Behind the scenes

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Regular readers will have noticed that this blog has been quiet for a few weeks. Sadly there is a very good reason for this : the last time I searched for a specific page our computer picked up a trojan. During the week I tried again at a safe location, and a message came up that ‘a nasty had been dealt with’. Having weeks ago alerted, via urgent email, the webmaster of Catholic Daily that there was a problem I have only been met with silence. So due to the danger to computers at home and where readers are, I will only be able to enter new posts when at a safe location like a public library – which doesn’t happen very often.

Over the 18 months that this blog has been going, the amount of spam has been time consuming. So it isn’t much of a surprise that something nastier got through, especially given the apparent ‘set it up and let it run’ philosophy of the webmaster.

On 15 April 2013 I plan to continue the same kind of blogging at a new site, which will be either www.societyofsaints.weebly.com or www.societyofsaints.net, (since I haven’t yet worked out which level of ‘bells and whistles’ will be needed).

As far as possible when time and safe computer locations permit, I will be attempting to copy across to the new site some of the blog-posts which readers think are worth preserving. Please tell me the titles and/or dates of those blog-posts in the comment-box here, or at the comment box and contact us page at the new site, and I’ll get them copied across.

May St Francis of Assisi and all of the holy blog patrons of this blog continue to intercede for all of it’s readers and for God’s blessings upon the continuation at the new site.

Thinking about the New Evangelisation

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Every so often ideas will come while the ironing is getting done. This is one of them which deals with the New Evangelisation. Perhaps if it has merit someone will take it up and run with it. However it will take many paragraphs to explain, so if it takes a long time to get to the point, please be patient …

As regular readers would know our study group www.ofgraceandfaith.blogspot.com is going through part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church each week, and are currently towards the end of the part on the Sacraments. At night we are also reading out a bit of the Catechism, and have recently started the part which will lead to the teaching on the 10 Commandments. Recently we read the portion on what Christian freedom really is. So many people have a false idea about what freedom truly is, and it is one of those topics that lends itself well to creative expression.

At this point a few nebulous thoughts started to come together. The time is approaching when our youngster will need more faith interaction with his peers, and the local youth group from reports is in decline. Whether the current crop are good role models is up for discussion, because the last time I was at the 6pm Sunday Mass some of the girls showed how lacking they were in their understanding of what goes on in the Eucharist – else there would not have been chatting and texting going on. So having lived through some poor excuses for youth groups in my day – what would be worthwhile? Obviously the need to engage with the Catechism, and to actually learn what the Church teaches was uppermost in mind, together with prayer.

If you have had a look at the study group blog site, you will have seen some of the artwork produced from prayerful reading of the Catechism. It has certainly made the rest of us stop and truly think about aspects of the Catechism’s teachings that we often pass over too lightly. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get a whole bunch of creatively talented people together engaging with the same portion of the Catechism and presenting the insights they have gained through their own chosen creative medium to the others! What a lot we would learn from each other, and what a lot of fun it would be!

Every so often the average parish puts out a questionnaire asking its members to tick the boxes on what kinds of gifts, talents and experience they have to contribute. People fill them out and those questionnaires often languish in a file somewhere because there isn’t sufficient imagination around to work out how those gifts, talents and experience could be best used in the service of the Gospel. What a waste! Unless you are interested in those hard-to-fill liturgical ministries or willing to give being a catechist or catechist-helper in the state schools your questionnaire probably never gets followed up.

The understanding which has come from experiencing the work of our study group artist, is that the creative talents have been given by God to people primarily for the spread of the Gospel, and that those creative talents are essential for getting the Good News of the teachings of the Apostles out to our modern world in a way that appeals to the un-churched of our day.

So what’s the vision?

To get the range of creative talent required is probably beyond a single parish, but not beyond a deanery (sub-group of a handful of parishes in a diocese). It would lend itself easily to being a monthly event from Feb – Nov which visits a different parish in the deanery each month. At each location a hall, or preferably a hall with a stage, and several meeting rooms would need to be made available. An easiIy updated website, one which multiple users can upload material to, and which can upload the full range of media types (audio, video, podcast, text, visual, animation etc) would need to be set up. To this website each monthly meeting day a new page of input would be added, containing not only the chosen Catechism text, but also all the footnoted texts (excerpts from Biblical texts, Church Council documents, Papal documents, Saint’s writings etc). These days sufficient people are carrying smart phones with internet access, which means that the creatives who come will have all the textual inspiration at their fingertips.

