tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4393310357183691672024-03-12T21:05:32.175-05:00Daily Meditations with Fr. AlfonseFr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.comBlogger1775125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-60507462173572283202015-12-30T10:29:00.001-06:002015-12-30T10:31:39.259-06:001 Jn 2:12-17 Doing, Listening, and Understanding<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.6px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKSdy8uuLXUWyCU0y4OXwyZZdWFugf1KmQWPEDJkO7ih6MZUk_xydYq-VpBhM3VOzrCys8N-xg73MtBz9UaQcWPehjlHZ1O4Euu6kodabxwtQtifkf_MW9v8-S8thngbMsSkNxdwix/s1600/Augustine.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKSdy8uuLXUWyCU0y4OXwyZZdWFugf1KmQWPEDJkO7ih6MZUk_xydYq-VpBhM3VOzrCys8N-xg73MtBz9UaQcWPehjlHZ1O4Euu6kodabxwtQtifkf_MW9v8-S8thngbMsSkNxdwix/s400/Augustine.png" width="400" /></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">1 </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Jn</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> 2:12-17 </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Doing, Listening, and Understanding</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">By Benedict Augustine</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">“Do not love the world or the things of the world. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">For all that is in the world,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">sensual</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;"> lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">is</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;"> not from the Father but is from the world. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">But whoever does the will of God remains forever.”</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">John’s writings, his gospel, letters, and revelation, make more sense spoken or sung than read to oneself. He writes in parallel syntax and often repeats certain expressions to give his writing the feeling of a spiral</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">—which can sometimes make a reader dizzy. Like a song</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> or speech, his message has </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">a definite </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">shape guiding the reader towards a certain conclusion, or in this case, around a central idea, seeing it in all dimensions. The</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> point is that the audience</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> will remember the contrasts </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">John</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> makes of light and dark, sin and salvation and sin, truth and falsehood, Heaven and the world. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">The one who only reads—that is, most modern Christians—</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">this might find John’s writings, particularly his letters, rather repetitive and abstract. Instead of the spiral that changes ever so gradually, </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">readers today prefer</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> some concrete development</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> that one can read over and imagine to reinforce an understanding of an argument</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">. What does John mean by “truth,” or “the world,” or even “the Father”? How does one fill in these loaded words and ideas that stir the emotions but frustrate the mind? </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">John answers this rather simply: Repent of your sins through a contrite confession, ask forgiveness, and avoid sin afterward. To illuminate the mind on matters of the spirit, one must cleanse his heart. For John</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> and many of the early Christians</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">, understanding comes through moral living and spiritual discipline. Whereas most Christians today, Catholics and Protestant alike, might recommend some books (starting with the Bible or Catechism) or talks by Christian speakers, </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Christians of the first few centuries after Christ’s birth</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> li</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">ved </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">in an oral/auditory world where memory </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">would</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> combine with</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> habit </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">and reflection to </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">enable understanding. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">In other words, one had to </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">continually</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">ponder and live out the</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> truth </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">to </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">even </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">understand </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">it</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">. John, the other apostles</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> (with the exception of Paul)</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">, and Jesus Himself, do not resort to ethics or theology to explain the Christian faith. They live their faith—and later die for it—and </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">pray constantly, encouraging</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">their listeners to do the same. There may be those who want an explanation of the mechanics or logic behind matters of faith and morals, and they may read St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Bonaventure</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> for that</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">. The writers of the New Testament </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">do not condemn this group, but urge such inquirers to not stop at theories of truth but engage in experience of truth. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Ultimately, this is the only way. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Such experience does not mean that a true Christian must go and sin to know that it is bad. The darkness of sin is self-evident, and all human beings inherit this from their birth with original sin. People may deny the good in their lives, but only a delusional person would deny the bad</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">,</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> with the certainty of death looming before him and the certainty of temptation resting within. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Nevertheless, it is never a waste of time to learn from the</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> mistakes of others to better understand this reality. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">This particular section of John’s first epistle had a special significance for the great doctor of the Church, St. Augustine</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> of Hippo. He knew first</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">hand </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">how sin clouds judgment </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> actually</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">patterns</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> the first 9 books of</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> his </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">Confessions</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> on John’s three sins: lust, vanity, and pretentiousness. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Augustine’s moral decline in the first three decades of hi</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">s life fit this description qui</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">t</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">e</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> well. Blessed with a supreme intellect an</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">d a charming personality, he has</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> an easy time satisfying his d</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">esires. In his late teens he has</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> concubine for his </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">lusts; soon afterward, he adopts</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> a f</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">ashionable heresy that satisfies</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> his ego; and later when he hit</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">s</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> his stride in his career, he </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">finds</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> a prestigious position in Mil</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">a</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">n as a rhetorician and pretends</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> that what he </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">does</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> (making phony speeches and teaching oth</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">ers to do the same) actually has</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> meaning. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">The irony of the </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">Conf</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">essions</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> is that Augustine suffers the worst kind of depression at the apparent apex of life. He recounts how he </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">even </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">envies the beggar offering prayers for a few coins. Augustine’s charm and good looks leave him feeling cold and alone. His intelligence and great learning leaves him utterly mystified and </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">somewhat</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> delusional at times. His good fortune leaves him ashamed and jaded. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Although he will later credit </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">St. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Ambrose’s sermons for helping him with his conversion, </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Augustine</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">praises his mothe</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">r St. Monica even more. Dealing with Augustine’s pretention and vanity, Ambrose exposes the phoniness and stupidity of all the heresies while demonstrating the transcendent logic of Christianity. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">However, t</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">he problem of lust required the steadfast patience and constant prayers of his mother who comes to live with him. She convinces him to dismis</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">s the concubine, seek a normal marriage, and become Christian. After so many relapses, which Monica no doubt made difficult and awkward, Augustine </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">eventually </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">feels the call to chastity at the same time</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> that</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> he hears the call to conversion.</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Clarity comes to Augustine as soon as he steps out the darkness of the world, not just moral clarity but intellectual clarity. Soon after his conversion he goes on to combat the heresies, knowing their source of sin in intimate detail. He later writes important works of theology and philosophy, not least the </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">Confessions</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> but also </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">The</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">City of God</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">, </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">On the Trinity</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">, and </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">On Christian Teaching</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">, finally knowing their source o</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">f goodness in intimate detail. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Thus, i</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">n St. Augustine’s life and works, John’s </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">first letter</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"></span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">interestingly finds</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;"> a </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">comprehensive and thorough embodiment.</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">Therefore, all Christians should follow the words </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">of the Jesus’ beloved disciple—</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">follow them so that they may understand them. Like Augustine, they must have a listening heart so that they can finally have a listening mind</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; line-height: 21.6px;">.</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-81249983280389587262015-12-23T12:43:00.001-06:002015-12-23T12:53:17.641-06:00Lk 1:57-66 The Nativity of… John?<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.6px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUaij5QAZvz2TLzgmZysT24XuY_lnv_fiB6JkE749-2b-IZHH9uSThtPiH5mBGFQ4vT_4qgPoVgS7iFiGp0umga-4HL7Hrj5OeLAXe1cAdAg_1OP0JokPyi2Wr8_u6MZDtmDFPvs5/s1600/baptist.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUaij5QAZvz2TLzgmZysT24XuY_lnv_fiB6JkE749-2b-IZHH9uSThtPiH5mBGFQ4vT_4qgPoVgS7iFiGp0umga-4HL7Hrj5OeLAXe1cAdAg_1OP0JokPyi2Wr8_u6MZDtmDFPvs5/s400/baptist.png" width="400" /></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 21.6px;">Lk</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 21.6px;"> 1:57-66 </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 21.6px;">The Nativity of… John</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 21.6px;">?</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 21.6px;">By Benedict Augustine</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">“</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">Then fear came upon all their neighbors,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">and</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;"> all these matters were discussed</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">throughout</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;"> the hill country of Judea.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">‘</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">What, then, will this child be?</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">’</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.6px;">”</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Although it is popular among all kinds of Christians to encourage others to keep “Christ” in Christmas, Catholics should take the time to encourage the Mass in Christmas. Christmas day itself may center on Christ’s birth, the Incarnation of God Himself, but the story around Christmas day, presented in the readings of Advent and during the Christmas season center</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">s</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> everyone else. In truth, the story of Christmas is not really the story of Jesus, but primarily the story of His mother Mary, his foster father Joseph, his Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Zechariah, and even the distant Magi and King Herod. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">For this reason, Christmas is a particularly Catholic holiday because it prefigures the Church’s role in story of salvation. The </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">event</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> involves many actors who must cooperate with the God’s will. First and foremost, Mary consents to bear Christ and become a living tabernacle. In providing a dwelling place for the incarnate Lord, she thus symbolizes the Church who does the same. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Mary also provides an example</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> for all Catholic women. She embodies both the maternal vocation in raising Jesus as well as the religious vocation in maintaining her virginity. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">She does not compete with Joseph or her cousin Elizabeth, but accepts her ro</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">le humbly and modestly. Her </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">joy</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> come</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">from obedience, faithfulness, and gra</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">titude. God likely picks her </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">as Jesus’ moth</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">er because of this abundant joy that </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">would later help her endure the suffering of </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">her </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">son’s Passion. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Mary’s husband Joseph stands in for all Catholic men who must protect and support their wives as husbands</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">,</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> or protect and support the Church as priests. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">He leads quietly, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">works</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">hard</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">, and becomes a model of manhood for his son and the all other men</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">His example encapsulates all that is signified in the word “manly.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Although playing a su</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">pporting to role, Mary’s cousin</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Elizabeth </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">also </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">has a special symbolic relevance: she is the guide and friend of Mary, and by extension all women. Mary learns about motherhood from Elizabeth whom God has blessed with a pregnancy of her own. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Because of her time</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> helping Elizabeth, and her subsequent friendship</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">, Mary, who is still young and inexperienced</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> as she carries Jesus</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">, can </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">eventually </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">undertake her new responsibilities</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> as a mother</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">. Additionally, as a good friend and mentor, Elizabeth defers to her cousin and builds up her confidence; she does not play games and complain about her own problems as an older mother. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Like Joseph, Zecha</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">riah quietly supports his wife—</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">though not by choice but because the angel strikes him mute. When the people ask him what he shall name the child, he defers to Elizabeth who herself defers to the angel to name her child John. Even less is known about Zechariah than Joseph, but one may assume he had an important part in John’s formation. Obviously, his work as a priest influenced John who would later </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">preach to</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> Christ’s </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">first disciples</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">T</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">hese two couples </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">are the first saints in a line of holy men and women extending to today. Even though one couple, Mary and Joseph, receive most of the attention since they become the parents of the Messiah, no one should ignore the other couple </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">who</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> became parents to the greatest p</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">rophet. The nativity of the John does more than simply foreshadow Christ’s Nativity; in many ways, it allows Christ’s Nativity. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">It provided that necessary support and context for Jesus to grow </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">into a strong faithful man who could</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> redeem humanity.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Luke’s Christmas narrative makes the important point that Christ was not born in vacuum. His later narrative of Acts makes a corresponding point that he was not worshipped in a vacuum either. He first had many saints to support Him, raise Him, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">and </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">teach Him, all so that He could do the same for others afterward. