Catholic Corner

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

I hope everyone is having a blessed Sunday. Today in the Traditional calendar it's the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury, also the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas of course. Don't know if it's the same in the regular calendar.

Funny that there were so many saints willing to stand up to bad kings and rulers in the old days - even though they risked death - and suffered death because of it. The Holy Father, the Faith, the rule of Christ The King. These things were so important that they died for them.

Dear Lord, give me the grace to see opportunities in my life, in this modern era, where I can stand up for my faith!

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Feast of the Circumcision today. Jesus was so obedient to His Father's Holy Will, even to the point of following the Jewish law to the letter. I makes me think about what God's Will is in my life. Our duty as it flows forward every moment is God's Will for us. So hard to do it. I always think about wonderful things I want do to - but my daily chores and duties seem so boring and hard!!!

Anyone out there interested in the Oblates of St. Benedict? I enjoy the website of the Benedictines of Clear Creek - very interesting and being an Oblate seems 'doable' in real life. I'd be interested in chatting with any Oblates out there, or anyone interested.

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Don't know if other Catholics out there know about this group:

Welcome to the Calix Society Home Page

It's an AA based group, but Catholic. They follow the 12 step stuff but of course recognize that our "higher power" is God, and they are focused on getting drunks sober, and back to Church!! It looks interesting!!
JMum

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Very quiet out there!

Anyone know if the cause for sainthood for Matt Talbot is going ahead? His story is so moving and inspiring.
JMum

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Good morning to all who stop by. As Catholics we all know about Our Lady's apparition at Fatima. She specifically called upon us to pray the Rosary. The Family Rosary, said by the entire family, led by Dad, or Mom, is especially important.

I found some words on the Rosary spoken by Sr. Lucy (one of the Fatima Children) which make me realize I too should pray Our Lady's Rosary with renewed strength and confidence. Here's what St. Lucy wrote in 1970 after she had been told that the Rosary had fallen out of favour and was not being prayed as it used to:

"As for what you are telling me concerning the recitation of the Rosary, it is a great pity! Because the prayers of the Rosary (15 decades) and "The Beads" (5 decades) are, after the Sacred Liturgy of the Eucharist, what unites us the most to God through the richness of the prayers which compose it, all coming from Heaven, dictated by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Gloria which we recite with all the mysteries, was dictated by the Father to the Angels when He sent them to sing near His Word Who had just been born, and it is a hymn to the Most Holy Trinity. The 'Our Father' was dictated to us by the Son, and it is a prayer directed towards the Father. The 'Hail Mary' in its entirety is impregnated with a Trinitarian and Eucharistic meaning: the first words were dictated by the Father to the Angel when He sent him to announce the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word: 'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.' Thou art full of grace because in Thee resides the Fountain of that same grace. It is through Thy union with the Most Holy Trinity that Thou art full of grace. Moved by the Holy Ghost, St. Elizabeth said: 'Blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy Womb.' If Thou art blessed, it is because Jesus, the fruit of Thy Womb, is blessed. Moved by the Holy Ghost, the Church also has added: 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death:'"

Have a great day.
JMum

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Here's a the address of a great Catholic blog:

Fr. Z's Blog | Once named: What Does The Prayer Really Say? – Commentary on Catholic issues & slavishly accurate liturgical translations – by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

It's the blog of Father Z, who is just wonderful - very faithful, and very interesting!! Father Z also has some youtube stuff which I'll try to find and link to.
JMum

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Here's a you tube talk of Father Z on the Holy Mass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5KKEJxeGUQ[/video]]Save the Liturgy, Save the World - Fr Z - YouTube

JMum

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Anyone watch The Vortex? It's on Church Militant TV and features Michael Voris. It's dynamite!! A daily talk on our Church and what's going on in the world. I'll put a link up later.
JMum

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

Here's an article sent to me by a Traditional Catholic friend. I thought it might be of interest to anyone wondering about receiving Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling. I am NOT the author of this article

"In the 13 years I have been a practicing Catholic, I have been a traditionalist all but two of them. As a result, I have received communion on the tongue and kneeling for eleven years. I’ve also found that the way we traditionalists receive communion is something that many Catholics outside of the Extraordinary Form can and want to do as well, but many of them never hear the reasons why we do so. When they do hear something, it is a stock answer that it was the way done for centuries, the change to communion in the hand was of dubious legality, it promotes “reverence for the Eucharist”, etc.