Not only the creatives are needed, but also all those with intercessory gifts – or who are at least willing to pray and intercede – and those with gifts of hospitality.

All would gather together to begin with – probably on a Sunday afternoon for 2.5 hours. In the first half hour, everyone prays together, the portion of the Catechism is read out, and the groups are organised. Then for the next hour the intercessors pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire the creatives as they work; those with hospitality keep the cappuccinos, biscuits and encouragement flowing; and the creatives join their own groups. Musicians go in one direction. Actors and script writers go in another direction to work on skits etc. Artists bring their own gear and set up in a well ventilated area away from the wind. Dancers find a spot to work in. All of the poets, bloggers, comedians and other text writers are allocated a place with good wi-fi to work in. Sound technicians and those with stage lighting skills wander from group to group getting a handle on what the production needs are. Computer geeks are on hand to scan artwork and input links from creative’s websites to the official websites. Photographers take photographs of artwork and performances to upload to the official website. Video-graphers capture the musicians and drama workers results for upload to YouTube and back-link to the official website. When the creative hour is over, everyone gathers for the presentations, which become in effect a holy talent show. Priests would need to be available to give the yeah or nay as to whether the creative caught the essence of the Church’s teaching or not – only the yeahs get uploaded – and what we most need, for the priests to give everyone God’s blessing at the end.

And the blessings? Our creatives get to experience what being inspired by the Holy Spirit is like, with all those people praying for them. They get to work with others who have been given similar giftings, which is so important for both the younger creatives and for the older ones to act as mentors. They get to showcase their work. (If you’ve seen a photographer in action and the results, you are far more likely to hire him or her for your daughter’s wedding) They get to use their God-given talents to promote the Gospel to those gathered on the day and to all who will access the website. Everyone gets to know each other better and to work together for a common godly cause, and to appreciate each others talents. Of the variety of creative mediums on the day, if one doesn’t touch your heart with God’s grace-filled message, another will. Over a period of a year or so, an excellent bank of catechetical material will grow and become a major resource for the New Evangelisation – let alone how many people will be inspired to live out the Faith they profess more fully.

Each creative group would need a leader / co-ordinator, and there would have to be a planning meeting prior to each one. Ditto for the intercessors and hospitality groups.

I’d like to think that it if these ideas ever became reality that such an afternoon would quickly become the most anticipated deanery event of the month.

Into your hands and heart, Our Lady Help of Christians, and Mother of the New Evangelisation, these ideas and this vision is entrusted; knowing that all things are possible when you intercede for us before the Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

 

What do you look for in a candidate for the papacy?

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I’m sure that this question has been running around your thoughts, just as it has mine. That the good Lord has a specific Cardinal in mind is certain. Our job is to pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit upon the Cardinal-electors, that they may easily discern God’s choice. So let’s run through a list of the qualities that a good Pope needs….

Firstly, let us look at what Jesus saw in St Peter that set him apart for leadership among the Apostles.

Sincerity is what St Peter had in spades, and it is an essential virtue in any candidate. No one wants a candidate known for duplicity. Of all qualities, this is the most important one of all.

St Peter was someone to whom God the Father had revealed the divinity of His Son Jesus. So a profound experience in prayer of God’s self revelation is really important. We need someone who is absolutely convinced of the reality of God and of the incarnation of Jesus.

What else did St Peter have? He had enormous love for Jesus. In answer to the question of Jesus, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these others do?’ he responded, ‘Yes Lord, you know I love You.’

Private revelation indicates that St Peter also had a very strong, loving filial relationship with the Mother of Jesus. Of all the magificent Popes we have been blessed with in living memory, all of them – without exception – had ardent, conspicuous devotion to Our Lady. You could draw a very strong correlation between the long term benefits resulting from their papacy and their degree of love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In St Peter we also see someone willing to change his mind to conform to the mind of God. He struggled, but he got there in the end with God’s declaration that all foods were clean and in the acceptance of Gentiles into the People of God and in the removal of the circumcision requirement. It takes humility to be able to be shown where you haven’t fully embraced the Truth.

Secondly let us look at the qualities a Pope in our era needs for the times we live in.

We need someone who is a master, and not a slave, of the various forms of information technology and who is familiar with spreading the Gospel through the mass media.

We need someone who can take forward the vision of Blessed John Paul the Great and Benedict XVI for World Youth Day, and who can continue this Grace for your young people.

We need someone who can speak several languages fluently, and who won’t often need a translator.

