and unites us to Heaven and all who love God.
 
    Keep your good family traditions and rituals, and strive to understand more the critical and natural liturgy of your life in THEE Liturgy of the Heaven and Earth which we call the Holy Mass!
 
Peace and prayers in Jesus through Mary, loved by Saint Joseph,
 
Father Robert
P.S.  This coming Sunday is Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time.  The readings can be found at:  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091723.cfm

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 liturgy
(Latin liturgia "public work",  Greek leitourgía "public service, public duty")
- official public worship of the Church
[In Christian tradition it means the participation of the People of God in "the work of God." –CCC 1069 In Scripture it refers to the religious duties to be performed by priests and levites in the Temple, especially those related to the Sacrifice; in Christian use among the Eastern Churches it means the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
In present day usage liturgy is the official public worship of the Church and is thus distinguished from private devotion. It is the special title of the Eucharist, and the administration of the sacraments with the annexed use of the sacramentals. Its function, therefore, is twofold: to give honor and praise to God, which is worship and our salvation, and to obtain blessings for the human race, which is sanctification.]

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Saint Michael Media – Overcoming the Darkness

http://www.theonetruefaith.tv/
 
Saint Michael's Media is a lay Catholic apostolate located in the Detroit area.  They are dedicated to the New Evangelization and spreading the truth of the Catholic faith via the medium of television, radio, the internet and other forms of modern mass media.

