Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Everywhere I have gone, all the Blogs that I have the opportunity to visit, the social-networking sites, everywhere...it is quite rampant... We need Jobs! I have come across this Prayer to St. Joseph, whom among other things is the Patron Saint for...you guessed it, Work.  He's not St. Joseph the Worker for Nuthin'! 9 Days.   A Simple Novena.  I Pray you also find your Vocation, not just a Job... God Love You ♥   Powerful Novena to Saint Joseph (Over 1900 years old) O St. Joseph whose protection is so great, so strong,  so prompt before the Throne of God,  I place in you all my interests and desires. O St. Joseph do assist me by your powerful intercession  and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings  through Jesus Christ, Our Lord;  so that having engaged here below your Heavenly power  I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage to the most Loving of Fathers. O St. Joseph, I neve...

Today while praying day 2 of this blessed Novena to Our Lady I am concentrating on the knots of life that involve my relationship's with other family members. Novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots - Day 2 1. Make the sign of the cross 2. Say the Act of Contrition. Ask pardon for your sins and make a firm promise not to commit them again. 3. Say the first 3 decades of the Rosary. 4. Make the meditation of the day (to be posted each day) 5. Say the last 2 decades of the rosary 6. Finish with the Prayer to Our Lady the Undoer of Knots Meditation for Day 2 Mary, Beloved Mother, channel of all grace, I return to You today my heart, recognizing that I am a sinner in need of your help. Many times I lose the graces you grant me because of my sins of egoism, pride, rancor and my lack of generosity and humility. I turn to You today, Mary, Undoer of knots, for You to ask your Son Jesus to grant me a pure, divested, humble and trusting heart. I will live today practicing these virtues and of...

This morning is supposed to be Happy Monday, the first pay after Christmas and Holiday Bookings are piling up, modern society how selfish and greedy! We have on the news this morning the terrible crisis looming in care of the elderly and one mans million pound bonus payment for just 1 years work at a bank owned by the Government. Am I the only person wondering if the current push from some people for legalised euthanasia has a lot to do with the increasing numbers of inconveniently healthy and long lived dementia patients? Only recently we've also had spurious scare stories about too many immigrants and big families costing too much. Its not a christian agenda is it? Did Our Lord visit the tax gatherers and say you need to get more money to pay the Roman governors bonus? Did he refuse to heal the mad or elderly because they would be too expensive to look after? How can we reconcile greater needs and lower spending? I don't have any clever answers . This is more than I ca...

From Eucharistic Prayer number 1: “... when supper was ended, He took this precious chalice in His holy and venerable hands...” I entered the Church post Vatican II during the “Jesus is our friend” era of the 80s. Religion classes in Canadian schools focused on anthropological questions like what footwear was popular in biblical times, and our spiritual life was addressed by memorizing the Lord’s Prayer. The first has been useful when it comes to the annual Passion Play; the latter has stood me in good stead every day since my conversion. As a method of religious formation, however, this curriculum was seriously deficient in encouraging a relationship with God, or fostering a love for the rich beauty of our faith. Unfortunately the parishes I attended after that, though full of wonderful people and shepherded by sincere priests, did not inspire me to delve any further into the depths of Catholicism. The buildings were rather bland, the music often trite, and the homilies made us fe...

This perceptive poster on prayer was created by Marcel at Aggie Catholics:

My friend, Stephanie Mann, author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation ,  is starting up a New Sunday Series: Our Lady and the English Martyrs" at her blog, Supremacy and Survival. Be sure to a take a look!

Caritas in Veritate: Faithful Helpers of God's Precious Infants at Maid... : My friend Carole Smith who co-ordinates the prayer vigils outside the Marie Stopes abortion provider in Maidstone Kent sent me these phot...

Officiating at a wedding in the Philippines I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife , and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs,   how to please her husband . This is a sort of appendix to   Sunday Reflections   for today . The above verses, 1 Corinthians 7: 32-34, are from today's Second Reading. My friends in   Worldwide Marriage Encounter   are probably sick and tired of my emphasising that the basic vocation in marriage is to be a spouse, not a parent. The latter is a consequence of the former. In this brief passage St Paul doesn't mention parenthood at all but the priority of pleasing one's spouse. I truly believe that  a spouse who gives fi...

Read this rubbish and make up your own mind.

Moses , Carlo Dolci, painted 1640-45 Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel Mark 1:21-28 (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Jesus and his followers went as far as Capernaum, and as soon as the sabbath came Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority. In their synagogue just then there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit, and it shouted, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus said sharply, ‘Be quiet! Come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him. The people were so astonished that they started asking each other what it all meant. ‘Here is a teaching that is new’ they said ‘and with authority behind it: he gives...

 I came across this on Facebook. We'll have to wait in the Philippines, in Hong Kong and, I think, New Zealand, until next Advent for this.