We need someone who has a gift of discernment, of being able to quickly tell whether an idea comes from God, from man or from the evil one ; a gift of discernment which also enables him to recognise God’s choices for various Curial and other appointments.

We need someone who has a track record of calling forth the gifts of others for the service of God in the Church, and consequently a good judge of character. Is his home archdiocese humming with initiatives, begun in the last five years, which are successfully bringing people back to God and which are inspiring vocations?

Is his daily prayer life solid, and more necessary to him than breathing?

Does he have unshakeable trust in God, and in His Mercy?

Is he someone that the other cardinals will happily swear obedience to, and mean it? This means that he needs to have what it takes to win, and keep, the respect of others.

Does he have a track record of obedience to the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church? Since only those can truly lead who fully know what it is like to be led.

Does he have the charism of teaching, of being exceptionably able to help others come to love and to understand the fullness of the truth?

O Jesus, Divine Mercy, we trust in You that there is such a candidate for the papacy whom You have been preparing for this heavy burden of service to God’s people. Please grant your Graces enabling the cardinal electors to discover who he is, and enabling Your chosen Cardinal to say ‘Yes’ to this supreme calling.

St Peter, all the holy Apostles, and all the holy successors of St Peter, please pray for the man upon whom God’s choice falls in this conclave, and for all the cardinal-electors. Amen.

Prayer for the election of a new Pope

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Heavenly Father, We, the People of God, gathered in solidarity as did the disciples in the Upper Room, pray for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the cardinals who will be in conclave for the election of the next Vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ. May the hearts of our cardinals be open to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, beyond any human judgment, to elect the candidate most pleasing to You, Heavenly Father, and who will guide the Church at this momentous time in history at the beginning of the Third Millennium.

We invoke our Mother Mary, united in prayer with the disciples in the Upper Room, to intercede for our cardinals to select the next Holy Father in docility to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, her divine Spouse. Holy Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, we entrust this conclave to your maternal and Immaculate Heart, and offer these prayers for your guidance and protection over the choosing of the next Vicar of your Son:

1 Our Father
1 Hail Mary
1 Glory Be

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!

St Peter, and all the Holy Apostles and their Saintly successors, pray for us!

For a PDF of this prayer to print and distribute:

ConclavePDF

 

A moral dilemma

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Discussion at the Study Group (www.ofgraceandfaith.blogspot.com) steered wildly off topic - yet again. However by the depths of the discussion that took place, it seems to be a topic that touches the lives of everyone at one point or another. The question boils down to 1) How do you know that someone is genuinely in need? and 2) How do you know when you should start showing a needy person some tough love?

Our good God grants sunshine and rain to both good and bad alike, so great is His generosity. To imitate Him, we have to look at the need of the person and not their worthliness or unworthiness for being helped. We pray in the Fatima prayer, ‘bring all souls to heaven especially those who most need Your mercy’ and in St Faustina’s diary we read the message ‘the greater the misery of a soul,  the greater right the soul has to My mercy’. However most of us don’t have a heart that big.

Generally we know that someone is in need when they ask for assistance. It takes a lot of courage and humility for normal people to ask for help, so if they have got as far as asking then they are usually in dire straits. Also, sometimes the good Lord gives us the grace to notice the need before help is asked. What we all fear, of course, is that minority of the population for whom asking is easy, for whom it has become a game and a challenge to see how much they can get.

Discerning who these ones are is never easy. So if there is an element of forcefulness about the asking or a slight suspicion of a well rehearsed spiel it is worthwhile talking to the local aid agencies (St Vincent de Paul Society, Lifeline, the Salvation Army etc) to see if they have a background story. Most of these local aid agencies have well known times of day when hand outs are given, so if the requests are made outside those hours and from people who look like they know the welfare system inside out, there is a chance that there is an element of opportunism involved or they have blotted their copy books with those agencies.

According to family stories passed down from the Depression era, one of the family patriarchs had a simple but effective selection criteria for taking a needy person home: no whiff of alcohol, evidence of personal dignity in efforts made to keep their clothes and person clean, and evidence of a willingness to work hard. Such a person you could help and know that they would make the most of any aid you were able to give them.