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First, tell me more about your tenure at St. Jerome’s and what you brought from that experience into your current position at the USCCB. 
I started as a teacher at St. Jerome’s, and when I became principal, the school — like many, many Catholic schools — was confronting declining enrollment and rising debt. The question of whether the school had a future was very much an open question. While we had a vibrant, growing parish community, most families were in home-schooling co-ops. When the Archdiocese of Washington called St. Jerome’s into a process called “consultation” — which is just what it sounds like: bringing the community together and consulting them on whether the school should remain — those folks came in large numbers, and they said, unequivocally, we would love to see a Catholic school here. We would support this. But we don’t like it in its current iteration, and we would invite the pastor and principal to reimagine it. 
So we spoke with folks, including Dr. Michael Hanby from the John Paul II Institute … and he wrote something of a manifesto on what Catholic education should look like, and I loved it. My pastor, Father James Stack, loved it. And so we said, “Let’s go for it.”
It was a moment of conversion for me; not so much a religious faith conversion — I’m a cradle Catholic and had an adult reconversion in my 20s, so I felt very firm in the faith — but I had no idea that Catholic education is, in its essence, a really distinct and different animal. Up to that point, my image of it was to take all the best practices of current education and add a robust faith-formation program and voilà, you have a good Catholic school. 
What I discovered, though, is that the philosophy that undergirds American education writ large is utterly antithetical to what the Church teaches. 
You think about your Deweys and other philosophers, 120 years ago now, who were atheists, who denied the presence of a Logos, let alone the recognition that that is Jesus Christ, and who thought that education should not be about asking the bigger questions, but should be a very transactional process of equipping students with the skills for the work force — period, end of story. 
So that was an eye-opener, and I began to see that the Church has a unique vision for Catholic schools. I’m happy to say that not only did St. Jerome’s not close, but today it’s thriving. We added a Montessori preschool, the student body this coming year will be over 500, and it’s just really doing super well. 
But when I left St. Jerome’s, I felt very much called by the Holy Spirit to bring this experience to others, this vision and this new way of seeing that I had been given. So I worked for the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education for two years and traveled all over the country. I talked to everyone, from bishops to superintendents to principals, teachers, parents, you name it, sharing this idea. 
And then five years ago, I came to work at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and my main work here is to provide staff support to the chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education and the bishops that comprise that committee. My current boss is Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington, a wonderful man with a tremendous vision, a love of truth, a lot of courage, and willing to stand up for Catholic schools, but especially for the truth.
You speak of being transformed in your understanding of what Catholic education is. Can you articulate that in greater detail? 
Catholic education starts with the recognition that Jesus Christ is Logos and that the entire creation is an ordered whole in him and through him. So all knowledge coheres in him. In other words, there isn’t a separation or division between my study of science or math and my pursuit of Jesus Christ himself. 
Although we understand theology to enjoy that status as “queen of the sciences,” what we have come to realize is that when you recognize Christ as Logos, then other things flow from that, too, like the proper understanding of the human person. You will not arrive at a proper Christian anthropology following what secular curricula or textbooks present because they’re not based properly in that. 
Catholic education is a formative process that seeks to do a couple of things: One is to nurture in young children the habits of the mind, already given by their Creator, that lead to lifelong learning and that also help children to grow to be the person God made them to be. So to wonder, and to love, and to choose, and to think, and to sort and classify — all of these things that are human faculties that need to be developed. 
The other piece is that Catholic education also needs to be concerned with the transmission of an entire culture and an entire way of seeing. And I do think that this kind of formation has to happen in order for the large, beautiful truths of the faith to really become embedded and then connected. 
We have a huge problem, obviously, with disaffiliation, and we know the Pew survey and the lack of belief in the Real Presence, and my sense about that is we have to care for the minds and the hearts and souls of children in such a way that they see a sacramental world, that they understand the world to be imbued with both natural and supernatural elements. And the problem, if we don’t do that, if we follow the more secular model — and remember, it’s authored by people who deny a Creator and transcendence — is that things are only true if they can be observed or measured. 
This creates a problem for kids because we’re always seeking harmony in our own minds. And if you think about what that must be like for a child, easily the thing to let go of is the one that doesn’t fit, which is the sacramental reality. So this is a focus for the Committee on Catholic Education and myself for the next couple of years.
Some would say there’s a big gap between that vision and the reality of what we find at many Catholic schools. How do we close that gap?
I think we, first of all, have to approach everything as the Lord reminds us to: Speak the truth, but do it in charity. And first, to love all that is already good in Catholic schools and Catholic education. There are wonderful, faithful, holy people [out there] working. 
I’m a perfect example of how this can kind of go wrong. … I went to the University of Maryland and got my bachelor’s in elementary education; and, unbeknownst to me, I was steeped and formed in a secular progressive ideology, which is very oriented to “doing” instead of “being” and this idea of education being broken down into a measurable checklist. You know, the idea that kids should be active all the time. … I remember that very well from my college years … no talking or drawing kids out; they have to have projects; the world will end if we don’t have dioramas and glue everywhere. 
So I didn’t know any better, and I think most people don’t. We have all been cut off to some degree from our own patrimony. 
There are a lot of superintendents and many bishops who are beginning to see this and are coming together — but this is an apostolic process more than it is an institutional one. And that means it’s relational and person-to-person.
Would you say this is among the highest priorities of the bishops right now, when it comes to education? And what are their current priorities?
I’ll distinguish this in a couple of ways. The bishops are almost all united in saying we want our schools to be faithful and robust and to produce young people who are alive in their faith. So I think they share that priority. This idea of examining for the first time — what is education? What is Catholic education? What does that mean for our curriculum and pedagogy? That’s a new thing. So, for me, it’s sort of taking an existing priority and finding a new way to think about it. 
Secondly, the bishops recently voted on reissuing a pastoral letter on serving people with disabilities and mental health issues. Catholic education will have an important role to play in that. We have to expand our capacity to receive and to form children who have diverse learning needs or intellectual disabilities. I see this very much as a post-Dobbs, pro-life impetus for us, and it’s of high importance. So in the coming year we’ll see a lot of working with some of the best experts on inclusion.
This seems like a no-brainer for Catholic schools, given their mission. And yet we seem to have lagged way behind in that.
It’s a cultural mindset that has to change for Catholic educators. I can remember very clearly, as a young teacher, we all had this idea that public schools handle those things because they have the resources and they are better equipped. Where I would now see that as flawed thinking is, first of all, it’s a flawed ideology of the human person — we have the true picture, so that positions us better; but also the reality and the growth in understanding of how to serve those kids has changed so much. You don’t need huge amounts of money to do this; you need people who have the will to do it. You certainly need some resources; I’m not going to say it’s without any cost, but there are lots of different innovative ways I’ve seen Catholic educators do it. It can be done. But it’s a mindset shift. There are growing numbers of organizations out there to support Catholic schools that want to do this. I’ll be looking forward to working on that project.
You’re always looking at the whole landscape, at trends, and trying to adjust to them. What are the successes you’re seeing right now?
I think a lot of it has to do with being willing to think and imagine Catholic education a little bit differently. One of my favorite books this year has been the University of Mary’s From Christendom to Apostolic Engagement, a fabulous book, and it really describes what the Church is living through. A hundred years ago, a bishop said, “We want to build a Catholic school in every parish”; and while they didn’t quite succeed in that, we certainly saw a huge system of schools. And now we’re seeing the decline. Every year. we lose schools; and we have lost something like 65% of enrollment from 1965 to now. 
What I think is successful are the people willing to reimagine this, such as micro-schools or smaller co-op schools; or in places like the Southwest, where there isn’t infrastructure, pastors who are willing to offer hybrids where kids can come to the parish and do some of their work online and then have a catechist present and an art and music teacher present, so there’s an attempt to give a robust experience. 
I think that’s going to be the way it goes in an apostolic age. It’s just too costly to do brick-and-mortar schools if you don’t have the infrastructure. And even if you do, trying to run them and keep them up can be challenging, so looking for those new innovative ways is key. 
I will also say that schools that have recognized, as St. Jerome’s did, that the Church has a beautiful vision and adopted it, those schools are thriving, and they’re growing. I think that’s a great success story. And I would also applaud the schools that are open and welcoming to kids with diverse learning needs and diverse intellectual abilities.
 
