Tag Archives: Christ

Happy Easter! In Appreciation “Take & Eat”

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Happy Easter Everyone!

This glorious morning, we will celebrate the Mass of Easter. After hearing the sermons and summonings of Lent, after fulfilling our “Easter Duty,”and after a week of holy preparation and solemn Liturgies, Easter is splendidly here.  It is Jesus , Who has been at the center of our preparation. Jesus, the Christ, our Lord!

Throughout this time,who else has enabled us to fulfill the mandate of Christ, “Take and eat!”  Who is it that have heard our confessions and blessed us in His Name, and in His Person?  It is those upon whom He breathed His peace, empowered to forgive and sent forth with His authority, His holy priests, ministering His holy sacraments.

Thank you holy Fathers, faithful Fathers, faith-filled Fathers! It is into your care that Jesus entrusted His flock.  We. a flawed People, yet a royal priesthood, a kingly, and prophetic People, thank you, our flawed in your humanity, and yet gloriously appointed and anointed Priesthood.  Happy, holy Easter, dear Fathers. May you be forever blessed!

Why I Remain Catholic

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Today, On Good Friday, Here’s Why I Remain Catholic

Though the ill aspects of the Catholic Church have recently been highlighted in the news, commentator Elizabeth Scalia says the good aspects have never gotten enough attention.

Published: April 02, 2010
by Elizabeth Scalia

Elizabeth Scalia is a contributing writer to First Things Magazine as the blogger known as The Anchoress.

The question has come my way several times in the past week: “How do you maintain your faith in light of news stories that bring light to the dark places that exist within your church?”

When have darkness and light been anything but co-existent? How do we recognize either without the other?

I remain within, and love, the Catholic Church because it is a church that has lived and wrestled within the mystery of the shadow lands ever since an innocent man was arrested, sentenced and crucified, while the keeper of “the keys” denied him, and his first priests ran away. Through 2,000 imperfect — sometimes glorious, sometimes heinous — years, the church has contemplated and manifested the truth that dark and light, innocence and guilt, justice and injustice all share a kinship, one that waves back and forth like wind-stirred wheat in a field, churning toward something — as yet — unknowable.

The darkness within my church is real, and it has too often gone unaddressed. The light within my church is also real, and has too often gone unappreciated. A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved the lives of millions.

But then, my country is the most generous and compassionate nation on Earth; it is also the only country that has ever deployed nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

My government is founded upon a singular appreciation of personal liberty; some of those founders owned slaves.

My family was known for its neighborliness and its work ethic; its patriarch was a serial child molester.

Read the complete essay here.

“Howling With the Mob”

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H/T Webster Bull

During these terrible days, when so many are saying so much so loudly against and in favor of our Church, and especially its leader, our dear Pope Benedict XVI, it is hard to stand apart from the mob—the one howling in protest, or the one trying desperately to shout them down. We are all standing along the Way of the Cross, jeering the scourged Christ or bewailing his persecution. How can we possibly be different? How can we change? Continue reading →

When We Were Dead In Sin

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From the book On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil, bishop

By one death and resurrection the world was saved

When mankind was estranged from him by disobedience, God our Saviour made a plan for raising us from our fall and restoring us to friendship with himself. According to this plan Christ came in the flesh, he showed us the gospel way of life, he suffered, died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead. He did this so that we could be saved by imitation of him, and recover our original status as sons of God by adoption. Continue reading →

Palm Sunday and Political Correctness Run Amuck

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The young maker of this video has been taught well.  He bends over backwards not to offend anyone of any other religion who might happen upon this video instruction.  He says at the beginning (profusely), “It’s pure entertainment; nothing else!”   After transforming the palm frond into a cross, he ends with, ” Don’t take this as anything against your religion; just pure entertainment;  no stuff like that.”

Not that it is this young man’s intention, but now that this symbol of the Faith and the palm (distributed to the faithful as a reminder of  our fickleness and unfaithfulness) have been devalued to the level of a pass-time,  society must be all the better for it;  right?  The “entertainment” value of the Cross having been established, actually,  does emphasize how quickly nice people forget and dissimilate.  Little chance here that this young man will die a martyr.   Little does he know what he’s missing.  Jesus and the message the Cross, does offend and divide.

The Beginning of Holy Week

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Palm Sunday

O Blood and Water that gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of mercy for us, I trust in You.

Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury
of compassion — inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with
great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will,
which is Love and Mercy itself. (St. Faustina)