The following case studies gave us lots of fuel for thought and discussion:

The first one was a man nudging 30 who needed a place to stay because he was estranged from his parents.Refusing to go to church with the woman giving him hospitality, he went to other churches mainly to check out the young women than to worship God. Quite happy he was to have meals, washing etc taken care of, but there was no effort put into giving back to the family looking after him with things like work around the house, or helping with the cooking etc. At one time, after much persuasion, contact was again made between the man and his parents – but he blew this opportunity by inviting them out to dinner to a place that he liked but which was totally unsuited to the health and physical needs of his ageing parents. Because they didn’t go to this dinner, the relationship fell apart again. With no efforts being made to get into a life sustaining career, something had to give else this young man was in danger of squandering the life and opportunities he had been blessed with. Tough love was called for, and the request to start getting his life moving in the right direction or to leave. Leave he did, and currently he still is treating women poorly, is still estranged from his parents and is still going nowhere fast. Pray for him.

Collectively we came to the conclusion that at the point that continued hospitality is having no positive effect, then it is time for tough love. At that point, the person who hasn’t used the opportunity given him for his betterment then begins to steal that opportunity from someone who would indeed benefit from it.

The other case study is even more worrying. Again it is a man, who has nothing, and who is estranged from the mother of his young children. However he claims to have this calling from God to preach to the nations. At the home of the woman who has generously taken him in, he comes and goes as he pleases : getting in late at night, creating messes in the kitchen and laundry and not cleaning them up. While he is well aware that there are sinful aspects to his life, there is currently no interest in eradicating them. Able to quote huge swathes of Scripture and to counter any scriptural message the home-maker might have received for him in prayer, he justifies himself saying that God loves him just as he is. While this has an element of truth, it is not the whole story. Anyone who genuinely loves another wants to see them to their best with the gifts and talents they have been granted. Of concern, if this call to preach is genuine, is the failure to work on bringing one of his non Christian buddies to faith in Jesus. Oblivious to the need of the home-maker for sleep, he’ll want to talk about God for hours in the middle of the night after having come home from visiting a girlfriend living some 80-100 kms away. As yet the generous home-maker hasn’t said, ‘Let’s stop talking and start praying’. That would be a good way to discern whether this man is being primarily influenced by the Spirit of God or the spirit of evil. He, too, has refused to attend the same church as the home-maker. After a few weeks of this, the time for tough love has arrived. If this wonderful woman can’t get him to start backing up all the talk with actions pleasing to God, then any further time in her household won’t help him and it is time for him to seek generosity somewhere else and for someone else to take his place, and time for her to entrust his future to God. For her the concern is that he has two paths in front of him, a hard one that leads to life and an easy one that leads to institutionalisation, substance abuse and an early grave. Please pray for this one, too, because he is most certainly in need of God’s mercy, particularly since such generosity and spiritual support seem to have failed to soften his heart.

May the good Lord grant that men like these may be transformed by His grace into true apostles of His mercy and living reminders of what the power of His grace can achieve.

Our Lady of Lourdes, please intercede for the sick, and particularly for all those whose minds and souls are sick.

 

It is time to actually think things through

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On Thursday the study group (www.ofgraceandfaith.blogspot.com) began to look at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches about the sacrament of Holy Orders a.k.a. the priesthood. Unfortunately far too much time was diverted to the whole ‘married priests’ idea. So many people have got onto this bandwagon without having really thought the whole thing through, and it is time that we had a good long look at it in order to dispel the myths.

Argument 1 : We aren’t getting enough vocations. The whole celibacy thing is something that men tend to baulk at when considering the priesthood. So let’s take away the celibacy and we’ll get more priests.

Answer to Argument 1 : The Lord Jesus is the source of all vocations to the priesthood. He Himself told us what to do – to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into His harvest. If vocations are lacking then you and I are not praying enough for them. On the other hand, as a person determining what to do with your life it is far more attractive to give yourself to something noble and extremely challenging than to something lesser. There are reports aplenty about enclosed religious orders with strict rules having numerous vocations and those religious orders whose members don’t live very differently from a celibate single person having difficulty attracting and keeping vocations. Taking away the celibacy requirement will not result in more priestly vocations.

Argument 2 : We blame the requirement of celibacy for priests as a major cause of all the child sexual abuse cases and other perverted actions. So let’s get rid of celibacy for priests.

Answer to Argument 2: The most likely person to abuse a child sexually is a close male relative, and the majority of those male relatives are married. Because they are relatives most of those cases don’t get reported to the authorities, and very few cases go to court because there is no money in it for the lawyers. We hear about so many cases involving priests because there are big damages claims against the Church and because it gives people who hate the Church an opportunity to harm her reputation.

Argument 3 : We want our priests to be happy. Loneliness and lack of intimacy seems to be their lot. Being able to have a wife would fix all that and make them happy.