By Theresa Thomas Hey, mama! Yes, you with the baby in your arms… I see you, out there, sitting at your table, your desk, or your kitchen island, and I notice you are a little discouraged. You switched on the computer a few minutes ago to check your mail and a couple websites, the most exciting contact you’ll have with the outside world today, in between your hourly dates with your almost-potty-trained toddler in the bathroom and picking up Cheerios off the floor of the kitchen for the umpteenth time. You are disheartened, tired. Maybe you passed a mirror earlier today and thought to yourself, Where is that super-trim figure I had in college? Didn’t my step used to have a little more bounce? Why am I doing this? You love your family with ferocity but you are just running out of steam. Your husband is working hard to allow you this privilege of staying home with your children, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like a privilege. You may even feel like it would be easier to get an outside jo...

By Matt Archbold What is the dumbest phrase in the English language? In a moment. As I grew up I learned the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. As a young man, the world was very black and white. Young men can think like that. I remember discussing politics and religion with my Father when I was a young firebrand. While my Father and I shared most beliefs, he seemed less willing than I to call all those who held opinions and acted in opposition to the truth names, names like ‘evil.’ I did. My Father didn’t. He would often say cryptic things like “There but for the mercy of God.” “But Dad, the things they do and say are evil. I would never do that.” He would look at me and repeat, “But for the mercy of God.” As I grow older, I realize that what I once mistook for softness was a strength I didn’t understand. Mercy. When I was young, like Hugo’s Javert, I found mercy hard to understand. It makes a lot more sense to me now because I know much better what I am, a ...

St. Francis de Sales is patron of Catholic writers.  As a blogger, therefore, I happily claim him as a patron of "me." As the Church celebrates his feast on January 24th, I can imagine him sitting in the world of today with a laptop, clicking out the good news that indeed Jesus lives.  Francis wrote voluminously.  Not only is he known for his books, but for his (numerous) letters.  He also composed short pamphlets for wide distribution, to help clarify the faith in a time when confusion abounded.  I like to imagine him patting today's Catholic bloggers on the back, encouraging us to "keep it up" as we distribute our witness to the Truth in THIS age of the Church and in our turbulent world.       St. Francis was a bishop and founder of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary; he was a busy man in France in the early 1600s. Still, he found time to take up his quill pen and spread the good news of Christ. As we clack a...

Mrs Julie Lamb with grandchildren Erin and Patrick O'Brien Yesterday I received an email from a good friend in London, Ontario, Laura O'Brien. Laura asked me to pray for her mother, Mrs Julie Lamb. Julie has lung cancer and has been ' given weeks to a couple months to live'. I've known Laura since 1981 when I was studying in Toronto. She and her husband Danny - Laura had the good sense to marry an Irishman! - were members of a prayer group that used to meet in St Basil's in the heart of  this remarkably cosmopolitan city. (The 1980 census showed that 44 per cent of the population of Metro Toronto had been born outside of Canada). I met Julie for the first time in 2010 during a visit to Canada. She is a delightfully alive person. Laura wrote, ' She is getting great care, and all the family have pulled together to ensure she has all her needs met'.  Please remember Julie and her family in your prayers

It is quite easy to see the Face of God in a Newborn...in a Toddler. It gets much more difficult as we grow... Thus, many find it easy to criticize, berate and many times belittle the work, the journey, the discovery and the challenges of a Tween and especially of a Teen. I am just as guilty as the rest for saying that Teens are God's punishment for having sex! For the record, that still and always WILL make me laugh!  Hate to say it, but I know I was to my Mom and my kids can be for me as well. Thank God for Humour! It helps to make the yoke lighter. But in all seriousness, we many times fail to see God in the works or our Youth. We fail to give them the Credit that they deserve. I have read too many articles that go on and on as to how the Church is losing numbers in droves.  How the Youth are apathetic and that there is little hope for Our Future... Well, they are WRONG!  Dead and Thank-God Wrong! Our Youth are Filled with the Holy Spirit!  Our ...

I'd forgotten all about the movie "The Pianist," which was released in 2002 and won the Palme D'Or until several of my freshman students began talking to me about it. They had seen the parts of this movie in eighth grade, during a quarter-long study of the Holocaust and were deeply moved by it. I'd never seen the movie and wanted to be able to talk with them about it. This is a brutal, magnificent movie. It speaks of the human spirit and its struggle to survive. Based largely on the true story of classical pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, it gives witness to the life of  gifted Polish pianist, a Jew, who managed to survive in Warsaw during World War II while hundreds of thousands of Jews were exterminated in death camps. Szpilman is portrayed by actor Adrien Brody, then 29, who won an Academy Award for his work. Read more »

One of the world's smallest surviving babies was discharged Friday from the hospital where she spent nearly five months in an incubator — but not before getting the Hollywood treatment. Wearing a pink knit hat and wrapped in a pink princess blanket, Melinda Star Guido was greeted by a mob of television cameras and news photographers outside the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. "I'm just happy that she's doing well," said her 22-year-old mother Haydee Ibarra. "I'm happy that I'm finally going to take her home … I'm just grateful." Melinda was born on August 30 weighing just 9.5 ounces, less than a can of soda. She was so tiny that she fit into her doctor's hand. Melinda is believed to be the world's third-smallest surviving baby and second smallest in the U.S. Now weighing 4.5 pounds and breathing through an oxygen tube as a precaution, doctors said Melinda has made enough progress to go home. It's too early to know how...