We’ve seen the studies and reports of how the pandemic has affected children. Where would you say we are right now post-pandemic in terms of Catholic students’ academic success and development?
I wholeheartedly concur that many of the measures in response to the pandemic have resulted in, really, almost trauma for children. There are emotional issues; there’s isolation, which has led to an increase in psychological disturbance. Suicide rates have gone through the roof. I think that’s a call for us, and particularly our government officials and health officials, to remember that the human person is more than just subject to disease. We have emotional, psychological and relational needs as well, and those cannot be ignored. 
In recent months, we have had the news about the National Assessment of Education Progress, the NAPE scores, which are often referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card”; and Catholic schools have consistently done better than their public-school counterparts on those NAPE scores, which indicates to us a couple of things. First, generally speaking, Catholic schools came back first, and earlier, in the pandemic; they simply had to, as we cannot function without having kids in person, and I like to say that's because we recognize education is incarnational and has to happen in the flesh. It’s relational. It’s the relationship between parent, teacher and student. And if we’re going to talk about essential functions, that is essential. 
So I think Catholic schools not having lost so much time; the fact that they have a sense for the essence and the importance of the mission produced a result where our schools have done better largely on the NAPE. But I still think we need to contend with what is really the essence of what we’re set out to do. 
Let’s talk about tech in the classroom. Clearly during the pandemic, it allowed for some level of connection and academic progress. But there’s a big question about how good it is for the long run. Also, the latest neuroscience shows that screen time and tech are bad for young minds. What is your understanding of the place of technology in the Catholic educational setting right now?
I think we’ve reached a point where we have to be willing to actually step back and evaluate its appropriate use, given that we need to be about the business of formation, forming the mind to think properly, to think well, and speak well, and all of those things. 
In the beginning, there was a sense of what a marvel it all was, all we could do. But what we have come to see — and I think we have to be honest about this — is that technology actually undermines the entire process of formation because we learn and we engage the world through our senses; to experience it ourselves is what gives it meaning. The screen adds a layer, and it’s often passive. 
There is a place, I think, for technology in the hands of teachers; say if a teacher wants to project for her class the disputation of the Holy Sacrament as a piece of art, they can do that; they can quickly bring that up. Or if they want to look at birds and to contrast a cardinal and an oriole, they can do that. So there’s some use to it in the hands of a teacher. But in the hands of students, I think it has mostly been a disaster for American education.