Answer to Argument 3:  People who buy into this argument tend to have no first hand experience of what impact a man in pastoral ministry has on his wife and children. It might make the man happy, but it most assuredly does not make the wife and children happy. For that matter, it doesn’t make the man happy either. As a man in pastoral ministry your door has to be open to the troubled, the sick and the needy at all times. Major urgent pastoral problems tend to occur with great regularity on birthdays, wedding anniversaries, when the household is in turmoil and when, if you are trying to have children, ‘the time is right’. Then the man is torn in two between both vocations. That is not a recipe for happiness! For an eye-opener as to what it is like for the wife, viewing a couple of Episodes of ‘Rev‘, a British TV series, would be very instructive. While occasionally a man in pastoral ministry might have a wife saintly enough to cope, in general it seems that the more successful the man is in ministry the more bitter the wife becomes. And who can blame her? How often would her prayer be, ‘Lord, You gave me this man as my husband, so why does it seem that You are always taking him away from me, and that I always get the dregs of him that are left and never the best of him?’? For the children of a man in pastoral ministry, all too often they go through ‘absent father syndrome’. So recognised is this the case that in America they talk about PKs (Pastors’ Kids) as a set of young people with a regularly occurring set of problems. The other thing about this argument for happiness is that it equates happiness with sexual activity, and true joy only comes from God and generally has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right time doing His Will for His good and kind purposes.

If a priest keeps up his prayer life, and doesn’t let it slip, and perseveres in it, then His relationship with God will sustain him more than a wife and family ever could.

Should you ever have read novels by Fr Andrew Greerly (now deceased, may God be merciful to him) in the Bishop Blackie series, you will recall how often he says that the majority of priests are really very happy. (Read his books with a little caution, because they do get a little iffy when compared to Church teaching every so often.)

If you think the child abuse scandals are bad, can you imagine the mess that divorces and separations between men in pastoral ministry and their wives would cause? Custody battles, property battles, all in the public arena, let alone the scandals if a man in pastoral ministry commits adultery.

Holy Mother Church knows a thing or two, and has almost 2000 years of pastoral experience to draw on. So let us trust her, and the good God working through her, when in the Roman Rite she doesn’t permit priests to marry.

Our Lady, Queen of Apostles, pray for us and please intercede for all priests.

That our relationships be healed….

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This phrase is part of the official prayer for the Australian Year of Grace, which is currently running at the same time as the Year of Faith. During the last few months the number of situations I have been told about where spouses have separated, or where children have estranged themselves from their families, or where couples are undermining future marital relationships by cohabiting runs to far more than the fingers on both hands. The pain generated by these situations is enormous. Given that the good Lord has been continuously drawing my attention to them, perhaps it is time to think about some focused prayer for the healing of relationships.

At the same time that this has been going on, our study group over at www.ofgraceandfaith.blogspot.com has been learning about the purpose and sheer wonder of the sacraments. All of the sacraments are meant to draw us into deeper unity with God and with each other. Everything we do should work towards this, and the ministry of helping people become reconciled with God and with each other is the ordinary task of every believer. Having recently looked at the Sacrament of Penance, it became obvious that you can’t be more reconciled with God unless you are more reconciled with the people in your life; and vice versa. So if we truly want to grow in God’s Grace, we really do need – with His help – to patch up the relationships in our lives. Grudges, feuds, indifference, misunderstandings, quarrels and bitterness all have to make an exit from our lives.

Practically then, what can we do?

The first essential thing to do is to begin the process of reconciliation by going to the Sacrament of Penance and making a good confession, and to then make a commitment to return to that source of Grace regularly – at least monthly.

The second thing to do, particularly if you are an estranged spouse or a spouse whose marriage is going through rocky times, is to do the Double Great Novena (9 consecutive First Fridays and 9 consecutive First Saturdays together – Holy Communion both days of the month (Mass or Communion Service), Sacrament of Penance as close to those days as possible, on the First Saturday 5 decades of the Rosary together with substantial meditations on the mysteries). The Double Great Novena has a whole stack of magnificent promises attached to them, but the most important ones for our purpose are these: 5. Married couples will stay together, and if one has already left, he or she will return. 6. The members of their families will understand each other and persevere in faith. 15. If parents or other members of a family complete this novena, nobody from that family will be condemned to hell. (To read all 33 Promises, find a copy of ‘The Victorious Queen of the World – The spiritual diary of a contemporary mystic Sr Natalia of Hungary)

The third thing to do, particularly if you are hurting from a loved one locking you out of their lives, is to unite your tears with those of Our Lady. Of the various prayers that we pull out of our private ‘prayer arsenal’, the following prayer is one of the ‘big guns’ for especially difficult situations such as these.