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">Christ’s great moment would come later at Easter, where He really was in a kind of vacuum being abandoned by all as He suffered, died, and rose again </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;">more or less</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.6px;"> alone. However, Christmas is the Church’s great moment, when her saints would bring about and sustain God’s Son and be an example to all Catholic men and women forever after.</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-66370407825951295682015-12-16T11:41:00.001-06:002015-12-16T11:45:35.531-06:00Lk 7:18B-23 Words Conceal As Much As They Reveal<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvzUuBEgVwQ6zZWkPg1BK3Kj-0RLMA31_9HEuFnu4envwN5FObBjw78idfr_jGV1rPFKlmTZpnKgvUoqJppjrrIPKAbjJcHPMgfy3TCrtmltv4G8AQ8FqIA8UIkuh3mECqhNGlXItL/s1600/writing.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvzUuBEgVwQ6zZWkPg1BK3Kj-0RLMA31_9HEuFnu4envwN5FObBjw78idfr_jGV1rPFKlmTZpnKgvUoqJppjrrIPKAbjJcHPMgfy3TCrtmltv4G8AQ8FqIA8UIkuh3mECqhNGlXItL/s400/writing.png" width="400" /></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Lk</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> 7:18B-23 Words Conceal As Much As They Reveal </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">By Benedict Augustine</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“’Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> blind regain their sight,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> lame walk,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">lepers</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> are cleansed,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> deaf hear, the dead are raised, </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> poor have the good news proclaimed to them.’”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“Don’t tell </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">me! Show me!” This is a line many teachers</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> use often when explaining to students how to develop </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> points in their essays. To this, I often </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">add,</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “Don’t use evidence </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">only </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to prove your point, but </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">also </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to illustrate it.” At the beginning of the year, all the students simply want to offer a series of bullet points—that is, if they have any points to make about a topic—and allow their reader to fill in the holes. They have to learn th</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e hard way that if I am their reader</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, I will fill those holes in logic and explanation with angry comments written in red ink and top it off with a low score for the </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">whole </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">essay.</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">A similar problem that students have in writing involves their </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mis</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">use of quoted textual evidence. They think</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the quotes they cite </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">require no additional explanation</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Another remark I often have to make: “The quotes don’t explain themselves! You explain them! Why are they there? What are you telling me by using them?” Again, they think their reader will simply infer their analysis and explain the quote for them. As you can imagine, when I am the reader, I </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">have to </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">go to work with my red pen again.</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">People</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> who don’t write regularly or</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> work </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">much </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">with </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">language</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> might excuse this as so much stylistic twaddle</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> from a boring pedant</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">However, the idea behind illustrating a point and explaining one’s evidence goes far deeper than attending to mere lingui</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">stic formalities;</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> these things </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">form the basis of communication</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> by </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">extension,</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the basis of trust. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">If one doesn’t illustrate his point, he likely doesn’t know it. If he can’t explain the quote</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> he so wittily references as some kind of support, he is probably putting on airs. However, he can get away with this sloppy rhetoric because he knows people will fill in the blanks. He proposes something nice or pleasant, a better healthcare system or a cleaner world, and leaves the details on achieving such a thing to his hopeful audience </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who either blithely ignore the need for details, or make a much less popular argument for the tiny minority </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who bother to listen</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The supreme irony about language and rhetoric is that the less conscious we are about it, the </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">more </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we foolishly believe and trust in it. Despite what people </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">may</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> believe</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> about their common sense and need for evidence</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">most of them </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will still</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> trust words over action</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, words over people, and words over themselves. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As cliché as it sounds, w</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ords </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">can create reality if we’re not careful</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> For example, words can effectively turn a human being into a “clump of cells,” murder in</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “a woman’s right,” and psychological enslavement into “liberation.” </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Obviously, the political and social sphere teems with such double-talk and propaganda</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, but this</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> also</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">happens at work and even </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">with the</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Church. I’ve seen people time and again use words create pure illusions that completely contradict reality. They talk themselves into thinking their plan worked, that people are happy, and that they have nothing to change about themselves. Clever Christians with a gift for words can turn “neglect” into “mercy,” “sacrilege” into “authentic worship,” and “piety” into “intolerance.” This way, people can avoid solving difficulties; they only have redefine it and stow it away into confused jumble that everyone will forget soon enough, including themselves. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">If I have learned anything teachin</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">g </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">English, I have learned what words can do and what they cannot do. Words can express reality, and even influence one’s perception of reality, but they can</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">not</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> create or replace reality. Only one person’s word creates reality: that is God’s Word. Men can only repeat what God has already said in some way with His creation, or with His revelation. When they seek to create </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">realities</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of their own out of the hot air of their breath and vocal cords, they </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">can only </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">perpetuate lies. With their lies, they produce heresies, dictatorships, and </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">never</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> end</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ing train</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of suffering and death. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It used to bother me that Jesus never wrote anything. When He tells John’s disciples what He does, I remember saying to myself, </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“W</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hy doesn’t </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">He</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">just tell them He’s Jesus </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and be done with it? Why can’t H</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e just write His story, eliminate any doubts about who He is, </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and spare us the hassle?”</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">But then</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I thought a little more about this idea. Would Jesus telling everyone, “I am God’s Son!” re</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ally prove anything? Would the </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">G</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ospel of Jesus </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">really remove doubts? If anything, Jesus having to rely on words, or on His own testimony seems suggests a lack of truth. Mohammed wrote the Koran and proclaimed himself a prophet. People believed him because he said so</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">… </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and would kill or subjugate those who doubted him. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And even if I believed Jesus, like other people </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">believe their gurus or their prophets, would I even know what </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">I’m believing</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">? Just like quotes require explanation, claims of divinity require the same. Concepts like “Son of God,” “Messiah,” “Christ,” or “Son of Man” all </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">require</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> a fair amount of context and a great mass of witnesses</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> explaining what they all mean, hence we have the Bible.</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Fortunately, Jesus gives us something to work with in His miracles, which act as words He performs rather than words He publishes. His miracles show Him to be the savior Isaiah speaks of in his prophecy (they </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">prove</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the point). More importantly, His miracles show what that means and what His followers should imitate (they </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">illustrate</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the point).</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Jesus trusts John’s disciples to understand all this, and He trusts us to do the same. Once we dispense with our words, and listen to His words, God’s Word, we will understand, and</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, finally,</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> we can then respond in kind.</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-51215675217432788732015-12-12T10:18:00.001-06:002015-12-12T10:18:52.968-06:00Rev 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab Our Mother of Mercy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcqctaQJJZf2E-xXsF_F_mcm6IgMSLVfA3wB3m9JT_VmwYMybDH-mQqtDXxVj8fKWmdNE3MFfy17U7ID24P44XG_G2-fLMu5bO0xzdPBylL6pBpQ8UB98RL1IXoCPin6d44N1b-I6/s1600/Guadalupe.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdcqctaQJJZf2E-xXsF_F_mcm6IgMSLVfA3wB3m9JT_VmwYMybDH-mQqtDXxVj8fKWmdNE3MFfy17U7ID24P44XG_G2-fLMu5bO0xzdPBylL6pBpQ8UB98RL1IXoCPin6d44N1b-I6/s320/Guadalupe.png" width="240" /></a>Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe<br />
By JENNIFER BURGIN<br />
(Click Here for Readings)<br />
<br />
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the <br />
moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.<br />
<br />
In December 2015, National Geographic Magazine published a fascinating <br />
article titled How the Virgin Mary Became the World's Most Powerful Woman. <br />
(Read full article here.) The award-winning Catholic author Maureen Orth <br />
discusses several examples of Mary's influence around the globe. <br />
<br />
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose feast day we celebrate today, is <br />
one of the most popular Marian images in the world, highly cherished by the <br />
Mexican culture. Millions of terminally and chronically ill people travel to the <br />
cold waters of Lourdes, France for healing. Medjugorje, although still not <br />
officially approved by the Vatican as an apparition, draws thousands of <br />
pilgrims each year. Clearly, Our Blessed Mother is a source of comfort for <br />
devout Christians throughout the world. Interesting how even our Muslim <br />
brothers and sisters honor the Virgin. It is said that Mary is mentioned more <br />
times in the Koran than in the Bible! <br />
<br />
Undeniable, Mary plays an important role as intercessor. Ever since 40 A.D. <br />
Christians have reported apparitions of her; some appearances verified and <br />
others questionable. <br />
<br />
Why is Mary so popular..and powerful? What is it about her that inspires <br />
songs, prayers, pilgrimages, processions, and even priceless works of art?<br />
Author Maureen Orth offers the following insight:<br />
As a universal symbol of maternal love, as well as of suffering and sacrifice, <br />
Mary is often the touchstone of our longing for meaning, a more accessible <br />
link to the supernatural than formal church teachings. Her mantle offers both <br />
security and protection. Pope Francis, when once asked what Mary meant to <br />
him, answered, “She is my mamá.” <br />
<br />
Not only does the Blessed Virgin Mary provide security and protection but also <br />
mercy. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we should turn to our "Mama" for <br />
guidance. How can we be more merciful toward our fellow brothers and <br />
sisters in Christ? What does the word "mercy" really mean to us? Where <br />
have we failed in being merciful toward the weak, the poor, and the <br />
marginalized? Do we accept the Lord's mercy or deny it as something of no <br />
value?<br />
<br />
Today's meditation artwork, a non-traditional rendition of Our Lady of <br />
Guadalupe, colorfully illustrates the Blessed Virgin Mary in different roles. <br />
Red represents the Virgin's mighty protection against the snares of the devil. <br />
Green and yellow symbolize Mary's intercessory role between Christ and us. <br />
Even the purple and blue is seen as Mary's maternal vocation - providing the <br />
love, care and mercy we desperately need in this challenging world. Overall, <br />
the kaleidoscope of colors show the importance of the Virgin Mary in our faith <br />
journeys.<br />
<br />
Our Lord will never deny his Mother what she wants for her children just as he <br />
will never deny us his infinite mercy.<br />
<br />
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for Us!<br />
<br />
"Heavenly Father, in Our Lady of Guadalupe our eyes can behold your long-<br />
awaiting promise of salvation; may our eyes behold him for ever when the <br />
promises of Christ are filled "<br />
-Prayer from The Magnificat Advent Companion 2015 (pg .31)<br />
<br />
This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please follow her blog: <br />
Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality.Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-10215732012006492852015-12-09T12:11:00.001-06:002015-12-09T16:54:19.287-06:00Mt 11:28-30 Jesus’ Boring Childhood<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZstOYKeyn2JzyMmLUK-vINusnIMP95MXl2itWCpfJteNCs3LeWG2CKL_0_dmKq5AEmszqTivklz7fh6VDLIFeQtmS_1wBJa9zryLezZG_ddizQkfKYwDJ4UnNTRt5rmWFlss3UJ1/s1600/holy+Family+Jesus.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZstOYKeyn2JzyMmLUK-vINusnIMP95MXl2itWCpfJteNCs3LeWG2CKL_0_dmKq5AEmszqTivklz7fh6VDLIFeQtmS_1wBJa9zryLezZG_ddizQkfKYwDJ4UnNTRt5rmWFlss3UJ1/s400/holy+Family+Jesus.png" width="400" /></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Mt 11:28-30 Jesus’ </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=439331035718369167" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Boring Childhood</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">By Benedict Augustine</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I will give you rest. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">for</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I am meek and humble of heart;</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> you will find rest for yourselves. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Many social critics will say that too many Americans are workaholics. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Adult men and women</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> take took few vacations, work too many hours, </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fixate too much on income and too little on recreation. This</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">observation</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">may</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> apply to some people, but it would be more accurate to say that most Americans are addicted to busyness, more than actual work. They seek constant activity, both in work and in play, and </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">seldom </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">reflect upon </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">anything lest they make themselves sad</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. They hate silence; they hate being alone; and they certainly hate being still.</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Consider the story of Mary during her pregnancy with Jesus playing out today. More than likely, she would be working through most of the pregnancy and soon after the birth. Her cousin Elizabeth, also a working woman, may exchange some texts and picture with her as they both chronicle their thoughts and feelings of</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> pregnancy through</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Facebook or some other social media. Mary would share parenting decorating tips that picked up on </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Pinterest</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> with Joseph, and he</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> would shrug and probably play f</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">antasy football on his phone. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Later after Jesus is born—</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">which was </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a long noisy and very expensive affair at a luxurious hospital—God would command Joseph to take his family to Egypt to avoid Herod’s persecution. Again, Joseph would shrug and relay God to Mary since she makes the decisions for the family. He would return to watching Game of Thrones on his phone while Mary might try to confirm God’s advice by watching the news and looking up articles online</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">—after exchanging pictures of her baby Jesus with Elizabeth’s baby John</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, of course</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And then consider Jesus growing up, having an iPhone, havin</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">g a personal computer, having his daily schedule</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">regulated</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> by daycares and schools. Would the school place Him in the GT class or would His math scores not be strong enough and unsuitable</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for STEM major down the road? </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">While envisioning the</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Christmas </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">story </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">taking</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> place today seems </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">jarring</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and even </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">somewhat </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">irreverent, this should bring pause to the Catholic hoping to recover the essence of the Advent season</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. The story of Jesus’ childhood utte</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">rly rejects today’s norms. It is quiet; it is lonely; and it is very slow. Perhaps it is for these reasons that gospel writers little to nothing about it, even </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">St. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Luke devoting only two chapters about it. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Alread</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">y</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> by</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the third chapter, Jesus is </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">thirty years old and finally decides to preach, but before then he lives in obscurity. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">What </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">exactly </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">did Jesus do in those first three decades? What was His home life? Considering the details of His parents, the modest mother who kept so many things in her heart and the silent strong father carrying on with his work, it doubtful that they were a gregarious</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> busy family. They likely shared many moment</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s together</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> without speaking, off on their own somewhere, and completely still. How else could they only think to look for Jesus after a whole day has passed? Jesus the youth probably walked off to pray, look at s</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">unsets, or help his father do business</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> all the time</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">; He certainly seems to have this habit when travelling with His disciples. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Most people today both crave and shudder at this daunting simplicity. They find themselves stressed by the frenzy of working, shopping, and entertaining themselves without pause; but they fear the oppressive boredom that might accompany a few hours alone with all the devices off. Consequently, they side with the former stressful state, feeling at leas</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t familiar with it. By the time</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">their</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> vacation is over, they may be exhausted and even a bit jaded, but at least they did not have suffer any awkward moments.</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">For those who are sick of this busy empty cycle, they can heed Jesus’ most comforting command: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> I will give you rest.” These words make up</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the essence of Advent, of His A</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">rrival. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">They dare the men and women addicted to being busy to shut off their distractions and place themselves in the serene abode of His childhood. Only then will Christians truly rest, in God and thus in truth, so that they may stop frittering away their time with empty talk, empty company, and empty movement and pursue something everlasting and fulfilling. </span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-82243336562555838772015-12-09T11:31:00.000-06:002015-12-09T12:03:55.711-06:00Lk 1:26-38 Our Mother of the Living<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj3LYPTEOncTzkhZiSf0XniQoaEZIFu8tWaQpxMp2BcIARCcjaY9bD0I6gn2T6VpTFq71UYVznkn-VK0uJdIAMD8-Qq1-4cfqL6GW6z2knHVNquVsmippbdAt631yWLJk3ZXzMWZAP/s1600/madonna.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj3LYPTEOncTzkhZiSf0XniQoaEZIFu8tWaQpxMp2BcIARCcjaY9bD0I6gn2T6VpTFq71UYVznkn-VK0uJdIAMD8-Qq1-4cfqL6GW6z2knHVNquVsmippbdAt631yWLJk3ZXzMWZAP/s320/madonna.png" width="224" /></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary</span></span></div>
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<span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">(</span><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/120815.cfm"><span class="s7" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">The Holy Spirit comes upon... </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">a beautiful, humble young woman named Mary. She is schooled in the Law of Moses and understands her duties as a faithful Jew in a patriarchal society. She embodies childlike innocence and spirit; yet, the time has come to take on adult responsibilities. She is betrothed to Joseph, a much older man with admirable carpenter skills. He may be poor, but he is</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> still a good, honorable man.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mary cannot believe the news from the Angel Gabriel: She is with child! It's not Joseph's baby but the Lord's. What?! How can this be since she is still a virgin? Why was she chosen as the mother of the Son of God?</span></span></div>
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<span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mary was part of the Divine Plan from inception. The New Ark of the Covenant; the New Eve; the Holy Mother of God whose "Yes" began a destiny for all of humanity. Not a revolution designed for idolatry, despair, and hate but an evolution based on faith, hope, and love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s12" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Nothing is impossible...</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">with Our Blessed Mother interceding and protecting us from harm. Born without sin from the moment of her conception, Mary is the perfect example of maternal holiness. She nursed the child Jesus as an infant and experienced the "terrible 2's" like any other mother! She handled the rebellious Jesus when he ran away to the temple and witnessed her son's first miracle at a Cana wedding. She mourned and wept when Jesus died nailed to the cross; a gut wrenching pain too terrible to describe. Only a mother who has lost a child can understand. Despite all of the joy, happiness, worry, and sadness Mary still persevered, strengthened by faith in the Lord. Nothing seems impossible when we know Christ is with us, in us, and through us.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s12" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><br /></span><span class="s12" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Mother of the Living...</span><span class="s12" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Adam and Eve disobeyed God when they ate forbidden fruit. As a result, evil entered the world. Pain, sickness, famine, war, and death </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">became commonplace. C</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">omforting to know </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Mary's "yes"</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> reversed the</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">course of history....</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Satan won't </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">get </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">his way with Our Blessed Mother in the way!</span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> Evil won't </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">succeed</span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">in the world </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">wit</span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">h Jesus Christ, </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">our saving</span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> Lord!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Mary, humble and pure, chose to give birth to the Son of God without expecting anything in return. She trusted the Lord to take care of her. She trusted in Joseph to love her. Her ultimate "yes" brought about new meaning to the word</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">living - </span><span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Living a full life </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">fully obedient to</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"> God. </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">Taking the good with the bad, always s</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;">triving for holiness. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s12" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for Us!</span></span></div>
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<span class="s13" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; line-height: 14.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> "Sinless Virgin, let us follow joyfully in your footsteps; draw us after you in the fragrance of your holiness." - Divine Office Morning Antiphon, Feast of the Immaculate Conception</span></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-12156449052063385402015-12-05T12:13:00.000-06:002015-12-05T12:13:12.079-06:00Mt 7:21, 24-27 Our Heavenly Inheritance <div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Memorial Saint Francis Xavier, Priest</span></span></div>
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<span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120315.cfm"><span class="s7" style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jesus said to his disciples:</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><a href="" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">My mother loves to decorate her apartment with unique items. Everything from a large stone rosary in the living room to an authentic </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Mola</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> in the dining room. A small 1920's painting hangs in the bathroom and a voodoo Pillsbury Dough Boy in the kitchen. My sister and I joke about who will inherit what. Maybe I will end up with the green Depression glasses, if my sister doesn't snatch them up first. As my mom reminds us:</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> After I die,</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">you can fight over my stuff!</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">I prefer avoiding a family feud. Instead, I rather cherish as many years with my mother as possible, appreciating her prized possessions</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">together</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">as mother and daughter. She has a great story behind each treasure. Some her decorative objects originate from her travels to foreign countries.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">I look forward to a </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">heavenly inheritanc</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">e more than a family inheritance. All of the material possessions I collect in my life will not fit in a casket or an urn. I cannot take a car, book collection, cell phone, or even my dog into the afterlife. So, why worry about what I inherit in the future? Why not just be happy with the present?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">This brings about the ultimate question: </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">How can we inherit the Kingdom of God? </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Well, we can follow the Ten Commandments, practice The Beatitudes, and spread the good news of Christ to others. Love our enemies and follow the Golden Rule. Practice humility and honesty. Pray for others. Relish in our faith and trust in God. Does this sound easy? Not at all. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Our own pride, vanity and sensuality often confuses us. </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Doing the right thing is boring. Being nice to everyone doesn</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">’</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">t insight a whole lot of drama!</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> What would happen if the first story on the evening news featured a person saving a life instead of murdering one? People would stare at their television screens in shock. Wow, a life actually saved! Something positive happening in the world today!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Just think with our heavenly inheritance we will finally</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">encounter peace</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">. No more bad news to keep us in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety. No more worry about scraping enough money for food, clothing and shelter. No more sickness, pain, and depression. We will be stand next to Jesus, Our Blessed Mother, and the Saints in celebration. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">We made it! We are now in heaven for all of eternity!</span></span></div>
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<span class="s6" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Lord, Lord! We love you and praise you. Please forgive us of our sins and protect us from evil. We want to join you in heaven someday. Give us the guidance and strength to follow your Will, especially during times of pain and suffering. In the Father's name, Amen.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">"In thee, Oh Lord, I put my hope. Let me never be confounded." - Saint Francis Xavier</span></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-51231925864588010892015-12-02T09:00:00.000-06:002015-12-03T22:32:09.638-06:00Mt 15:29-37 What Is Right With The World<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim69p2I9FXr9XPimqbPLDUgLYokB9rgtJsUy000J-IDAFHte2wyeCcUedeyWXYztYeLUjf4fI1_ckirGGuyNXASzjjj_qTykEvQBIqCp7bkYZF3xeqqTYJuYkZJ54p35WzEvdycmlr/s1600/chesterton.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim69p2I9FXr9XPimqbPLDUgLYokB9rgtJsUy000J-IDAFHte2wyeCcUedeyWXYztYeLUjf4fI1_ckirGGuyNXASzjjj_qTykEvQBIqCp7bkYZF3xeqqTYJuYkZJ54p35WzEvdycmlr/s320/chesterton.png" width="259" /></a><span class="s3" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Mt 15:29-37 What Is Right With World</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">By Benedict Augustine</span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“Great crowds came to him,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">having</span><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> many others. </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">They placed them at his feet, and he cured them. </span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: #cccccc; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> deformed made whole, </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> lame walking, </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the blind able to see,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="color: #262626; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> they glorified the God of Israel.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When the Savior comes, we can expect Him to bring life and goodness to the world. He will enrich the poor, cure the sick, heal the wounded, and comfort those who mourn. He will restore </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the world and bring it to </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">true fulfillment. Like famous Psalm s</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=439331035718369167" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">tates, He will </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fill our cup</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> so that</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> it</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “overflows,” “guide [us] in straight paths” to “verdant pastures” and “restful waters.” Although these images serve as pale reflections of the </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">eternal </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">joys that await God’s children, we should all remember what they signify: </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">abundance, fullness, peace, and life. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Unfortunately, these good things that constitute true bliss are easy to disregard. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Few things so typify contemporary life as </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">our</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> general cynicism towards everything that seems pervade all walks of life. So many </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">of us</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, young or old, married or unmarried, rich or poor, educated or </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">noneducated</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, all share in it. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">all have some mean thing to say, some criticism to share,</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> some dissatisfaction with something. Sarcasm and </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">snark</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> make up the substance of what </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> say</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and hear</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. In their literature and entertainment, all good things must certainly contain something nasty and perverted. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> can pass of</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">f</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> bare selfishness and vanity as virtues while modesty and innocence represent huge drawbacks.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Although we live in a time of so many blessings, we ironically dwell on what we perceive as curses. We somehow act as victims suffering some kind of oppressio</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n and persecution. People with</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> great jobs, students at great schools, men and women with good health and loving families, citizens living in a peaceful tolerant society, can somehow fabricate narratives of their hardships. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">All the while</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, as people portray </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">themselves</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> as victims of oppression and unleash their worldly wise disdain for cheerful simpletons, </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the actual</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> victims continue suffering in anonymity. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In a</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ncient times, though most people had much more to complain about, this same self-centered attitude took over large swaths of </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">them</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. They, too, had the same cynicism that looked down upon genuine joy and valorized self-pity. With the </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Pax</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Romana</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> finally established by Augustus, communities of gentiles and </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Jews had a perfect opportunity to address the marginalized in their community. Free from the threat of outside invaders, they could have built hospitals, founded charities, and allowed people more freedom</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">—like the Church would do a few centuries later</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Instead, the Jewish zealots plot an unsuccessful rebellion against Rome, and the gentiles find more and more ways to exploit subjected cultures. No doubt, both Jews and gentiles saw themselves as vict</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ims responding to an injustice. It comes as no surprise then that they both somehow blame</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> underground</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Christians for their own stupidity. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As this familiar cycle plays out</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, Jesus </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and the disciples make their</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> way through the wilderness and small towns, curing the sick </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and giving sight to the blind. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Neither Jesus, the Perfect Sacrifice, nor his disciples, who would eventually sacrifice themselves as martyrs,</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> seem too concerned with winning people’s sympathy. They themselves sympathize for the victims</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> before them</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and give aid. Rather than harboring cynicism, they display </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">quixotic</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> hope, faith, and charity</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Why did the Christians act this way when they had every reason not to do so? Because they saw God’s Son, and thus saw God. One could say that in seeing Him, they saw what was “right with the world.” The great Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton takes this idea and applies it his own st</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">uffy cynical world</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">essay “The Medical Mistake.” Comparing society to a diseased body, he accuses all the cynics of pointing out the disease, some even embracing the disease mistaking it for a cure, </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">yet none of </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">agree</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ing</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> on</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> what a healthy body looks like</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">This leads him to the conclusion</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, “What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.”</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Jesus restores what is right. His </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Church</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">shall </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">carry on this work. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">all Her members shall</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> do so joyfully, because they know </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">what</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, or better who, is right. This is the joy of the gospel. This is the joy of Advent.</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-84786241723346734082015-12-01T10:59:00.000-06:002015-12-02T11:14:51.663-06:00Lk 10:21-24 Childlike Wonder<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriNyUCvhSzYDL0bA7Y21vUXh3zZcKwDrkCOXVm8DCiey2ciwkwQSFs7aMOQjTExvdSpo61LCFDllMl8nxX2DpcPOw3behK6NOwh_uOgT6NL7bslxqFxRUrZx6mSbeHVg0MVNJae6Q/s1600/child.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhriNyUCvhSzYDL0bA7Y21vUXh3zZcKwDrkCOXVm8DCiey2ciwkwQSFs7aMOQjTExvdSpo61LCFDllMl8nxX2DpcPOw3behK6NOwh_uOgT6NL7bslxqFxRUrZx6mSbeHVg0MVNJae6Q/s320/child.png" width="320" /></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Tuesday of the First Week of Advent</span></span></div>