There has been a movement in recent years towards classical education and an interest in alternative ways of educating kids. How are you responding to this at the level of the bishops’ conference? Are there studies that help us understand these needs better, and how do you see this influencing Catholic education?
The ICLE [Institute for Classical Liberal Education] has done some studies and data collection on their member schools. Classical education has become a kind of shorthand for what is the larger understanding of what Catholic education is. There has always been a preference for “classical approaches” within that because they are time-tested and consistent with the way the human person learns. “Classical” has become kind of a buzzword. My sense is that we are often calling something classical when really what we’re talking about is the original formula of education, which is consistent with how humans have always learned and has formed the greatest saints and the greatest thinkers over time. … My concern is for us to rediscover the Church’s own vision; that’s what we want to encourage people to do.
Where do parents fit into how you envision Catholic education? And what are some of the ways parents and teachers can be allies in this model? 
First and foremost, the idea of the primacy of the parent as teacher, which comes to us from Church teaching, is a guiding principle. And one of the things that has happened in education in general — not just Catholic but public school — has been this big separation, where the school is its own entity and the school and the parents are two different things. 
Part of rediscovering our own vision and philosophy of what it means to educate is recognizing the importance of the life of the family in the school and the school in the life of the family. 
In a very policy-oriented way, one way we express this is in support for parental-choice laws that are growing across the states, which comes to us from Gravissimum Educationis [the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Christian Education], is that the state must provide the liberty of choice to parents. We support this fully, that families — not systems — should be funded. 
Within the setting of education itself, it really is about reimagining that partnership, really thinking about how to bring the two together. At St. Jerome’s, we wanted to bring parents in so we started doing family field trips where a parent might organize a trip to the U.S. Botanical Garden on a Saturday and invite everyone in the class to come. The idea was to develop fellowship together and take something from the curriculum and experience it together as families. That’s one concrete example, but we definitely need to rethink the partnership.


What do you do in your role at the bishops’ conference to make all this happen? 
A lot of it is relational. I’ll take calls from bishops, superintendents, etc. There’s a monthly superintendents’ gathering; I’ll be speaking to them in just a couple of weeks. I’ll be attending the Catholic Leaders Summit sponsored by the NCEA [National Catholic Educational Association] at the end of October. I am also looking at ways to offer support more concisely. I am involved with mission implementation and advocating for parental choice. My office also handles higher education, so facilitating relationships between bishops and university and college presidents is something we work on, along with campus ministry. We are also providing resources to schools for the Eucharistic Revival, and we will be working on the pastoral plan for serving students with disabilities. So this is a little bit of what’s in my orbit. 


What makes a Catholic school successful?
John Paul II talked about Catholic education’s mission to transmit a convincing and coherent vision of life contained in this understanding of truth, the kind of truth that liberates and the true meaning of human freedom. That concept of transmitting a vision is really important. Really, we want to draw [students] into a way of living, a vision of life, a Christian Catholic understanding of how to live your life that is convincing, that they will choose, that they have the opportunity to probe and question and kick the tires a little bit in school and find it to be a better way to live. That, to me, is ultimately what we would define as success in a Catholic school. 

​

Amid recent attacks against pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes by pro-abortion activists, one mother says she owes her life to one. 
Danielle Nicholson found herself in a crisis pregnancy when she was 20 years old and turned to the Paul Stefan Foundation in Locust Grove, Virginia, for aid. Welcomed with open arms by the founders of the center, Randy and Evelyn James, she is now the mother of a 9-year-old daughter and has made a career as a foster care social worker. She credits her success to the fresh start and help she received during her stay at the maternity home.
In an interview with EWTN Pro-Life Weekly on Sept. 15, she reflected: “At the time my situation was pretty dire in that I wasn’t working towards any future goals for myself. I wasn’t living a very good life. I was just trying to get by, but the moment I found out that I was pregnant completely changed the trajectory for my life.”
“I realized I now had a little baby that I needed to live for and so I immediately changed my mindset,” she said. 
Nicholson began living a sober life, went back to school, and started to organize her life so she could take care of her baby. During this time, she came across the Paul Stefan Home. During her five-year stay, the home provided her with “the most perfect opportunity to accomplish all the goals that I had for myself.”
Not only was she given resources to pursue a professional life but she was also shown love, which Nicholson says she was still very much in need of during that time.
“I still needed a lot of love and support from adults and parents myself,” she said. “Randy and Evelyn just immediately started to shower me with so much love and support, kindness, patience.”
“They taught me some really significant life lessons — what it meant to be a professional, what it meant to be respectful, what it meant to have integrity, what it meant to be ambitious,” Nicholson added. “And Evelyn taught me the best way to be the best mother. She walked me through every step of motherhood.”
In her work today as a foster care social worker, Nicholson strives to use her story to encourage others to overcome their struggles. 
“I try my very very best to make an impact on anyone’s life that I have to work with,” she said, “[some who have] experienced abuse, experienced trauma, experienced neglect, because my background has all of that and I made a way to get through it.”
Nicholson continued: “I just present it as it’s a process that requires a lot of dedication and work, but it is possible and if those people are willing to walk through that, I offer for myself to walk that through with them to support them.”
In light of recent attacks on pregnancy centers and maternity homes, Nicholson shared her heartfelt message about her experience with these resources for pregnant women.
“They’re completely voluntary. There is absolutely nothing about these places that mandate a woman to choose either way, regarding life for their baby, regarding adoption, regarding parenthood,” she explained. “It’s just a resource to give a woman the ability and the opportunity to just take a breath, to learn what her options are, what her resources are.”