The Rosary of Tears

Crucified Jesus! Kneeling at Your feet, we offer to You the tears of the one who, with deep and compassionate love, accompanied You on Your sorrowful way of the Cross. O Good Saviour, grant that we take to heart the teachings given us by the tears of Your Most Holy Mother, so that we may accomplish Your divine will on earth, and may be made worthy to honour and glorify You in Heaven throughout all eternity.

1st Tears. Those of the farewell between Mary and Jesus on Holy Thursday

2nd Tears. Those Mary shed when she heard that Jesus had been condemned to death and rejected in favour of Barabbas

3rd Tears. Those in her eyes and on her face as she met Jesus carrying His Cross to Calvary.

4th Tears. Those Mary shed as she saw Jesus stripped of His garments and as she saw all the wounds, bruises and scourges on His body.

5th Tears. Those Mary shed as she saw the blows driving the nails into the hands and feet of Jesus

6th Tears. All the tears Mary shed as she saw each twinge and tremor of agony of Jesus on the Cross until His death.

7th Tears. The tears Mary shed as she prepared the body of Jesus for burial.

For each set of tears pray,

Once: O Jesus! Behold the tears of the one who loved You most on earth, and who loves You most ardently in Heaven.

Seven Times: O Jesus! Hear our prayers, for the sake of the tears of Your most holy Mother

At the end, repeat three times…

O Jesus! Behold the tears of the one who loved You most on earth And who loves You most ardently in Heaven.

O Mary, Mother of Love, Mother of Sorrows, and Mother of Mercy! We beg you to unite your petitions with ours so that Your Divine Son, Jesus, to Whom we now turn in the name of Your Motherly tears, answers our prayers, and with the graces we ask for, grants us the kingdom of eternal life. Amen.

The fourth thing we can do is to pray for each other’s painful relationship situations, and to seek the prayers of others. So please send a comment seeking prayers – but do it in code so that no one can be offended. For example, please pray for J, for F, and for A who have all recently married and have essentially wiped their birth families from their minds and hearts. Please pray, too, for M.D., J.B, A.H-C, who are separated from their spouses. For K, J, M, C and M, all in various levels of co-habitation.

Our Lady, Queen of Families, pray for us.

 

 

 

 

The answer you have been looking for…

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Do you hear people saying, ‘I don’t know who I am any more!’, ‘I need to find myself’, ‘How I want my relationships to improve!’, ‘I’d like to do something to combat the natural disasters that are happening’? There is an answer, and a very powerful answer, if you read on…

Why this answer isn’t being transmitted all over the world is a real mystery, because it has been sitting in the Catechism of the Catholic Church for over 2 decades, and in the writings of Blessed Pope John Paul the Great. You can verify this at ‘Reconciliatio et Paenitentia’ passage 31 Part V, and quoted in CCC 1469. Here are the Pope’s words in full:

‘…It must be emphasized that the most precious result of the forgiveness obtained in the Sacrament of Penance consists in reconciliation with God, which takes place in the inmost heart of the son who was lost and found again, which every penitent is. But it has to be added that this reconciliation with God leads, as it were, to other reconciliations which repair the breaches caused by sin. The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being, where he regains his own true identity. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in some way attacked and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is reconciled with all creation. As a result of an awareness of this, at the end of the celebration there arises in the penitent a sense of gratitude to God for the gift of Divine Mercy received, and the Church invites the penitent to have this sense of gratitude. Every confessional is a special and blessed place from which, with divisions wiped away, there is born new and uncontaminated a reconciled individual-a reconciled world!’

What a untold gift this Sacrament is!

If you haven’t been to the Sacrament of Penance for a while (or even longer), chances are you have forgotten how wonderful it is to receive God’s forgiveness and what to do and what to say during the Sacrament. If so, please go to the ‘Resources‘ page on this blog and scroll down a long way, and you will find what you need. The subtitle – when you find it – is ‘Provide yourself with words and come’, and underneath that title is a PDF with three choices for a prayer of contrition to use, a tri-fold brochure about how to return to the Sacrament after an absence, and an additional tri-fold brochure containing excerpts of the teaching Jesus gave to St Faustina about the Sacrament of Penance, which are a true blessing to read.

What is sin?

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“What is sin?” This question crops up a lot, and for many different reasons, but it is a question that is always asked sincerely. Mostly it is a plea for clarity as to whether those ‘grey’ areas in a person’s life are really white (pleasing to God) or really black (sinful).