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<span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s7" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120115.cfm"><span class="s8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said,</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=439331035718369167" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">“I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">My 18 month old niece is an adorable, intense little girl. She doesn't speak much</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> yet,</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> just a few "Uh-</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Os</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">!" and "</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Choo-choos</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">!" as she flashes her big smile. She likes to call everyone "Daddy!" while moving non-stop. She is an endless bundle of energy...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Oh, how much we take for granted youthfulness and carefree innocence!</span></span><br />
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The family dogs watch my niece, following her every move especially if it means snatching Goldfish crackers off the floor. This precious child of God is so filled with wonder and curiosity. The world around her is one huge playground where she can hop, jump, skip and dance. This beautiful child is happy around people; she immediately trusts others; nothing scares her or slows her down.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">I sometimes miss my own childhood. Everything was simple back then. My mom looked after me and provided for my needs. I didn't have to worry about a job, paying bills, or aging. But, then again life seemed to move at a snail's pace. I </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">finally</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> reached the age of womanhood. Then I was old enough to get a driver's license. Eventually I cast my first vote and bought a lottery ticket. How excited I was when I could legally buy wine coolers!</span></span><br />
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">After the age of 21, I often wonder why life goes by at the speed of lightning! Where did all of the cherished time go?? Now that I am in my 40's I wish I could go back and be an innocent kid all over again. What would I do differently? What hidden realities would I discover? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Maybe I would have taken dance lessons or played on the soccer field. Maybe I'd be a social butterfly active and amazed b</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">y experiences. Maybe I'd pray</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> more and learned to </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">love and value life </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">in all of its youthful charm.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Of course, we all experience regrets and wish we could reverse time. </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Rephrase the hatefu</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">l words. Treat others with </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">respect.</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Cherish that inner heart of a child who unconditional loves and accepts everyone! </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">However, we cannot live in the past longing for a different outcome. All we can do is live in the present, recognizing the beautiful blessings in our lives every single day. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Amazing what new discoveries </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">we make</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> through the eyes of our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. I learn something from my precious little niece every time I see a new video posted on </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Lifecake</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">. It's </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">so fun to see her imagination run wild as she enjoys </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">the wonder only a child knows…. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">“But when fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to recover the </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">candour</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">and wonder of the child; the </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">unspoilt</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> realism and objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only by seeing it as unnatural....." - G.K. Chesterton, "The Everlasting Man"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please follow her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s12" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-8239185173606752822015-11-29T07:09:00.000-06:002015-11-29T07:11:19.819-06:00Lk 21: 34-36 Trapped By Surprise<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvdAbm6a3lgONCniXMvtSnk0ydQVYqvsAocRhrmGYSCHiYWGKNlOspYjHEDoooRRRQj1ano4C9FtyrBZ8kWHRPPammo96UzYYU6pkfJzH63FeyykZYG1upLfWVZR3-DGS1gd9VvqVr/s1600/adele.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvdAbm6a3lgONCniXMvtSnk0ydQVYqvsAocRhrmGYSCHiYWGKNlOspYjHEDoooRRRQj1ano4C9FtyrBZ8kWHRPPammo96UzYYU6pkfJzH63FeyykZYG1upLfWVZR3-DGS1gd9VvqVr/s400/adele.png" width="400" /></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Saturday of the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time</span></span></div>
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<span class="s7" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112815.cfm"><span class="s9" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jesus said to his disciples:“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth."</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As we approach Advent, the scripture readings take a darker turn. We read from the Prophet of Daniel about terrifying visions of beasts. Jesus warns his disciples about the heaven and earth passing away as the Kingdom of God draws near. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today, some people believe the "end of the world" is happening sooner than later. Terrorist attacks, catastrophic weather events, cyber security threats, and unending wars -- such realities keep us in a state of fear. However, we should remember that evil has always been present. Human beings remain cold and calculating; selfish and sadistic; blunt and brutal just like they did 2000 years ago. The only difference is bad news travels instantly, thanks to the Internet and technology. What used to be a localized scandal is now a global one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">By now most people know that the famous actor Charlie Sheen is HIV positive. He contracted the virus 4 years ago but paid millions of dollars to keep it a secret. He continued to engage in unprotected sex with various women.</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Trapped</span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">by his life-threatening disease, knowing full well his</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">surprise</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> could ostracize him in the entertainment industry, he paid for silence. Now that his medical condition is out in the open he must live with the stigma.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Like Charlie Sheen, many people engage in risky behaviors and make incredibly poor choices. The "anything goes" mentality give them the false sense of security. They'd never dream of contracting a deadly disease or losing their fortunes. Moreover, they'd never imagine the effect their addictions would have on friends and family.</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Trapped by surprise </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">these individuals</span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">are</span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">unable to deal with the fallout.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Do you ever feel trapped? Do you ever pray to God, asking him for a way out of the crazy maze? Do you feel like he doesn't listen? </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">God listens! </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">He drafts away your life's course with a delicate touch of an ink quell pen. But, wait! The scene hasn't </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">arrived yet! Like a movie film the video needs editing. God notices you chose a wide, rickety path filled with </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">boobie</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> traps! He cannot always rescue you at a moment's notice. Perhaps you need to learn a lesson. Perhaps he has already provided you tools for the way out of the mouse trap. Perhaps he wants you to use your intellect to make positive changes.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I find surprises interesting. They keep life fresh and invigorating. Yes, sometimes surprises aren't so great like when a person is diagnose with cancer or gets involved in a car accident. Other surprises, like the announcement of a pregnancy or a new job offer, are dreams come true. Surprises make life worth living; God hands out baskets full of them, day and night. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">As Jesus warns his disciples, we should remain vigilant and prepared when he does return at the end of time to judge. Personally, I do not see the end happening anytime in our lifetimes, </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">so we can take that off our </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">worry lists! Too much work remains in evangelizing the good news. Too many souls close to conversation. Too many good people alive who continue to carry out godly work despite unending evil.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Do not feel trapped by surprise. Life happens and it</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">'</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">s not always so neat and orderly. All we can do</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> is</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> accept what the Lord gives us. We all experience small "end of the world" dramas when we lose a friend, spouse, parent or even a child. We must remain strong, turni</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">ng to Our Lord and his Blessed M</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">other in humble and contrite prayer. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Advent begins tomorrow! Let us prepare for the coming of the baby Jesus by letting go of the areas in our lives which leave us trapped and vulnerable. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">The rains continue to fall as the temperatures reac</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">h the seasonal chill. No, the A</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">pocalypse is </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">not </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">now</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">! Just another day, another hour, another minute, another second....Hearts continue to beat as the world keeps turning.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please follow her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s9" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-91886559748975830242015-11-25T10:05:00.000-06:002015-11-25T22:03:58.159-06:00Lk 21:12-19 Compromising With Evil<div class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXjZ20ZYfXoyXGxUutXQRvq959ctWW5pZ1OLvOvgOaK1CpFJgmTcYdYiTMavdcy61QOZGjMzWZd1hp4MZMXfW4Vtm2-qLgr24HXGJvKIpI2PMaZxtpvGc3g8es6U7hpKvHIowz9dm/s1600/mission.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXjZ20ZYfXoyXGxUutXQRvq959ctWW5pZ1OLvOvgOaK1CpFJgmTcYdYiTMavdcy61QOZGjMzWZd1hp4MZMXfW4Vtm2-qLgr24HXGJvKIpI2PMaZxtpvGc3g8es6U7hpKvHIowz9dm/s400/mission.png" width="400" /></a><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Lk</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> 21:12-19 Compromising With Evil</span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;">By Benedict Augustine</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">’</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">You will even be handed over by parents,</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">brothers</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, relatives, and friends,</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> they will put some of you to death.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">You will be hated by all because of my name</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">but</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> not a hair on your head will be destroyed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">By your perseverance you will secure your lives.</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">’</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Perhaps the second most moving and tragic movie after </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Passion</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of the Christ</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> is</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Mission</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, starring Jeremy Irons and Robert De</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Niro</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Based on a true story, i</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t takes place in 1750 in the jungles South America, where </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Jesuits heroically convert natives </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to the gospel and spare them</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> indignity of the still widespread slave trade. This earns them the condemnation of both Spanish and Portuguese colon</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ists who see their missions and successful attempts at </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">evangelizatio</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n as an obstacle to their business. As a response, the colonists</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> threaten to remove by force the Jesuits in South America as well as those in Europe</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as some other countries had done. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The film centers on the testimony of a papal legate </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who is sent to review the situ</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ation in the New World, and subsequently</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> inform the Jesuits to discontinue their missionary work. While at first this task does not seem to bother him too much, it become progressively more on</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">erous when he realizes that this decision </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will effectively condemn whole populations of converted Catholics to slavery or death and enrich horrible godless men who commit crimes against humanity. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">T</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he protagonist, a Jesuit who had</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> successfully won over a recalcitrant tribe in the jungle, the Guarani, must deal with an impossible order: disband the mission and tell the natives to return to the jungles from which they came. The courage and</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> resolution that this character</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> shows in the face of such injustice and hypocrisy is nothing short of Christ-like. Never before </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">had I felt such an urge to join an order and preach to the poor, such was the power of this character.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;">The drama of the Roman persecution at the time of Christ and the first apostles, the drama of Jews suffering under the Babylonians at the time of Daniel, the drama of the American martyrs during the time of colonization, continue to happen. The cruel and powerful subject the faithful to all sorts of abuse and injustice. They may do it in very obvious ways as in Africa or the Middle East, or they may do it much more subtle ways as in the West. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In the past, many ostensibly good people sought</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to compromise with evil for the sake of self-preservation. Unlike the stalwart prophet Daniel and his friends, many of the </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Israelites</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> mixed in with Babylonian population and forgot </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that they lived in exile. Unlike Jesus’ disciples, many Christians in the early Church compromised with the enemy, either forming more palatable but less true versions of Christianity (i.e. heresies) or apostatizing altogether. </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Catholic Church made many deals with E</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">uropean monarchs to hedge </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in their missionary efforts, turn a blind eye to political corruption, and abandon their faithful at critical moments. Before Protestants take this as sufficient proof of their superiority, they should keep in mind that Luther’s break from the Church unleashed religious wars that would tear apart Christendom and quickly set the stage for the complete secularization of politics and community life. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In current times, many </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">people </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">inside and outside the Church hope to continue this tradition of compromise. They discourage rules that might conflict with the hedonistic and selfish lifestyle pursued by so many today. They choose to vaunt the </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">spoiled and perverse as victims of fabricated crimes, instead of the innocent who suffer actual crimes and die violent deaths by the thousands. They ask the more zealous to lay down their faith, vacate the premise, and simply live and let live</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and then proceed to invite the lukewarm to take their place and take pride in their lack of conviction</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Like the legate in </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Mission</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, many well-meaning people will tell persecuted Catholics abroad to disperse and find refuge somewhere else—as though that were somehow possible. From the safety</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and comfort</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of their homes, they will urge nonviolence and continue enabling horrible men to wreak havoc. Hoping not to ruffle any feathers, both political and religious leaders say little and try to change the subject.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Fortunately for these neglected populations, God does not compromise or seek to change the subject. He notes the compromises, the selfishness, the sacrilege; and He will let these societies and individuals fall under their own weight. Like Babylon, like Rome, like the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal, the powers today will come to an end. Despite the optimistic projections of the news, one can observe the social decline already taking place. The faithful have a choice now to repent and take care to help others; the faithless have already forfeited </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">repentance and will convince </span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">themselves</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that decline is somehow progress</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The situation is not hopeless, but it does require conscious action on the part of Catholics. The</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">y</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> may falter</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> now</span><span class="s3" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, or they may persevere. If they can do the latter, then as Christ says, they will secure their lives while the powers around them fall away.</span></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-88027703251846164982015-11-21T14:50:00.001-06:002015-11-21T15:25:00.873-06:001 Mc 6:1-13 Solidarity Through Our Blessed Mother<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hV5Mug7NBB0NK2yMF92klTa8iMkXUo9hRQ4xqIXVqMBHJrB4hB9Yc14eRG9XtXCdzQQX81JQbjq6H2klcL77FMm7YUcxdSpXGhy5oTHXcho7cavMvdicQJKDJNN91wx12kCejDVJ/s1600/mary4.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hV5Mug7NBB0NK2yMF92klTa8iMkXUo9hRQ4xqIXVqMBHJrB4hB9Yc14eRG9XtXCdzQQX81JQbjq6H2klcL77FMm7YUcxdSpXGhy5oTHXcho7cavMvdicQJKDJNN91wx12kCejDVJ/s320/mary4.png" width="214" /></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary</span></span></div>
