“It is the great Christian mystery of the divinity that is within humanity….a seat of hope in the future after death…There is a second dimension of the Holy Week and it is the liturgical dimension. So these ceremonies have great wealth from the point of view of culture because its the sedimentation of the Great Quest.” ~Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (President, Pontifical Council for Culture)
Author: Melissa Moody
Pope turns 84
Happy Birthday Pope Benedict XVI. We are so lucky to have you you!
Carrying your cross
“Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don’t agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ”— C.S. Lewis (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer)
What matters most is that you develop your personal relationship with God
Evening Prayer
Someone has said that if Christians really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Did you know that during WWII there was an adviser to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every day at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England, its people and peace? There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America.
If you would like to participate: Every evening at 9:00pm Eastern Time (8:00pm Central) (7:00 pm Mountain) (6:00pm Pacific), stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens, and for a return to a Godly nation. If you know anyone else who would like to participate, please pass this along. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.
Tale of two horses
There is a place in the countryside with a field that has two horses. From a distance, each horse looks like any other horse. But if you stop your car, or are walking by, you will notice something quite amazing….Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him.
This alone is amazing. If you stand nearby and listen, you will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, you will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field. Attached to the horse’s halter is a small bell. It lets the blind friend know where the other horse is, so he can follow. As you stand and watch these two friends, You’ll see that the horse with the bell is always checking on the blind horse, And that the blind horse will listen for the bell and then slowly walk to where the other horse is, Trusting that he will not be led astray.
When the horse with the bell returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, It stops occasionally and looks back, making sure that the blind friend isn’t too far behind to hear the bell.
Like the owners of these two horses,
God does not throw us away just because we are not perfect
Or because we have problems or challenges.
He watches over us and even brings others into our lives
To help us when we are in need..
Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by the little ringing bell of those who God places in our lives. Other times we are the guide horse, helping others to find their way…. Good friends are like that… You may not always see them, but you know they are always there.
And remember…
Be kinder than necessary-
Everyone you meet is fighting
Some kind of battle.
Live simply,
Love generously,
Care deeply,
Speak kindly……
Leave the rest to God
Psalm 139
God created us for resurrection and life
excerpt from Father Farfaglia’s Homily …
With Jesus, we know that we are journeying, not to the sunset, but to the sunrise. We enter into a new relationship with God when we really believe that God is as Jesus told us that he is. We become absolutely sure of his love. We become absolutely convinced that he is above all else a redeeming God. The fear of suffering and death vanishes, for suffering and death means going to the one God who is the awesome God of love. In reality, our life long journey is a journey to the eternal Easter in Heaven.
When we truly believe, we enter into a new relationship with life itself. When we make Jesus our way of life, life becomes new. Life is clad with a new loveliness, a new light and a new strength. When we embrace Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when we develop a personal relationship with him, we realize that life does not end, it changes and it goes from incompletion to completion, from imperfection to perfection, from time to eternity.
When we truly believe in Jesus, we are resurrected in this life because we are freed from the fear that is characteristic of a godless life; we are freed from the unhappiness of a life filled with sin; we are freed from the loneliness of a life without meaning. When we walk with Jesus and follow his way, life becomes so powerful that it cannot die but must find in death the transition to a higher life.
This is why we must never fear failure. At the beginning of every day, Jesus gives us a blank piece of paper to write out the history of another day. Nevertheless, we must always keep in mind that this life was never meant to be easy. Jesus gives meaning to our suffering and gives us the ability to carry our difficulties with patience, love, and joy. When we think that Jesus is far from us, it is then that he is always the closest. Let us recall that because of his deep love, the Lord wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Every time we suffer, he is able to understand our suffering and console us with his loving presence.
How to live Holiness according to John Paul II
Danielle Rose finds Truth in the Eurcharist
Danielle Rose was raised Catholic, but it wasn’t until college when she fell in love with her faith with the Catholic Church. “By the hands of Mary,” she says, “I was taught the truth of Christ and His presence in the Sacraments.”
There came a time in her life when she questioned, “Is it really true, that the Eucharist is really Jesus? If it is not just this nice symbol but if it really is Him, His Body and Blood that we receive at Mass, then I wouldn’t need anything else. I wouldn’t need to eat because if it really is Him, the God of the Universe, then that would be all I need. That’s it.”
She begged God for the gift of faith. But she didn’t really believe. “Because if I really believed then everything would change. If I really believed then everything in my life would change around the Truth,” she realized. She pleaded to know, was Jesus really in the Eucharist? She prayed, “Help me to believe, Lord.” She began to go to daily Mass, to receive His presence in the Eucharist everyday. She found herself drawn there.
Three years past of attending daily Mass culminated in the realization that God had given her the gift of Faith. She knew it was true, it was His body and blood in the Eucharist. But then what scared her more than not knowing the Truth was that she knew she would have to live her life to exemplify the Truth and live that. She felt deep terror because she had no excuse not to do His will and love each person that she met with His love.
She understood, “when we receive His presence there, the Body of Christ, we are members of the body of Christ and that’s a real living thing, we are made for heaven and when we come before the tabernacle, there’s that light there, because we keep vigil with the Lord, like He’s here. It’s such a mystery but He’s actually here. He is so humble that he chooses to be silent. He hides himself there and reveals Himself as much as we let Him.”
Once she graduated from Notre Dame and began a ministry as a music missionary, everywhere she went, she would meet these beautiful people and feel such love for them. She’d be so sad to leave them, not knowing if she’d see them again in this lifetime. She knew “we are made for heaven, we’re destined for that, and God is so gracious to us he doesn’t make us wait until then to be face to face with Him, receive Him, to know Him, and to be with each other. There’s not a separation, when we come to Mass and receive Him there, there’s a living glimpse, a moment that we are already united with Him… He feeds us. He makes his home us.”
Her song, See You In The Eucharist, attributes all that is true within the Eucharist. She explains it so eloquently. “When we come before a tabernacle all the souls of all people in the body of Christ are present there, all the souls who have gone before us that are in heaven, all the saints and angels, all of us now are present in the Body of Christ. Its this incredible mystery. When we go to Mass and receive the Eucharist, it is this incredible mind boggling thing, that not only does Jesus give us himself to us in the Eucharist, but that we receive each other, as members of his body, in the body of Christ, that we’re all there with Him.”
“I want the whole world to know that, it’s Him there in the Eucharist. That’s the most amazing gift that God has given us, that He didn’t just come 2000 years ago and leave and make us wait to be with Him. He lets us be with Him now, everyday as close as Mary, as close as the apostles. I wish every person in the world, every Christian would know this and we could all be united in Him and receive Him. That’s my prayer and that’s what I’ll be praying for my whole life.”
“Spending time with Him in the Eucharist, that’s how everything changed my life. He does speak to each one of us, He really does want to say something to you but we don’t believe that and so we don’t even go listen. If there’s anything I would want to say, ‘It’s to know Him there.’ ”
Find Danielle Rose’s song, See you in the Eucharist, off her album Pursue Me on Itunes