Even in the Catechism of the Catholic Church an exact definition is hard to find. CCC 387 contains ‘Only in the knowledge of God’s plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving Him and loving one another.’ (Now this is true for the first edition of the Catechism, however later editions have a Glossary, and in this Glossary is a definition of sin). In our former Diocesan sacramental programme we gave this similar definition to those preparing for the Sacrament of Penance, ‘We sin when we do not love God and others as Jesus taught us’. I find that this definition extremely useful, easy to describe and easy to understand. CCC 397 goes on to explain sin like this : ‘Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience towards God and lack of trust in His goodness.’

Another way of understanding sin is the concept of ‘missing the mark’. Prior to the coming of Jesus we knew that God expected us to keep the Commandments, but not what we were aiming for in our actions. Jesus then gave us the Beatitudes as our model for Christian behaviour and His example of perfect love. During the sacramental programme we explain it like this: Imagine that you are an archer, and that the target is directly in front of you. If you put your arms out straight and then moved them in an arc 5cms of 2 inches in the direction of the target, the imaginary lines made with your arms would represent the 10 Commandments. Anything within them can be construed as aiming for the target, anything behind them and obviously you weren’t aiming for the target at all and we call that mortal sin (deadly sin which completely ruptures our relationship with God). Anywhere the arrow falls within the Commandments but not on the bulls-eye of the target would be called venial sin. We would call holiness the state of those who hit the target consistently, and who are always aiming to get closer to the bulls-eye – and its absolute centre.

Looking at the actions of Jesus and the choices He made puts everything into perspective. Take for example the time in Mark Chapter 10 when Jesus was teaching about the heavy matters of marriage, divorce and adultery and people brought children to Him. There were many things Jesus could have done. 1) He could have sent the children away quick smart, since He was doing something important and shouldn’t be disturbed 2) He could have asked them to go and play for a while and then come back 3) He could have stopped what He was going, come over, give them a brief greeting and then get back to what he was doing 4) However Jesus did completely stop what He was doing, put His arms around them, spoke to them individually, and gave each child His blessing. Jesus did the most perfect thing. He was generous in showing love to all and to each. And the more you look at the Gospel stories and study the choices Jesus could have made and the choices Jesus did make, the more you come to realise that Jesus always chose to do the most perfect and most loving actions.

So the 10 Commandments as given by God to Moses on Mt Sinai are our best guide to what is gravely sinful matter and to what displeases God the most. Since lots of people don’t know them off by heart any more, or have trouble unpacking what they mean, below is a copy of what the children in the sacramental class receive – with the Scripture text and simple commentary.

CommandmentsPDF

In recent times the importance of the 10 Commandments has been highlighted by the unusual Christmas 2012 message from Medjugorje. Instead of a message from Our Lady, the Christ Child in her arms spoke and said, ‘I am your peace. Live My commandments.’ Every human misery can be traced back to someone breaking the 10 commandments. How easy it is to forget that Jesus was so concerned with eradicating sin, and each and every sin, that He became incarnate for us and died the gruelling, humiliating death on the Cross.

A further question then, often crops up. ‘OK, so I need to take God’s laws seriously, but what about the man made laws? For example, it’s OK If I speed on a road when there’s no traffic, isn’t it?’ We take our cue from what Jesus did. He paid the temple tax. His mother underwent the Jewish purification rites following childbirth, even though technically she didn’t have to. He submitted to the arrest in the garden of Gethsemane and to the decrees of the unjust King Herod and the unjust Pontius Pilate. To please His Father Jesus obeyed the civil authorities, as long as the civil authorities were not asking Him to do something against God’s will. As to speeding with no traffic in sight, St Paul’s teaching would be applicable : ‘Be obedient to the men who are called your masters in this world, with deep respect and sincere loyalty, as you are obedient to Christ : not only when you are under their eye, as if you only had to please men, but because you are slaves of Christ and wholeheartedly do the will of God.’ Eph 6:5-6. When it comes to civil authority the more perfect thing to do is to be obedient – but for serious urgent reasons like getting an injured passenger to hospital as quickly as possible – you would speed as far as not endangering lives would permit.