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<span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112115.cfm"><span class="s7" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">So he called in all his Friends and said to them: “Sleep has departed from my eyes, for my heart is sinking with anxiety.</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: "times new roman"; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">I said to myself: ‘Into what tribulation have I come, and in what floods of sorrow am I now! Yet I was kindly and beloved in my rule.’ But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem, when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver that were in it, and for no cause gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed. I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me; and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">The Seasonal Blues </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> My body whines in discomfort as my mind oozes with sadness and anxiety. This time of the year begins three long months of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). The lack of sunlight, colder days and seasonal allergy symptoms leave me tired and irritable. I feel like Scrooge with "</span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Blah</span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Humbug" as my middle name. I ask Our Lord the same three letter word every year -</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">WHY?</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> Why do I feel so dreadful? Why do I have difficulty getting into the holiday spirits? Why do I dwell on all the wrong in my life instead of the good? Why is prayer and meditation such a greater challenge? Sometimes I wonder if life as a bear would be better. Then I can hibernate during the dreary months of November thru February... </span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">One thing for certain is I always turn to Our Blessed Mother during these tough months. She gives me encouragement when I rather mope around, depressed and isolated from others.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">The Presentation of Our Blessed Mother </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Today, the church celebrates the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although not mentioned in the New Testament, the story is found in the apocryphal book</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Protoevangelium of James</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">. Grateful for a child after years of infertility, Anne and Joachim wished to consecrate Mary to God. Tradition states that at the age of 3 years Anne and Joachim presented Mary at the Jerusalem temple where she remained with other young girls, educated in the Jewish faith. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">In Solidarity </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">When I feel depressed, the last thing I want to see or hear is bad news from the media. So, when terrorists attacked Paris, killing 129 people including an American, I mourned like the rest of the world. I imagined Our Blessed Mother wrapping the entire country of France in her arms with tears streaming down her </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">cheeks. When her children hurt, she hurts. When violence strikes, Our Blessed Mother protects. When life is full of despair and sadness, Mary comforts us in special way only a loving mother knows. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">"Oh Mother of God, some may rejoice in their innocence, others may be glad of their plentiful merits, let others exult in God's mercy shown to them without intermediaries; but you, my Mother, you are the only hope and solace of my life. When I completely despair of God and of myself, thinking of you, recalling you, my spirit comes alive again, as if out of the deepest darkness. You are my glorying, my well-being, my honor, and my life." - Blessed Henry Suso</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s5" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please follow her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s7" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-7290657586859666072015-11-18T10:48:00.000-06:002015-11-18T15:58:21.417-06:002 Mc 7:1, 20-31 Nothing Is More Offensive Than Truth<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBnB2Wmf7oFwM2A2_o3_RrKisHXQaSgWgwVfAFNiTDp4jWypSfAKeEjR7QKYe1fMu3sqCcm3b52H2vd5Fv1mYNHEqh3NFoaepI8NLJRaFuFrBNt3KZOHti4jJ6Wzs6lFHJv6IKaZ9U/s1600/pig.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBnB2Wmf7oFwM2A2_o3_RrKisHXQaSgWgwVfAFNiTDp4jWypSfAKeEjR7QKYe1fMu3sqCcm3b52H2vd5Fv1mYNHEqh3NFoaepI8NLJRaFuFrBNt3KZOHti4jJ6Wzs6lFHJv6IKaZ9U/s400/pig.png" width="400" /></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><em>Wednesday of the Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/111815.cfm">(Click here for readings)</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">By BENEDICT AUGUSTINE</span><br />
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It is difficult to contain one’s admiration for the martyrs in Maccabees. They must endure the destruction of their religion and </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">customs</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">by the “culturally superior”</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Hellenistic Greeks. In a move of brilliant propaganda—an art form that the Greeks perfected along with many others—</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">these occupiers</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">installed gymnasiums to lure the respectable Jews a</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">way from their Hebrew way of life.</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">These school/athletic centers</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> replaced the temple and synagogue</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> as the community center, and in a close-knit community like those of the Jews, this had huge implications.</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Instead of prayer, fasting, and reading the </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Torah</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to build up their souls, </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Hellenized</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Jews would </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">build up their bodies and connections with influential people. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">This is the way cultural upheaval </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">starts</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Then comes the persecution.</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Of course, o</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ne might wonder why a culture that has obviously won the war </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">of ideas </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">would resort to torturing the few kooks left behind. Shouldn’t the acceptance of every class, from rich to poor, of every major ethnic group, from Greek to Scythian, suffice as proof that the better customs, values, and religion prevailed? What does it matter that a few Jews refused to eat pork?</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Consider what Antiochus did the first six brothers </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as punishment for not eating pork </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and what he offered the seventh</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> as a reward for eating pork. This obviously bothered him deeply. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And if the youngest son accepted?</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Would this make any difference for this King? Hardly, he would just seek other easy victims to torture and kill. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">But why?</span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Because those who without the truth are deeply insecure. They believe what they believe not because something is true, but because it is easy. This creates huge doubts about truth</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and meaning</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">altogether. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Catholics take this for granted, but they shouldn’t because this problem plagues the majority of people today. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The propaganda</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that comes from this situation </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">might work to subdue newly conquered peoples, but it also works to reassure the occupiers that their falsehoods are true. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Except that it isn’t true. </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The existence of saints willing to die for the truth only reinforce</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> this nasty fact of life. The Maccabees enjoyed something Antiochus and countless other Greeks could never enjoy. That had a real religion based </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">on a real God who did real things. They had a hope in something eternal and wonderful. Antiochus, for all his riches and political power, had only lies. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Although he doesn’t intend it, </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the man</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> who possesses the truth makes the person who possesses a lie extremely angry. His very life shines light on the nothingness of the other person. The true man may not even notice that he has </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">disturbed the false man to the core of his being, and this makes things all the worse. His presence completely ruins the false man’s narrative that there is no truth and nothing worth living or dying for. The true m</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">an simply asserts that God i</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s, and those who have turned their backs have failed miserably. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">this insecurity, this resentment, this obsessive rage will recur again and again. It led to the Romans </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">persecuting</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> harmless Christians</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for centuries</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, many of </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">whom</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> served in important positions</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and paid taxes</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. It led King Henry VIII to kill his most trusted and competent minister Thomas </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">More</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for not consenting to his wedding. It led to the French Revolutionaries killing innocent priests and religious who served the poor that they were supposedly </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">trying to liberate</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Did the Romans, King Henry, or the French have bigger enemies? </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Yes, much more threatening ones, yet they felt scared by the ones who lived in peace. </span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">It is the same with militant atheists, fanatical Muslims, and obsessive modernists</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> today</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. These groups can stand anything but the truth. They can explain away every evil, and indeed brag about their tolerance, but they have nothing with which to overcome the good man or woman with faith in the true God. Sharia law can be declared, churches completely vacated and turned into tourist shops, </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">all the families </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">be utterly dissolved—all this would mean little, if one little </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">yokel</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in Nebraska attended a Latin Mass. Antiochus could host the greatest barbeque in the kingdom serving every pork product, feeding millions of hungry people</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and making a name for himself as the best leader in the ancient world</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">—but a fa</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mily of pious Jews would ruin this by simply staying home.</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The persecution will come eve</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n after the “culture wars” end, because falsehood will never make a person secure. Those still holding hope</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in God</span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> should continue to do so. No matter how crazy or “extreme” they may be, they have something infinitely greater than the masses, and deep in their heart of hearts, their enemies know it.</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-25092744298583805802015-11-14T07:57:00.001-06:002015-11-14T07:57:54.121-06:00Lk 18:1-8 Render Justice<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Saturday of the Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time</span></span></div>
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<span class="s7" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111415.cfm"><span class="s8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Monday's Nocturnal Distress </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Peacefully asleep in my bed, I suddenly woke up feeling lightheaded and clammy all over. I recognized the signs of an approaching fainting spell, so I began deep yoga breathing as I removed my bed covers and nightshirt. I reached over for a glass of water, placed on the nightstand, but found it empty. Soon I passed out.....</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I found myself lying on the carpet unable to open my eyes or move my hands and legs. Ringing filled my ears. I do not know how long I was unconscious. Maybe only a few minutes or as much as an hour. The inside of my mouth was filled with ulcers. My nose bled non-stop and the right side of my head screamed in pain. I noticed a scrape on my left knee, the result of a carpet burn.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">What caused me to faint? How did I fall off the bed like this? Then I remembered the new medication I took earlier in the evening. I succumbed to its serious side effects...</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The next day I stayed home from work while I nursed bruises around my eye, nose, and chin. I searched Google for info on the malicious Rx. Turns out the drug dangerously lowers the body's sodium levels which causes lower blood pressure, fainting and a laundry list of other adverse effects. Evidently, the drug company was sued by the FDA five years ago for improperly marketing the drug. The drug company had to pay millions in fines.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I filled the prescription, the pharmacist seemed to be especially concerned about making sure I was aware of the potential side effects. I blew him off thinking I'd be okay. Boy, I should have heed the warning!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">I felt like I came</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">close to death</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">experiencing this nocturnal distress.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Domestic Distress </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Thank the Lord I did not seriously injure myself from the fainting spell. However, many women and children who are regularly abused are not so fortunate. They live in daily fear not knowing when the next yell, slap, or punch will strike next. Their physical distress is endless. A battered wife may think to herself:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">What is wrong with me? Why does he punch when he gets liquored up? Why does he slap me around when he's mad at someone else? I do not know where to go or where to turn to! The make-up may cover up the bruises on the outside but I'm bleeding on the inside --so much pain and hopelessness. Will I ever get away from the violence? What about the safety of my children? Dear God, please help me!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Like the battered wife, the widow in today's gospel reading felt the sting of the adversary's abuse. We are not sure what her problem was. Did a land owner treat her unfairly? Was she being forced into slavery of some sort? Did some how she get cheated out of her property? All we know is that she was fed up with the judge's inaction. She demanded justice, a resolution of some sort. Her hounding and pleading bothered the judge so much that he gave in and granted her request. How come he was so scared that she would</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">strike him</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">? I can't help but think of the judge as a cranky old wimp too unmanly to deal with a strong, resilient woman. The widow had enough of the injustice! She remained persistent and eventually got what she asked for.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Render Justice </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Remember these words:</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Pray always without becoming weary!</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> When bad things happen to us, lift them up to the Lord. Seek help when things seem hopeless. Get away from a dangerous situation however difficult it may be. Be resilient and strong when life whips us around in the most unexpected ways. Remember that God does not wish for any of his children to be abused and neglected. </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Do not give up on justice!</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"> Sometimes we think those who hurt us will never get punished</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">. However, God has an amazing </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">way of handling people and situations. We just need to remain faithful and trust in his Holy Will.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;"><br /></span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">-Blessed Oscar Romero</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s12" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please visit her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.600000381469727px;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-80676650716329329242015-11-13T16:03:00.001-06:002015-11-13T16:06:52.664-06:00Lk 17:11-19 The Virtue of Gratitude<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSikJi5B9v3slTpqeLtsse80MJ8zxuQ6v-wuOX2Ef15hxK1yyvt2lgzpTgW3xOat2K2iB_SxBqFs_7zG0fUqjZFKCXl_XC6___uf3ek-zBwcobxo2JBEuYRww5JONBDvEV3nSYkc1/s1600/luci+baines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSikJi5B9v3slTpqeLtsse80MJ8zxuQ6v-wuOX2Ef15hxK1yyvt2lgzpTgW3xOat2K2iB_SxBqFs_7zG0fUqjZFKCXl_XC6___uf3ek-zBwcobxo2JBEuYRww5JONBDvEV3nSYkc1/s400/luci+baines.jpg" width="285" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop</em></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/111115.cfm">(Click here for readings)</a></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By FR ALFONSE NAZZARO</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em>As Jesus was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed...One of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God...Jesus said in reply, ..."Where are the other nine?"</em> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><em>What God thinks of Gratitude.</em></strong> It's not the miraculous healing that impresses me most about this story. Nor is it the Lord's incredible power and willingness to heal a group of lepers. What impresses me most about this story is the importance the Lord places on the virtue of gratitude. People need to show their gratitude.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why? Because grateful people tend to be very happy people. And the Lord wants all His people to be very happy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A few days ago I celebrated a funeral for an elderly gentleman. I had the honor of visiting him before he passed away. We didn't have much of a conversation due to the severity of his illness. But before I left him he mustered the words, "Thank you."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I knew very little about this man. I only knew that he had been married for over 40 years and that he was in the military. His wife told me he was a good man, a good husband and a good father. I tried my best to capture the depth and spirit of this man. I thought I did well until a very elegant woman approached the podium and gave her eulogy. It was Luci Baines Johnson. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Those who were alive remember where they were and what they were doing on November 22nd, 1963. Luci was sixteen-years-old and a student at the National Cathedral School for Girls. A girl ran into her classroom and announced that the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, had been shot in Dallas, Texas. She was unaware if her father had been shot as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"No one ever said a word about my father or mother. No one said a word period. We were dismissed. And I wandered out into the quadrangle of the school in a daze...I looked over and saw that the Secret Service had very thoughtfully sent a man I knew, one of my father's detail - and I turned and ran in the other direction as if I could run away from the inevitable. And of course, I wasn't capable of outrunning a secret service agent."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Her father and mother were just fine, but now she was the President's daughter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For the next few years, a very special Secret Service agent would be in her life five days a week. His name was <a href="http://www.southwesttimes.com/2015/10/roy-eugene-gene-nunn/">Gene Nunn</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Luci had never forgotten him and had come to Dallas to thank him <em>one last time.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em><strong>Thank you.</strong> </em>It's important for us to show our gratitude towards God and friends. It's the right thing to do. And we know it's the right thing to do because it does a mind, body and soul a lot of good. It helps us to remain happy. It helps us to remain strong.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are two big lies we all believed in when we were children: (1) <em>My parents are going to kill me!</em> (2) <em>My parents hate me!</em> But as we grew up, we left behind most of our childish ways and learned a thing or two, one of them being that there is no one in this world that will love me as much as my family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Let's learn from those who have gone before us. Let's show our gratitude to those who have shown us unconditional love. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Lord takes this very seriously, VERY SERIOUSLY. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We should too.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-45819449849265826132015-11-11T10:38:00.001-06:002015-11-11T11:33:11.241-06:00Wis 6:1-11 Politics and Religion<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmas4YGpPCicuIPmMUQmPAaBTOFfMrfXNF9AteUrQOHzgeCgu7TPegqCWVvHV7U_G3g1-0JkV7Rgb_5JRLmn-3G2AuJsDG0W1_6BfEHf32q6dP7CqTHYHel8cTLVt81AwQvSjpihQl/s1600/disaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmas4YGpPCicuIPmMUQmPAaBTOFfMrfXNF9AteUrQOHzgeCgu7TPegqCWVvHV7U_G3g1-0JkV7Rgb_5JRLmn-3G2AuJsDG0W1_6BfEHf32q6dP7CqTHYHel8cTLVt81AwQvSjpihQl/s400/disaster.jpg" width="383" /></a><em><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">W</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> 6:1-11 Politics and Religion</span></em></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">By Benedict Augustine</span></div>