"I think these answers are true but unsatisfying. They normally serve only to appeal to the person already doing it. These defenses also only exist in a world where communion in the hand and communion on the tongue exist in opposition to each other. This really isn’t the experience most Catholics have. Instead of this, we need to offer them a reason why communion on the tongue and kneeling is appropriate on its own terms. When we examine the Sacred Scripture and the nature of this symbolism, such reasons are abundant.

"When John Paul II gave his addresses that became the Catechesis on Human Love, one of the most salient points was that we can’t speak of things we do “in the body” or “in the spirit”, since the body and spirit together comprise the human person. When we sin, we sin through our bodies and through our spirit. Both are wounded by sin, and both must be redeemed (Romans 8:23), and eventually reunited. (1 Cor 15:41-54) This redemption is made possible through the Sacrifice of the Cross (CC601), and as the Catechism of St. Pius X teaches us (Article 4:19), the fruit of Christ’s sacrifice is applied to us in a very special way by the sacraments.

How This Impacts the Body

"As a child I loved (and still love) The X-Men, especially their leader Professor Charles Xavier. He was an incredibly powerful mutant with telepathic abilities. He could communicate with people just by using his mind. We humans aren’t that lucky. We have to communicate by our words and our actions. We often hear the clich? actions speak louder than words, and this is especially true in regards to how we live out the Catholic faith. (James 2:24) St. Paul speaks about how we need to use our actions to control our bodies. (1 Cor 9:27) This lesson applies in a profound way to how we receive Holy Communion. When we approach Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, Catholics today either bow or kneel. Bowing implies (at least in Western culture) reverence. For traditionalists, we try to take it one step further. Here kneeling implies subjection. You need to use your whole body to kneel at the communion rail. This is the way we bring our own bodies into subjection, since it is the nature of the flesh to seek its own pleasure and desires. (Matt 26:41)

"We also kneel at the rail as a sign of our sinfulness. In the Catholic liturgy the sanctuary represents the heavenly liturgy, and the communion rail represents the line between heaven and earth. Another separation that is signified is the timelessness of the offering on the Cross being presented to the Father in heaven (in the sanctuary) and the fallible limitations of time here on earth. For God, all things are present (CCC 600), yet for man, we measure things through time.

"Holy Communion becomes the meeting of all of these things. The infinite is given in the finite, the eternal given in the temporal, and heaven and earth are joined. For our part, we approach as close as we can to heaven seeking God’s grace, but we cannot enter into heaven yet due to our fallen nature. Instead, we must wait with humility and patience for Christ to come and transform us. Our reception of Holy Communion is a small participation of that transformation that will happen in the fullest at the end of time.

How This Impacts the Soul

"While we might sin with the body, all sin begins in the interior, that is, in the soul. As Jesus points out, it isn’t what we take into us that will defile us spiritually, but what proceeds from our fallen natures that is defiled. (Matthew 15:10-20) Within each and every soul lie many disordered tendencies that only we know about, and some we don’t even know about. This is why salvation is a gift freely bestowed on God. Left to our own devices, even our faith will not be sufficiently pleasing to God to merit salvation. (Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter VIII)

"When we receive Holy Communion, the life of Christ is infused into our soul, and combined with great faith, the defilement of our fallen nature is cleansed, and we become less and less attached to those things. As a result, we who were predestined by God become slowly conformed to the image of His Son in time. (Romans 8:29-30) If we let the grace of God work within us through good works (Ephesians 2:8-10), we can truly say at the end of time it is not I who live, but Christ who lives within me (Galatians 2:20) and Christ can say well done faithful servant! (Matthew 25:23)

"Once we have been purified by Christ in this heavenly experience, we can then bring His Gospel to the world. When we receive communion on the tongue, we are calling to mind not just the words of Christ above, but also the prophet Isaiah. While we all know his prophesy of the suffering servant, we seldom talk about how his prophetic ministry entered a new stage in the book of Isaiah Chapter 6.