‘Now what about untidyness and sloppiness at home?’ When more important things are at stake, the lesser things can probably be left behind eg spending 2 hours cleaning your own home instead of being with an ill relative during visiting hours at the hospital wouldn’t be the loving thing to do. Yet even in the few moments we have for getting such small tasks done we should be taking St Therese of Lisieux as a model and trying to do the little things to the best of our ability. Considering that our work, even the least of it, should aim at giving glory to God, we should be offering Him the best we can do in those moments and under those conditions because anything less is unworthy of Him, our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sanctifier. It is important that we get beyond doing the minimum to say we have kept the Commandments and to begin to seek to please the good God in all of our thoughts, words and deeds.

May the intercession of the Saints grant us the light to see where our actions fall short of the mark set by Jesus, and the Grace to acknowledge our faults, to seek forgiveness and pardon from God, and to begin to desire to do the better thing – the one which pleases Him more – rather than the lesser thing. Amen.

VJC On Penance CCC 1446

The Sacrament of Penance is the life-saving plank the good Lord gives us when we make a shipwreck of our lives through sin. CCC 1446.

(For some reason, at present (6-7 Jan 2013+) Google Blogger isn’t letting images be uploaded from the computer – so I need to take this roundabout route to get them to upload via the URL option. Hopefully this source of frustration will not be long in duration.)

Tribunal of Mercy (confessional) at Boolaroo, NSW

Year of Faith: what a simple confessional looks like.

Finding a Patron Saint for 2013

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With the beginning of the Christmas season on Chriistmas Eve our thoughts begin to turn to the New Year ahead of us. Some people are facing surgery and medical treatment, some are looking for their first job or for a new one, some are making study, career, vocational and relationship decisions. All of us look to the gift of a new year with hope, and with lots of uncertainty. Placing the whole of 2013 in God’s most capable hands, we seek the additional help of a friendly intercessor in heaven.

Last year I was given St Bartholomew the Apostle as my companion. A share in his apostolic zeal and perseverance was indeed helpful. Through his patronage I also learned about many St Bartholomews, Blessed Bartolomeas, and other Saints throughout Christian history who had been named in honour of St Bartholomew by their parents or had been given that name in religion. All of them were inspiring.

This year I have been given a dear friend, St Philip Neri, as my heavenly patron for 2013. For many years I have been inspired by his holy life and the way he brought countless people to deeper faith in Jesus. He founded the Congregation of the Oratory, of whom the most famous member of recent times is Blessed John Henry Newman. In particular my prayer project will be, with his aid, to grow in the gift of God’s joy.

Over the years all of us who have taken up this ancient Christian tradition of choosing a Patron Saint for the new year, and have worked on learning about that Saint, seeking his or her intercession, and making the prayer intention part of our daily lives, have been blessed abundantly.

Earlier today the Resources page was updated. Should you scroll down a long way on that page, you will now be rewarded with PDFs with Patron Saints on them. Each PDF contains 4 pages and each page has 12 Saints on it. The idea is to choose a different PDF each year, cut them all up, fold them over twice, sticky-tape them down, and then put them into a hat or container. Then, gathered as a family, prayer group, daily Mass brethren, co-workers, friends etc, to pray together and then individually draw out one each.

This is what Sr Emmanuel of Medjugorje had to say in her book, ‘Medjugorje the 90s’, ‘Seeing how much these Saints take their commitment to heart is amazing, each one according to his own personality!… Obviously, it is the Saints who choose us and not the other way around. Like everything that comes from above, how reassuring! We have gladly extended this tradition to our visitors, friends, and family members, and each eagerly anticipates being given a Saint for the year. Once more, we can only marvel at the workings of Divine Providence, since, most of the time, this new companion has achieved wonderful things for his ‘protege’ before the end of the year. Examples are countless!’

Having been blessed by each new Patron Saint for the Year since 1999, I can only echo a very big AMEN to the truth of Sr Emmanuel’s sentiments. Remember, I wouldn’t even be writing this blog post without what St Francis of Assisi, my Patron Saint for 2010, arranged for me in so marvellous a way. 

So, if you belong to a sizeable group, please print out one of the Patron Saint PDFs from the Resources page, prepare them and share them. Should you be more or less on your own, and have joined www.xt3.com, find the group ‘Patron Saint for the New Year’ and send a private message according to the instructions at that group, and a private message will be sent back with a Patron Saint for you. 

May you experience the intercessory power of your Patron Saint for 2013 in many tangible ways.

With much profound thanks to St Bartholomew and with delight in the company of St Philip Neri, I ask that they aid you with their prayers in finding your Patron Saint for 2013.

St Bartholomew, pray for us.

St Philip Neri, pray for us.

All Heavenly Patron Saints, pray for us.