Calling of Peter and Andrew , Duccio di Buoninsegna, painted 1308-11 Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Mark 1:14-20   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the Good News from God. ‘The time has come’ he said ‘and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.’ As he was walking along by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the lake – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you into fishers of men.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him. Going on a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. He called them at once and, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him. ...

"Heaven is at present out of sight, but in due time, as snow melts and discovers what it lay upon, so will this visible creation fade away before those greater splendors which are behind it."                                 (John Henry Cardinal Newman)

This is a response to Michael Voris's recent videos [see here] about men reclaiming their masculinity back,  in the church. It's for fun, by the way( my post, that is. Michael is deadly serious)!!!!

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Since the 1800s, Christian Churches have gathered for ecumenical prayer services, bible studies, and other community activities to encourage Christian unity. In most of the world these days of ecumenical focus take place in the octave between the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter (Jan. 18) to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Peter (Jan 25). This year the theme is “The Transformative power of faith in Christ” taken from 1 Cor 15:51-58 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’...

I'm not a very techie' person and don't have a smart phone, but I was lucky enough to receive an i.Pad1,as a prize and this app is such a blessing and a real aid to prayer. Its free and easily downloads to smart phones and iPad. Recommended and I have had no problems using it, it uses the up to date words and responses. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibreviary-pro-terra-sancta/id422601705?mt=8 iBreviary Pro Terra Sancta Free Category: Reference Updated: Nov 10, 2011 Version: 1.0.6 Size: 10.3 MB Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Romanian, Spanish Seller: NetGuru S.r.l. © Paolo Padrini e Leonardo Parent http://www.proterrasancta.org/en/ its a genuine Franciscan resource. I found it quite by chance when I searched in my app store function for free catholic prayers.

God champions the underdog too! This mornings Mass was a very relaxed affair. It was a gentle resting in the presence of the Lord; a confirmation of the love of God touching the very heart of a broken world, and his healing, abiding presence, reverberating outwards. It was a joy to stand behind the altar and pray the words of the Mass. I felt so peaceful during Mass and afterwards too. The first reading about David and the Philistine was great food for thought too! The huge bully boy of the champion of the Philistines bearing down upon the little underdog David, the underdog triumphed! Encouragement for any embattled soul fighting to do good, in a world of temptation, where good is the underdog and does not always triumph. It was good to hear the friendship of the Lord is worth pursuing. The gospel saw a clash between the over fastidious Pharisees who were picking fault with Jesus for doing good. It reminds me not to take my eye of the reason for faith, not to become bogged d...

Life is still valuable even when it is no longer useful | CatholicHerald.co.uk

As I rode the train home from the New York Encounter last night (yes, that is our son's upright bass in the foreground; I agreed to carry the behemoth home so G. he could enjoy dinner in New York with friends unencumbered) I thought about why it had been such a good experience. I was delighted the chamber music orchestra our son plays in had the chance to perform Friday night in the Hammerstein Ballroom.  I found the talk on the Hubble Telescope interesting. I thought it was incredibly cool that Polish film director Krzysztof  Zanussi spoke and then was walking around wearing those fashion-forward glasses. But in the end, what awes me most about the New York Encounter are not the performances or presentations. After all, I have had two decades of interesting experiences as a journalist. What moves me most and stays with me now are the people who attend the New York Encounter .  Read more here...

We are doing our job casting out our net in the cyberspace!  Congratulations ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to be part of this amazing group of Catholics. May the Holy Spirit continue to guide our hearts and hands as we post on this "net" reaching out for the Lord! Your sister in Christ! Ebeth Weidner http://acatholicmumclimbingthepillars.blogspot.com/ NB. I hope Ebeth doesn't mind me asking here if all our authors are linked to their blogs? Everyone has full admin access so check you are on our sidelinks. Also a query..anyone know where our big Sheblogs picture went? Should we keep the blog as it is or do we want the big picture?

God is here. It is a simple statement, just three little words.  Yet for me these are the operative words that inspire devotion, soothe trauma, motivate me toward good, enable me to resist temptation, give me courage to carry on in the face of difficulties. Sometimes I ask myself what I would do if Jesus Christ walked into the room where I am right now.  It is a simple question and a simple thought, yet over the years I have found this to be the one thought that brings things into perspective.  After all, the thought of Christ being right here is not an imaginary exercise.  It is reality.  God is present.  He is here. If Jesus suddenly appeared to me in the flesh, right this minute, what would happen?  Would I be concerned with what others around were thinking of me? ...or would I fall on my face in utter self-forgetfulness.  Would this sudden appearance change any of the behaviors in which I am presently engaged?  Would su...