"When King Uzziah died, the young prophet had a vision of Heaven, specifically what heavenly worship looks like. He saw the Seraphim proclaiming the Sanctus and the altar of sacrifice. Isaiah’s reaction is one Peter would proclaim in front of Jesus centuries later: depart from me, I am a sinful man. (Luke 5:8) At this point something peculiar happens. One of the Seraphim go to the altar and take a burning coal from the altar of sacrifice and approach the prophet. The burning coal is then placed on Isaiah’s lips. (Another way of saying that is placing the burning coal on the tongue.) At this point the angel proclaims his sins forgiven, and God selects Isaiah as His chosen messenger of redemption and judgment to His people Israel.

"When we receive communion, we kneel before the heavenly worship service going on in the sanctuary, and have the burning coal of Holy Communion placed on our tongue, which purifies not just our lips but our whole being, both soul and body. Once we have been purified, we hear the Ite Missa Est, or a command to go preach the Gospel. We become God’s chosen messengers not just to Israel, but to the entire world, making disciples of all nations. (Matthew 28:19)

"The best part about all of this is you don’t need the Latin Mass to do this. You can do this in whatever liturgy you attend. It also serves as a powerful reminder of how we live our faith through the body."

- See more at: Why You Should Receive Communion Kneeling and on the Tongue | Catholic Lane

[Jazi's Mum]

Catholic Corner

As I was saying my prayers this morning my mind kept wandering to my 'drinking' problem - as it often does these days :H:H

Then I got to thinking about the Bible reading from last Sunday. It was The Wedding of Cana where Our Lord turns the water into wine. WOW!!!!! I know this was a great miracle and Our Lord's first public one. And that through this miracle He sanctified marriage.

But what struck me so forcefully is that He did not turn the water into Gatorade :H:H, or milk, or juice...

I'm being silly there, but it truly is amazing to me that Our Lord, and Our Lady, and His disciples actually were at a party, and they all drank wine. I know Our Lord, and Our Lady, would not have turned up their noses and said: "well, no, we can't drink because alcohol is evil!"

We know that wine and other spirits was an important part of their culture.

And of course at Mass the priest, with his words of consecration, turns the wine into the Blood of Our Saviour. So the Catholic Church certainly is not against alcohol!!

So that says something very important to me. My job is to learn to a) abstain from a substance, or b) use it properly.

Wine and other alcoholic beverages are NOT the enemy. Our mis-use of them is the problem. Wine and spirits are gifts from God, just like all of nature.

Lots to think about here and I think I will talk about this in my progress thread in case there are other Catholics and Christians here who don't check out this thread but might be interested in the idea.
JMum

[freedom4me]

Catholic Corner

Paul says in 1 Cor 6:12: All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

[dill]

Catholic Corner

Jazi, I just wanted to pop in here and thank you for some of the info and links you have posted. I have lurked here and have found them very useful. As far as your topic (I know I'm long past your posting), no, alcohol is not an enemy or inherently evil. It is a good thing for those who know how to drink it as it was intended. It is simply not for me and others like me to be able to do that anymore. I wonder why it is that only some people have this "problem" with alcohol. I assume it is genetic biologically. But when I think of it in spiritual terms, in terms of my faith, I happen to view it as my cross to bear. That which tempts me but if I resist I become a stronger, better person.

[okoren1]

Catholic Corner

Hi all,
I am relatively new to MWO and a very practicing Catholic. I was delighted when I discovered this on MWO!

According to the dates of the last post, there hasn't been much activity on this thread? If so, it's a real shame... I am 2 days AF and would love to hear from other Catholics on how their discipleship to Our Lord and their confidence in the intercessions the Virgin Mary have helped them in their struggles with AL.