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<em><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">To you, therefore, O </span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">princes,</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> are my words addressed</span></em></div>
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<em><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> you may learn wisdom and that you may not sin.</span></em></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><em>For those who keep the holy precepts hallowed shall be found holy,</em></span></div>
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<em><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> those learned in them will have ready a response.</span></em></div>
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<span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><em>Desire therefore my word</em></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><em><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">;</span></em></div>
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<em><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">long</span><span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for them and you shall be instructed.</span></em></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">For generations, c</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">onventional wisdom has dictated clearly and persuasively that one should steer clear of any conversation about politics and religion. Ironically, this is because people take their politics and religion more seriously than they do themselves. People will grow intensely uncomfortable when interrogated by a skeptic who has likely judged them as superstitious bigots, but they will feel perfect</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ly</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> at ease discussing their bowel movements and exercise routines. A Conservative will grit his teeth when he hears the idealistic plans of a Liberal who sees nothing wrong with expanding government, but he </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">happily hear complaints and gossip about close friends and colleagues. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Perhaps following this advice has avoided some serious confrontations and preserved a few friendships, but one thing is</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> much more</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> certain: the less people </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">talk</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> about politics and religion, the less they think about it. All factions, both political and religious, like</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to think that they</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> gain more converts with every new generation and every new cultural development, but the pol</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ls and surveys reveal something far more apparent</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Rather than leaning one way or another, more and more people simply choose to not to lean at all.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As the world becomes less religious, it also becomes less political. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Adults like to think that today’s children represent </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the future leaders of tomorrow while their c</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hildren already </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">assume</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> they are the future</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">’s</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> followers. They hardly bother thinking about leadership: they don’t care to be inventors, entrepreneurs, elected officials, or great artists; they want to be high-paid employees in a respectable profession, presumably after a decade-long stint in higher education. They do not think about creating a new world, but simply doing okay in the old one.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As for the fate of politics and religion, young people leave</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that to older people, and </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">most older people </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">then </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">leave that to the experts and enthusiasts. What results is a political and religious scene that looks increasingly polarized, but </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is in fact a scene of religious and political indifference. While devout Catholics wring their hands about the latest Synod and pray the rosary at Adoration, the vast majority of tepid Catholics can hardly bother themselves with understanding the argument. While political junkies fervidly debate the merits and drawbacks of a potential government shutdown, the vast majority of Americans will struggle to know what exactly the government does.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Obviously, this has serious implications for the</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> fate of the country and the </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Church. A growing number of people fail to see the relevance of the two biggest </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">institutions</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> that affect their very wellbeing. A great country and an even</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> greater c</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hurch will decline at the very time people need them most. The West is plagued with vicious spiritual dangers, and the East is plagued with physical dangers. All the while, people tune it out and play on their iPhones avoiding confrontation (or even simple contact) as best they can—</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as though </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">forgetting a problem will make it go away.</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Less obviously, but far more importa</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ntly, increased disengagement from politics and religion carry severe consequences for people’s personal freedom and responsibility. A person who shuts his mind off from important things leaves only his emotions to guide him, and when emotions take over, personal autonomy quickly dissipates. They will suffer from addictions, debauchery, ignorance, poverty, and every other evil. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">An indifference to outer structures of authority will translate to an indifference to the inner structures of authority as well. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">When the writer of Wisdom gives his advice to princes, he means all the faithful, for God has made all</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">His children into royalty. Their bodies are temples; their souls are kingdoms. When they ignore religion for the sake of propriety, they ignore the leadership they must exercise over their hearts, and when they ignore politics for the sake courtesy, they ignore the leadership </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">they must execute over their minds and appetites. </span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As Socrates explains—though people continually ignore this—in the </span><span class="s5" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Republic</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, government presents a useful analogy to understand the individual. </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">And a</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s many books in the Bible will attest, the Church too presents a useful analogy—that again, people ignore—of the whole spiritual and physical cosmos. Politics and religion are not the evils that people make them out to be; they are the goods that help people understand the world and themselves</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-79956883508600089122015-11-07T08:49:00.000-06:002015-11-07T17:24:57.591-06:00Lk 16:9-15 An Arrow Through the Heart<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFoAC7-5g_akB7W0rCKtsC90nmDJ-OwukF-H228YsN2npWNRp-fRNABzIho0BsJQETEbaEWqp1Ym0au6FrgQgM5MWMfYuwHTwJDQt0w7p3IaIpaax9kBCVPrUEu1V1DiCKCt-e6dik/s1600/heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFoAC7-5g_akB7W0rCKtsC90nmDJ-OwukF-H228YsN2npWNRp-fRNABzIho0BsJQETEbaEWqp1Ym0au6FrgQgM5MWMfYuwHTwJDQt0w7p3IaIpaax9kBCVPrUEu1V1DiCKCt-e6dik/s400/heart.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Saturday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>(Click Here for Readings)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My freshman year of college I registered for an Intro to Archery class. I thought: What a cool opportunity to learn one of the oldest methods of hunting and defense. Maybe I can "Wow" a Handsome "Bo" with my bow and arrow skills! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, my inner romanticism clouded my judgment. I believed the archery class would be easy "A", but it turned out painfully difficult. Each class left me with bruised arms, callused hands, and sore shoulders. I hit areas of my body more than the target itself! Mid-point through the semester the instructor noticed my struggles. She began working with me one-on-one and determined that I am left-eye dominant. Simply wearing an eye patch helped better aim the arrows toward the bullseye. Eventually I hit the target consistently and stopped bruising my arms. I felt like Miss One-Eyed Robin Hood but without Little John or Friar Tuck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I never picked up a bow and arrow ever again after I barely passed that archery class....</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">God knows our hearts. He knows what we think, how we feel, and why we do what we do. We may think he doesn't notice our struggles. We may curse him when we believe our lives are going nowhere. The bow is broken and the arrows are used up. We've shot an arrow here, there and everywhere but out of reach of a target. Do we even realize God's love is the target of choice? Why do we shoot off arrows of fear, insecurity, rage and jealousy in all directions possibly wounding ourselves and others? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We shoot an arrow into a pot of fool's gold only to discover riches do not buy happiness. We knock over a whiskey or prescription pill bottle with arrows thinking we can drink away the pain. We waste arrows promoting sexual indecency all in the name of personal freedom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why use the bow and arrow in sinful ways? Hand the archery equipment over to God and trust in him. He will not let us down. In fact, through our faith he will pierce our own hearts with arrows of unconditional love. To God, we are his precious targets. He hunts us down not to destroy us but bring us the comfort, support, and wisdom that we all so desperately need! Our ultimate target is to get to heaven someday. Why not let Our Lord, the perfect marksman, lead us on the right path?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Father-like he tends and spares us;</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Well our feeble frame he knows;</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In his hand he gently bears us,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Rescues us from all our foes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Alleluia! Alleluia!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Widely yet his mercy flows."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">-Divine Office Saturday Morning Prayer Hymn</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please visit her blog Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span>Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-4553037338793118032015-11-04T11:04:00.001-06:002015-11-04T11:12:55.246-06:00Lk 14:25-33 Heavenly Hatred<div class="s2" style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="color:font-family: "georgia";"><i>Wednesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time</i></span><br />
<span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><i>(Click here for readings)</i></span><br />
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<span class="s3" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">By BENEDICT AUGUSTINE</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“’If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, </span></div>
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<span style="color: "><span style="color:"><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">wife</span><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and children, brothers and sisters,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color:"><span style="color:"><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and</span><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> even his own life,</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color:"><span style="color: "><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he</span><span class="s4" style="color:font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> cannot be my disciple.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: "><span style="color:"><span class="s4" style="color:font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Whoever does not carry </span><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">his own</span><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> cross and come after me</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color:"><span style="color: "><span class="s4" style="color: font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">cannot</span><span class="s4" style="color:font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> be my disciple.’”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In explaining the demands of discipleship, Jesus minces no words and makes no attempt to comfort his audience: the Christian disciple must live a life of total sacrifice</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, period</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Nothing can precede service to Him, not family loyalty, not friendship, not financial success, nor even caring for oneself. In themselves, these parts of life, which happen to act as the fundamental bonds of society, mean absolutely nothing.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Few people, Christian and non-Christian alike, take the time to ponder this reality and consider the repercussions. Those who do will often deflect the re</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">al meaning of Jesus’ words and</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> claim that Jesus simply tried to make a point </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">by exaggerating</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> what people would have to give up. He preached love, not hate, and He would not contradict Himself by asking his followers to show their love by hating their parents, or their fortunes, or them</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">selves. He simply uses the word “hate</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">” to stress how faith in Him should </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">overarch</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> all other priorities in life.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Although appealing</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to mild mannered bourgeois Christian</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, this interpretation utterly misrepresents Jesus’s message. Unlike the superlatively rational moralists of his day, Jesus never bothers to prescribe a good balanced life with a solid set of virtues and a proper liberal arts education. He </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">actively </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">deplores respectability and comfort; instead, he has a very radical message: one must not simply “order his loves,” he must love the Holy Trinity and hate everything else. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">On the surface, the logic of </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">this seems to make little sense,</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">particularly if one </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">thoughtlessly </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">demonizes the word “hate,” which most people tend to do. But hate does not have to equate to evil, nor does it even have to contradict love. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Most people imagine hatred manifesting itself in some angry person shouting vitriol at another and threatening some kind of abuse and maybe inflicting it, but this is inaccurate—in fact, this is what people in love do, not people who hate one another. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In reality, hatred implies a total absence of feeling, a cold calculated disregard for another. Robert Frost captures this in his poem “Fire and Ice” when he equates fire with desire, and ice with hatred. This kind of hatred is seen in the coldness of abortionists, human traffickers, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">terrorists, </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">corrupt dictators, and</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the common masses </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> ignore them</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. They do not feel for the other, but completely </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">de-spiritualize</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> their victim (and themselves) to carry out or ignore </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">their </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">atrocities. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Nevertheless, this hatred can also be seen in the early Christian who turns his back on the world. When they hated sins of the flesh and of the spirit, this means they felt nothing in regards to them. They rightly de-spiritualized these activities because these activities would de-spiritualize them. Therefore, one who hates sin does grow excited about it, but rather the opposite. Removing a vice should be done with the passionless disdain of a surgeon removing a tumor, or a judge sentencing a violent criminal to jail.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Likewise, Jesus commands his disciples to have the same attitude towards family, friends, money, and themselves. They must hate, or cease to have any attachments, to these things. This means that they must stop trying to </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">spiritualize their affections and</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> making them into idols. However important these </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">things</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> might be to securing a good </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">life on earth, they will inevitably inhibit one’s salvation</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Thus, in order to follow Jesus into Heaven, one must </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">really </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hate everything </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and everyone besides Him</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Fortunately, God is so great that He effectively replaces all these attachments with something much greater. He replaces the earthly family with the spiritual family of the Church. He replaces the riches of the world with the riches of the spiritual life and treasure of Heaven. He replaces one’s worldly self with his infinite spiritual self. With God, it is always the case that one never loses, but always gains</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">beyond one’s imagination. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">All the same, the tradeoff must happen; contrary to popular opinion, the two loves cannot coexist. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">So, as the ice creeps over the Christian’s old life, a fire enkindles the new one. </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">This does not mean that discipleship is suddenly comfortable, or that it even remotely resembles the old life. The Christian life is still quite scandalous and enormously i</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">nconvenient—</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“comfortable Christianity” is an oxymoron. Yet, these hardships will</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> not</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> seem </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">so</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> bad for the Christian because he has turned away from the goodness of this life. He feels nothing, except the love</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, a true and pure </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">love,</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that</span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he has for God and His Children.</span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-16477016646116234892015-11-01T07:39:00.000-06:002015-11-01T17:57:21.820-06:00Lk 14:1, 7-11 Gather Around the Table<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhA5xDvZJnQ_2bc8olTDJiVAKXxi8TdBIvDut4ePqrjE9VhnHwIFoCsZTqUTQqXGeAB4SeMrv5LGNjJFCMPiSo7KDEJXG_o-DcdlY5qNuCu5CdZzMq_YZ-TNxBniR3qeaco-QziaA/s1600/halloween.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLhA5xDvZJnQ_2bc8olTDJiVAKXxi8TdBIvDut4ePqrjE9VhnHwIFoCsZTqUTQqXGeAB4SeMrv5LGNjJFCMPiSo7KDEJXG_o-DcdlY5qNuCu5CdZzMq_YZ-TNxBniR3qeaco-QziaA/s400/halloween.jpg" width="400" /></a><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Saturday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time</span></span></div>