“It’s completely conditional on what that woman wants for her life and for her baby and all women are met right where they’re at when they walk in the door regarding what they want for themselves, what they want for their babies.”
“Ultimately, these clinics and these resources are just an added layer of support to help a woman follow through with the choice that she’s made,” Nicholson concluded.
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THE THIRD COMMANDMENT OF GOD


Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested.  That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy. -Ex 20:8-11

The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath. Mk 2:27-28
 
1. Why are we commanded to keep Sunday as the Lord's Day?
The Church commands us to keep Sunday as the Lord's day, because on Sunday, the first day of the week, Christ rose from the dead, and on Sunday the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles.  (Saturday night is considered part of the Lord’s Day.)
Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week." Because it is the "first day," the day of Christ's Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the "eighth day" following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ's Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord's Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday.  (CCC 2174)
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. (Genesis 2:2)
 
2. Are the Sabbath day and the Sunday the same?
The Sabbath day and the Sunday are not the same. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week (Saturday), and is the day which was kept holy in the old law; the Sunday is the first day of the week, and is the day which is kept holy in the new law (because on it, Jesus rose from the dead).
Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God. For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done there prefigured some aspects of Christ:
Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is blessed by him and by his death. –St. Ignatius of Antioch (CCC 2175)
 
3. What is meant by the Old and New Law?
A. The Old Law means the law or religion given to the Jews; the New Law means the law or religion given to Christians.
 
4. Why does the Church command us to keep the Sunday holy instead of the Sabbath?
The Church commands us to keep the Sunday holy instead of the Sabbath because on Sunday Christ rose from the dead, and on Sunday He sent the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles.
 
5. Do we keep Sunday instead of Saturday holy for any other reason?
We keep Sunday instead of Saturday holy also to teach that the Old Law is not now binding upon us, but that we must keep the New Law, which takes its place and fulfills the Old Law.
 
6. What are we commanded by the third commandment?
By the third commandment we are commanded to worship God in a special manner on Sunday (by the Jewish reckoning, which Catholics follow, Saturday night is considered part of Sunday), the Lord's Day.  We are commanded to keep holy the Lord's Day and the holydays of obligation, on which we are to give our time to the service and worship of God.
‘The Sunday Eucharist (Holy Mass) is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor.  Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin (mortal sin).’  (CCC 2181)    
Keep you my sabbath; for it is holy unto you. (Exodus 31:14)




7. What are holy days of obligation?
Holydays of obligation are special feasts of the Church on which we are bound, under pain of mortal sin, to assist at the Mass and to keep from servile or bodily labors when it can be done without great loss or inconvenience. Whoever, on account of their circumstances, cannot give up work on holydays of obligation should make every effort to assist at Mass and if appropriate should also explain in confession the necessity of working on holydays.


8. How are we to worship God on Sunday (or Saturday night) and holy days of obligation?
We are to worship God on Sundays and holydays of obligation by assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by prayer, and by other good works.  (Holy Mass on a Saturday night is considered a Sunday.)
Tradition preserves the memory of an ever-timely exhortation: Come to Church early, approach the Lord, and confess your sins, repent in prayer. . . . Be present at the sacred and divine liturgy, conclude its prayer and do not leave before the dismissal. . . . We have often said: "This day is given to you for prayer and rest. This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." –Sermon on the Lord’s Day from the Early Church
 
9. How serious is it to deliberately miss the Holy Mass on a Sunday (Saturday night) or holy day of obligation through our own fault?
If committed freely with full consent of the will and with full knowledge of God’s command, to deliberately miss the Holy Mass on a Sunday (Saturday night) or holy day of obligation is a mortal sin, which means through this sin, one’s relationship with God is severed.  Sacramental Confession (Reconciliation) would then be the step to confess this sin and restore our relationship with God.
Any deliberately less contact with God than once a week in the Holy Mass causes our relationship with God to die on its own accord from lack of union with God in the intimacy of the Holy Mass.  Thus, sickness, care for children or the infirm, work scheduled for us by employers during Sunday Mass, distance from the offering of a Holy Mass, or the equivalent are factors beyond our control and thus are mitigating circumstances which keep this from being a mortal sin in one’s life.
 
