Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Do you have a problem with being a bit controlling?   Maybe you are tempted to control your adult children, or perhaps your controlling is more related to always correcting the errors of others? There are people who, out of the need for control, desperately pay too much attention to detail and try to make sure that their ducks (and the ducks of others) are not only lined up in a neat row, but that they quack at the same time, and on key. I should correct myself.   I’m not so sure anyone actually has a “need” to control others.   I think this—can I call it a character flaw?—is often just part of one’s personality.   Sometimes it comes from cultural circumstances like family or the way they have been treated.   Adult children of alcoholics, for instance, may tend to try to control their situations (and others) because living with an alcoholic can be chaotic and the very definition of being out-of-control.   Circumstances themselves may create “control...

The Red Vineyard Vincent van Gogh [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   John 15:1-8     (English Standard Version, Anglicised) Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser.   Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.   Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.   Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.   I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.   If anyone does not abide in me he is t...

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         El evento de la Pandemia y de la nueva dinámica que parece haber traído no parece tener lógica ni sitio en nuestro vivir, todo se ve gris y ya hasta se habla del "Gran Reinicio" . Por eso debemos verlas en un horizonte más amplio de nuestro mundo y nuestro tiempo y esta entrevista de López Dóriga hace eso: una evaluación muy real de lo que está sucediendo y que nos deja ver que seguimos esperando que algún invento, sistema o evento nos salve. Nos hace ver lo que Jesús en la fe católica nos ha dicho por siglos: que la felicidad y el bienestar lo tenemos que construir desde nuestro interior, en el alma, en el corazón. En ese lugar donde está Dios esperándodnos desde siempre para ayudarnos a construir una vida plena a prueba de las mareas de la historia y el mundo, junto a los demás.   Vale la pena escucharlo y aplicar varias de las recomendaciones que nos da para esta época:     Por:  Dr. José Antonio Lozano Díez, President...

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  I was in the middle of a book by Father John Riccardo titled Rescued (which is very good) and a thought struck me. I’m big on evangelization and the importance of helping people see the necessity of coming to Christ.   The Good News.   Salvation.   Eternal life.   All of it. But, when you work in ministry, especially with an eye towards evangelization, you sort of get stuck in this line of questioning . . .   How do you let others know the beauty of faith?   How do you inspire them to seek baptism?   When life is so busy and people are pulled in so many directions, how do you help them see that life is meaningless without God? So, in the middle of the book I had his thought . . . Sometimes I start reading a book and just cannot keep going.   Either I find the book uninteresting, irrelevant, or I’d simply rather be doing something else. Then, down the road, I may pick up that book again, and because my circumstances have chang...

On Tuesday, April 20, 2021, a jury said that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. Folks have been reacting to that. But protestors haven't torched Minneapolis shops and services in the three days since then. Not as far as I know. Which is a relief, but not a surprise. For one thing, it's late April: still a bit too chilly for comfort during pyromaniac performance art's prime time. I'll be taking a quick look at headlines. Then I'll talk about life, law, justice and why I think murder is a bad idea. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

  The Good Shepherd Early Italian Christian Painter [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel     John 19:11-18     (English Standard Version, Anglicised) Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.   He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.   He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.   I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,   just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.   And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my...