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<span class="s7" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/103115.cfm"><span class="s9" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">Halloween 1994</span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;"> </span><span class="s7" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">- </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Fall semester of my junior year at Texas A&M University. My sorority sponsored a Trick or Treat for Canned Foods to benefit a local food pantry. We were encouraged to dress up in costumes and knock door-to-door in neighborhoods around College Station. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">I remember wearing a bumble bee costume with a black leotard and coordinating yellow/black striped wings. I was still trying to lose my "Freshman 15" weight, so I felt conscientious about my figure. Fortunately, my sorority sisters said I looked absolutely adorable: </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">Cute as a Honey Bee!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">At first, I thought the mission of "harvesting" canned food from the neighborhood was a silly idea. I quickly changed my mind when one home after the next donated boxes full of pantry food! In fact, we received so many "Thank-yous" for our volunteer efforts. Home owners looked surprised to see college students more interested in feeding the hungry than flirting with fraternity brothers at a Halloween party. Some people even handed us Smarties,</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"> Twizzlers, Snickers, and M&</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Ms as we continued our route through the </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">evening</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"> drizzle and chill.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">I felt like a</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">humble</span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"> honey bee after collecting so many cans of vegetables, soups, and SpaghettiOs. I totally underestimated the generosity of people. Even though we were no longer little girls dressed up like Cinderella or Tinker Bell, holding our mommy or daddy's hand, we demonstrated to strangers our commitment to those in need. We could have decided to get drunk at The Chicken (a local country bar), shack up with a stranger at a frat party, or get involved in some kind of "criminal" mischief. Yet, we all had a common goal in mind as sorority sisters: helping the greater community. Nothing more rewarding than setting aside our own personal comforts and serving others!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">Halloween 2015 </span><span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">I sit at my laptop thinking about the Halloween nights of the past. Countless hours spent watching horror movies. Pounds of candies consumed. Dozens of costumes worn by yours truly! Parties, dances, religious observances, and cemetery visits. Halloween is one of those times of the year when I think about family and friends who have died. Are their souls in heaven? Are they at rest? I miss them terribly and pray for them.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s10" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">What if I hosted a Halloween party for some famous biblical figures? Who would I invite? Let's see: Of course, Jesus, Our Blessed Mother and Joseph. Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazareth. Peter, Paul and the Disciples. Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Gosh, in my small apartment I could set up a card table next to my regular dining room table. Prepare carafes of wine, fish fillets, loafs of bread, and ripe olives. Who would dare sit himself (or herself) at the head of the table? Would it be one of the disciples quarreling about who is the greatest? Would it be Peter as our first Pope? Maybe the head of the table would remain empty as guests decided to turn a seated dinner into a standing room only buffet! Share the food and fellowship with camaraderie and respect. Lay to rest any ideas that one person is better than another because of wealth, power, or clout. Cast aside Mrs. Pride and Mr. Ego in exchange for Mrs. Humble and Mr. Compassion! Who knows, we may open up my private Halloween party to the entire neighborhood! Let the trick or treating begin....</span></span></div>
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<span class="s8" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">"It's said that All Hallows' Eve is one of the nights when the veil between the worlds is thin - and whether you believe in such things or not, those roaming spirits probably believe in you, or at least acknowledge your existence, considering that it used to be their own. Even the air feels different on Halloween, autumn-crisp and bright." - Erin Morgenstern</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please visit her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s11" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-63828077638976265492015-10-26T12:25:00.001-05:002015-10-26T12:25:46.923-05:00Mk 10:46-52 A Blind Man Who Saw God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em>Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time</em></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><em><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/readings/102515.cfm">(Click here for readings)</a></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By FR ALFONSE NAZZARO</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em>As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, son of David, have pity on me." And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more. Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." ...Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man replied, "Master, I want to see." Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you." Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In today's Gospel passage, we read about a blind man who believed in God. He didn't need to see God in order to believe in Him. He just needed to have faith.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yesterday, I read in the Dallas Morning News an interesting article. Apparently more Norwegians believe in ghosts than in God. I'm not surprised. But I am amused. I find it absolutely amusing what people believe in when they don't believe in God!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><em>More than eye can see. More than ear can hear.</em></strong> Bartimaeus believed in a lot of things. He believed in God and in the colors and descriptions of things he could not see. In other words, he believed there was more to life than in what his eyes could see. This is important, and a great lesson for all of us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em>There is so much more than what our eyes can see and our ears can hear. Do you believe this?</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thankfully, scientists and engineers believe it. That's why they invent more and more powerful microscopes, telescopes and - why not - stethoscopes. They know there is more to this world than eye can see and ear can hear. They know we are very limited in our sensory perceptions. <em>Are we not also a bit limited in our spiritual perceptions? And maybe - just maybe - our sensory perceptions inhibit a bit our spiritual perceptions!</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">After all, it was a blind man - not the crowd - who had enough faith in Jesus to ask him for a miracle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is much to learn from Bartimaeus: <em>There is more to this world than what eye can see and ear can hear.</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are also a lot of people like Bartimaeus in this world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know if you read the incredible love story of a remarkable couple who stunned their closest friends when they decided to get married. Their friends said it could never work. But three years later, things couldn't be better for Ian and Larissa.</span><br />
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<em><span style="font-size: large;">"In an age when marriages are breaking at the drop of a hat...it is endearing to see a love story as beautiful and as unique as this one. </span></em><br />
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<em><span style="font-size: large;">College sweethearts, Ian and Larissa, like any other couple had eyes full of dreams. Dreams of getting married, having children and building their castle of love - together! But, something happened, something so tragic that changed their lives forever." </span></em><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ian had a horrific car accident and in the crash he hemorrhaged his brain. The once happy-go-lucky guy was left without the ability to speak, walk and care for himself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Despite all this, Larissa's love did not change. She was confident in her love for Ian. Her friends were not so sure. They tried to convince their best friend not to marry him. <em>He will be a burden to you for the rest of your life. You won't have a life. You won't be able to realize all your dreams. Why put yourself through all this? You don't owe him anything. You don't have to do this.</em> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But Larissa knew there was more to Ian than eye could see. She knows this because she knows there is more to love than eye could ever see! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Their wedding was one of the most beautiful weddings friends and family had seen, even their skeptical friends agreed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Over the years, Ian's condition has actually become better and is steadily improving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hate to say this, but this couple's skeptical friends were acting more like scientists than like friends. Scientists can be very boring. After all, most of them just report what they see. <em>What you see is what you get, right?</em> And when they discover something amazing...chances are it was by accident!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the other hand, poets and artists are like welcomed friends. They are never boring. They see well beyond what eye can see; that is, well beyond the obvious! They go deep. They "see" deep. They see and/or hear things no one else can see and/or hear. And through their art, they give to us - the blind and deaf - a world full of amazing colors and sounds. They reveal the Spirit in all things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now if you find it amazing what poets and artists can reveal, then you should find it even more amazing at what God reveals through His Son.</span>Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-37769547570767093802015-10-24T16:56:00.000-05:002015-10-24T16:58:49.966-05:00Rom 8:1-11 Pay It Forward<div class="s4" style="line-height: 1.2;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTB4TB2i1cLyJhs_ryTGcX1566ZJGd3sQY2GMTOXA0-Qt1AltdRwvx5tostjEC-_gD0Xuffp10IVmp4IsVXYNl9Gmr3KC6IJas8Cx0RxClghkrKzS7Jpr0eQTo5d4BNUFh9K2VzN-4/s1600/pay+it.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTB4TB2i1cLyJhs_ryTGcX1566ZJGd3sQY2GMTOXA0-Qt1AltdRwvx5tostjEC-_gD0Xuffp10IVmp4IsVXYNl9Gmr3KC6IJas8Cx0RxClghkrKzS7Jpr0eQTo5d4BNUFh9K2VzN-4/s400/pay+it.jpg" width="370" /></a><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Saturday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time</span></span></div>
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<span class="s7" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s7" style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102415.cfm"><span class="s8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">)</span></span></div>
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<span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit. The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Wednesday morning I craved a Chick-</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Fil</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">-A spicy biscuit sandwich, so I decided to go through the drive thru on my way to work. I sat waiting for the Mini Cooper in front of me to place her order. Several minutes passed by when impatience set in. "</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">Come on, Lady! Why aren't you moving forward? Make up your mind! Is it a biscuit, fruit, or an OJ??? I needed to get to work like five minutes ago! </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">" Finally, the car moved forward as I inhaled exhaust fumes. (Oh, the stench. Cough, cough..) I rolled up my window mumbling to myself "</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">Uh! Why did I bother coming here today? Is this sandwich really worth the wait ?</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">"</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Feeling super hungry, cranky and not at all in the mood to go to work, I finally reached the pick-up window. I handed the attendant my debit card. She smiled and said, "</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">Oh, ma'am, the lady in front of you just paid for your breakfast!</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">"</span></span></div>
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<span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">What? Free breakfast? Wow! Okay, now I felt like a jerk for being so impatient and crabby. (Lord, please pardon me!) My foul mood instantly vanished! I couldn't believe I was a beneficiary of the "pay it forward" phenomenon I've heard so much about. I drove to work with a grin on my face. The first thing I did before even turning my computer on was tell my coworkers about my experience. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">No question. I will "pay it forward" the next time I'm at a drive thru window no matter how many passengers occupy the vehicle behind mine. Good deeds do wonders for the psyche.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Sadly, in our narcissistic culture, it's common to see people go through their </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">every day</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">lives without a care in the world. They are "in-love" with themselves: </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">obsessed with the flesh</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">. These people live and breathe selfishness. They believe life is all about accumulating wealth, power, and material possessions. If they happen to do anything, it's to benefit their own desires. Pride is at the focal point....</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Contrast this by the faithful who are </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">more concerned with the Spirit</span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"> </span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">than the flesh. They are observant of people and situations, finding ways to be kind and help others. They are fine Christian witnesses who despite the negativity that is so prevalent in our society turn situations positive. Kindness, love and goodness preferred over pride, vanity, and hatefulness. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I think we should all "pay it forward" sometime in the next week with one act of kindness. Offer a friend a ride, leave a nice tip at a restaurant, or compliment a co-worker for a job well done! I think Our Lord smiles every time he sees one of his flock do something special for someone else. We are all here on this earth to help one another and love one another. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">Throw away the selfishness and replace it with</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">selflessness</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">. Do a good deed today and everyday!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;">St. Anthony Mary Claret, Pray for Us!</span><span class="s11" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;">"I will be kind to everybody, particularly to those I find troublesome." - St. Anthony Mary Claret</span></span></div>
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<span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;">"A life lived for others, is the only life worth living." - Albert Einstein</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s9" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span class="s6" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please visit her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s8" style="color: blue; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.6px;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-15291916117506724312015-10-21T12:52:00.002-05:002015-10-21T12:57:57.477-05:00Rom 6:12-18 Tolle Lege!<div class="s2">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQn_Qkm8DaAmB07-OOuu4hBQL1d8i1QqtAMMt4ab9pnqp1z2VeECcrJHsFGaTs1P3b9nodRzCZMUIpfqaMvyy1-6LdhDPnPBGO_Bbv075cUFCur0gbqO4wQiGbyYwM1j23VqEf1jJ/s1600/saint.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLQn_Qkm8DaAmB07-OOuu4hBQL1d8i1QqtAMMt4ab9pnqp1z2VeECcrJHsFGaTs1P3b9nodRzCZMUIpfqaMvyy1-6LdhDPnPBGO_Bbv075cUFCur0gbqO4wQiGbyYwM1j23VqEf1jJ/s400/saint.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Wednesday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em>(Click here for readings)</em></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">By Benedict Augustine</span></span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em>“But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin,</em></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s4" style="font-style: italic;">you</span><span class="s4" style="font-style: italic;"> have become obedient from the heart</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s4" style="font-style: italic;">to</span><span class="s4" style="font-style: italic;"> the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.”</em></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">Some people like to confess that they suffer from an “addictive personality.” Like their forefathers</span><span class="s5">,</span><span class="s5"> they often find themselves lost in some pleasure like gambling, or alcohol, or drugs. Calling </span><span class="s5">an</span><span class="s5"> otherwise pedestrian vice some kind of hereditary holdover or some psychological determinant might take away some of the badness, but it</span><span class="s5"> unfortunately</span><span class="s5"> does not remove it. Whatever </span><span class="s5">his </span><span class="s5">personality might be, an addict is still an addict.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">Of course, in an age that fosters so many pleasures, quite a few of which are innocuously deemed “guiltless,” one might ask, “What is so bad about addiction?” Pretty much everyone is an addict in some w</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/" name="_GoBack"></a><span class="s5">ay, but for many, it is the law or biology that determines which addictions are acceptable or not. This means that drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol are obviously bad since they</span><span class="s5"> often do harm to the body. T</span><span class="s5">he evils of </span><span class="s5">other addictions do </span><span class="s5">not stand out so easily. </span><span class="s5">Do they even count?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">What does one make of addictions to pornography, videogames, Netflix, social media, smartphones, or shopping? Something might be said about the psychological or relational damage they might inflict, but people smooth this over by preaching simple moderation. However, these pleasures hardly admit any kind of moderation, as any person who has tried to kick the habit can attest. Looking at pornography might seem moderate enough, except when a man tries quit it completely. A woman may not look at her phone “all the time” like her other friends, but she would feel utterly helpless if she left her phone at home one day. A teenager might binge on Netflix in the lazy days of summer, thinking little of it, until they find themselves academically handicapped when they return to school.</span><span class="s5"> If one is not careful, these addictions fasten themselves into a person’s consciousness and worm their way into the daily routine.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">Besides preaching a hopeful gospel of the Resurrection to the rich and poor alike, the Christian apostles made inroads with their audiences throug</span><span class="s5">h the abundance of common sense, particularly about addiction, </span><span class="s5">that could sometimes make the great Greek philosophers look downright silly. Plato and Aristotle spoke a great deal of morality and ethics, along with the Stoics and Epicureans who followed,</span><span class="s5">and </span><span class="s5">would develop complex theories of balancing the passions, perfecting virtues, moderating the appetite, and developing a disciplined routine through the application of a purified intellect. While the early Christians politely acknowledged these contributions, they could cut to </span><span class="s5">the problem quite easily. They knew people could only serve one master, and if this master was not the Creator, it had to be some kind of creature</span><span class="s5">, which in turn made the people slaves</span><span class="s5">.