10. What is forbidden by the third commandment of God?
The third Commandment forbids all unnecessary servile work and whatever else may hinder the due observance of the Lord's Day.
On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord's Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body. (CCC 2185; CIC, can. 1247)
Six days shall you do work; in the seventh day is the sabbath, the rest holy to the Lord. (Exodus 31:15)


Six days you may labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the seasons of plowing and harvesting you must rest. Exodus 34:21
 
11. What is servile work?  Servile work is that which requires labor of body rather than of mind.
 
12. From what do servile works derive their name?
Servile works derive their name from the fact that such works were formerly done by slaves. Therefore, reading, writing, studying and, in general, all works that slaves did not perform are not considered servile works.  God set Israel free from slavery in Egypt, and God has set us free from slavery to sin.
 
13. When is servile work allowed on Sunday?
Servile work is allowed on Sunday when the honor of God, our own need, or the good of our neighbor requires it.
 
14. Give some examples of when the honor of God, our own need, or the good of our neighbor may require servile works on Sunday.
The honor of God, our own need, or the good of our neighbor may require servile works on Sunday, in such cases as the preparation of a place for Holy Mass, the saving of property in storms or accidents, the cooking of meals and similar works.
 
15. Name some of the good works recommended for Sunday.
Some of the good works recommended for Sunday are: The reading of religious books or papers, teaching Catechism, bringing relief to the poor or sick, visiting the Blessed Sacrament, attending Vespers (Evening Prayers offered by Priests or Nuns), Rosary or other devotions in the Church; also attending the meetings of religious sodalities or societies.  It is not necessary to spend the whole Sunday in such good works, but we should give some time to them, that for the love of God we may do a little more than what is strictly commanded.
 
16. Is it forbidden, then, to seek any pleasure or enjoyment on Sunday?
It is not forbidden to seek lawful pleasure or enjoyment on Sunday, especially to those who are occupied during the week, for God did not intend the keeping of the Sunday to be a punishment, but a benefit to us. Therefore, after assisting at Holy Mass we may take such recreation as is necessary or useful for us; but we should avoid any vulgar, noisy or disgraceful amusements that turn the day of rest and prayer into a day of scandal and sin.
Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord's Day. Traditional activities (sport, restaurants, etc.), and social necessities (public services, etc.), require some people to work on Sundays, but everyone should still take care to set aside sufficient time for leisure. With temperance and charity the faithful will see to it that they avoid the excesses and violence sometimes associated with popular leisure activities. In spite of economic constraints, public authorities should ensure citizens a time intended for rest and divine worship. Employers have a similar obligation toward their employees. (CCC 2187)






 
+JMJ+
SUNDAY BIBLICAL MASS READINGS AND QUESTIONS
for Self-Reflection, Couples or Family Discussion
24th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Sunday, September 17, 2023

The First Reading - Sirach 27:30-28:7
Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. The vengeful will suffer the LORD’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail. Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven. Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD? Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins? If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins? Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin! Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor; remember the Most High’s covenant, and overlook faults.
Reflection
Today’s First Reading is itself a meditation on earlier Scriptures like Lev 19:17-18: “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him.  You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” Oftentimes we contrast the teaching of Jesus Christ with the instruction of Old Testament, especially on certain issues like marriage and divorce (cf. Deut 24:1-4; Matt 19:3-9).  Today’s Readings, however, stress the continuity of Jesus’ teaching with the early Scriptures.  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17). The “covenant” that Jesus ben Sira refers to here seems to be the Mosaic or Sinai covenant, which in its law included such commands as Lev 19:17-18 above.  Forgiveness and love toward the neighbor are not simply ethical counsels or a part of the natural law: they are a covenant obligation, part of one’s duty toward the God who has entered into a faithful, familial relationship with you.
Adults - Is forgiveness easy for you? How can prayer help you?
Teens - Do you pray for those who persecute you? Why is this something we are instructed to do?
Kids - Pray and ask Jesus to help you share His mercy with others.