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">In other words, Paul and other disciples understood that people</span><span class="s5"> suffer </span><span class="s5">helplessly </span><span class="s5">from</span><span class="s5"> </span><span class="s5">one addiction or another</span><span class="s5">. They do not appreciate things</span><span class="s5">disinterestedly; they fall headlong into a vice and become consumed with it. And, contrary to the wise words of Plotinus, Zeno, or Lucretius, they cannot simply pull themselves out of it with a thorough course in philosophy. Rather, they need t</span><span class="s5">he saving grace of Jesus Christ. N</span><span class="s5">othing less will do.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">For this reason, e</span><span class="s5">ven the best of the philosophers could not shake off an addiction. They simply traded away a carnal addiction for a spiritual one, but it was an addiction all the same. Socrates could easily pass on the drinking and carousing of his young pupils—in most cases, anyway—but he could not pass on exalting himself, his mode of life. In all of Plato’s dialogue, Socrates prove</span><span class="s5">s</span><span class="s5"> that he is addicted to himself, or more properly, the idea of himself. For all </span><span class="s5">his</span><span class="s5"> false humility, he is a slave to his ego, a slave to his ideas. Most</span><span class="s5"> intellectuals </span><span class="s5">suffer from this</span><span class="s5">. If one were to ask </span><span class="s5">this type of person to give up preaching their ideas, as they asked Socrates to do, they would, like Socrates, rather choose death.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">St. Augustine knew this truth well. In his Confessions, he recounts his plunge into all levels of addictions: first, carnal ones; second, social ones; and third, spiritual ones. After some soul-searching and some miserable experiences teaching—it seems that Roman and Carthaginian teachers dealt with many of the same problems as </span><span class="s5">those of </span><span class="s5">teachers today—he rid himself of the spiritual and social addictions. </span><span class="s5">However, h</span><span class="s5">e struggled badly with the carnal addictions up until his conversion.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">Oddly enough, it was a passage in </span><span class="s5">Paul’s letter to the Romans</span><span class="s5"> that led to his conversion. He heard a voice in the forest crying “Tolle </span><span class="s5">lege</span><span class="s5">! (</span><span class="s5">take</span><span class="s5"> and read!)”</span><span class="s5">and</span><span class="s5"> opened up the Bible to </span><span class="s5">the</span><span class="s5"> verse</span><span class="s5"> that condemned fornication</span><span class="s5">. He broke down and cried at this moment because he realized that all </span><span class="s5">his reasons</span><span class="s5">—and, being the genius that he was, he had many—signified absolutely nothing. He was a slave, and he needed the good master.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">It is telling that w</span><span class="s5">hen modern people read St. Augustine’s work today, many find him unnecessarily</span><span class="s5">harsh about sin and addictions. The devil’s monotonous temptation, “you will be like gods!” continues </span><span class="s5">unabated</span><span class="s5"> as human beings, Christian and non-Christian, wrestle with the allures of the Information Age. I even remember </span><span class="s5">an issue of </span><span class="s6" style="font-style: italic;">The</span><span class="s5"></span><span class="s6" style="font-style: italic;">Atlantic</span><span class="s5"> declaring that the iPhone has effectively defeated temptation by providing so many apps that can regulate a person’s behavior. Curiously, the world remains entranced by addiction despite such innovations.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5">Only one master exists that can save man from the addiction: Jesus Christ. One may still choose to be slave, foolishly hoping the thing that enslaves them might someday liberate them. Or one might come to their senses, take up Paul’s words (</span><span class="s5">tolle</span><span class="s5"> </span><span class="s5">lege</span><span class="s5">!), and serve a new master who will make him a son, not a slave.</span></span></span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-64541453610372273812015-10-20T10:45:00.001-05:002015-10-20T10:46:23.990-05:00Luke 12:49 Go and Set the World on Fire<div class="s2">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Tuesday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>(Click here for readings)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">By SOPHIE DRUFFNER</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span class="s3">Jesus said to his disciples:</span><span class="s4"><br /></span><span class="s3">“I have come to set the earth on fire,</span><span class="s4"><br /></span><span class="s3">and how I wish it were already blazing!</span></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">About a year ago, I was kneeling in the All Saints Chapel in Eucharistic adoration when, flipping through the readings in the Worship hymnal, looking for some divine revelations from God on which college I was meant to attend, my eyes caught this verse.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">I was so confused.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">The “fire” here that Jesus mentions has a deeper meaning than a single spark</span><span class="s3">, although of course, it starts that way</span><span class="s3">. The fire here is a purifying, cleansing fire, </span><span class="s3">one that can cleanse the world in order to make change. And </span><span class="s3">we’re not talking about physical fire here, which relies on the presence of oxygen. We’re talking about spiritual fire: the fire of the Holy Spirit.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">Go and Set the World on Fire</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">Almost every day I thank God for how blessed I am to have been given a solid Catholic education, a faith that reaches through the centuries, and a capacity to make change. But no one can move mountains alone. One needs the fire which Jesus gave us on the day of Pentecost. One needs the ability to say or write the right words, to know when to speak and when to stay silent, and the ability to love no matter how unlovable someone may seem. </span><span class="s3">One needs the Holy Spirit.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">In this world, there are so many people who need your love. Let’s take the cashier at Target. For eight (or more) hours a day, the cashier swipes credit cards, counts change, has to endure screaming children and irate parents, and interact with hundreds of members of humanity. </span><span class="s3">It’s a mind-numbing job, I’m sure.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">So break the monotony. </span><span class="s3">As St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote, g</span><span class="s3">o and set the world on fire.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">Try to strike up a conversation, or at the very least, give that cashier a compliment. Look for something that she probably took time on that morning—earrings, hairstyle, a nice sweater over the regulated polo, makeup, gelled hair. Or look for something the person probably admires about themselves—quality or color of hair, beautiful eyes. Look that person in the eye and give them a compliment. Break the monotony. Go and set the world on fire.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">Or think about the invisible people in this world: the bus drivers, bathroom cleaners, janitors, bus station-sweepers, shop assistants. If you have the opportunity, reach out to them. I once had a five-minute conversation with a woman cleaning one of our college’s bathrooms over singing while cleaning. She had a beautiful voice and I think she appreciated the compliment and the conversation. I’ve told a custodian fixing her hair in between cleaning sinks that I really liked her hair, because she let it go gray and white instead of dyeing it. She was so surprised that I noticed, and then she gave me a huge smile and with a thick Latin accent, wished me a happy weekend! I walked off to class with a huge smile on my face, and I know hers was still there when I closed the door of the restroom.</span><span class="s3"> A spark had ignited.</span></span></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-89418156272425538922015-10-17T15:19:00.002-05:002015-10-18T15:40:57.507-05:00Lk 12:8-12 Survey Says<div class="s4">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0WLPZY0SoWftCkaejbHmiZ7Ua3wmAWPqJR3PoS3Tfpu3CHDSTMYnwsXOr4NCq6GgVd8-A2aWXU9XVMF_YmQPqHhHV57tBAIuB_d1QkYA9niqsgm6mV5ikvPijf8UoCS-fa4snmVL0/s1600/smiley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0WLPZY0SoWftCkaejbHmiZ7Ua3wmAWPqJR3PoS3Tfpu3CHDSTMYnwsXOr4NCq6GgVd8-A2aWXU9XVMF_YmQPqHhHV57tBAIuB_d1QkYA9niqsgm6mV5ikvPijf8UoCS-fa4snmVL0/s400/smiley.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;"><em>Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr</em></span></span><br />
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<span class="s5" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: large;">By JENNIFER BURGIN</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">(</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101715.cfm"><span class="s6" style="font-weight: bold;">Click Here for Readings</span></a><span class="s5" style="font-weight: bold;">)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s7">“</span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. </span><span class="s7"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><span class="s9" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Survey Says </span><span class="s7">Almost every time I purchase something, or interact with someone, I am asked to complete a survey. I've lived in my new apartment less than a month and the management company has already sent out 3 surveys asking me to rate my move-in experience and maintenance requests. The auto company called about my car buying experience and then followed up with an online survey. Even my employer asked me to complete a "quick" survey rating my boss' job performance. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s7">I feel like our society is bombarded with never-ending surveys! What if I rated a person or experience poorly? Will my opinion change anything? I understand companies want to ensure satisfied customers, but being asked to complete a survey after purchasing a bag of dog food, making a cable bill inquiry, or even signing a new lease agreement is annoying. Most people will only take the effort to fill out a survey if they have something</span><span class="s7"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">negative</span><span class="s7"> </span><span class="s7">to say. Personally, I rather fill out a digitized comment card when I have a truly</span><span class="s7"> </span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">awesome</span><span class="s7"> </span><span class="s7">experience. Otherwise, I simply "delete" the email and go on with my business hoping one of those survey reminder messages doesn't appear in my inbox the next day.... </span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s8" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;"> If I like something, I will buy it again. If I don't like something, I will tell my friends to stay away! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><span class="s9" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Rating Jesus</span><span class="s7"> If the Pharisees and Scribes completed a survey on how well Jesus follows the Law he would receive a 1 -"Poor" rating with comments like: "</span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">He blasphemes! Traitor of Moses! Friend of sinners!</span><span class="s7">" Alternatively, a follower miraculously healed by Our Lord would rate him a "5"- "Excellent" making </span><span class="s7">comments such as: "</span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">He healed me! He loves all of us regardless of our sinfulness. He's so warm, loving and compassionate."</span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="s7"> I bet the woman Jesus referred to as a dog or the deaf man who was spit on twice might put down a 3.5 or 4 just because....</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s7">How would you rate Jesus on a scale from 1 to 5? Hopefully most of us reading this blog would select a 5 with no heavy thought. However, those who question their belief in God may not even know what to select. Questions come to mind: </span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">Isn't Jesus some guy from the past who performed miracles and got killed for it? How is he relevant in my life now? All of this talk about loving your enemies is a crock, isn't it?</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s7" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">Surveys aside, we can choose to love Christ and follow his Commandments, or we can abandon him by the waste side. Sadly so many people in our modern day culture have little time for God or religion. We all notice it within our empty pews, social engagements, and liberal media. How can we convince lapsed Catholics to return to the church? How can we influence society so they will not abandon religious practice all together in exchange for an "anything goes" lifestyle?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s7">Today is the feast day of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. Tradition has it the child the gospel writer Mark refers to in Mark 9:37 is actually Saint Ignatius of Antioch: </span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;">Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.</span><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="s7"> Even in modern day times, Saint Ignatius writings still inspire the faithful.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s8" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">"I am God's wheat, and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ." -Saint Ignatius of Antioch</span></span></div>
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<span class="s7" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Pray for Us!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s8" style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span class="s7"> </span><span class="s9" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">This meditation was written by Jennifer Burgin. Please visit her blog: </span><a href="http://jenniferburgin.blogspot.com/"><span class="s11" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Jennifer's Spectrum of Spirituality</span></a></span></span></div>
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Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-439331035718369167.post-18191106027849555592015-10-14T17:14:00.004-05:002015-10-16T12:22:46.264-05:00Rom 2:1-11 The Hypocrisy of Being Nonjudgmental<div class="s2">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXOg1doljqXPlp8PIEPALwB8yHa81ULo2LFAnZCpnxARJ7iZ8R0kFYfJTPO8szTMjnQeq-Wi3bDbhfhRRuLrrm0rsWfFwtRAGGH4P7May-cWi6MMl9j7vznSkwfDVUINUNZgwy7P-/s1600/mockery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqXOg1doljqXPlp8PIEPALwB8yHa81ULo2LFAnZCpnxARJ7iZ8R0kFYfJTPO8szTMjnQeq-Wi3bDbhfhRRuLrrm0rsWfFwtRAGGH4P7May-cWi6MMl9j7vznSkwfDVUINUNZgwy7P-/s400/mockery.jpg" width="400" /></a><i><span style="font-size: large;">Wednesday of the Twenty-Eighth Week in Ordinary Time</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101415.cfm">(Click here for readings)</a></span></i></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">By Benedict Augustine</span></span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You, O man, are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: large;">For by the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s4" style="font-style: italic;">since</span><span class="s4" style="font-style: italic;"> you, the judge, do the very same things.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">The good conscientious Christian fears few things more than the charge of hypocrisy. Out of all kinds of wrongdoing, Jesus cites hypocrisy as among the very worst. Not only is it dishonest and offensive, it undermines efforts of evangelization. In fact, it might be the single biggest threat to the Church, and thus the biggest threat to people’s salvation. A murderer may take lives, but the hypocrite may take souls. Hence, Jesus spends far more time crying “Woe!” to the Pharisees than to the Romans.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">Despite their relative distance from Jesus, people outside the Church</span><span class="s3"> today</span><span class="s3"> continue making the charge on Christians, </span><span class="s3">assuming the role of</span><span class="s3"> Jesus. </span><span class="s3">For them, u</span><span class="s3">nless every Christian is poor, miserable, and hoisted on a cross, they warrant the charge of hypocrisy</span><span class="s3"> (see the attached picture of my hero, Pope Benedict, stupidly being condemned for his lack of charity)</span><span class="s3">. They enjoy a normal marriage and condemn same-sex marriage? Hypocrites! They have a comfortable life in a developed country while people starve in other parts of the world? Hypocri</span><span class="s3">tes! They want to help the poor, but don’t support fleecing the rich and imposing socialism? Hypocrites! They revere the Virgin Mary and the special role of women in salvation, but don’t aggressively tout the unnatural claims of modern feminism? Hypocrites!</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=439331035718369167" name="_GoBack"></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">Against such an onslaught continually launched by</span><span class="s3">these</span><span class="s3"> sanctimonious secularists</span><span class="s3"> (</span><span class="s3">again, </span><span class="s3">see the attached picture)</span><span class="s3">, many Christians go quiet. Although they cannot bring themselves to simply go with the social trends eviscerating the family and the Church, they cannot speak against it without the fear of being a hypocrite.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">At most they will try to find points of agreement and keep their objections buried dee</span><span class="s3">p in their hearts. They express their </span><span class="s3">love for homosexuals, but </span><span class="s3">softly</span><span class="s3">mutter their contentions with redefining marriage. They will</span><span class="s3"> loudly</span><span class="s3"> </span><span class="s3">express their </span><span class="s3">solidarity with the poor, but talk amongst friends about how oppressive socialist regimes made them poor and kept them there. And this will be the case with most issues</span><span class="s3">, as though keeping one’s unpopular opinions to oneself somehow absolves them hypocrisy, as though Jesus does not read the minds of all people and note the discrepancy between their thoughts and their words.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">In this way, the threat of being labeled a hypocrite ironically leads to even greater hypocrisy since some people will actually override their own conscience and common sense to keep from offending</span><span class="s3"> anyone. So many Christians now posit a phony tolerance in place of charity, a vague relativism in place of truth,</span><span class="s3">and a virtual connection</span><span class="s3"> on the </span><span class="s3">internet</span><span class="s3"> in place of a spiritual body</span><span class="s3"> in the Church</span><span class="s3">. In short, they claim to be Christians despite rejecting all the very things that make them Christian.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">Is this what Paul </span><span class="s3">or Jesus want</span><span class="s3"> when they </span><span class="s3">tell</span><span class="s3">disciples “not to judge”? </span><span class="s3">Are</span><span class="s3"> they really just giving a lesson in tact? </span><span class="s3">A lesson in politics?</span><span class="s3"> No, they</span><span class="s3"> in fact suggest the opposite. They do</span><span class="s3"> not tell people not to judge, but to judge themselves before others. One may rebuke sinners, as long as he rebukes himself. One may confront heresy, as long as he practices orthodoxy. One may demand virtue</span><span class="s3">s</span><span class="s3"> of others, as long as he practices virtue</span><span class="s3">s</span><span class="s3"> himself.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">Of course, some have adopted the more liberal interpretation of judging others. If one does not judge, he will not be judged himself—therefore,</span><span class="s3">“</span><span class="s3">good Christians</span><span class="s3">”</span><span class="s3"> simply live and let live. However, this breezy non-confrontational attitude flies in the face of real charity. A person who hurts </span><span class="s3">himself</span><span class="s3"> and others requires help, not tolerance. A person who wants goodness needs advice, not nonjudgmental silence. A person who suffers from loneliness and neglect needs affection, not more space. For this reason, the person who avoids judgment act</span><span class="s3">ually incurs a harsher judgment.</span><span class="s3"> As paradoxical</span><span class="s3"> as it sounds</span><span class="s3">, God will</span><span class="s3"> judge a person for not judging!</span><span class="s3"></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="s3">This does not mean that one should fall into judging the world with impunity—</span><span class="s3">that should be left </span><span class="s3">to the experts.</span><span class="s3"> One must simply focus on oneself first.</span><span class="s3"> As Paul recommends, one must judge oneself before anything and seek God’s grace for self-perfection. Then, out of charity, one may judge others for their betterment. </span><span class="s3">In this regard, it is important to h</span><span class="s3">eed St. Theresa </span><span class="s3">of Avila’s advice</span><span class="s3">: “Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s3" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-size: large;">Acting this way will not a person a hypocrite, but a true loving Christian.</span></span></div>
Fr. Alfonsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02557206560119402976noreply@blogger.com0