Responsorial- Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12
R.The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
He will not always chide,
nor does he keep his wrath forever.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
Reflection
The Psalm calls to our mind the memory of God’s greatest revelation of himself in the Old Testament, his self-revelation to Moses, where God proclaimed his “Name” (Exod 33:19), that is, his true nature.  To our surprise, God chooses not to reveal his nature as power and majesty, but as “mercy and faithfulness.”  The common statement, “God’s greatest attribute is his mercy,” is a truth deeply rooted already in the Old Testament. What do you think of when you think of God’s mercy?
The Second Reading- Romans 14:7-9
Brothers and sisters: None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For this is why Christ died and came to life, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Reflection -    In the Second Reading St. Paul reminds us that we are completely given over to the Lord.  In light of the surrounding readings, we realize: if we have been totally assimilated to Jesus, such that our life is his life and our death is his death, what sense does it make to continue to hold onto unnecessary grudges about what others have done to us? Aren’t we living on a whole new plane, where the cycle of offense and revenge of our old life don’t make sense any more? -Is there something in your life you are struggling to give to the Lord?

The Holy Gospel according to Matthew 18:21-35
Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.  That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants.  When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.  Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
Reflection   Looking at the context of Matthew 18, we see that a few verses earlier, Jesus had conferred on his disciples a certain religious authority, the authority to “bind and loose,” to make solemn judgments on the application of divine law (halakhah).  The authority of the disciples to “bind and loose” also reminds us of the authority conferred after the resurrection, when Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:22-23).  The two passages seem to have an analogy to one another and may be mutually illuminating. Now Peter, the head of the apostles who will have the authority to forgive sin, approaches Jesus to question him about the freedom with which he should dispense forgiveness.  He thinks he is being generous: “Shall I forgive up to seven times?” Jesus responds, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.”  “Seventy times seven” is ten jubilees.  It is a Great Jubilee.  It is a number which symbolizes an abundance of all that the Jubilee stands for: release, forgiveness, restoration of relationships.  For many Jews, the Messiah was expected at the end of “seventy times seven” years, and then he would announce the Great Jubilee. Jesus is this Messiah.
Adults - How has God’s forgiveness changed your life?
Teens - How can you show God’s mercy that has been given to you, to others?
Kids - What helps you forgive someone?

LIVING THE WORD OF GOD THIS WEEK!  - We had better stop and think for a moment today and reflect that we ourselves may be that merciless servant described in the parable.  Every time we have sinned mortally we have incurred an unpayable debt to God.  Each time we have received absolution we have come out of God's courtroom as free men.  A weight greater than a million dollar debt has been lifted from our shoulders.  A fate worse than generations of earthly imprisonment — that is, eternal slavery — has been spared us because of God's loving, infinite mercy.  How then can it happen that we could be so heartless, mean, and foolish as to refuse to forgive a neighbor for some offense he has committed against us?  We still have time to put our affairs in order.  We still can forgive all our enemies from our heart.  Let us not miss the gift of this opportunity!





568. What is one example as an expression of the life of prayer?  b) meditation
Christian tradition has preserved three forms for expressing and living prayer: vocal prayer, meditation, and contemplative prayer. The feature common to all of them is the recollection of the heart.  


EXPRESSIONS OF PRAYER
569. How can vocal prayer be described?  d) all of the above
Vocal prayer associates the body with the interior prayer of the heart. Even the most interior prayer, however, cannot dispense with vocal prayer. In any case it must always spring from a personal faith. With the Our Father Jesus has taught us a perfect form of vocal prayer.


570. What is meditation?  c) that which engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire
Meditation is a prayerful reflection that begins above all in the Word of God in the Bible. Meditation engages thought, imagination, emotion and desire in order to deepen our faith, convert our heart and fortify our will to follow Christ. It is a first step toward the union of love with our Lord.


571. What is contemplative prayer?  a) simple gaze upon God in silence and love
Contemplative prayer is a simple gaze upon God in silence and love. It is a gift of God, a moment of pure faith during which the one praying seeks Christ, surrenders himself to the loving will of the Father, and places his being under the action of the Holy Spirit. Saint Teresa of Avila defines contemplative prayer as the intimate sharing of friendship, “in which time is frequently taken to be alone with God who we know loves us.”